Post by The Mouth on Jul 19, 2014 16:22:11 GMT -8
11th June, 2013
Limerick, Ireland
This was a little nerve wracking.
Picture a run down Public House, in this case the Open Grave. If a Giovanni owned this kind of place in the states it would be themed. Seriously fucking themed. And populated by people with raccoon eyes and a dream to live in an Anne Rice novel.
This place it means that they serve traditional food, in a traditional way, with traditional beers and spirits. Largely this means very fried bland shit and some amazingly good whiskey and beer. Ciders are also popular. They are being drunk by large men wearing leather jackets with short hair and shaved heads. Not because they are miltary, these are bare knucklers.
Think boxing. Then remove the gloves, the ref, and the rules. Now add gambling, syndicates, and stables of fighters that are slightly better off than a stable of prostitutes.
In the states this outfit would run out of a gym. In Ireland? There’s a gym, across the street. It got opened as a result of how close the pub. Bare knucklers have problems in their old age of around 35. Too many blows to the head, destroyed cartilage, busted hands; all adds up to being hard to find work.
So, of course when your only skills are beating the holy hell out of other human beings it tends to funnel you into a narrow career channel. The kind where the retirement package is the ‘3-R’ plan, the Roof, the River, or the Revolver.
Clete Dunsirn came to Limerick a long time ago; long enough back that his picture is painted on the wall instead of photographed. Bareknuckle men were drinking here before that and will be after Clete is gone; he just found a rough and ready crowd aching for his leadership.
So he says.
Clete himself looks the part, sort of. He is squat, seeming shorter in person with how broad he is, fat with muscle; big just not showing it. His face has a beard that can only be described and ‘large and wild’. He is spear bald, his nose is a proud beast sunning on the cliffs of his cheeks above a sea of beard. He has a funny sort of scar on his forhead. I know what that scar means.
I doubt the others thugs in the room do. World War 1 saw the introduction of helmets to warfare after having been phased out as too expensive and ineffective for several hundred years. Turns out that crouched in a fox hole the kept artillery shrapen from killing as many men. The early models didn’t have a good fit and tended to wear a little cut on the forehead; saw it a bit in my youth usually with a missing limb. Later in the war the helmets were re-issued with a little bit more concussion resistance.
That is what the scar means; he was alive in 1914, and was part of the British Expeditionary Force.
I have my black haliburton and my Devon Phillips face; time to sell some blood.
“Pardon, I am looking for a Mr. Dunsirn?” A slab of a man slumps off his stool at the bar and comes back with “Who?”
“Dunsirn. Clete Dunsirn.”
“Ain’ eah.”
Ah, the joy of missing teeth and traumatic brain injuries.
“I do believe I can see him in the corner.”
“Ain’ him.”
“I see. Can you take a message for him then?”
“Feck off.”
“Ah. I would, but your mother and sisters did such a thorough job last night I doubt that I’ll be able to get to your aunts and cousins until tomorrow.”
I watch as what I said is processed, sorted, and sifted until his response is found. He bellows and throws his arm back for a punch which is when I kick him in the balls.
His roar goes to a wheeze; I have solidly constructed shoes on. His head comes down as he folds up over his testicles and I defy convention and skip hitting him in the face. Instead I take a little hammerless revolver and place it in his ear.
The bustle of the room stops, and there is the scrape of chairs on the floor as a wall of angry muscle steps around us.
“Seriously. Do I have to get into a fight EVERY place I go to in these wretched islands?” My voice is flat, no inflection. The quip is made a threat by that monotone and the room knows it. Professional thugs do speak the language of violence well. “I just want to say hello to Mr. Dunsirn, show him my case, and then be on my way. If he isn’t here as this gentleman” - emphasized with some pressure in his ear from the gun barrel - “Impled, then I would like to leave a message. Devon Phillips stopped by. That is all.”
Clete steps forward, looking wide and in charge, all 5”11 of him, which puts him eye to eye with me, which isn’t helping.
“I’m Clete.” His voice is a rasp; a couple of red lines on either side of his neck are clues that when Yuria’s boys came visiting they gave him the ol’ ‘Do not make us finish what we started’ line.
“Then I am Devon Phillips.”
“Aye, ‘ve eard of ya. You started the ruckus in Liverpool.” His Scotch brogue is thick enough to walk across the Channel on, it’s almost a dialect.
“I started nothing; I merely exposed the work of others. Do you have an office?”
“Aye.”
I flick the hand holding the gun and make it disappear; because magic tricks with weapons are pretty neat. Clete gives a brief smile showing off square yellow teeth. He turns and sits back down at his corner booth and motions for me to sit with my back to the door. Of course he does.
The rest of the muscle moves elsewhere and the conversation picks back up.
I settle into the booth with the haliburton next to me.
“I want an introduction into Yuria’s court.” This guy is pretty sharp to have held his position as long as he has, mere street muscle doesn’t make enough of a threat to send a squad of Gangrel by to cut a few throats; Clete has something Yuria needs stable and functioning.
“Ye dain’ ask fur much. Why should I take the risk.”
I lean forward. “Because I’m going to kill them all.”
His expression doesn’t change, at all. Nothing. He is a flat and still pond. But the rest of the bar gets quieter. “If you fail they take me and the boys.”
“If I win; even a little bit; you mop up. I tell you when it goes down, you decide then which way your jump. After all, you can always claim that I beat you up and made you do it.”
He smiles again; teeth pearing from his mane of beard. “Aye. Ye got the look of a man to ye.”
“Ja. Not easy hearing this accent, is it, doughboy?”
The big man’s hands twitch, his eyes narrow. “Ye know that how, precise?”
“Your helmet. Left a distinct scar.”
He relexes. “Aye then. Not easy, no. But I know ye ain’ no German. Yer from the Baron.”
My turn to tense up. “And what makes you think…”
“He leaves a distinct scar.”
Hoist on my petard.
“Lad, I’ll put my blood and that of my boys on the line. Kevin O’Reilly an’ I owe t’ other that much. And one o’ his brood of ghouls was my daughter. They took my Childe and when I objected they gave me a second smile.” He points to his neck.
I ponder for a few moments. “The Childe was one of Kevin’s family?”
“Aye. She was mine, an I was hers. And they took her because her name was O’Reilly. Made us watch when they executed em’ at the castle.”
“And you know about the Baron and Kevin?”
Clete nods. This was a deeply angry man, not that anyone would know, outside this small crowd.
“So you’ve been expecting me, or someone like me.”
“Aye.”
“Well, then. What’s the hang up.”
“I need you to speak with His Voice. Take mine in if I fall agin’ the Gangrel bastard that took me Elsie.” Everything he says comes out softer and softer, as if he is shredding his throat with each word.
No idea how I’m going to swing it, but hell. I’ve done harder.
“Done.”
“I’ll get you in.”
Good enough. “One question though?”
“Aye.”
“Why’d she let you live?”
The man laughs, silently, just movement in the body and the beard.
“She’s afraid of me family. Knowin’ how tight we are. So she said; I could always find another lady wife. Even offered one of her kin.”
Oh.
“I… I understand. I’ve dealt with the Giovanni before sir. And the only group I think feuds better than they do is the Scots. I’ll be your instrument.”
His hands move before I can track them, grabbing mine and squeezing my wrists until my bones creak. “Aye, ya will. Or I’ll feed yeh t’ the sassenach bitch meself.”
He releases my hands and waves me off. And I leave without another word because that is a scary and angry man. Christ, what was she thinking? Fucking with his family?
She has to be insane not to see the consequences.
Giovanni
By Ben Vaughan
Limerick, Ireland
This was a little nerve wracking.
Picture a run down Public House, in this case the Open Grave. If a Giovanni owned this kind of place in the states it would be themed. Seriously fucking themed. And populated by people with raccoon eyes and a dream to live in an Anne Rice novel.
This place it means that they serve traditional food, in a traditional way, with traditional beers and spirits. Largely this means very fried bland shit and some amazingly good whiskey and beer. Ciders are also popular. They are being drunk by large men wearing leather jackets with short hair and shaved heads. Not because they are miltary, these are bare knucklers.
Think boxing. Then remove the gloves, the ref, and the rules. Now add gambling, syndicates, and stables of fighters that are slightly better off than a stable of prostitutes.
In the states this outfit would run out of a gym. In Ireland? There’s a gym, across the street. It got opened as a result of how close the pub. Bare knucklers have problems in their old age of around 35. Too many blows to the head, destroyed cartilage, busted hands; all adds up to being hard to find work.
So, of course when your only skills are beating the holy hell out of other human beings it tends to funnel you into a narrow career channel. The kind where the retirement package is the ‘3-R’ plan, the Roof, the River, or the Revolver.
Clete Dunsirn came to Limerick a long time ago; long enough back that his picture is painted on the wall instead of photographed. Bareknuckle men were drinking here before that and will be after Clete is gone; he just found a rough and ready crowd aching for his leadership.
So he says.
Clete himself looks the part, sort of. He is squat, seeming shorter in person with how broad he is, fat with muscle; big just not showing it. His face has a beard that can only be described and ‘large and wild’. He is spear bald, his nose is a proud beast sunning on the cliffs of his cheeks above a sea of beard. He has a funny sort of scar on his forhead. I know what that scar means.
I doubt the others thugs in the room do. World War 1 saw the introduction of helmets to warfare after having been phased out as too expensive and ineffective for several hundred years. Turns out that crouched in a fox hole the kept artillery shrapen from killing as many men. The early models didn’t have a good fit and tended to wear a little cut on the forehead; saw it a bit in my youth usually with a missing limb. Later in the war the helmets were re-issued with a little bit more concussion resistance.
That is what the scar means; he was alive in 1914, and was part of the British Expeditionary Force.
I have my black haliburton and my Devon Phillips face; time to sell some blood.
“Pardon, I am looking for a Mr. Dunsirn?” A slab of a man slumps off his stool at the bar and comes back with “Who?”
“Dunsirn. Clete Dunsirn.”
“Ain’ eah.”
Ah, the joy of missing teeth and traumatic brain injuries.
“I do believe I can see him in the corner.”
“Ain’ him.”
“I see. Can you take a message for him then?”
“Feck off.”
“Ah. I would, but your mother and sisters did such a thorough job last night I doubt that I’ll be able to get to your aunts and cousins until tomorrow.”
I watch as what I said is processed, sorted, and sifted until his response is found. He bellows and throws his arm back for a punch which is when I kick him in the balls.
His roar goes to a wheeze; I have solidly constructed shoes on. His head comes down as he folds up over his testicles and I defy convention and skip hitting him in the face. Instead I take a little hammerless revolver and place it in his ear.
The bustle of the room stops, and there is the scrape of chairs on the floor as a wall of angry muscle steps around us.
“Seriously. Do I have to get into a fight EVERY place I go to in these wretched islands?” My voice is flat, no inflection. The quip is made a threat by that monotone and the room knows it. Professional thugs do speak the language of violence well. “I just want to say hello to Mr. Dunsirn, show him my case, and then be on my way. If he isn’t here as this gentleman” - emphasized with some pressure in his ear from the gun barrel - “Impled, then I would like to leave a message. Devon Phillips stopped by. That is all.”
Clete steps forward, looking wide and in charge, all 5”11 of him, which puts him eye to eye with me, which isn’t helping.
“I’m Clete.” His voice is a rasp; a couple of red lines on either side of his neck are clues that when Yuria’s boys came visiting they gave him the ol’ ‘Do not make us finish what we started’ line.
“Then I am Devon Phillips.”
“Aye, ‘ve eard of ya. You started the ruckus in Liverpool.” His Scotch brogue is thick enough to walk across the Channel on, it’s almost a dialect.
“I started nothing; I merely exposed the work of others. Do you have an office?”
“Aye.”
I flick the hand holding the gun and make it disappear; because magic tricks with weapons are pretty neat. Clete gives a brief smile showing off square yellow teeth. He turns and sits back down at his corner booth and motions for me to sit with my back to the door. Of course he does.
The rest of the muscle moves elsewhere and the conversation picks back up.
I settle into the booth with the haliburton next to me.
“I want an introduction into Yuria’s court.” This guy is pretty sharp to have held his position as long as he has, mere street muscle doesn’t make enough of a threat to send a squad of Gangrel by to cut a few throats; Clete has something Yuria needs stable and functioning.
“Ye dain’ ask fur much. Why should I take the risk.”
I lean forward. “Because I’m going to kill them all.”
His expression doesn’t change, at all. Nothing. He is a flat and still pond. But the rest of the bar gets quieter. “If you fail they take me and the boys.”
“If I win; even a little bit; you mop up. I tell you when it goes down, you decide then which way your jump. After all, you can always claim that I beat you up and made you do it.”
He smiles again; teeth pearing from his mane of beard. “Aye. Ye got the look of a man to ye.”
“Ja. Not easy hearing this accent, is it, doughboy?”
The big man’s hands twitch, his eyes narrow. “Ye know that how, precise?”
“Your helmet. Left a distinct scar.”
He relexes. “Aye then. Not easy, no. But I know ye ain’ no German. Yer from the Baron.”
My turn to tense up. “And what makes you think…”
“He leaves a distinct scar.”
Hoist on my petard.
“Lad, I’ll put my blood and that of my boys on the line. Kevin O’Reilly an’ I owe t’ other that much. And one o’ his brood of ghouls was my daughter. They took my Childe and when I objected they gave me a second smile.” He points to his neck.
I ponder for a few moments. “The Childe was one of Kevin’s family?”
“Aye. She was mine, an I was hers. And they took her because her name was O’Reilly. Made us watch when they executed em’ at the castle.”
“And you know about the Baron and Kevin?”
Clete nods. This was a deeply angry man, not that anyone would know, outside this small crowd.
“So you’ve been expecting me, or someone like me.”
“Aye.”
“Well, then. What’s the hang up.”
“I need you to speak with His Voice. Take mine in if I fall agin’ the Gangrel bastard that took me Elsie.” Everything he says comes out softer and softer, as if he is shredding his throat with each word.
No idea how I’m going to swing it, but hell. I’ve done harder.
“Done.”
“I’ll get you in.”
Good enough. “One question though?”
“Aye.”
“Why’d she let you live?”
The man laughs, silently, just movement in the body and the beard.
“She’s afraid of me family. Knowin’ how tight we are. So she said; I could always find another lady wife. Even offered one of her kin.”
Oh.
“I… I understand. I’ve dealt with the Giovanni before sir. And the only group I think feuds better than they do is the Scots. I’ll be your instrument.”
His hands move before I can track them, grabbing mine and squeezing my wrists until my bones creak. “Aye, ya will. Or I’ll feed yeh t’ the sassenach bitch meself.”
He releases my hands and waves me off. And I leave without another word because that is a scary and angry man. Christ, what was she thinking? Fucking with his family?
She has to be insane not to see the consequences.
Giovanni
By Ben Vaughan