The Chosen

you’re pretty busy these days after hours.”

“What are you talking about, man?’’

Kyle leaned closer. “I know you’ve been fucking that housekeeping dolt, tubby. She any good?”

How does he know… This was a dilemma. Lee set down his beer. He struggled for a reply.

“Don’t worry, man,” Kyle assured. “I can keep a secret, you know, like as a favor. And maybe you can do me a favor sometime.”

How could Lee deny it; Kyle obviously knew all about it, and if he knew all about it, maybe he knew…Lee decided to have out with it, then. What did he have to lose?

“All right, sure. I’m kind of involved with her. So what? You gonna fire me for that? I’m still the best dish-man you ever seen. And since we’re on the subject, I want you to tell me something.”

“Sure, Winny. Anything.”

Lee lowered his voice, sickened by the images that the question conjured. “What the hell happened to her?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. You said you’ve been working with her for years. Somebody’s done all kinds of disgusting shit to her.”

Kyle ordered another Jack from the medicine-ball-bellied keep. “Oh, you mean the scars and all that.”

“Yeah.”

“I told you, man, we get these groaty dolts from all over the place—Mexico, the Phillipines, East Europe. They work like dogs, and for peanuts. Lot of them used to be whores and strippers and stuff like that. You ever seen the gross shit a Mexican or Phillipino hooker’ll do for a buck? Just about anything. They’re all like that. They’ve seen it all, believe me. S&M, bondage, the works.”

Lee stared off. Could this be true? A prostitute, he thought. He didn’t care—it wasn’t her fault. People from third world countries were products of environment, they had to do whatever they could to survive. But the possibility only saddened him further, that some people clearly weren’t as fortunate as others.…

“What’choo lookin’ at, gramps?” Kyle exclaimed across the bar. The roughened old men looked away.

“Whole fuckin’ town’s like this, Ollie. It gets on my nerves.”

“They’ve been staring at us since we walked in,” Lee told him.

“Of course they have. We’re the outsiders here in this pisshole of a burg. We’re the people from The Inn.”

“What?”

“You’ve heard the stories,” Kyle said. “The place is supposed to be haunted. Used to be an insane asylum, and they killed the patients and sold ’em to labs and medical schools, shit like that. Up your ass, pops!” he nearly shouted again, giving one of the old men the finger.

“Pay up and get out, buddy,” the big, mutton-chopped barkeep ordered. “We don’t want your kind here.”

“My pleasure.” Kyle slapped down a twenty and put on his coat. “I’d put my foot up your big redneck ass except I’d ruin a perfectly good shoe, and the same goes for all of you backwoods fuckers.”

“Get out, or I throw you out.”