A short part of a novel in progress

An Outerlords Chronicle story

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Project Notes. Notes and interviews will be taken via voice recorder for future editing. All raw information will be turned in along with the finished project for grading. Any breaks in the recording will be done only upon request by the interviewee or at the conclusion of each night.

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Start date 2/16/2012. Recorded interviews will be with local pub owner Don Schuter. The recordings are to be edited and used for my senior journalism project. Don was suggested to me by an acquaintance. He is supposed to have quite the story to tell.

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Personal note, dated 4/2/2012. Don has been reluctant to talk about his past, and several nights have been spent recording conversations and buying cheap booze. The recordings taken on these nights were useless and, subsequently, will not be included in the final draft. Though Don has never expressed any wish to keep what he tells me private, he has been very good at avoiding my questions. I think he’s done this before.

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Personal note, dated 4/3/2012. I didn’t come home last night. Don finally told me his story. I guess I was persistent enough. All I asked him was, “Can you tell me your story?” Holy shit did he tell me a story. I don’t even know what to think. What if he’s telling the truth? God, I hope he’s lying.

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Personal note, dated 4/14/2012. It’s true…all of it… This will be my last notation regarding my interview with Don Schuter. I dropped out of school yesterday. My professors don’t understand, how could they? They’re just like I was, ignorant. They aren’t ready for it, they might never be. I’ve attached the recording of that night’s interview. It hasn’t been edited. If you want to know the truth, this is a good place to start. If you choose to go down this path, be ready for it. Be more careful than I was.

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It’s the morning of Monday, April second 2012, and tonight I will be interviewing the owner of the Schuting Gallery, a local pub that lies just off North 6th street right next to the on ramp to interstate 515. It’s located on a small turn around that had once been used for nothing but bad parking until Don purchased a piece of the lot from the city to build his pub on. The pub is everything you would expect to find in any city in the Midwest, but seems out of place in Vegas. Beer signs and local band posters cover the faded paint on the walls and an old jukebox fills the small place with tunes from most of those same bands. The place looks and feels faded, except for the old oak bar, which Don keeps clean, clear, and polished to shine in the dim lights of the room.

When you enter the Schuting Gallery, you’ll probably see Don behind the bar most nights in the low hanging haze of not-just cigarette smoke. He’s a good looking guy. A white male in his mid-thirty’s, Don is a bit rough around the edges. His blond hair and beard are kept short, which makes him look military, and the way he keeps his patrons in line shows that it’s likely true. The place is filled most nights with locals, and the ones that frequent the Schuting Gallery are the ones that keep tourists away.

Don Schuter has lived in Las Vegas since 2003. From what I’ve been able to learn from other sources, he’s single and has no kids. Maybe I can confirm that with him tonight. He doesn’t talk about himself much, mostly he talks to regulars about their days or is filling drinks. It’s been difficult to get a chance to sit with Don for any length of time. When we do, he often needs to get up to grab a drink for someone. I’ve noticed that he’s also good at distracting me with questions about myself before I can even begin to ask him anything. Tonight is a Monday though, so maybe it will be slow enough to get some good answers out of him.

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Today I am with Don Schuter in his pub the Schuting Gallery, and he has graciously closed his pub for the night to allow me to interview him un-interrupted.

So Don, can you tell me your story?

Sure kid, no problem. I wasn’t expecting much for business tonight anyway. Do you want a drink or anything? I’m gonna grab one if you don’t mind.

Yeah, Bud light if you have it.

I asked if you wanted a drink kid. If you wanted water you could have just said so.

***

I’ll get one thing straight right away, you don’t know me. You might think you do by how I look or how I talk, but trust me kid when I tell you, you don’t know shit.

My father gave me three things before he left. A first, middle and last name. I kept two of them. The IRS and DMV know what my middle name is, but I’m not going to tell you. Let’s just say the old man had an asshole’s sense of humor when I was born.

I’m originally from Wisconsin of all places, Milwaukee to be precise, and I spent the better part of nineteen years learning how to survive against the worst that place has to offer. Crime, poverty, bad driving, and worse housing. I’d seen it all and came out the other end just fine. I even loved someone once. Until that changed too.

Now, you probably heard some rumor going around about some of the crazy shit I say when I’m drunk, and wanted to find out about it yourself. Well kid, today’s the day that I’m actually going to tell you, and we’ll see how lucky you feel afterward.

I’ll give it to you straight, you don’t know what the world is really like either. Oh, you probably think you do. You have it all figured out. You, maybe, watched ol’ Billy Nye as a kid and graduated High School so now everything makes sense.

The world has order to it. As a kid you were taught that your greatest goal in life would be fulfilled when you found that order. You have experts and “proof,” graphs of all shapes and sizes, which answer every question you’ve ever been taught to ask. If your experts say something isn’t true, well, who are you to question them…right?

Well here’s what I know. Your experts may be smart, hell, I know they’re smarter than I am. They know a lot about this world, but they haven’t got a clue about what’s really going on.

I’ll ask you this, it’s the best test I know of to gauge if you’ve got a clue as to what I’m talking about.

Have you ever heard of the Outers?

No.

I didn’t think so.

Let’s try this instead. Have you heard of vampires? Werewolves? Dragons? The Bogeyman? Of course you have, everyone has one way or another. So in a way, you know a little bit about the Outers, just not what I’m going to tell you about them.

To understand my story, you’ll need to try accepting that all of this supernatural stuff; ancient monsters, local legends, a lot of the old gods, even some fictional story characters, all have their origins as Outers.

Hey kid, I know what it sounds like, hell, I’ve been right where you are once. Even rolled my eyes just like you are now, but remember…you found me, you asked to hear this. Let me finish my story and then we’ll see what you think. Ok?

I’m getting ahead of myself though. You wanted my story. That was your question at the start of this whole thing. So, I’ll tell you some of the highlights. I’ll be completely honest with you and I’m not going to try and sugar coat it, my life’s fucked up, but there were some good parts too.

My mom and I moved to Sherman Park when in 1985 when I was about six years old. It sounds nice, but the name lies to you. It’s not a good part of Milwaukee, and as one of the few white kids in the area, I had to learn fast how to avoid getting beat up, or worse.

If you walk anywhere in the area the first thing you’re going to notice is that every house is built to be its own privately-owned fortress. Barred windows and doors keep anything larger than a squirrel from trying to get in. Constantly drawn drapes prevent others from looking to see if you have anything worth stealing. I’ve even seen places with thick wood or metal shutters built in to help keep stray bullets from flying through the windows at night.

My house was just like that. It was a tiny two-bedroom stucco place my Mom was able to afford by working three jobs. The security door and windows looked awkward on the poor little place. Like a skinny teenager wearing a tux for the first time. Acceptable, but a little pathetic. The previous owners had decided that painting it bright green was the best way to make it stand out in the neighborhood, and they were right about that. Even after the paint had faded to an oily puke color, it was hard to miss.

We were sandwiched between two monolithic old Victorians who’d watched their prime die before their metaphorical eyes. One was vacant, and would have made a wonderful place to explore as a kid if it wasn’t regularly used as a flophouse for people to sleep off their latest fix. The other housed an elderly black couple who had bought it back when Sherman Park was going to be something special. Their last name was Anderson or Jefferson…something like that. They were good people to have as neighbors, and they and my Mom got along well enough.

Our place didn’t have what people think of as a yard. The city had bought the back half of the lot before it was ours and used it to house a cluster of city dumpsters for the surrounding neighborhood. I can remember as a child thinking that nothing could be as awful as being woken up at 5:30 A.M. by the city garbage truck slamming empty dumpsters back into their concrete corral. I’ve since learned that isn’t true, there are worse things…just not many.

The lack of yard space didn’t affect me much growing up though, because we lived pretty close to the park that the neighborhood was named after.

The price of the house, and the green space of Sherman Park were the main reasons why my Mom had chosen that house when she bought it. The park itself is gorgeous, or at least it was when I lived there. A baseball diamond and basketball courts provided outlets for the kids of the area, and plenty of groomed grass and tall old trees provided relief from the hottest of summer days.

At night, however, the park transformed into something different. Something cold and terrifying. I learned early on that as soon as the streetlights started to come on, it was time to get home. Nobody had cell phones back in those days, so I’m sure I worried my Mom sick when I came home later than planned.

I had few friends growing up. As the scrawny white kid in the neighborhood, most of the others in the area wanted nothing to do with me, and several had worse ideas in mind for me than that. There were a couple of kids, however, that I became very close with.

Aisha and Dreyvon King were twins my age. We’d met at the park when we were around seven or eight. I don’t remember it exactly, but my Mom told me that I first met the twins when another kid had tried to steal my favorite action figure. She’d heard me start yelling and rushed over to see what was happening. By the time she got there, Aisha was helping me stand and handing me back my toy while Dreyvon, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, stood between me and the boy who’d knocked me down. The other boy ran off when my Mom got there, and the twins told her what happened. After that, the three of us were nearly inseparable.

The twins were fraternal I later found out when I could understand the word, and they lived in an apartment building a few blocks from my house. It was a three-bedroom apartment in a building that had seen a lot of better days come and go, and was prepared to see more of the same treatment. The Kings did what they could though to keep their kids as comfortable as possible.

Their parent’s names were Warren and Suni, and they insisted that I never call them Mr. or Mrs. anything. They were in their mid-thirties, around my age now come to think of it, and they had one of those relationships that you could mortar walls with.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen two people as in love with each other as Warren and Suni.

Warren worked for the city, doing road construction. He was a huge man, just a few inches shy of seven feet and his job kept layers of hard-earned muscle on his frame. Suni on the other hand was just a bitty little thing, but when she walked into a room, people turned their eyes toward her rather than her husband. She worked part time at one of the local bank branches, and part time giving haircuts to people in the area. They were both well-known and respected, Warren often coached kid’s basketball at the park, while Suni was very active in the community.

The respect the Kings had earned in the neighborhood was extended to the twins as they got older. As one of their closest friends, I also enjoyed a measure of that incidental respect, and it helped see me through some particularly rough experiences. Being a friend of the Kings was almost as good as walking around with a bulletproof vest on.

I can remember a time when I was about fifteen or so, when a group of guys followed the three of us back to the twin’s apartment after a long day at the park. It was later than usual for us to be getting home. Aisha had been talking to an older boy that she liked, while Dre and I shot some more hoops.

Dre was the first to notice something was wrong, and I watched him take on a dark, hard look in his eyes I didn’t recognize. A moment later, I too noticed what he was reacting to. Dre had had seen what we had all missed, that the street lights had come on without us noticing and the lengthening shadows had begun to make the park feel sinister.

We’d quickly gathered up Dre’s ball, and our remaining full cans of Coke, and hurried over to where Aisha was still talking to that boy. As I said he was an older kid, maybe seventeen or so and his attention was completely on Aisha so he hadn’t noticed Dre and I approaching until Dre was grabbing her hand and telling her it was time to leave.

Now, you couldn’t really blame the guy for being distracted and not noticing our approach. Aisha was a very pretty girl for her age. She was tall, obviously taking after her father, but luckily that was where her resemblance to him ended. She took after her mother the most which, even then, included an incredible combination of enticing curves, full lips quick with a smile, dark walnut skin, and a bright personality that could drive clouds away.

Aisha started to protest when Dre grabbed her, but had stopped mid-way through her first word when she noticed how dark it had gotten. She then said goodbye to the boy and gave him a quick kiss, which left Dre and I staring blankly for a moment, before gathering her things.

As we left the park that night, we were immediately aware that we had picked up some un-wanted attention. Four figures had started following us the moment we left the older boy and his friends behind.

Dre set a quicker than normal pace that evening. Even so, just before we reached the twin’s apartment the four figures caught up to us. They stopped us on a section of sidewalk where the streetlights didn’t touch. Warren had been sending letters in, requesting that the city repair the lights, but as usual nothing had been done about it.

They were older than us, most likely in their early twenties, and they made sure to surround us as soon as they could. I’ll never forget what happened, and what they said to us that night.

The first one to talk was the largest of the group, which isn’t that surprising in situations like those. Even though they all had years on us, the speaker still wasn’t as tall as Dre was. Dre had hit a major growth spurt when we were thirteen or fourteen and he was nearly as tall as his Dad. His height tended to make him look gawky rather than fierce but in the dim light, and with my nerves on edge, he just looked like he was about to kick someone’s ass.

“Hey kids,” the guy had said trying to sound cool. “Where you going?”

“Home,” was all that Dre said back to him.

“Really,” the guy said with a little chuckle in his voice. “Maybe we’ll walk you there. It’s not really safe on these streets at night.”

“We’re fine,” Dre had said. “We’re almost there and our folks are expecting us.”

“Really?” Another one of the guys asked, a bit too much interest in his voice. “Maybe we could crash there for the night. Like Damian said, these streets ain’t that safe when it’s dark out.”

He must have been the funny one in the group, because they all started laughing at the implications.

“Ha, yeah,” another one had too eagerly chimed in, his voice high and nasally. “I don’t know about you guys,” indicating his group, “but I’m really thirsty too. I’m sure you’ve got something at your place that could help with that, right?”

More laughter came from the group and I remember starting to feel more worried than I ever had when I was with the twins.

“Come on,” Damian, the head asshole, said in a mocking tone. “It’ll be fun.”

He was openly leering at Aisha, who was clearly trying to melt into Dre’s looming shadow, and just as clearly failing at it.

I guess, I don’t really know what possessed me to do what I did. Maybe I was trying to be a smart ass; it wouldn’t have been the first time my actions had gotten me into deeper shit. Maybe I was trying to get their attention off of Aisha who was clearly scared.

I don’t remember much of what I screamed at Damian when I charged him. I assume there were a lot of “fuckers” and “assholes” thrown in for flavor, I was at that age. I do remember though, exactly what I did, clear as day. Almost as if it were burned into my soul when I did it.

I took a quick couple of steps around Dre and swung the bag, with the remaining cans of Coke in it, straight at Damian’s balls. It connected at an awkward angle, but even so, Damian doubled over with a squeal of pain-filled terror. I screamed something like, “Still thirsty Bitch,” my voice likely breaking at that moment due to the tension and my age, and swung the bag again hitting him in the ribs with a meaty thud.

I remember feeling overwhelmed with elation and pride at what I had done. I’d done it…me. I’d kicked that guy’s ass. Saved my friends, and myself. I’d even come up with an awesome one-liner on the spot. Hell, the neighborhood would be talking about this for weeks, months even. I’d finally be cool shit at my school. Nobody would fuck with me anymore. Maybe, somebody would want to make a movie about it one day. Yeah, then I’d be famous, and rich, and everyone would ask me to take care of things, like Warren.

All of that flashed through my thoughts, as I stood triumphant over the monster I’d just stopped.

I turned back to look at Dre, the plastic bag leaking with the wet contents of the burst cans of Coke inside, and my smiling face met the fist of the guy I had thought of as the funny one. My legs turned to jelly when he hit me and I fell sideways with the blow onto the bag of sodas I had been holding, pinning it beneath me and feeling the contents dig painfully into my ribs, warm liquid beginning to soak slowly into my shirt.

I’d barely gotten my eyes focused when a shoe, approximately the size of Texas, slammed into me just below my rib cage. The kick blasted the air from my lungs, and I suddenly felt like one of those astronauts in the movies that try to breathe when their tanks run empty. Then there was the pain, oh God the pain. My guts felt like someone filled me with liquid fire. I probably threw up; you usually do after a hit like that.

Damian and I made an interesting matched set on the sidewalk, I suppose. Both of us curled up into a ball, whimpering and trying not to move, afraid the slightest twitch would make everything get worse.

Of the two of us though, Damian was the luckier one. He was left alone to manage his agony. Me, well, I got to entertain his funny friend who kept kicking me while I was down and gasping for air. It seemed like anywhere his foot could reach was fair game, my stomach, my back, face, arms. He even kicked me in the ass, and the whole time he kept laughing and asking me if I liked it.

I didn’t like it. Not even a little.

That is, until I looked up at him in time to watch a basketball, thrown by Dre, slam into the side of the funny guy’s head as he drew his foot back for another kick. His head snapped viciously to the side and I saw the guy’s eyes lose focus as he too dropped to the ground in a senseless heap.

Later, we would talk about how lucky that throw had been. If he’d missed, a lot of things about that night might have ended differently. As it happens though he didn’t miss, and I remember thinking the strangest thing at the time. I could see Dre, still extended from his throw, standing between the other two guys, who hadn’t moved, and Aisha.

He had a look on his face that I suddenly remembered seeing when I was eight and he’d fought off the other boy. It was an intense expression, a mixture of rage and fear, guilt and acceptance. It was the look I’ve since then seen on soldier’s faces when they gunned down civilians strapped with bombs that were charging their unit. The look a loving father has when he spanks his child for the first time, or that good doctor’s get when they realize it’s better off for their patient to die. That look of doing something they hate, out of love.

I remember looking at his young face, his brown eyes wide, his lips slightly parted. I could see his body trembling, and he was breathing the night air in gulps. Our gazes locked, and an intense feeling of intimate connection rose within me as I thought about how good he looked in that moment.

My mind did a quick stutter step…Wait. What? Then everything began to happen again too quickly to continue down that train of thought.

Nobody had watched the basketball after it had hit the funny guy in the head. It had sailed off, and landed in the street, bouncing several times. A car that had been driving down the street towards us suddenly slammed on its breaks to avoid hitting the bouncing ball. The squeal of tires on asphalt was deafening as it split the night air.

At the same time, Damian began to get to his feet, finally getting over the shot I’d given him. His eyes still held a measure of pain as he gingerly crawled to his hands and knees. When he finally got to his feet, he looked down at me and I could see murder in his eyes. My muddled thoughts latched onto that particular scene with strange fascination. I’d seen hatred before in the eyes of others as they looked at me, that wasn’t new, but I’d never seen anything like this. It was pure, undiluted, murderous intent, and it was directed towards me.

As Damian reached behind his back toward his belt line, I heard a car door open and a deep voice suddenly filled my heart with hope.

“Dre, Aisha! You were supposed to be home an hour ago. Where have you been?” The voice of Warren King yelling at his children was like sweet music to my ears.

I heard Damian curse under his breath and he stopped reaching for whatever it had been. Instead, he carefully stooped down to grab his funny friend from the ground as the guy’s eyes finally came back into focus. He gestured for the others to help him, and as they lifted the guy to his feet I heard Damian whisper to the others.

“Shit! That’s Warren King. Fuck, I didn’t know these were his kids. Let’s get out of here.” The group quickly took off down an ally and vanished into the shadows of the evening.

Still lying on my side, I watched Aisha dash over to her Dad and wrap her arms around him. I could see that she was crying, great wracking sobs of too many emotions all at once, into his chest as he looked a bit puzzled at what was going on.

Dre hurried over to me and knelt down to offer me his hand up. I remember that I wanted to tell him what a nice throw it had been; I wanted to act cool in front of him instead of lying on the ground. I even opened my mouth to say just that while he grabbed my outstretched hand and pulled me to my feet.

The pain of being hauled to my feet left me feeling dizzy and out of focus, however, and the compliment turned into a wheeze of pain. My stomach and side hurt so badly that I couldn’t stand up straight and remained hunched forward a bit. I looked up at Dre’s face after I got my breath and abruptly stopped what I was about to say for the second time, when I saw his face.

In the space of a heartbeat, I watched emotions fly across his face starting with happiness, a touch of confusion that then made a beeline for fear. I remember watching his lips move as if he were speaking to me, but I couldn’t seem to hear him. Everything seemed to be fuzzy and I couldn’t focus.

I don’t remember how I got back onto the ground, but I do remember looking up as Warren’s huge frame gathered in close to my aching side. Dre’s face was right next to mine and he looked like he was talking again.

His mouth looked interesting when he did that. I remember that his eyes looked really big, and brown, and worried, and they were focused on me. Aisha’s face hovered behind his, and she had her hand pressed to her mouth, a look of horror on her face. I couldn’t pay attention to her though, her brother was just so close to me.

The next thing I knew; Warren was carrying me to his car while Aisha held the door open. Dre got in the other side of the back seat and reached out to help guide me into the car. I was really cold for some reason, and Warren’s huge arms were warm and steady.

Then I remember feeling like I was moving really fast. I opened my eyes to see Dre looking down at me, I must have had my head in his lap from the angle. He was saying my name and he had one hand on my forehead and the other arm wrapped around my shoulders, steadying me.

Then I was being lifted out of the car again by Warren. He held me close against the bare skin of his stomach and chest, and I noticed that his shirt was tied around my midsection. It felt so warm there. Like I was at home, in my bed, with the blankets pulled up close to my chin. I closed my eyes and tried to wriggle a bit deeper into that feeling of warmth.