CHOOSE YOUR OWN MINDFUCK: A Night in Eighth Block Tower (B17)
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 let Karl ‘show you’…
Karl crams a wad of toilet paper into his bloody nostril and tells you to get dressed. Once you’re ready, he walks you out of the tower and down the street about half a block. Neither of you utter a single word the entire time.
He stops in front of a small brown two-door hatchback and digs into his pocket, looking for his keys. You lean down and peer inside the window only to see heaps of trash gathered atop the seats and floorboards, mostly fast-food debris and CD cases. There’s so much trash inside, you’re not sure how the two of you are going to get in. You know nothing about Karl, but you suspect he doesn’t have a wife or kids, and that he likely doesn’t see many people outside of his group shower meditations.
He finally locates his keys, opens the driver’s side door, and hops in. Then he leans over and manually rolls down the passenger side window.
“Getting in?” he asks. You furrow your brow.
“Is there room for both of us?” you ask.
“Sure there is,” he says, then sweeps his hand over the passenger seat, pushing everything on top of it down onto the floorboards. As he’s doing this, you notice the car is parked directly beside a curb that’s been painted red. The words ‘tow zone’ are written across the top of it in bold white lettering.
“Today must be your lucky day,” you say, pointing at the curb. “Looks like you’ve been parked in a tow zone all day and no one took notice.”
“Nah, it ain’t a real tow zone,” he says, picking bits of stale french fries out from the ridges of the seat. “I painted it that way ages ago, that way I don’t have to spend half my mornings driving in circles, looking for a place to park. I’m smarter than the average cookie, you know. And I’m great at time management, too. I never waste even a fraction of a second of my time. When I leave work, I get to my car eleven minutes before anyone else. I’ve calculated the fastest route to my apartment, and I rent a place only a few blocks away, so I get home easily half an hour before any of my other co-workers do. Everything there is to do in life, I do it six and a half times faster. By the time I reach the end of my life, I’ll have packed in six and a half times the amount of living than any one of you potatoes. No offense.”
“Yeah, but some of us prefer to take some time, you know?” you say, leaning into the window. “There’s a certain quality of life that comes with taking out the trash every now and then.”
He isn’t listening, so you stop talking. He tosses the last of the french fries out the window and pats the now empty passenger seat. “Come on in, there’s a place I wanna show you.”
Karl drives for about three minutes, then parks in front of a dilapidated old building with boarded up windows. There’s a sign that hangs over the front entrance that used to say “Beefy Bob’s,” but all the letters have long fallen off. You’re only able to read the sign because the years of filth lining each letter is still present, making the words pop by way of negative space. You take a brief look around. Somehow this part of town looks even more decrepit than Eighth Block.
You lean out the window to observe the curb and sure enough, Karl’s painted it as well. Without saying a word, you look back at Karl and he says, “Yeah. Got ‘em painted all over the city. Every place I frequent. I haven’t had to look for a parking spot in, oh… I don’t know.. Something like two years now. Think of all the life I’ve lived with all that spare time!”
Like most of the things Karl says to you, you aren’t sure how to respond, so instead you decide to change the subject.
“Beefy Bob’s? Is this an old hot dog stand or something?”
Karl lets out a short laugh and says, “You wish! Now get the fuck out.” He shoos you out of the car and for a moment you’re convinced he’s driven you here only to leave you stranded, but then he kills the engine and steps out himself. The two of you walk up to the front entrance and the first thing you notice is the open hole in the door, right where the doorknob should be. The only thing keeping the door shut is a steel latch and a padlock, one Karl has the key to unlock.
“So, this is your place?” you ask, feeling silly for asking such an obvious question, but it is Karl, so you can never be sure.
“Nah, the lock is just to keep vagrants out. Nothin’ gets me heated more than a bunch of lowlifes squatting on someone else’s property.”
“So… this isn’t your property?”
“You’ve already asked that question. I have a strict no repeat rule that I’d appreciate you adhere to. It goes along with the whole don’t waste a second mentality. However, I’ll make an exception only this once, because I just happen to have something new to add to my previous answer. I know what you’re thinking… if it ain’t my property, then what makes me any better than the vagrants, right?”
You nod. You figure the less you say the better.
“We ain’t the same. I’m merely trespassing. They’re squating. I just need a quiet place to train. They need a place to live. I have a place to live, and I work damn hard for that place too. I’m no lowlife. I work for the things I have. They’re like leeches, sucking you dry for all you’re worth. I’m more like a mosquito. I get what I need from you and go on my way. You don’t even notice I’m here. It’s a victimless crime.”
You’re not convinced, and judging by Karl’s scowl, you have a feeling he suspects as much.
“So, are you gonna call the cops on me or come inside, huh?” He opens the door and waves you in. It’s too dark to see ahead, so you’re not exactly sure what you’re getting yourself into. You’ve come too far to turn back now, so you blindly accept his invitation and step inside.
The air in this space is thick and fills your lungs as if it were tufts of cotton. It chokes you almost immediately. It smells like a zoo.
“Don’t mind the stench,” he says. “You’ll get used to it.” Then he puts his hand on your chest, forcing you to stand still. “Stay here a moment and let me light a couple torches so we can see. You have to watch your step around here. Lots of holes.”
He disappears into the darkness, and about half a minute later the entire room is bathed in the warm glow of a tiki torch. It’s fastened to a pole, standing at a corner of an old, ratty boxing ring. You notice there’s a torch fastened at each corner, and as soon as Karl lights each one, he waves you over.
“Mind the holes, now,” he says, breaking his own no repeat rule. You’re dying to bring it to his attention, but you know it’ll only get him going on a rant you have absolutely no interest in hearing. So, instead you quietly maneuver through the room until at last you’re standing in the ring beside him.
You’ve been in your fair share of fistfights in your time, but not once have you ever stepped inside a boxing ring. You’re surprised by the springiness of the surface beneath your feet. It has you wondering if it’s a legit boxing ring or one that's been modified for professional wrestling. In any other circumstance, you’d ask, but right now you prefer to not know.
“You ever fight before?” Karl asks, grabbing you by the wrist so he can tape your hands up.
You nod. “Oh yeah. It’s one of my favorite pastimes.”
“You hear that Poppy?” Karl yells, as if speaking to someone else in the room. You look around and see no one. “We may have a contender!”
“I’m surprised you’re into fighting,” you say, immediately regretting saying anything at all. “From what I’ve been told, The Local Order of Stardust is more about finding inner peace and tranquility and all that bullshit. Seems like this works against those beliefs.”
“I’m open to all perspectives. I’ll give anything a shot. I think of life as one giant spaghetti test, I just keep throwing noodles at the wall to see which ones stick. With that said, I think my time with the Stardusts is coming to an end. I seem to be on a different trajectory. I feel destined for… I don’t know, something big. I can feel it boiling just under the surface. That’s why I’ve been training, doing the thing I can’t talk about.”
“Why can’t you talk about it?”
“Thems the rules. This one ain’t mine, either,” he says, grabbing your other wrist.
“But you said you can show me. So, is this it?”
“No, not exactly. This is more like a test. If you pass, you’ll have one more test, then I’ll be able to show you.”
“You’re not just wasting my time?”
“If I was wasting your time, then I’d be wasting my time too, and I wouldn’t dare,” he says, and you believe him. “If you pass these tests, then you could be a serious asset whenever I go to fulfill my destiny. Trust me, it’ll be good for both of us.”
You nod, slightly terrified of what you’ve gotten yourself into. You try to put it out of your head.
Once your hands have been thoroughly taped, Karl slides on a couple punching mitts and motions for you to hit them. “Come on. Show me what you’ve got.”
You hunker down into a fighting stance and throw out a couple punches. Right away, he seems impressed, and you’re only just getting warmed up. After a few more rounds of punching, his eyes light up as bright as the surrounding torches.
“Outstanding!” he shouts. “Where the hell did you learn to throw a punch like that?”
You laugh, slightly embarrassed. “Well, prison, I guess. It’s sort of a requirement.”
“Hot damn! We have ourselves a fighter!” he shouts. “Poppy! Hey, Poppy! Get your ass out here and meet your next challenger!”
You throw your hands up, hoping to silence him. “What? No, no… I’m not interested in any fight. I literally got released hours ago. I’m not ready to go back to prison.”
“Relax,” he says, stepping out of the ring. “There aren’t any laws against boxing. It’s a sport. It’s not like a fistfight. Poppy doesn’t even have fists! Claws aren’t fists, are they?”
Karl disappears into the shadows looking for Poppy. A cold shiver runs down your spine. What the fuck is this Poppy? Some kind of mutant? Your imagination runs wild. Everything you’re visualizing is bad news. You don’t want any part of it.
You look back at the exit. It isn’t too late. You can leave before Karl and Poppy make it back to the ring. You can put all of this behind you.
But would you be sacrificing your true destiny? Is this the path you’re meant to walk? Is this where you belong?
— To fight Poppy, click here.
— To get the fuck out of there, click here. (coming soon)