No Flesh Shall Be Spared

the label. 'Glenmorangie… eighteen year old, single malt Scotch.' Weaver laughed and shook his head. 'People will say we’re in love.'

'If they do,' Cleese responded with a wry grin, 'then you’re The Bitch.'

The men laughed and eased themselves down into a comfortable sitting position; backs pressed against the stucco. They sat, both looking up into the sky as Weaver pulled the lead foil from around the bottle’s neck. With a squeak, he tugged the cork out and set it to his side. He lifted the bottle to his lips and opened his mouth. The rich, brown liquid poured over his tongue with a hearty 'glug-glug' sound.

'Aaaaaaah…' he sighed after he’d swallowed. He handed it over to Cleese, his face reddening in the dim light. 'That’s mother’s milk right there, Buddy. Fuckin’ A!'

'Glad you like it. I was meaning to give one of these to Monk before he left, but what with Corporate moving ahead everybody’s plans and everything getting so crazy, I was never able to get around to it.'

'Are you saying you have another one of these bottles lying around?' Weaver said, cocking an eyebrow inquisitively.

'Yeah, I do. I’ll bring it next time, you fuckin’ lush.'

'Ahem…' he said and he gave a little bow, 'I prefer the term connoisseur,'

'Whatever you want to call it, Pal. Your liver is just as screwed.'

'Prolly true…' Weaver took the bottle back and raised it in toast. 'To Monk then…' He took a large slug of the stuff and then handed the bottle back to Cleese.

Cleese accepted it and raised the bottle in kind.

'To Monk.'

The two men sat, their conversation falling into a comfortable silence, passing the bottle back and forth between them for some time. Neither saying a word nor feeling the need to. It was enough that they were together, hanging out and drinking themselves into a state of forgetfulness. It was a well deserved respite from all that they’d been through in the last few weeks. With Monk gone, Weaver and Cleese had become closer, like acquaintances drawn together by the absence of a mutual friend. Their interaction could still be awkward at times, but Cleese was content in the knowledge that their friendship would find its own path in its own time. Soon enough, things would fall into their own rhythm and things would grow to be more natural between them.

After a few minutes passed and they’d both begun to feel the first wave of their buzz, Weaver looked over slyly and nudged Cleese’s elbow with his own. His expression was comically conspiratorial. His thick eyebrows arched and a mischievously insinuating grin spread across his face.

'I notice you and the filly spending more and more time together now that Monk’s gone AWOL.' The caterpillars that passed for Weaver’s eyebrows danced up and down on his forehead. 'What’s doin’ there?' he asked.

'You know… I’m not sure,' Cleese responded honestly. Feeling slightly embarrassed, he scratched himself behind the ear. 'She’s not like any woman I’ve ever known before. I mean, she’s strong, capable, smart… She doesn’t expect anything from me and asks for even less.' He trailed off and shrugged. 'I’m just enjoying her company is all and I plan on taking it as it comes, to spend time as time is spent, y’know?'

Weaver nodded in the darkness. 'I do indeed. She’s a nice girl… good in The Pit, too.'

Another pause settled in and the two men sat quietly smoking and absorbing the stillness of the night. Cleese was encouraged by Weaver’s acceptance of his blossoming relationship with Chikara. It felt a lot like having a dad approve of the girl you were dating.

'So,' Weaver said, handing the bottle over, 'you hear anything from Monk?'

'Nope. You?'

'Not as of yet. I’m thinking he’ll wait until he finishes up his hitch in the UFL. You know, wait ’til he gets to his daughter’s place and he has something to report other than how jacked up that dog and pony show is.'

Cleese nodded almost imperceptibly in the moonlight.

'He wasn’t exactly happy with the way things finally went down, you know,' Weaver said, shaking his head in disgust. 'He told me that he wanted to make sure you were going to be ok before kicking you out of his nest.'

'He was mothering me.'

'Well, the hardest thing for a parent to do is to take their hand off the back of the bike. I doubt he had any desire to see you get your ass ripped apart in front of him.' Weaver looked Cleese in the eye. 'He liked you, cared for you like a son.'

'I hate to admit it,' Cleese said over the lip of the bottle, 'but I’m gonna miss that son-of-a-bitch. He beat my ass—and I cursed him—more times than I’d like to admit, but he was also more help to me than I could’ve ever told him.' He took another long draw of the Scotch. 'He kept me alive in this damned place.'

Now it was Weaver’s turn to nod. Monk had dragged his meat out of the grease more times than he could recall as well. They’d befriended one another in the early days of The League and both considered themselves to have a deep and abiding affection. He felt a pang of remorse when he thought of how he might not ever see his friend again.

Cleese handed the bottle back to Weaver and they were both once again left to drift on the stream of their own thoughts. There was no pressure to fill the void with unnecessary chatter or small talk. It was enough that they could sit and smoke and drink in silence.

And so they did.

Finally, Cleese, coming back to the here-and-now, broke the stillness.

'So, how long are you gonna stick around here? I mean, you ain’t getting any younger.'

'Hey, you can go fuck right the hell off, Pal. I plan on doing this shit for another ten years at least,' Weaver said laughing. As his chuckling fell under his breath, he said, 'Some people’s fuckin’ children…'

'Hey, no offense meant.'

'None taken, ya prick.'

Cleese smiled and reached over for the bottle.

'No, seriously, don’t you have plans for your Golden Years?'

'Listen, Cool Breeze, I’m not even pushing sixty. I ain’t got no retirement plans just yet. My job here is something I do without much thought and I’m really fuckin’ good at it.'

'Agreed, but don’t you have family? I mean, back out in The World?'

Weaver got suddenly quiet, almost sullen, and looked away. A dark cloud passed over his expression and his mood darkened. After a minute, he took the bottle back.

'I did… once,' and he lifted the bottle and drank. 'Same old story, y’know?'

'Sorry,' Cleese said meekly. 'I didn’t mean to dredge up any bad memories.'

'No, it’s ok,' Weaver said and lightly touched Cleese on the arm with the lip of the bottle. 'See, back in the day, I used to work in, of all things, the electronics industry. Did that shit for years. I kept track of thousands of parts at a semiconductor manufacturing plant. I did what they called ‘destructive analysis.’'

'Sounds fitting.'

 'Yeah, well… it was all pretty meaningless, but I had me a wife, a home and a good life goin’. The old American Dream, y’know?'

Weaver’s gazed drifted off as he began wandering the meadows of his memory.

'It’s funny how things can change, eh?'

Cleese nodded silently and settled back, not wanting to get in the way of whatever it was Weaver had to say.

'Anyway, one day, I’m on my way home, drivin’, y’know? And—bam—I hit this massive gridlock on the freeway. Ain’t a car moving for shit. People are cussin’. People are honkin’. Then, in the next car over, a radio starts blarin’ on about how there are people goin’ crazy: mass murder, cannibalism, all kinds of craziness. Shit, you know how it was…

'At the time, the news guys were all talking about everything from Venus probes to some kind of infection, like a virus. Whatever it was and wherever it came from, it was makin’ people to go crazy.'

Cleese again nodded remembering that day all too well.

'Honestly, I figured it was all one of them War of the Worlds-type things. You know, complete and utter bullshit. Anyway, I’m sitting in my car for quite a while, waiting for the gridlock to break.