The Alchemist of Castle Street

The merchant arrived on yesterday’s tide with a flimsy conscience & a flame-lit rearview mirror. He arrived seeking deliverance from an inarguable damnation; all prior pleas for levity in final judgment had been returned to sender, leaving the merchant sweaty, if not desperate. In Cape Fear, the merchant sought the counsel of the good monk of Castle Street. After a long night of revelry more drunken than revelatory, the monk proposed – over coffee – a place where miracles happen bi-weekly, thrice in February & even more in utero. What’s more!, said the monk, while my alchemist does not make house-calls, she will sure as shit stop by the BarZarre for a consultation. She’s a miracle-worker, my alchemist, turning lemonade into sangria & molehills into Himalaya. Let us go to BarZarre! 

This is where we find our pilgrims: traveling east along Castle Street, away from the river and towards a rain-drenched reckoning of some sort. They pass the smoldering ruins of a neighborhood house; recently burnt via misappropriated charcoal grill & crack-pipe. The pilgrims pass a bubble-dancer performing in the parking lot. Every bubble blown by the dancer is quickly vetoed by an intolerantly wet sky, frustrating bubble-boy to no end. The merchant & monk step around the bubble bursts with wary footfalls, careful of snails and intrigued with the rumored alchemy within BaZarre. 

Inside, the dive is dim. Double doors open to a tomb, allowing dull beads of gray afternoon to drip across the threshold. The pale light falsely teaches pupils there is an alternative to darkness. There isn’t. Not really. Dilated pupils within belong to crypt dwellers, dwelling amidst the air-con-stirred smell of pickled jalapeños, stale hookah and the fire-singed hair of last night’s juggler… (alas, poor Tim). At a card-table, there is a tobacco-stained yellow-mustachioed yeoman tuning banjos. In the center of the room, a contortionist in a cheetah-spotted leotard stretches ahead of her next performance. At the bar, a trio of washed-out gutter zealots in faded dyed-hair & torn tour-shirts sip energy-drinks with tattooed fingers and order two tacos to share amongst them. One of the three is surely named Shane. Maybe more than one. And it is an understated house rule: whomever is named Shane is invariably attempting to deal drugs. Not the FDA approved wonder-pills the alchemist peddles, but the common street dopes filled with rat poison, fentanyl, oregano, refried cookie dough, dried tiger dick, whatever it takes. Behind the bar, a high-priestess is building tacos to order. The scent of beefy cumin leaves one hungry-curious…

The merchant was once familiar of Cape Fear, but is now stranger. While he & this Sunday my be strange, it is not strange to be day-drinking… 

not on Castle Street, 

not in this rain, 

certainly not at BarZarre. 

Short subjective moments after the arrival of the pilgrims, the prophesied return of the alchemist is realized. She arrives through the gaping doors, shaking umbrella-drip with one hand as she finishes a phone conversation with the other. Okay-bye, she says into her device, plunging it into her purse at the sight of the monk. The alchemist says to no one in particular as she enters, it fucking figures the one day I skip pilates my class goes out and murders someone. It is quite the entrance. There’s not an eye not on her. Amused beneath his beard, the monk embraces the alchemist as if she were the last life preserver on a sinking ship. If the alchemist stood barefoot, she would be a foot shorter than the monk; not today, not in these heels. Gucci. Heels likely more expensive than the monk’s entire wardrobe of mercurial gray leisure suits. As he hugs her, she can feel a tremble of nerves, the nerves of a male praying mantis who knows what fate lies ahead & proceeds nevertheless. She feels the tremor, but does not comment on it. 

A drink!, the monk says as if it’s an epiphany, not a forgone conclusion. As he escorts her to the bar, the monk says, BarZarre has many honorable gins and they make their own house tonic. Two-ingredient cocktails, not the overpriced shit you can get further up Castle or over in the Cargo Pants District of Queen Street. But just as good!, the monk says, better!, even. None of that potpourri bullshit those hoi-polloi bars use as an excuse to triple the price. Okay, I am sold, the alchemist says with business-like calmness. Hey babe, she calls to the high-priestess behind bar, vodka & soda. The monk’s face contorts with mild frustration. He is clearly disappointed the alchemist didn’t order a gin or the tonic. He regains his composure and introduces her to the merchant, his guest visiting from the far south.

The merchant is posing for her benefit as he lights his cigar. This is the sly maneuvering of the smooth operator; something he learned watching The A-Team. Cherry lit, he turns towards the alchemist and offers a beguiling smile. The merchant has good teeth and solid face bones. He has a complex & commanding forehead: a brow which has endured the brunt of his philosophical agonies through the years, sitting as an off-kilter hat, betraying the feigned joy expressed along of the southern hemisphere of his head.

You must be the alchemist, the merchant says, reaching out a hand to shake. 

You must be the afflicted, the alchemist says, shaking his offered hand. 

Guilty as charged, the merchant admits. A round of drinks arrives and he toasts his beer with the monk’s gin and the alchemist’s vodka, saying, first one today. It clearly isn’t the merchant’s first one today, but neither is this the first for the alchemist. The merchant says to the alchemist, it has been said your eyes once fell upon the monk fairly.

Once even twice!, the monk adds.

What else has been said?, the alchemist cooly asks of the merchant. 

Well, did you know the monk has a jar with all of your clipped fingernails and toenails?, the merchant asks.

Yes, the alchemist says. What sort of psychopath doesn’t separate?

For the record…, the monk says with a hiccup, I do separate.

The alchemist is already at work with her mental calculus. She’s able to parse apart the commonalties between the two pilgrims: a comradeship built on booze, casual wear and feckless contemplation, if not reckless. She is familiar with the benign overthinking of the monk. So skeptical, he is downright solipsistic, doubting his very own existence. Which she finds liberating, insofar as conversation partners go. The monk is very much, “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow is a mental construct and doesn’t exist anyway” sort of vibe. Which she likes. The merchant, however, is a different sort of over-drinking thinker/over-thinking drinker, and doesn’t have the same philosophical escape hatch. Contemplatively spiritual, but unreligious by design flaw, the merchant has not found a cure for the pain of life. He has discovered various ways to distract the pain: women, booze, skiing, gummies, other women. But he has not found a cure for the pain. He cannot forget, nor forgive, mortality. Mortality, which his friend the monk discounts as irrelevant. This isn’t happening anyway, the monk often says, so whatever comes next is fucking gravy, man. 

So what’s eating you?, the alchemist asks the merchant. Before he can respond, the monk interrupts, saying, the more pressing question may be why is he eating when. You see, the monk says, this morning I woke to find the merchant asleep on my couch while my kitchen counter was littered with partially-eaten food left to rot. I do not know what afflicts him, but he has a parasitic relationship with my leftovers. 

This is true, the merchant says. The sleepwalker must choose between slices of cold pizza much in the same way the allegorical blindman describes an elephant: gentle nibbles in the dark. You see, the merchant says to the alchemist, I am an empty vessel. Even in my somnambulism I am attempting to fill the void. 

Don’t sweat it, babe, the alchemist says to the merchant. After all, my insides are nothing but rosé and cobwebs. 

Heh, the merchant chuckles. He remains incredulous. The merchant says to her, I’m having a hard time believing you are an alchemist. When did you stub your toe against the Philosopher’s Stone?, were you wearing those heels when you did? The alchemist ponders her past with a sip of vodka/soda. She says, I once was the Tulip Queen of Albany. Such notoriety provided me with easy gigs selling UnderBerg Bitters to Sunday morning puritans, baptists & papists. It was a very linear trajectory from there, she says, to scripting boner-pills to overly optimistic older men. Turning hard-ons into gold: Alchemy is the American Dream.

Duly noted.

And how did you meet this fiend?, the merchant asks the alchemist about the monk. Certainly, the merchant says, it couldn’t have been through his healthcare provider. Besides, I’ve only known him to associate with common thieves and raccoons. 

You mention “raccoons”, the alchemist says, but you should know the ancient gnostics referred to these creatures as “trash pandas”. She says, I met the monk, as one does, at a charity chili cook-off at a roadhouse brewery. You understand, I cannot say anything more out of client confidentiality. Other than: for a monk, he has great hair. 

The monk returns with a fresh round of drinks. The high-priestess behind bar has not been shy with her pours. We should return to the most pressing subject at-hand, the monk says, which is my friend’s affliction. Last night, over whiskies, we listed the merchant’s symptoms on the inter-webs: cosmic dread, bowels downright unneighborly and an irrational fear of mayonnaise. WebMD says he is likely afflicted with… let me consult my notes. The monk reads from his journal, the German word for it is Unsterbliche Todesschnekke, or “curse of the immortal death snail”. He’s likely beyond hope, but…? 

Ahh!, the alchemist shrills as the mascara of her wide shocked eyes is flung hither & yon. What the fuck is this thing?, she asks, “immortal death snail”?

It’s a folklore curse out of the Black Forest: a deathly poisonous snail which stalks its single human prey eternally, or, at least, until the the victim expires, at which time the snail returns to whichever primordial ooze it was born of until a new curse is lain. 

Oh, Jesus Christ!, babe!, the alchemist says to the monk. You need to calm your tits!, and quit raw-dogging diagnoses off the internet. 

Besides, the merchant says, those are not my symptoms. Those are your symptoms, dude.  

What? Wait, what?, the monk says while cross-referencing his notes. Oh shit. Yeah, so I am the one cursed with the immortal death snail. Aww, hun, the alchemist says, rubbing his arm. You shouldn’t have an irrational fear of mayonnaise. Not when a rational fear will do. Just know you can trust me. If I ever bury you in a tub of mayonnaise, it will be mayonnaise with extra tarragon. A little added flavor goes a long way when your lungs fill with aioli. Or so I’ve read in the marginalia of Hermes Trismegistus. 

Back to you, though, the alchemist says, pivoting to the merchant. What ailments do you have? The merchant lays it out by counting off on his fingers. He says, in primis, there is my impending damnation: 

• We can put man on the moon, but faith is still steam-powered. 
• I stockpile water-balloons against the coming torments of hell. 
• Regardless of which deity is ruling the roost, I am quite inexplicably damned. 

Are you though?, the alchemist asks, sure? Because you know there are many gods. Maybe one of them would take a liking to your aftershave. I doubt it, she says with a shrug, but, hey, it’s worth a shot! No, the merchant says. I am universally irredeemable. Damned at worst, sub-limbo at best. You’d think such a sealed fate of fuckedness would give me some semblance of peace, but it does not, the merchant says. 

The monk speaks-up, for the condemned, peace is hard to come by. Even the hanged man kicks at air. 

Jesus Christ, fucking Confucius over here!, the alchemist says at the monk’s comment. Who invited the turd to the punchbowl? The merchant says, don’t mind him, he doesn’t believe in the reality of the punchbowl to fret over a turd. 

But what’s more!, the merchant says:

• I’ve had the same hangover since 1997. 
• Lastly, I have reptilian-grade lasciviousness which influences nearly everything I do. 

I see, says the alchemist. I’d treat the salmonella first, she says. Then leave the reptiles in the sun long enough for them to repent. To retroactively treat your hangover, I’d hang a banana bag that expired in 1996. For the damnation, there isn’t anything I could give you you haven’t had before. But for the existential angst eating all of the monk’s cold pizza, I could give you an Adderall script… or would I?… who cares?

Now, for you, the alchemist turns towards the monk. Where’s this fucking death snail? If it’s creeping on you, I am going to grab fistfuls of butter and escargot this bitch into oblivion.