Intentionally Utilizing the Powerlessness

My life’s gotten a little more interesting, I must admit. Fortunately, with those minor changes, I’ve gotten better. More in control. Not that I’m able to stop it, mind you. It still happens too fast for me to react to. But I can turn it on. Tap into it intentionally. Not that that matters much for my daily routine. I did get promoted a couple months ago. Which just gives me more money to burn. The sun’s starting to approach the horizon. I head out of my apartment, taking the elevator down to the first floor. It’s safer than the stairs. Don’t want my neighbors to notice me. Being noticed is never good. I take deep breaths trying my best to stay mindful. A couple enter on the third floor. “Got any big plans?” one of them asks me.

I smile to be polite. In, and out. “Not much, just drinking,” I joke.

“Be careful then,” the other adds, “There are muggers over by the Pointe that prey on drunk people.”

I look over at them. Both of them are relatively attractive people, maybe college students, or recent grads. I weigh my options. As much as I want to spook them with the truth, it’s not ideal. Too risky. The elevator doors open. “Thanks for the warning,” I say, lying as we all step out of the elevator into the lobby. Fact is, none of the muggers who aren’t brand spanking new would mess with me. It took a couple of years of thugs finding themselves impaled on their own knives, but eventually the locals started to recognize. No, wait, technically I suppose it was the incident with the pistol and the leg, but the point remains.

I let the college kids leave the building before me. They turn left, towards some of the nicer places. Date night, perhaps. I hang a right. The Basement is five blocks from this apartment. Happy hour is about to start. Keeping my eyes to the sky, I walk, making sure to breathe deeply. In and out. Keeping that rhythm to be constantly aware of where my mind was going. Step, in, step, step, out, step. Even pace, quick pace, slow breathing. No one interrupts my walk. Unfortunately, the clouds up in the sky start to grow. And, staring up at it, breathing deeply and staying mindful, for but a moment I realize I know meteorology perfectly. Then, as swiftly as it came to me, it was gone, replaced once more by the breathing, by the pace, by the rhythm. All that’s left is the feeling that these clouds now mean it’s going to be raining tomorrow around one pm. Shaking my head, I make my way down the half-story staircase and into my favorite bar.

Calling the basement a dive wouldn’t exactly be right, but it does do it’s best to maintain those vibes. After all, it markets itself as just a neighborhood basement. I mostly like it because of three reasons. Miguel is chill. The fancy beer selection is to die for. And most importantly, despite its perhaps questionable vibe, people who go to the basement aren’t the sort to start fights. They either are spending too much and want to enjoy themselves, or are too invested in not drawing attention to themselves.

As always, Miguel is sitting at one of the tables, holding court. I give him a polite nod as I enter, and he gives me one back. He’s talking to someone, so I try to look away quickly after the nod. Not fast enough. I never learned, and yet for the briefest moment I read his lips. Evidently, the boys down south are sending up a specialist. Not great that whatever that means is happening is happening. Also not great that I now know it is happening.

I sit down at the bar, at one of the corners. My back to the main body of the bar, though I do have to see the whole of the bar itself. Unfortunately, that is the one problem with the Basement. Its layout. The bar itself as a wide L shape to it, and the rest of the place’s layout means sitting on each side means you either end up seeing the entry area or some of the back tables. Both less than ideal for me. So I sit at the corner, twist to look towards the rest of the bar, and get to avoid the hassle of seeing more than ideal. Mostly. There are three other people currently at the bar. An older couple enjoying the interesting wine selection, and a relatively young woman drinking the cheap shit. Lilly walks over to me. “What do you want today, Evan?”

“Just whatever your cheapest wheat is,” I say with a sigh. This morning was rough, was overloaded at work, and I don’t have work tomorrow. Lily has been a bartender here long enough to know the implicit part of me ordering the cheapest of any kind of beer. I’m going to want to drink a lot of it.

She comes back in moments with a glass for me. I take a drink, smile, and ask, “So, anything interesting going on?”

“Do you mean interesting in the don’t want to know about sense?” she pushes back. As I said, she’s been a bartender here for a while.

The woman drinking alone, clearly hearing this, starts to approach, asking, “If he doesn’t want to hear about it, why ask?”

I chuckle. Lily replies, “So he can avoid things. Evan here is a master of avoidance.”

“Clearly not a master, because I can’t avoid this conversation,” I joke.

“You could,” Lily counters, “You just want to get drunk more than you want to leave.”

The woman shakes her head. “I take it you’re a regular,” she says to me.

I shrug. “If you like beer, it’s the best place in the area by longshot,” I offer. THen, holding out my hand in her general direction without looking, I add, “Evander, but most people just call me Evan.” I take a deep breath in, hoping to not do anything stupid

“Danielle,” she says, taking my hand. Firm handshake. I don’t throw her across the room or whatever. Good. She sits down with her beer on the other side of the corner from me. I go back to my drinking. “Any other things I should know about town?”

“I see,” Lily says with a smirk, “You both have those fancy names.” I look up at her, just a tinge of judgement in my eyes. After all, while her uniform’s tag might read Lily, we both know it’s not after the flower. She gives me the slightest glare in response.

I smirk and ignore her spoken comment, though I take the hint and don’t share. Instead, I answer Danielle’s question. “There are some muggers, but as long as you’re either near the Basement or look aware of your surroundings, they won’t bother you.”

“Good to know,” the newcomer says, taking a drink. “So don’t get too drunk.”

Lily recognizes that statement for how I would take it, as a challenge, and quickly darts back to pour me another glass as I start to down my first. I tap into it, whatever it might be, and my jaw relaxes, my throat goes slack as I tilt my head back and the beer rushes down into my stomach. Then, after but a moment, Lily is back with a second beer and I put the first glass down. “Or do, I’m not one to judge.”

Danielle chuckles. “I take it you’re not worried about the muggers, do you live close then?”

“Not that close,” I say.

Lily adds, “I know he doesn’t look it, he looks like a skinny, harmless, weak, little twig boy, but according to rumors, Evan’s actually scary.” Then with a shrug, she adds, “In theory, at least.” Rude, just giving away my secrets like that.

I shake my head at her. “I’ll take harmless, skinny, even twig,” I counter, “But I would hardly say I look weak, Lilith.”

Danielle nods in agreement, seemingly not noticing my real counter. “Even just looking at his neck and arms, he does seem to have something of that wiry frame going on. Like if he was a bit taller, he could be a runner, or play corner, or something similar.”

I nod. “See, the stranger agrees with me,” I say, deciding to move on.

Lily shakes her head at me. “That doesn’t count, she’s just trying to sleep with you.”

“Not just,” Danielle replies. I think she’s joking, or at least mostly joking. I laugh, as does Lily. “So, how are you scary?”

“Trust me,” I reply, “You don’t want to know.”

We chat all through happy hour as people come and go. We continue talking into the evening. Evidently she also just got a promotion, though hers forced her to move from some smallish South Western city up here. To her company’s home office. She also, as it turns out, is renting a unit in one of the complexes I used to live in, about three blocks away. She came here first, because it was literally the closest open bar. By the end of the evening, we are both quite drunk. Lily gives me a look. She knows what’s up. That this poor newcomer will be robbed if I’m not with her. “Mind if I walk you back to your apartment?” I offer.

Danielle smiles. “I’m not going to sleep with you,” she replies, thinking that a relevant statement. It sort of is, but not the main reason I was offering.

“I figured. You just accidentally went and got drunk.”

It took a moment to register. “I did, didn’t I? Shit. I totally forgot about that.”

“Figured as much, which means my scary butt needs to take you home, else you’ll get a bad first impression of this great city and Lily will bug me until the end of days.” I pay. There’s an about fifty more dollars in my wallet than there should be. Damn it. Despite my best attempt to stay focused on the sky, and more importantly to notice all my flashes of insight, I must have noticed a wallet on the walk over. Or during our conversation. I need to stay more focused. Carefully, I lead Danielle out of the bar and start walking with her over towards her apartment. She seems to be holding her head slightly, like she has some kind of headache. “Are you good?” I ask.

“Yeah, fine,” she says, “Just surprised. The harmony doesn’t sync up as quickly when I’m drinking, evidently.” I have absolutely no idea what that means, but she says it like it is some great insight.

As I try to figure it out, I think about it. Suddenly, for just a moment, all around there is a great dissonance slowly becoming harmonic. “The heck,” I spit out, but it’s gone as quickly as it came. Must be going crazy.

“Hm?” she says as she looks over at me. She’s silent, and hasn’t moved, so I turn my head from the sky and look at her. Her eyes are wide in fear. Did I do something? I turn to check out where she’s looking. No dead bodies, thank god. There are four people in combat gear, rushing towards us. “I need to sober up,” she mutters to herself.

“Go home,” I tell the on-rushers. “There are cameras everywhere.” As I gesture up towards them, I notice, they don’t seem to be on right now. Curious. This group has some planning.

“Get her before she causes any more trouble,” the one in the back says. She seems serious. One of the others vanishes silently in a puff of some kind of dust, appearing right beside Danielle and grabbing for her. These guys are serious. I tell it to take over and let go of the reins.

It takes me all of twenty seconds. I break the man’s arm, putting him in a sleeper hold and suddenly I’m next to the woman. Grabbing both of them I’m in the sky. Then I’m back on the ground without either of them. The two remaining look baffled. Grabbing one’s gun, I shoot the other with a three round burst to the neck and chest, then throw the guy into the wall. Suddenly, and not of my own doing, the guy’s gun impales him, leaving him in the wall. Danielle looks at me, confused and concerned. I’m hungry. I take back the reins. “I told you that you wouldn’t want to know.”

She shakes her head, then suddenly realizes something. “If they’re after me, I need to check on Lawrence.” Then she grabs one of their guns and seems to fly, gun first, off to the east.

I look at the cameras. Still off. At least something went well. The pair I’d left in the sky somehow slam into the ground in the alley beside us, right by some muggers. They rush out, notice the pair of bodies there and me, then start to clean up the bodies. It’s bad for their business to leave corpses around. I head back to my apartment, somehow even more confused than before about what I can do.