The Sinking Ship

 

1

The Sinking Ship

“They don’t build them like they used to,” Rian said jovially.
Conny bit his tongue. This concrete brutalist monstrosity was also not built like they used to. They never built them like this, and that was the only reason they had come to this horrible, bland, and unholy place.

The hulking edifice was sunken into the triangular lot at the lower slope of Yesler Way at a dangerous angle. Its highest point, some sixty feet above the sidewalk, was at the apex of the triangle. The decks had been adorned with nautically-themed railings and filigree. This had garnered it the nickname “The Sinking Ship” and, while its aesthetics were frequently derided by locals, the hoi polloi took it for what it seemed: a quirky parking garage in the heart of the city. Unlike most parking structures it had no ramps, elevators or stairs. Rather, motorists were forced to use the busy street to travel from deck to deck. When seeking refuge for their beleaguered jalopies, drivers would cross their fingers and enter the garage. If they were unlucky enough to choose a parking deck without a space to spare, suburbanite commuters would spur their tired Toyotas and Teslas back out onto the street, only to roll a few meters downhill to the next entrance, which promised nothing more than the hope of an unclaimed parking space.
The building itself hadn't been built, so much as it had sprung, fully formed, from some dark dimension wherein the natural laws prevented any creative spark from igniting a flame. It was a flat, grey, twisted, cattywampus, sinister, aberrant leaning tower of madness. There were no records of permits or blueprints having been submitted to the city. Most locals knew the site had once been home to the most luxurious hotel in the old town. They remembered the uproar fifty years before, when the hotel disappeared  and the Sinking Ship replaced it. They told stories of the consequences. They took pride in the preservation of the historical neighborhood that followed the furor. But no one remembered the actual construction. It was just another example of the collective amnesia that frequently affected the denizens of the city — remembering the stories, but not the events.

Conny was still cursing himself for getting involved, but poking his nose where it didn’t belong was a trait of his, baked-in by the gods, and his inescapable curse.
“We have a job to do,” Conny growled, “Stop admiring the architecture and start your song.”
Rian, clearly deflated, started his preparations. Singing took a lot out of him.. If he was going to do it right, and keep it up until the job was done, he would need to warm up his instrument. He began quietly running scales, and tongue-twisters, cleanly separating vowels, eliminating diphthong slide from his enunciation. Conny, meanwhile, had retrieved the sidewalk chalk from his waistcoat pocket, and began to inscribe the sigil upon the ground.
In their preparations both Conny and Rian had totally forgotten that their client had accompanied them on this evening’s excursion.

❖    ❖    ❖

Kiki said she had found them in the Yellow Pages, which had been the boldest and baldest lie Conny had heard in quite some time. There hadn’t been a phonebook printed in the city for decades. The days of letting your fingers do the walking were as lost to time as the milliner's union and the turnspit dog.  Fortunately, one of the advantages of descending into the Underground was a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Once upon a time, the neighborhood had been called Maynardville, or Down on the Sawdust, or Skid Road. Whatever its name, in every era, it was known most of all for being a tolerance zone. Cops wouldn’t come down there except for the gravest of matters; a corpse might be enough, if it were wearing nice shoes and still had its ID. It had been razed more times than most cared to remember, and as it stood now, had been rebuilt upon the ruins so often that hidden lanes and alleys still survived beneath the streets above. Those in the know, and those hoping to remain unknown had established residence in the catacombs. You name it, and it could be found in the Underground.
For his part, Conny had established a temple. All Gods was the place lost souls would find themselves when the gospel missions and the fellowship shelters had turned them away. All Gods didn’t offer shelter, or a soup kitchen. The aid Conny provided, with the help of a few of the faithful, was less physical and more metaphysical, with a pinch of dollar-store hocus-pocus.

If Kiki had made her way to  Conny, overlooking a bald lie about finding them in the phonebook was probably for the best.
She couldn’t have been more than 25. She wore a short circle skirt over a sarong, over denim gauchos, over fishnets. She also seemed to be wearing a mesh bodysuit, under her Bikini-Kill tank top, under a zip-up hoodie, under a studded leather biker jacket. It was a look that suggested she might be wearing all the clothes she owned, so as not to lose them, or forget where her favorites had been stored. Her hair was a tall tangled mess that seemed to defy both gravity and common sense. It was an elaborate bird’s nest of jet, which seemed to move of its own accord, regardless of wind or physical activity. Her make-up was clearly done with a permanent marker set and some cigarette ash for shading. Probably applied with repurposed cigarette filters.

“Um,” Kiki said, “Is this All Gods? I found you in the Yellow Pages.”
Conny gestured to the dozens of alcoves and altars, icons and effigies that adorned nearly every nook and cranny of the space beneath the King Street sidewalks. He was certain he knew most of them, but new ones were added frequently, and only a fool would say with certainty that they knew all the gods.
“Sure is. Blessings from Hestia?” Conny offered as he pulled a hot tofu bánh mi out of a piping hot George Foreman grill.
“What? No, I’m not a believer,” was Kiki’s reply.
“Coffee? Sandwich? Something stronger?” Conny asked, “The great thing about Hestia is you don’t have to believe in anything but a warm fire and a full belly. She is the hearthfire and the home. She is a cozy bed in a hotel, and a deep and long late night conversation with a stranger wheresoever you join together against the dark of night. The sandwich is fresh. The coffee is old but hot. The something stronger is really more of a gift from Ninkasi, but, context, you know.”
Kiki didn’t know, but she nodded. “Sandwich and coffee please.”
Conny watched closely as she devoured the Vietnamese hoagie, noticing  how she barely winced at all when she washed it down with the blazing hot carbonized coffee. They both sat in silence until Kiki was ready to talk.
“I don’t like it here,” she said timidly.
Conny listened patiently. She had come here for a reason, and she would explain herself in her own time.
“I hate it, actually. People are mean. Smiles are fake. No one has any family. I mean, there are couples, and children, but everyone leaves, or arrives alone from who knows where. There are no aunties, no uncles, no cousins. This whole city feels like a luxury bus station. No one is here to stay, and those that are just try to sell you something. Everyone wants to be a billionaire, but when they get money all they do is buy dead things. I want to go home.”
“I can get you a bus ticket anywhere you want to go,” said Conny. “Going home is always a good move when you’re feeling lost.”
“Um, you don’t understand. I’m not from here,” Kiki replied. “Like, really not from here. My home is elsewhere.”
Conny felt the nauseating wave of adrenaline rush through his body. Nothing surprised him. He was always prepared.  He was no coward, but he hated excitement.
Never a thrill seeker.
A man of composure and calm.
He was always prepared. Negotiations, altercations, pleasantries and melees, he came ready. Preparation kept him calm. The way she said elsewhere shook him. He knew instantly what she meant. He was also from elsewhere, but probably a different elsewhere than she.
“I want you to take me home,” Kiki said, “I was told, um, by the Yellow Pages, uh,” she blushed having exposed her lie, “Anyway, they say you can do things, like, magic.”
    Conny finally remembered how to breathe, and did so. He took large breaths, in and out, until his heart returned to a more manageable pace.
    “I can’t do magic,” he said,”Nobody can. But, I do know how to open some doors, make introductions, perhaps we can find someone who can help.”

❖    ❖    ❖

Conny couldn’t hear the words, but Kiki was shouting something over the sound of the gale. November winds were common, but it was late April, a season for harmless drizzle. Clearly, something they were doing had drawn someone’s attention, or something’s. Just minutes ago the sky had been clear with the full Camas moon illuminating what the street lights and neon bar signs left in shadow.
Rian’s singing was getting louder, more desperate. As with most invocations, volume was not actually that important, but as the supplicant became more emotional, the volume naturally rose as the link between psyche and corpus strengthened.
The wind howled. Trash from the streets began to take flight in the tempest. Conny was having trouble keeping his footing on the slick concrete as the gusts buffeted him like a stampede. Rian was in the one calm spot in the world. He looked like an angel, if angels had neck tattoos, and had been on their prison’s boxing team. There was a light coming from him, and Conny nearly cried at the beauty. Conny redoubled his efforts, putting chalk to ground, and completed the last few inches of inscription.

At that moment three things happened: Conny was stuck by a whisky bottle caught in the gale, Rian froze like a man turned to stone, and Kiki looked deep into Conny’s soul, but the eyes doing the looking belonged to someone else.