In the Den

by

William Ames

Tourists hurried down the narrow street and tried not to touch each other. A gargoyle screamed at the young men as they passed.

“Jesus Christ,” said Ben.

“He thinks we’ll pay him for that,” said Nick. He stopped. The creature bared its teeth and growled. Its eyes were yellow and black. Nick’s friends watched from several feet away. A safe distance.

Nick reached into his pocket for a 20 euro note and held it in air. The creature saw the money and blinked.

“ ¿Le gusta?” said Nick, letting the paper dance between his fingers.

Henry winced. Nick’s accent was the product of a single Spanish class he had taken sophomore year. Henry knew that Nick had never wanted to go to Spain. Nick’s vote had been for Italy.

Using one blackened claw, the creature pointed to a plate on the pavement.

“Do you want my money?” Nick asked slowly.

The creature continued to point.

“Valle,” said Nick. “But first, you have to answer some questions. Do you get it? You have to answer some questions.”

The creature smiled at Nick. Nick was not smiling. He held the money just out of reach.

“Nick,” said Henry.

Ben took a step backwards and brushed up against a large woman. She pretended not to notice and hurried on. Her husband did notice and scowled at Ben.

“Nick, enough.” Henry’s feet were sore. He wanted to sit down somewhere and hated Nick for making them all wait.

“Are you ready?” said Nick. “ ¿Estas Listo?”

The creature did not seem to understand. Its mouth opened slightly and then closed.

“Why do you do this?” Nick asked. He turned to Henry. “How do you say that in Spanish?”

“Let’s go,” said Henry.

“Porque trabajas, right?” Nick said, turning back to face the creature. “ ¿Porque trabajas?”

The creature looked around. People were beginning to notice the American with 20 Euros in his hand. A bus boy watched from a nearby café while polishing silverware. A painter looked up from her canvas.

The creature tried hissing and lifting its thick arms up over its head.

“ ¿Porque trabajas?” Nick said again.

The creature dove forward. One hand seized the front on Nick’s t-shirt and the other reached for the money in his fist. Nick felt claws digging into his chest. He clenched his fist and shouted to his friends. Ben remained a safe distance away while Henry took a step forward. The bus boy reached for another spoon.

“Get off!” Nick cried, but its eyes remained fixed on his fist, the claws ripping at his shirt. Its arms were slippery with sweat. Nick tried not to breath.

Henry yelled at a police officer across the street.

The creature pushed Nick down to the hard cement and fell on top of him. Nick’s fist was bleeding and the cement was cutting into his cheek.

Henry yelled again, and this time the officer looked up.

“Ayudame!” Henry pointed to the situation in the street. The officer put down his newspaper and frowned. Henry wondered if this type of thing was common in the city. He looked back at Nick and saw that he still hadn’t given up. The creature was frantic, pounding on Nick’s back and ripping at his fist. Henry slid his hands into his pockets. He thought about freshman year, when some upperclassmen had beaten him with splintered cricket bats in the basement of McDougal Hall. Henry remembered saying all the right things. He called everyone “sir” and never cried out in pain. Nick never called anyone “sir.” He called them a lot of things, but “sir” was not one of them. They usually spent more time on Nick.

The policeman walked past Henry. Henry decided that what made this situation different from high school was that here there were no rules. Or maybe there were rules, but they were unclear. At certain times, the creature could do anything. That’s definitely it, Henry thought.

The policeman blew a small whistle that hung around his neck. That didn’t work, so he bent over and lifted the creature off the young man. The creature did not scream at the police officer. Nick scrambled to his feet and cursed. The officer said nothing to Nick.

“Let’s go,” Nick muttered, wiping his hand on his khaki shorts and walking down the street. Ben followed. Henry looked back at the officer, who was looking at the creature. The expression on the officer’s face made Henry uneasy. It was not a stern face. “I understand why you are angry,” the officer seemed to say. “There should be no rules here.” The creature nodded. Henry turned to follow his friends.

Nick insisted he was all right. His right cheek was scraped, and his shirt was torn at the chest, revealing a tangle of red scratches. His hand was cut up pretty bad, too. But he wasn’t really bleeding anymore.

“Let’s just go back to the hostel,” Henry said. His feet still ached.

“Fuck that,” said Nick.

They were standing on a street corner, near the pharmacy where Nick had bought a bandage for his hand. He had been careful not to use the bloody bill for his transaction. He wanted to save it.

“We’re going to see this place,” he said.

This was their last day in Spain. Their plan for the day was to smoke hookah at at place they had seen on the internet, El Caballo Negro. It was supposed to be incredible. A nine out of ten, according to user ratings.

Henry gave in.

As they walked, Henry and Nick argued about what had happened, while Ben tried to remember where the hookah bar was supposed to be.

“I just wanted to hear him talk,” Nick spat. “I would have given him the money if he’d fucking talked to me. I wanted to see what it would look like. They never say anything.”

“It’s insulting,” Henry said.

“What difference does it make? They don’t care how they get it. And I can’t use it at home.”

“Nick. That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.”

Nick’s face darkened. Ben interrupted them.

“Guys, I think we should ask directions,” he said.

“Fuck yourself, Henry,” said Nick.

“Guys,” said Ben.

“What would you have done if that police officer hadn’t come?”

Henry said nothing.

The old man selling rugs had never heard of El Caballo Negro, but he did know of another place. It was called La Cueva. He said that locals went there to smoke. Ben translated the directions as best he could, and they eventually found it after an hour of walking.

“I think it means The Den,” Ben said.

From outside, The Den did not appear to be open. The windows were boarded up and they didn’t hear any noise coming from the inside. Nick stepped forward and pulled open the old fashion double door.

“It’s open,” he said.

Just past the entrance, Henry could see a set of stone stairs leading down. Like a castle or something, he thought.

“This is kind of sketchy,” Ben said, rubbing his hands together.

“The old man said we could fumar at La Cueva,” said Nick. “So let’s fucking fumar.”

With that, Nick stepped through the doors, leaving Henry and Ben in the street. Henry looked around. It was late in the afternoon. They were far from the center of the city, but the street was still fairly crowded. A safe neighborhood. He shrugged at Ben and pulled open the double doors. Ben followed.

A pirate wearing an eyepatch and a fake parrot set up their Hookah. He spoke perfect English.

“Welcome to La Cueva, my friends,” he said.

It’s supposed to be like something out of a movie, Henry thought. The room was lit by a dozens of mounted torches that hung on the walls. A girl dressed in a medieval gown served drinks at the bar, and harp music was playing from a hidden speaker somewhere. They sat on small treasure chests and drank beer from metallic tankards.

The torches had not been lit in one corner of the room. Henry could make out an iron cage in the dim light. Inside, a man in tattered clothing was sitting cross-legged, with his hands covering his face. He did not move. It was sort of like Disney Land.

Nick had ordered some kind of apple tobacco that tasted pretty good. Two men with collared shirts and thinning hair sat at the bar. Other than that, the students had the place entirely to themselves. They took turns inhaling from a wooden piece at the end of the hose. Ben and Nick talked about some other times they’d seen hookahs. After a while, the conversation inevitably turned to the end of their trip.

“I’ll probably start bawling at the airport,” Ben said, smiling. Nick laughed.

“If that happens, I’m going to pretend not to know you,” he said. He took another giant gulp of beer.

Henry watched the girl behind the bar. She kept wiping the same spot at the bar with a wash rag. Her face was blank. He wanted her to look up and smile at him.

The pirate came by often to refill their tankards.

“This is what we should do,” Ben said. He was getting excited. “We won’t even show up at college. We’ll rent a car here and just drive off.”

Nick laughed.

“Seriously,” said Ben, “we’ll be in Amsterdam before anyone knows anything. Or Prague. And what are they going to do? You know? It’ll be kind of like skipping class.”

“Ben, shut the fuck up,” Nick said, grinning. He finished another tankard.

One of the men at the bar asked for another drink. She fixed it for him without saying anything.

“Can I interest you gentlemen in a game?”

The pirate was sitting with them now. He placed a large wooden box on the table.

“What is this?” Nick asked.

“I call it Cubes,” said the pirate. “Let me explain. I give each of you five of these little wooden cubes.” He opened the box and took out a handful of what looked like game dice. They could not have been dice though, because all of their sides were the same. No numbers or anything.

“At the beginning of each turn, you put some cubes in your right hand, and some in you left. Please be discreet about it. Next we go around and guess the sum of all the cubes in everyone’s right hand. Then we open our right hands, and let those cubes fall to the table. The closest guess wins. Do you understand the rules?”

Nick never even looked at his friends.

“We’ll all play,” he said.

Henry did not protest. He wasn’t in the mood for another argument. The girl was running the tip of her index finger on the wooden surface of the bar. Was she checking for dust?

At the beginning of the first turn, the pirate placed 5 euros in coins at the center of the table. The young men followed suit. At the end of the round, eleven cubes fell to the table.

“Yes!” Nick screamed. He pounded the table with his good hand, scattering the wooden cubes. The pirate roared with laughter.

“Very good,” he exclaimed, clapping his hands together.

At the end of the second round, Ben spoke up again.

“Guys, do you remember when we used to skip class and take our bikes to the lake. We’d swim out to those little islands and just sit out there. Remember?”

Nick nodded.

“Remember when we built a fire,” Ben said.

“Yeah,” Nick said, smoothing out the crumpled money in front of him.

“I think that was my favorite part of school,” Ben said.

At the end of the fourth turn, the pirate excused himself. He came back a moment later holding a bottle of red wine.

“How much?” Nick said. The pirate chuckled.

“It is all on the house, my friends,” he said.

At the beginning of the sixth turn, the pirate placed 20 Euros on the table. Nick did not hesitate. Giggling wildly, he reached into his pocket for his bloody 20 Euro note and slammed it down on the table. Henry and Ben put their money on the table, too. Henry looked into his wallet. He still had enough to get to the airport.

“Guys,” said Ben. “Guys, we’re not going to start college. Let’s not even do it.”

“Shut up,” Nick snapped. He was staring at his 20 euros.

“We’ll drive to Turkey—”

“Shut up!” Nick screamed.

This time, only six cubes fell on the table. Nick leapt to his feet and roared with delight. The pirate laughed too, and pushed the crumpled bills to Nick’s side of the table.

“You see!” Nick cried, “You see why I held on to it!”

The laughter of Nick and the pirate filled the room. The pirate collected the cubes on the table for another round.

The girl at the bar put down another clean glass and stepped into a back room behind the bar. Henry scratched his eyes with his thumbs. He turned to Nick. They hadn’t spoken to each other since the argument. Again, Henry thought back to the basement of McDougal hall. He imagined Nick bleeding on the ground.

“I’m sorry I never tried to help you,” Henry mumbled. “I think we could have fought them all off together. All those guys.”

Nick looked at Henry. The pirate was handing out cubes for a new round.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nick said, placing his stained money back on the table. Now Ben was just giggling.

Nick won that round, too. And the next. The pirate clapped his hands together and grinned. Ben ran out of money, so Nick began sharing his winnings.

The girl came out of the back room at the end of round ten. She didn’t return to her place at the bar, but instead moved across the room toward the stone staircase. Henry stood up. The world shifted slightly, but he regained his balance.

“Deal me out,” he said. The pirate nodded and collected the cubes. Henry started walking to the exit. From the dark corner, the prisoner was moving. He looked at Henry and shook his head. His filthy hair ran down passed his shoulders.

The men at the bar did not move.

Henry climbed up the stairs, putting a hand on the wall to steady himself. He climbed the last step and pushed open the double doors. He could still hear Nick’s laughter echoing from the room below.

It was dark outside. The street was practically empty. He saw the girl disappear around the corner and moved to follow her. His legs were heavy. He imagined walking with her past the endless rows of city lights.

He turned the corner and stumbled into a trashcan. The concrete felt hard against his back.

In the dream, she listened to everything he had to say.

“We skipped class and built a fire on the beach,” he said.

“Wow,” she said.

“That was our thing,” he said. “We didn’t care about anything else. We created our own world out there.”

“That’s amazing,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “It was amazing. But it doesn’t even matter that school’s over.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Because Ben has a plan. He says we’re all going to drive east and live together out there. Forget everything else. We can live in Prague. You’re invited, you know."

“Thank you,” she said.

They paused to gaze at street performer juggling knives.

“We’re all going to live together,” he said.

“Oh yes,” she said.