Blasius was a decrepit old fellow who cared not for his fellow man but for his fellow man’s skill at brewing a fine pint of dark ale. The t-shirt and slovenly denim jeans belied the sophistication and well-bred demeanor that he claimed to possess with boisterous laugh and thunderous jest. His unshaven complexion (for this man was hirsutely blessed beyond compare) gave him an air of tramp and rogue, seeking places that were once common but now dwindled as the generations after him decided the fashion and appropriate social clubs of the day.
One such gathering place gained recognition for the refusal to assimilate (more due to cost of improvement than any notion of quaint old world charm), and it was in this establishment that Blasius was most likely to be found. It was The Karmen House, once owned by renowned and now deceased club owner Karmen Indehar and since owned by two business men, the first of which found that his dream of owning a social club was no longer his dream and the latter now old and not willing to depart with the only business he knew.
Although Blasius did not care for his fellow man he was keenly aware and drawn to his fellow woman, a number of which he personally addressed in his most charismatic manner. In this establishment, his Karmen as he called it, Blasius found the cure that he yearned for, and relished in the perceived company of the women who happened by, either alone or with escorts. One such occasion, the evening described herein, began with two young women flanked and petted by three older men, although only one of the men showed any amorous intent.
Blasius sat at a corner of the bar, a usual place to spend an evening although he could sometimes be found at a table where he appeared to sit and wait for a guest that would never come. “Oh ho!” bellowed Blasius at the sight of the group of men and women, “I see we are joined by a fine pair of lasses on this beautiful evening! Come, gentlemen and ladies, and take a seat at the peaceable end of the bar.”
“What, dude?” they asked of him.
“I am no ‘dude.’ I am Blasius! Now, come and join me.”
The group silently walked past to the back entrance as Blasius’s head rotated to follow them out through the door.
“Your clientele’s manners leave much to be desired, Jorge.”
“Yea,” said Jorge, the barman standing nearby but intently watching the game of fútbol on the television hanging overhead.
Blasius sat on the stool furthest from the door, near a place in the back corner where no light could penetrate and the back entrance door creaked wistfully. Blasius enjoyed the pleasant sound of creaking metal for reasons he did not care to explain. The cackle of a woman’s laughter also pleased him, and this he did feel the need to expound upon.
“Gets me all riled up.”
As the evening wore on, a woman of a good and decent age stepped into the bar. Strands of her hair, prepared in a top bun, hung loosely around her pale round face. The skin of her finely tailored yet obviously well-worn dress suit stretched in several good places and perhaps a few bad ones as she approached young Jorge who was busying himself with a plastic pitcher full of a lighter Belgian brew. Her manners were direct, unlike her passive voice.
“Hi,” she told him.
“Hello.”
“I wonder if you could do me a favor? My car is stalled outside and I need someone to help me push it.”
“Um, to help you push the car?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t right now, but if you wait a few minutes then maybe,” he replied.
“Well, perhaps someone else can help.” She peered into the farthest recesses of the club but was dismayed to see that there were not many patrons in The Karmen House that evening, and of the few that were present, none seemed capable of the task at hand.
The woman sighed and smiled in defeat at Jorge. She turned and was nearly out through the door when she heard a bellow echo from the far end of the bar. She turned to see Blasius standing before her, his hefty stomach peering out from beneath his t-shirt and a wry grin across his rounded face.
“Do you seek help, madam?”
She looked hesitantly toward Blasius and then at Jorge, who had already returned to the fútbol game.
“Well, yes… but it’s okay. Please, don’t bother yourself.” She turned to walk away but was once again stopped by a booming voice calling after her.
“Madam, wait! I am Blasius and I can help you. I could not help but overhear and I, a man of great physique and cunning, am more than a capable of assisting with your vehicle. Please, please, come sit and explain the situation. What exactly is the problem?”
The woman smiled nervously and appeared to be on the brink of escaping through the swinging wooden door, but paused and let out a long, exhausted breath. She moved strands of her hair behind her ear and then approached Blasius, who was once again seated, but did not sit down herself.
“Well, my car’s just stuck outside. I think it’s all this darn rain.”
“Yes, yes,” nodded Blasius. “Weather is a most temperamental mistress. Hers is the power to control our very way of life, as is the case with all women, hm?” He smiled and winked before drawing a mouthful of ale from his glass.
“It’s not that bad,” she said. “I really just need someone to help me push my car toward the curb.”
“Ah, so it is merely physical, manly strength that you require? Well, fear not! I am a man of great physical capability. Please, sit and allow me to ease your woes with a pint of ale before we see to the matter of your vehicle.”
“Um, no thanks.” She smiled nervously again. “I need to get going. If you could just come out and help me push the car…”
Blasius narrowed the slits of his large, globe-like eyelids. He paused and looked at his glass. The Karmen House became silent, and the woman looked about her more anxiously than before. She glanced back at Blasius who remained fixed on the pint glass before him, and he spoke.
“I know you, madam. You are a temptress: a seducer of men’s souls. We have already met. You are strong in your subversive strategies to subdue and overtake my very being but I am not one to fall. Do not attempt to entice me with your feminine wiles. I do not sway for the wind as does the weak young sapling growing among groves of equally weak brethren. I am the oak tree that stands in the field and observes over all of creation with the will of iron and stance of pride. A mere rock fails to capture the essence of what I have become after these long years of strength and vigor.
“I crossed the ocean as a young man and witnessed the freedom of men as they sailed their ships of wood and strode upon the back of the bare-chested visages of these sirens of the sea. How they spoke of women and knowing women and losing women and longing for women. Their goal was not to deliver goods or earn their wage but to find the objects of their desire. They lusted after them and wondered over them and wept in spite of them at crowded taverns at every port between the Americas and the great Western shores of Spain, France, and England. They paid for them and lost not only their souls but their dignity and their very being, the poor fools. It is a willful man that denies his obsession and a stupid man that denies the attraction altogether, for all men crave what men have craved since the dawn of the sun and the moon and the stars of heaven above. Those stars shone upon those men as they clamored out of the taverns with costly maidens in hand, eager to part the flesh and ease the soul.
“Beyond the Old World I bore witness to the wonders of middle Asia, where dark-skinned men of mysterious origin developed unholy cultures of magic and sorcery which they utilized in their attempts to control the indomitable spirit of Eve and make it their own. The fools! Their empires fell and they ceased to exist in their vainglorious attempts to dominate that which has known the purity of freedom. Our arrogance, madam, and your trustworthy legions of sirens! That is the reason for it all.
“Sirens of the sea, and sirens of the sand. I have seen the great deserts and crossed them with the determination of the American bulldog and the endurance of the great African camel. Through the deserts I witnessed men fall and perish beneath each other’s feet as they warred and toiled for the love of power, which they needed in order to win the affections of their subdued mistresses, for women are women no matter the culture.
“It was in the desert, in the lands of the House of Saud itself, where I witnessed your true power and contempt. It was the gathering of men that caught my attention. All dressed in thick layers, shielding themselves from the sun and sand even in the populated city-center in which they found themselves. Though unfamiliar with local customs I felt compelled to attend the spectacle that had garnered so much attention. A sideshow, perhaps, or a brawl? No such thing, madam, and as I tell my tale I fear you are already aware of its conclusion.
“Much to my disbelief, there was nothing more than a woman in the center of this crowd of ruffians! She was buried in the ground up to her shoulders, and a dark shroud covered her head and shielded her from the sun. All the men gathered around in a circle and before I could comprehend what I was witnessing they began to stone her! And the terror, the horror! The men believed they were beating the spirit out of that woman, but no. Her eyes, her horrible eyes. She cursed them all and they would perish horrible deaths, every one of them. She stared at me as the stones struck upon her and deformed her face until she could no longer physically stare into my soul. Do not, nay, dare not ask me why I did not look away for I have no answer that is satisfactory. If you wonder why I did not attempt to stop such cruelty then I must confess fear, for even men of great prowess must be humbled by their ineptitude.
“But here I am, madam. Alive, having survived my travels. My will is iron, my mind is stone. My body may succumb but by God I am stronger than the flesh and mightier than a sword. I stand atop the highest mountain and shout at the wind as it forces upon me its sweetest caressing breath and attempts to enter me and engulf my mind. I am a man. I will not succumb! I know the power you hold within you! Keep yourself!”
The woman stared at Blasius, as if waiting to be certain that Blasius had reached a conclusion to his rambling. She looked around her and no one else seemed to have noticed Blasius’s speech, or they did not care to listen. When a minute or more passed she asked Jorge for a shot of brandy, which she paid for, and then drank eagerly. She regained her composure and turned toward Blasius, who had just finished consuming the last of his ale.
“The car?”
Blasius nodded and stood, his head lowered.
“At your service, madam.” He plodded along ahead of her and held the door as she approached him.
“You know that you will not receive compensation in any form,” she said.
He waited for her to pass alongside him. “Your presence, madam, has been more than charitable.”