Back At The Bar

Crazy, right? I mean, sure there are people who are real twisted, but COME. ON. This sounded a little far-fetched. Think about it, honestly. A small fleet of ships run by pirates who kill for the hell of it… Sounds a bit too Peter Pan for me. I guess Nikolai found my doubtful eye, though.
“You don’t believe me?” He had asked.
“Not at this point, no, but please! Finish your story; I’d like to hear the rest, be it true or otherwise.” I’d replied. Truthfully, I love a good tale. That’s part the reason why I worked here in this bar. I love the old guys who came in with there stories and talk about them. I think it’s awesome; I absolutely wanted him to finish. Like I said, I’m not much of a writer, but I always enjoy taking a good fable back to the Ghost.
Nikolai was quiet for a minute. “You don’t seem much to belong here.” He said at last.
Where did that come from?! I was so lost, I mean, how about a random subject change alert!, or something? Again, he caught my eye. “You don’t understand what I mean.” It didn’t sound like a question.
“Not particularly. Elaborate, perhaps?” I said back to him.
He looked at me for a long time before taking a lengthy swig of his whiskey. Then he just started the story again…



Chapter II
The Flute of The Flute
     You’d think, from pirates, they’d all be generally the same. A ruddy mess of alcohol, blood, dirt and sweat- if any of that can be considered healthy. I mean, sure they’d vary in personality and such, but you wouldn’t generally anticipate a neat freak.
     I suppose, on that note, we should start with Lith. Nelly’s first mate, second in command, keeper of the flute and local neat freak. Did I mention he was a semi-narcissistic pretty boy? Not to say he didn’t carry his load, because he did, and did it well. But, he looked down on lesser mates and had a way of making you want to knock him upside the head with a nail-garnished baseball bat.
     As most mates, Nikolai started on cleaning duty, meaning that before he could raid or even handle cargo, it was his job to clean the ships day after day after day…
Nikolai had been asked by Lith to dust out his quarters, so of course, Nikolai had to abide. Lith’s room was the belly of a rather small vessel- that was because this was Lith’s own boat. He’d apparently owned it for quite some time; therefore, he kept it to himself among the fleet.
     That was Nikolai’s first time cleaning in Lith’s ship. The fleet was large; so it took more than one day to clean the whole of it. When he’d been sent down to Lith’s ship- which also had a name, The Gateway- he was almost in aw. He’d expected it to be a bit more regal than the other ships. His ship, for example, housed himself as well as two other people named Adolph and Luke. Luke and Nikolai had each a bunk while Adolph preferred a hammock that hung from the opposite corner of the room. They had the standard wooden chest, three-drawer dresser and closet. None of them had many clothes or belongings for that matter, so most of those stayed empty. Luke had a few pictures and a knitted blanket that he refused to talk about so he had claimed the chest. The dresser was only used in the top drawer, for a few bars of extra soap, a few towels and one or two washcloths. Everything else was empty.
     That was standard among this fleet. But Lith’s quarters were altogether something else.
     Every boat on the fleet was different; most were scavenged or brought on with new mates. The Gateway was no exception. Most boats were wooden and none too extravagant. Lith’s wood was- on the inside at least- almost completely finished and in a few places, was even trimmed with marble. It was small but not carrying a lank film of lifeless age that most of the other boats had. It had a history, a story that was still embedding itself in every crack and seam of it’s self. Not to say the other boats hadn’t a story, but this one was still there, still alive and still remembered.
      The small spiral staircase wasn’t too special; the shiny finish was still semi-visible, though the wood had started rotting in places and the steps were patchwork with replacements and repairs. The deck had a similar air to it, most everything looked newer than most on the fleet, but twas still rotting hodgepodge and chipping finish.
     In most other ships furnishings were brought in and nailed to the floor to avoid sliding. In The Gateway the furnishing was a part of the boat. Not nailed down but molded of the same wood that the wall and floor they sat on. To take a piece out was to take pieces of floor and wall; crippling the boat.
     On one wall was a double bed with an old, flat, goose down comforter folded down towards the carved bedposts. At the foot of a matching headboard were two pillows, side by side, also flattened by many years of use.
     On another was a picture. Nikolai said he never did figure out what the picture was of. It had always been wrapped tightly with heavy brown paper.
     There was also a six-drawer dresser with an oval mirror mounted above it. The top surface had a hatch and could be flipped open for further space. The space was divided into little cubicles, a few bigger than others. In one of the cubicles was a peach velvet cushion with slits spaced evenly throughout it.
     Scattered throughout the cubicles were coins and buttons but the remains of the jewelry box were still very visible. A couple of rings that looked to be wedding bands sat snuggly in the cushion. A few necklaces sat wound neatly in there own cubicles similar to some bracelets, which also sat coiled and neat.
     A double-doored closet with old copper handles also climbed up one of the walls. They used to be finished in gold, Nikolai remembered someone telling him, but it’d all chipped off.
Inside the closet was an old wooden shoe rack on the floor and two bars stretching between the walls on either side. Strung onto the upper rack were hangers adorned with dresses; three to be exact.
     Mounted upon the wall, right nest to the mirror was a small glass-windowed display case. It was very simple, made with what was once fine wood, and only one of the small panes of glass had cracked, and only a tiny bit. Inside of it was a tall wine glass, carved intricately with small spirals and lines far to precise for any human hand to carve. Inside the wine glass was Lith’s piccolo, the shiny metal reflected off of the glass of the case as well as the glass it stood in.
     It had all been such an oddity, he didn’t understand why a man such as Lith might have such objects. But he never asked.
Okay, he admitted her was lying right then. He’d asked plenty of times, just not the man himself.
     A joke had always gone around the cleaning crew that Lith was secretly a gender-bender, but that always fell away with rank.
I did ask what was so special about the pretty boy, but Nikolai stopped. His sunken eyes caught something odd, a flicker of some sort.
“I won’t say he was merciful,” Nikolai had replied, “Because he was not. But he knew how to kill a woman, same way he knew how to kill a man.”
I decided not to ask him how he meant.