Volant Works

We stood on the bank of the river that cut through the city. I could hear Heast laughing to himself through his rotten teeth that clenched a cigarette. We pissed into wine bottles – relics of the wine we had stolen earlier in the night. He turned to me, “It’s not our fault, really. They made pissing in the streets illegal. Look at all the crime we’ve prevented by filling these bottles versus the one crime of stealing them. We’ve really done society a favor.”

He looked up towards the night sky to escape the cigarette smoke.

I laughed as I informed him he was sick in the head. “You getting joy from this really speaks to your character.”

“It’s crime reduction. I’m a man of the community.”

Heast corked his wine bottle and then took mine from my hands – not even caring that it had piss running down the side – and held them both by their necks in one hand so that he could remove his cigarette to speak clearly.

“You didn’t lose the cork, did you?”

I fumbled through my pockets until I touched upon the soft cylinder at the bottom of one of them and brought it out to reveal a cracked cork with one half barely hanging from the other.

“For fuck’s sake! That ruins the whole thing!” Heast was trying not to shout as he tossed his cigarette and grabbed the cork to inspect it closer.

I laughed again as he threw it into the river, “You take your plan so seriously! We’re not robbing a bank, we can adapt. When we get the next bottles, we can use one of those corks. It’ll take two seconds.”

The glimmer in his eyes showed he was thinking. “You’re right!”

He carefully lowered the bottles into the water, cradling them between some rocks and making sure not to let mine fully submerge and fill with water. The time it would take us to get the canoe down would give the piss a chance to cool to the river temperature.

“Alright, one more smoke as we drag that thing down. No time to waste. I’m thirsty.” Heast started another cigarette as we made our way to the canoe’s hiding place under the bridge. At the canoe, he tossed the covering plywood to the side. We then grabbed hold of either side and dragged it to the water. A simple task sober, but as we were both getting drunk, the terrain proved to be ruthless. Each time one of us stumbled, the other would go along as if the canoe was pulling him along.

“Careful, careful!” Heast alarmed as we nearly tipped the bottles. We let go of the canoe and I gathered our prized possessions before we got in and launched into the river.

Like many cities, ours was founded on an ancient river which now serves no purpose other than to justify higher rent for water-view property. We were downtown in the dining district, where the ground floors of every building were inhabited with fine dining restaurants that came to life at night.

During the day, Heast and I worked the docks­­—Not the sort of docks you would expect to find along a river, but the loading docks at the back of restaurants. We drove around in a delivery truck through the alleys, sucking in fumes and cigarette smoke, while we slung crates of food and drink into the grimy kitchens that would then serve it at top dollar in their pristine dining rooms. The irony amused me daily as we would share left-over wine with the cooks and try samples of their dishes. Each day we enjoyed a hundred-dollar feast amid the rotting waste that slimed the alley. The patrons of these places would have us arrested on site if we entered, yet our bellies were full of the same meals they would eat. Most days ended with us full and drunk, and we’d stumble down to a dive bar to take part in the local scene, but on the days when we delivered wine, Heast would be ignited by mischief, and our night would be spent at the river.

A gimmick of the local restaurants was to store their wine in nets submerged in the river. Suspended from the fake boats and docks, the wine was to be served at “river temperature”. They had convinced their patrons that drinking wine at the same temperature as the local river was an elevated practice–that “it was the way the ancients enjoyed their wine.”

It was through this weak-point that Heast and I were about to strike again in our canoe. We extinguished our cigarettes and stealthily rowed up the river in silence. As we made our way to our bounty, the city lights danced upon the water around us. We were simply an unrecognizable ripple in the current; the people ashore paid no attention as they were wrapped up in their own affairs, either serving the rich or acting rich; each requiring too much attention to notice an anomaly on the water.

“Don’t spill that drink! It’s $150 a bottle!” Heast snarled at me as he rowed. His bottle was corked and trailed behind us from a rope tied to the canoe, but mine was open. As I held it, half submerged, the current threatened to dilute it.

“Keep quiet, we’re close.” I scorned – not really caring, but to point out he could make a mistake just as well.

He looked behind him and stowed the oars to free his hands on our approach. Once among the docks and barges, we guided the canoe by pulling ourselves along. We glided silently. Through my drunkenness, my pulse quickened and heightened my hearing. Every footstep and dropped piece of cutlery above us sounded like a gunshot.

I wished I didn’t have to hold my bottle the entire time. My fingers were going numb to anything but pain, and my other arm was sore from rowing by itself. I was relieved as the familiar sight of one of the wine nets came into view, but instead of stopping, Heast tugged harder and brought us to the end of the dock. I looked back at the wine and hit Heast to gain his attention. I raised my eyebrows as high as I could so that he might see my expression in the limited light bouncing off the water. He rose his bottle, pointed at it and then down at the net before raising his middle finger towards me.

He was right; we already pilfered that net once this evening. We liked to spread our crime out over several restaurants to limit any suspicion. Also, Heast, being a man of the community, liked to spread the piss out among as many patrons as he could. And, I, being a man of reason, knew that I didn’t want to mistakenly drink a bottle of my own piss.

Heast peaked out from under the dock to check for any servers. When it was clear, he pulled as hard as he could, and we shot out from under the dock across exposed water and into the darkness of a nearby barge.

A sound like an alarm rang through my ears and rattled my skull. An arc of a server’s piss was streaming off the barge and into the water just off to the side of Heast. His eyes grew wide as I pushed off the side of the barge to move him closer to the stream. He grabbed an oar and knocked my arm down before grabbing a rope to pull us closer to the barge. Just as I calmed myself from my silent laughter, a fresh stream of warm piss plunged onto my leg. Heast almost burst with laughter, but the priority of our mission took over as he tugged the boat further and let the stream hit the water. The muffled sound on my leg versus the expected sound of it hitting the water would raise suspicion in whoever it was, and they might spot us.

We waited until the staff had fully relieved themselves before making our way to our next net. We went about the rest of the mission as if it were an acquired skill with years of experience behind it. But it was most likely our drunken confidence that guided us as we silently liberated a bottle, removed its cork and plunged it into my piss-bottle. We stowed another bottle and then replenished their places in the net with our piss-bottles.

I made Heast take on full rowing duties back to our bridge as I started a cigarette and drank from my conveniently uncorked bottle of wine. He looked agitated at doing all the work, so when my cigarette ended, I made sure to flick it at Heast instead of into the water. His reflexes of a lifelong prankster took hold of his motor skills and batted the butt away with a bright red burst. Heast then rocked canoe and deposited my flailing body into the few inches of water at shore under the bridge.

I got up and stood next to Heast on shore.

“Hey, don’t piss into that bottle until after you’re done with it.” Heast laughed to himself as I shook water from my pants, he started us each a cigarette.

He handed me mine. “We’ll at least I got some of that waiter’s piss washed off.”

With that Heast and I erupted with all the laughter we had to hold in during our heist. We continued the balance of our evening looking out at the water and the world of the rich as if it were a giant billboard among the stars and galaxies – something so far and foreign to us that it wasn’t worth worrying about. But it was as good a backdrop as any other.

Down to our last sips, Heast held his bottle out towards them; “Here’s to our piss, you fucking idiots.” His scorn and resentment towards them hit me like a burst of heat off a fire.  It seemed to have come from a long time ago.

“You must really hate the rich,” I said to Heast as we watched the lights on the river’s surface.

He corrected his posture to try and take back the emotions that may have leaked out.

“Nah, it’s just for sport. None of this means anything.”

We took in the rich as we took in their wine and thought nothing of them – just as they had always thought nothing of us. We finished their expensive wine, too drunk at this point to appreciate or even taste it, then slept in the back of the truck among tomorrow’s deliveries.

At dawn, we stumbled out of the back and into the cab of truck. Heast cranked the motor and waited for the clock to turn on. “We are LATE!” he bellowed and lurched the truck forward.

As we rushed towards our first stop, we saw a scene unfolding on the loading dock. The maître d’ was throwing a tantrum. He was breaking wine bottles, throwing food crates, and attacking employees with various vegetables – striking them with carrots and celery stalks. He was screaming to the heavens and kicking everything in his path.

Heast backed the truck the dock. “He must be in a mood again, ready to put on a show for us being late. It’s been a while; he was due for an episode.”

We exited the truck and went up the stairs to greet him.

“YOU!” the maître d’ screeched. Heast and I knew in that instant that we had fucked up.

“I SAW YOU! On the river last night! I saw you take wine!”

“What are you talking about? You’re missing wine? Count the bottles! If it’s off, talk to your staff! You leave that shit swimming in the river all night, anyway. How do you even keep track of it?!”

The maître d’ launched towards Heast and wrapped his hands around his neck.

“Fuck you! Don’t fuck with me! I know what you did! I know it was you!”

Heast pushed back while I joined the others and broke them up. Even though we worked together on that matter it was clearly Us versus Them on that dock. They all projected the same look of disgust towards me and Heast.

Heast coughed and caught his breath, “What the fuck? It’s just some wine! You really hurt that bad after what you charge those rich fucks? One bottle probably covers the cost of all of them! What the hell is your problem?

The crazed man’s eyes went even wilder as he spat out, “You admit it!”

“Yeah, yeah, we stole wine. Look at the two of us, what the fuck do you expect?”

I wasn’t sure to feel pride or shame at that, but Heast was right either way.

“It was just wine.” Heast offered.

It was at that statement that the Maître d’ – a lover of food, an artist, a man of pure devotion – suffered a mental break.

“Just wine? Just wine?!  You don’t know what this is you ignorant…ignorant fuck! This is art! This is dining! This an experience, a creation, an exhibit, a show, a PERFORMANCE! There is no JUST anything here! You wouldn’t understand how every detail of every moment at that table is planned! To give those who dine here an elevated experience! You don’t know what goes into it!”

I couldn’t stand this bullshit. Who gives a shit what he’s selling to these rich people? I see the same food come out of our same shitty truck and go into either high-end restaurants or dive bars. And, with veins popping out of his blood-red face, he still believes his shit. Ready to give himself a heart attack over the bullshit that he mastered and sold to everyone else around him.

“And this!” he wagged a finger in the air and walked back towards the wine.

“And this!” he grabbed a bottle of wine and held it our towards Heast.

“And this!” he uncorked the bottle and took a large swig before he spray-spit it all over Heast.

“THIS IS YOUR PISS!!!!!”

“AAAAGGGGHH!!!!!!!!” He held the bottle high and began come down on Heast’s head with it.  I jumped in and met his forearm with my own. I stopped his arm, but the bottle escaped his grip and met the bridge of Heast’s nose.

Heast dropped to his knees and his blood mixed with piss and broken glass. He was bracing himself, trying to get up without slipping on the glass and slick concrete. I grabbed his arm to help him steady himself.

While Heast was getting to his feet, the maître d’ had grabbed another full bottle. “Piss! PISS!” Tears formed in his eyes and his bottom lip quivered. “I offer you all that is beauty in the world, and you force piss upon my customers?!”

“PISS!” He screamed as he threw the bottle at Heast. Heast miraculously caught it and held it back out towards the man to fend him off. Before Heast could speak, the man took the gesture as if he were being offered the bottle of piss and his tears turned into streams of anger that steamed off his cheeks. He transformed into a psycho with death in his eyes as he snatched the bottle and beat Heast with it. Heast put up his arms in defense, but a few blows made it through and connected with his skull. A change in noise signaled that the bottle had broken. I was glad it was the bottle and not Heast’s skull.

Heast dropped to the concrete. The man beating him was rabid. The maître d’ pounced on him to continue his assault in the blood and the piss and the shards of glass. I tried to intervene again, but this time the staff on the dock grabbed my arms and pulled me back. One of them approached the pair. Finally, I thought, someone is going to end this insanity. The maître d’ handed over the bottle and gasped for air as he straddled Heast’s limp body.

I was relieved only momentarily until the scene made me delirious again. The server uncorked the bottle and gave it back to the maître d’! He took a swig and declared, “PISS!”

He poured it over Heast’s face, I could here him gargling, struggling to breath with a mouth full of blood and piss.

The maître d’ began to laugh like a maniac. “Your drink it!” He poured some more. “Drink your own piss!” The mad man took another swig and sprayed a mouthful at Heast. He laughed insanely, emptied the rest of the piss on Heast and resumed the beating all while screaming “Drink it! Drink it!” between every strike to Heast’s head.

I watched helplessly as the maître d’ was beating Heast to death. Screaming – foaming at the mouth – his veins ready to explode. My stomach churned at the sick, deadened thud of glass meeting Heast’s skull.  I screamed and received a punch to the liver for it. I screamed again and got punched in a kidney. The world spun.

I gagged and sagged forward. Heast was gone – his head caved in. The maître d’ raised the bottle for one last blow but stopped suddenly. The bottle dropped from his grip and crashed on the concrete as his body went limp. He must have given himself an aneurism. His body then drooped over Heast’s own dead body.

Their dead bodies were the last thing I saw before I felt a crack at the back of my skull and rushed into the darkness of the Void.