Wasteland

"Go on. Have a sit."

The old man motioned to the only chair in the small space. It was made of wood just as old and grey as the floors of the bar, but it looked sturdy. Nest to the chair was a small table of the same wood, hardly large enough for a plate and cup. A bed sat across from her, metal frame and old weathered mattress. She could have touched it with her toes if she stuck out her leg. There were no notable smells that differed from the arid out doors, and it was poorly lit with a singular light bulb. Their water pumping station must also have housed the generator powered either by sun or wind. Sun most likely was the source, as it was the most plentiful and easiest to harness. Politely taking the seat as the elder gentleman settled onto his bed with a grunt she began the conversation he knew she wanted to have.

"What will ya tell me 'bout Jack?" She asked.

"Right t' the point, are ya?" The man scoffed. "Well, I be Joe, if ya wanna know! HA!"

Joe laughed at his own pun with a slap to his knee and a shake of his head. When she only smiled faintly in return his humor sullened a bit. He took a pip from his shirt pocket as well as a small bag of tobacco and a box of matches. He packed a pinch into the bowl. Carefully rolling the cheese cloth over the remainder, he replaced it in his pocket. Leona was surprised to see so much of it. Thinking little of the harlot having a cigarette, perhaps a trade for her services, seeing the old man in possession of the rarity made her wonder even more at the nature of the tiny oasis of life. Joe took a match from the box and struck the flammable end on the blue strip on the side of the tiny box he pinched between his thumb and crooked forefinger. Quickly dropping the box back in his shirt pocket with one hand, he lit his pip with the other, puffing the embers to life. The movements were as flowing and swift as the wind, well rehearsed from years of practice.

"Humm." He grumbled. "Well, I 'spose I'm not t' drunk t' tell ya what ya wanna know seems how I'm more decrepit than I am stewed. Though I dunno the beginin', see, but the town's been 'ere a while. Jack inherited it ya might say, from the lad who ran it 'fer him. Came in frum the wastes same's yer done, 'e did. Had that walkin' dead wit' 'em. 'E was ripe with un addiction t' some stuff he'd run out'a. Came 'ere lookn' fer more. 'Corse he found what 'e wanted, but didn' have the caps t' pay fer it. Old Man Johnny, man use t' own the pub, tried t' kick 'em out when 'e couldn't pay. But Jack had a surprise, 'e did, an' 'e was quick wit' it t' boot. Old Johnny what'n as old as 'is name sake, but nern to quick t' fight off a man and 'is knife. Jack 'nounced the bar t' be his an' ever'thin' else. Folks was gonna disagree, but that was cut short. HA!"

The old man laughed again and slapped his knee. Leona didn't get the joke, but she was sure it wouldn't have been funny regardless. She found out she was right with the next words from Joe's wrinkled mouth.

"Humm, well... guess ya had t' been ther'." He muttered when she didn't join in his amusement. "As I was sayn', folks was gonna disagree. The ghoul wit' 'em took a stick of lizard off the dead man's plate an' took a bite. Quick as lightnin', Jack had 'em pined on the flo' and cut out 'is tongue. That be why he's mute. Things been Jack's ever since. Guess folks wanna keep the'r tongues. HA!"

"Thank ye fer yer time." Leona said politely, still not laughing. "I 'preciate yer tellin' me."

"Aw, hell. No 'ne listens t' an old man tell stories 'round h're. I 'perciate that I had 'ne ya wan'ed t' he'r! HA!"

Leona left the man to his jokes. Around her 'folks' were leaving the tavern for their own shacks and shanties. A few of them stopped to tell her their own tales of how Jack came to be the bar keep and control the town's water. A few more had stories about how Egor lost his tongue or why the twins were crazy. The only cohesion between the accounts was that Egor had stolen food and Jack had cut out his tongue. Time line, previous ownership, anything pertaining to Jack was all different from one person to the next. If there was a group of people telling the story the facts changed as they recalled the history together. One lot would have had her believe, by the end of the fabrication, that Jack had fallen from the sky in a giant tumble weed and pissed the town into existence, inhabitants and all, when he drank his first beer. Buildings springing up from the ground like flowers and the water was called forth when he spit on the dry earth. That was when she decided to head back and give up for the night.

Not a soul spoke to her when she re-entered the bar. Jack nodded to her briefly, a smile on his face from laughing at a would be jester's foolishness. Anne had apparently acquired a customer for Egor came out of the kitchen with plates of food. Leona went through the still swinging metal door, just to make sure. Finding the kitchen empty, she took a mug and filled it with water from the sink. The cool liquid was refreshing, settling heavy in her stomach. She left the mug in the sink and took a mutifruit from a basket on the counter. This she took with her up the stairs, absently taking bites on her way. Passing the faintly moaning doors, she took the key from her pocket with practiced ease to unlock the one at the end. Once inside she relocked the door and stuck the key back in her pocket. It was becoming habit so easily she didn't even realized she'd done it. She slipped her boots off by the chair then walked over the rug to the wardrobe. She freed her hair of the goggles wrapped around her head and placed them in the dewar. Shedding her denims where she stood, she left them in a puddle and made her way to the bed. The black outside the window seemed more indigo, indicating the coming dawn. Not wanting to be woken, or kept from sleep by the sun, she decided to lean the mattress against the window to block out the light. The thing was more awkward and heavy than she remembered a mattress to be, but she got the deed done. Using the wall to guild her to the door, she took a few step directly across from it until her feet found the rug. From there she crawled over to her pants, opened the dewar to retrieve her jacket. She closed the dewar to avoid hitting her head on it in the morning. Then, lumping her denims in a bundle for a pillow and spreading the jacket for a blanket, she slept on the floor.

Waking to her own circadian rhythm, she found herself some hours later on the mattress looking into a set of soft, grey eyes. Somehow the beginning of crows feet at the corners of his eyes and the worry and laugh lines made him more attractive than a younger man might have been. Exposer to the sun, wind and grit of this world may have aged him beyond his years. She had no way of really knowing with out asking if he was the age he appeared. She couldn't judge herself. She wasn't sure of her own number of years. Such a thing was likely just as malleable a concept for Jack.

In those first few moments of waking she didn't remember not falling asleep on the mattress. Then she noticed the two scraps of fabric nailed over the window. Blinking the sleep away she focused on Jack's face. He wasn't grinning, but he seemed content. She wondered what her face told him when her eyes grew a little wider. The memories of blocking the window and bedding on the floor recalled themselves as she neared fuller wakefulness. She must have been thoroughly exhausted to not hear the hammering of nails or feel her body being moved. If she had been in the wastes, her lack of awareness could have cost her more than she wanted to entertain with thought. Greatly un-nerved by her ease of comfort with this place and this man shook her to her core. If she left now, though it had only been a few days, she wondered if she could trust her instincts to snap back in the wild. While looking into eyes like the moon, she resigned herself to leaving that night while Jack tended to the thirsty and hungry.

"I would'a told ya what ya wanted t' know." Jack said coolly, his features still warm and comforting. "But I'm curious what the drunken tongue has wagged of me."

Leona wasn't sure how to respond. She hadn't expected him to remain privy to ignorance of her venture. Though she had dared to hope he would. There was not much to tell him. Lies and fantasies of those that lived to sleep even while waking. So she told him as much.

"Only that of which a loosened tongue is likely t' tell when the mind is half dreaming." She said in almost a whisper.

"Thank ye for the curtains." She added just as softly. Her gratitude gave him cause to grin.

"I didn' mind it. Should'a been done long ago." He paused, gaze unfaltering, then spoke with a tone to match his face. "I've the time if ya wanna h're truth from one who lived it. But if I tell ya, I'll need yer word that ye not share it."

"I give it." She promised.

"Don' open the box in the attic if yer not meanin' t' stay." He warned.

He tapped a finger to his forehead with he said 'attic' to clarify he meant his memories and his passed. Alarm rose up in her mind like a fire from embers thought dying. She could lie and say she would stay to satisfy her curiosity. Lucy's words came back to her. Anne had called her sister a lier, but Anne wasn't all there. Maybe Lucy wasn't either, but she hit closer to the mark. She could run, and he might give chase, but she'd outwitted those that sought her before. He could be no different. The look in his eye that glinted just below the surface told her that her answer was decided for her, she need only speak it.

"I'll stay."