The Way Fayer

The tension settled as Pyg’s drink loosened his lips and with it his resolve. He soon returned to his old self, spilling memorized lines, verses, and lyrics unapologetically. The four of them talked until sobriety faded into a memory, forgetting words as they were said and drinks as they were drunk, the clanging of goblets making way for cheers … “Hear no evil and speak no truth!” … from convictions to desperation and desperation to indifference …inhibitions eviscerated … the elixir, their idol and the vessel of their profanity, Virgil, too, drowning in its golden bliss as he stumbled across the ballroom, goblet in hand (was it the same one?) … drinking … a cigarette ignited between his lips … inhaling the carcinogens until they no longer tickled his airways … pyg somewhere in the distance calling out … virgil wheezing in laughter as he twirled in a dance with his eyes fixed above, wondering if the stars could see him until he too forgot to wonder, lost in the sweat and piss and grime of the dance floor … slipping and falling through the stench … another Sodom to fix his troubles and dancing and singing until he couldn’t anymore do either and making his way off the dance floor with a kiss from a woman he would never remember and waking on a couch he had never found …

Virgil groaned, half-awake, as he rolled off the couch and landed on someone below. Startled, he jumped back, sitting hard on the floor as his legs failed beneath him. Lying at his feet was none other than Pyg. Snoring and unaffected by the collision.

Scratching his head, Virgil wondered how long it had been since they had arrived at the ballroom. But looking around, he suddenly realized that they were no longer there. Somehow, he and Pyg had made it back to the breakfast room. From where they were located at the mantle—the place where Virgil had seen Pyg for the first time—not much seemed to have changed. Virgil wondered how long ago that had been. All the same people sat at their tables. In the center of the room, the poker group was still playing. To his right, the pamphleteers continued to prattle. Next to them, the same old man had yet to escape his labyrinthine circularity of reasoning.

Virgil’s head throbbed painfully. Leaning forward, he tried to shake Pyg awake, whose ragged breathing came to a halt only so he turned the other way.

“Leave it alone man,” Pyg mumbled. “‘S not time yet.”

“Huh?”

Pyg squinted out of his right eye. “Go back t’sleep, we’ll make it back to the ballroom lat’r.”

Virgil sighed, and knowing he couldn’t fall back asleep, decided to make a trip to the bathroom. As he stood and shuffled across the carpeted floor, he refused the pamphleteers, ignored the old man, and sidestepped an additional, androgynous character prophesying: “If all is lost now, the beginning must be told from the end, or else now was all there ever was.”

Virgil approached the mirror as he entered the bathroom. With one hand on the wall and one on his face, he smushed together his cheeks. Inspected his teeth. Picked at a flaky bit of skin. It was the first time he thought he looked somewhat familiar, rough-looking and all. Struck with the realization that something was missing, he sorely hoped his suit jacket was back on the couch, feeling naked without it. Trying to flatten his hair and straighten his tie, a dull and aching memory forestalled any rational consideration of his circumstances. The possibility of questions answered and not remembered. Sedated panic stirring in the depths. A refusal of his sanity as sure as any other. Gravity working on his bladder. A worthwhile distraction.

As he made his way to the urinal, he heard the bathroom door opening behind him. A shiver ran through his body. Spit stuck in his throat. The clink, clank of a lighter opening and closing. Keeping his head down to avoid conversation.

“Hi, Virgil.”

Virgil clenched his teeth and peered over his shoulder. Sitting on the sink was the dark man from earlier—from his youth—the man called Marvin, lighting a cigarette in a plume of smoke. Virgil wondered if Marvin had been in the bar room all this time.

Virgil managed a half-hearted grin before shying away. “Hey, there.”

“You had a good time last night, I hope?”

“Uh … yeah … it was fun,” he croaked.

Marvin chuckled. “I’ve spent more time in the ballroom than anywhere else, you know. And somehow it’s the place I least remember.”

Virgil nodded as he flushed and returned to the sink. “Do you go often?”

Marvin hopped gracefully off the sink and began pacing around the bathroom as Virgil washed his hands. “Not anymore. Sometimes I’ll go simply to remind people that I’m still here and the rest of the house, too—that my help is available for those who need it.” He hesitated. “Uh, no. I spend most of my time downstairs, in the bar room.”

“Oh, okay.”

Marvin stopped to tie his shoe. “You didn’t happen to meet a young man by the name of Carius did you?”

“Not that I remember.”

“About your age, big muscles, auburn hair?”

“Oh … well, yes. I think maybe I did. There was someone we met at the bar, but I never got his name,” Virgil replied, drying his hands now. “He said the owner of the house, if there is one, must be a demon. Something like that.”

Marvin stood and resumed his pace, nodding as he did. “Carius was much like you when he first arrived. Even more like your friend, Pyg, though. It’s a real shame I haven’t gotten to know Pyg better, but I’ve done my best to keep up with him from afar.” He drew softly from the cigarette pinched between his fingers, holding it as if it might run away, and smoke danced on each syllable as he continued. “Pyg’s always been a quick-moving type, hard to trap in a conversation. You’re better for that sort of thing—I can see that now.”

Virgil didn’t know whether to take that as a compliment or an insult.

“Speaking of trapping in conversation, it’s never my intention to offer unwanted advice. I don’t want to make my help an intrusion, or keep you stuck somewhere you wouldn’t like to be. That’s why I told you—and tell others—that I spend most of my time in the bar room. When someone shows up for a drink, I know my help is wanted.” He stopped to look at Virgil. “But when my help is desired, or when it is needed, I can’t help but feel responsible for the people that receive it.” 

Virgil leaned back on the sink, drying his hands with a towel.

“Carius happened to be one of them, only I fear my help failed him in the end. Now it seems a part of myself is trapped in that place I escaped so long ago.”

“The ballroom?” Virgil asked.

“Yes, Sodom. That’s what they call it anyway. Sometimes I think Carius will be the one to turn me into a pillar of salt. Ha!”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Marvin took another draw from his cigarette. “It’s an old story. A story from another world.” His lightning blue eyes found Virgil’s and pierced them. “Sometimes doing the right thing means not putting yourself in vulnerable places. The man who thinks he’s free of temptation is perhaps the most susceptible of all.”

Virgil dropped his gaze. “I still don’t know what you mean.”

“That’s all right. But I’ve now helped you and your friend. Which means I’ve committed myself to educating you in matters I don’t understand. Pyg is quick-witted, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, but he doesn’t have your heart. The two of you need each other about as much as you need me.”

Virgil looked at the floor beneath the sink. Remembering the dark theater of his imagination. The curtains seemed to be moving, but a part of him preferred that they remain closed. Opposed by intuition. “How is it that you have helped us exactly?”

Marvin smushed his cigarette into the ash tray on the sink. “How is it you think you got back to the breakfast room?”