CHOOSE YOUR OWN MINDFUCK: A Night in Eighth Block Tower (B4)
Bedlam Bible fans! Explore the Eighth Block Tower! Choose your fate! New posts every Tuesday and Friday. September '23 through December '23. Don't succumb to the huummmmmmmmm...
You’ve decided to leave and go after the cash…
You lean over and whisper into Gale’s ear, “Hey, I think I’m gonna split.”
She looks up at you and rolls her eyes. “Whatever. I don’t care.” She sounds angry when she says it. You get the feeling she really does care.
“Sorry,” you continue. “It’s nothing personal. Your friend is clearly… a really talented dude, and I’m really digging… this whole vibe going on here.” You motion towards the crowd, half of which appears bored and the other half are rolling, dancing to some unknown beat that’s wholly different from what everyone else in the room is hearing. “But I have some business matters to—”
Before you even finish the sentence, Gale pushes you away, then angrily throws up her index finger, holding it in place not even an inch from your nose. “Hey! What part of ‘I don’t care’ are you having trouble understanding, huh? If you don’t want to be here, then don’t be here! Just go! You don’t owe me any explanation.”
The music stops abruptly. Your body tingles as you feel every eye in the room gazing upon you. You panic, desperately trying to come up with a way you can exit the apartment without getting into a scuffle, but your thoughts are almost immediately interrupted when you hear an unfamiliar voice tear through the silence.
“Is this jack-o bothering you, Gale?” a man says. You turn back to follow the voice and discover it belongs to the man holding the guitar. He’s wearing sunglasses, so it's difficult to say for sure, but you’re almost positive he’s staring you down.
“Everything’s fine, T-Dakk,” Gale says, throwing up an open palm to block your face from her line of sight. She holds it in place, refusing to look at you. “This jack-o was just leaving.”
You let out a short, nervous laugh, then turn towards T-Dakk. He looks pissed. “Hey, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have even come up here. I didn’t mean to interrupt your performance—which was incredible, by the way. Really, just stunning. Are you streaming anywhere?” The man says nothing. Every eye in the room continues to stare you down. Your back is cold from sweat.
Instead of thinking of ways to get the hell out of there, the only active thought in your brain at the moment is that you should probably leave him a tip—but you only have a fifty and there’s no way in hell you’re gonna give him the full bill. Reading people has never been one of your strong suits, but you know enough to tell that this is absolutely not the proper time to ask for change. Cleverly—or perhaps stupidly—you remove a folded piece of paper from your wallet, the receipt from the gun you purchased earlier in the day, and you lean forward and toss it into the open guitar case, hoping to pass it off as cash.
“Alright, I guess I’ll be going now,” you stammer. “Sorry again.”
T-Dakk lowers his shades and looks down into the guitar case.
“Yo, tell me you didn’t just toss your nasty trash into my shit,” T-Dakk says, pushing the glasses back up to his face. You look over at Gale, but she’s leaning over, hiding behind her hair now, surely embarrassed she ever invited you up in the first place.
“Somebody dig out that trash and hand it to me,” he commands. One of the stoned kids walks over to the guitar case and fetches the receipt. With glazed eyes, he hands it over to T-Dakk then once again disappears into the crowd. T-Dakk unfolds the piece of paper and laughs out loud once he realizes what it is.
“You damn fool,” he says, still laughing. “Now why’d you go and do something like that?” Your face is flush and glowing, but thankfully the mood lighting prevents anyone from noticing.
“I’m sorry. That was dumb,” you say. “Truth is, I wanted to leave you a real tip, but I’m flat broke. At this point I’m not even sure how I’m gonna make it through the week.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have spent your last three-hundred on a handgun,” he says, then tosses the receipt back to you. It falls to the floor. You think of leaving it there for a second, but he’d probably just get even more pissed if you did, so instead you lean down and pick it up.
“While you’re down there,” he says, and immediately your entire body shudders in fear. Perhaps it's all the time you’ve spent in jail that’s made you paranoid, but when a man utters those words, it almost always means trouble is brewing. If he finishes his sentence the way you think he’s going to finish his sentence, you know you won’t be able to control your rage. You ball up your fists and remain crouched there on the floor, waiting for the invitation to pounce.
“Help yourself to one of those twenties,” he says. “We help our kind in these parts. If we don’t look out for one another, no one will—that’s for damn sure.”
Your heart sinks. I’m such an asshole, you think.
“Thank you, really… but I can’t accept that,” you say. Tears well in your eyes, but you fight against them.
“Man, just take it so I can get back to my guitar,” he says, then smiles. His teeth are the nicest set you’ve seen in years. They almost look fake. You nod, take a twenty from the case, then thank him again.
“Alright, let’s get back to it,” he says, positioning his fingers on the neck of his guitar. “I wrote this one last night while thinkin’ about a girl I used to know. It’s called ‘Demon Chained to the Bedpost Blues.’ It goes a little something like this…”
A piercing note rings out from T-Dakk’s guitar and he holds it steady, bending it, drawing it out for as long as he possibly can. The sound breathes life into the crowd like you’ve never witnessed before. They can’t wait to hear whatever comes next. Now that every eye is focused on T-Dakk, you use it as an opportunity to dip out of the crowd unnoticed.
As soon as you exit the apartment, that sick, heavy feeling of dread returns, full force. You’re anxious to leave the hallway as quickly as possible, but where will you go?
— To go upstairs, click here.
— To go downstairs, click here. (coming soon)