The Ogre 13 (Patreon)

It was dark inside the Jazz club, but it had a certain elegance to it, a classic style. It was like a scene out of the movies, with a high ceiling, lots of wood décor, red velvet curtains, and soft undertone lighting. I was paying more attention to the architecture than the people since it was the only thing that could keep me calm.

We were easily the youngest people here, and even though I knew it was foolish I couldn’t help but think the police would bust down the door any second now and take us in for underage drinking. We sat at a table that had a good view of the stage. The waiter eventually came over and I just froze. He said something, but the words sounded muffled as my heart beat in my ear. He handed us two menus as Holly greeted him with familiarity. At least the prices here weren’t too bad… oh crap I was going to have to pay wasn’t I?

“Holly…” I forced out of my dry mouth. “Why did you tell the doorman I was your boyfriend?”

“Because then no one will question your age stupid!” Holly said in a hushed voice. If I called you my brother or cousin, people would notice that you are a nerd with the body of an anemic five year old. People here know me and they know I wouldn’t go out with a little baby weakling OK?” The waiter circled around to us again and Holly ordered without even looking at the menu. “I’ll have the porterhouse steak medium rare please?” she said in a shockingly polite manner.

“And for you sir? Anything to drink?” the waiter asked.

“I’ll have a grape ju-“

“WEEEE… will have a bottle of wine, Pinot Noir, one of the California Reserve if you still have them,” Holly interrupted.

“Very good miss. And for dinner?” the waiter said looking at me.

“Uh, I need…” I said in a raspy and nervous voice. “I need some more time to order.”

“Very good sir. The waiter said. I’ll be right back with your wine order.”

Holly rolled her eyes. “Can you not embarrass me in front of Jeeves?”

“The waiter’s name is Jeeves?” I asked.

“No, stupid! It’s a nickname because he puts on the whole ‘very good sir’ refined act for newbies. He’s screwing with you! I’ve seen him knock a guy out for hitting on a waitress before.”

“O… oh… so even the staff is dangerous…” I said.

“HAH, dangerous. Nah. People here just don’t take shit. They protect their own you know?”

A minute later Jeeves came back with the wine, pouring us each a glass.

“Well, bottoms up. Wanna toast? A promotion from worm to date?” Holly laughed.

“I don’t really feel comfortable drinking… can’t I just order a juice?”

“We are not going to order you a goddamn juice Ty!”

Did… she just call me by my name?

“We want them to think you are of legal age, alright? Look, just take a tiny sip and I’ll drink the rest. My mutation lets me handle a lot of drink OK?”

“Your mutation?”

“And experience… and my general physique. Look drink your damn wine!”

That was all the coaxing I needed. I took a sip of the wine. It was… more bitter than I expected. The tanginess burned my throat. Maybe I wasn’t a wine person… Meanwhile, Holly was sipping it, swishing it in her mouth, swirling it in her glass like she knew what she was doing.

“I’m… surprised you brought me here…” I said. “I didn’t think you were a jazz and wine person. I would have thought you were more into, I don’t know, death metal?”

“Ever hear the phrase don’t judge a book by its cover?” she said. “You’re pretty prejudiced, you know?”

“Hey! Weren’t you the one who said on the first day I met you, ‘what you see is what you get’”

“Yeah! Because you were being prejudiced then too!” she said, finishing a glass of wine and clinking it back down on the table.

“What!? I just wanted to help…”

“Exactly,” she said taking the bottle and pouring herself another glass. “You assumed I was some misunderstood mutant with a heart of gold trapped in a monster’s body.” She took another sip and savored the taste. “That’s just as bad as assuming I am some uncultured thug.”

“Then what are you?” I asked.

“What you see is what you get, just like I said on the first day. I like to work out. I like to protect myself. But I also like jazz and I have good taste in wine. People are complex. That’s why I like it here. These people get that.”

“Do you come here often?” I asked. “You all seem to be on a first name basis…”

“I did, for a while,” she answered, sitting up in her chair and looking at the ceiling. She was lost in thought for a while. “Look, I think we have an alright relationship, so I’m gonna let you in on a secret. You remember what I told you about the truck?” she said, gesturing to her scar.

“Yes, of course I do,” I replied.

“I was crossing an avenue. I had just argued with my stupid parents, right before they got divorced.” She took a deep breath, like the story was hard to tell. “My grandpa had just died. He was the only one who respected me. He was a prize fighter, ya know that? Back in the day they called him ‘Mad Muscle Micky.’ Had a permanently busted up face from all his fights, tattoos on his arms. Survived longer than we ever thought he did after all the blows to the head.”

My face had gone white, knowing that Holly had a history of fighting in her family. She must have noticed because she quickly moved on.

“Anyway… gramps… he was the only one who really, who really didn’t care what I looked like, you know? My parents… they didn’t have what it takes to raise a mutant. They wanted to just have a normal life. So when the kids started picking on me in school they… well… they didn’t help much.”

She laughed taking another sip of her wine. “They used to tell me to keep my head down. Just let them say whatever, maybe they will get bored. But gramps. Gramps told me to just sock em, give em one good pop and they’d never bother me again… so I did. The kids kept pointing at me, calling me Shrek… how imaginative…”

I thought back to how they called me Donkey and Burro just because I was friends with Holly… I saw her point.

“And I got tired of it. So I started getting into fights. But each time I got into a fight, my parents did too. They yelled at each other, which made life suck at home, so I took it out on the kids, and got into more fights, which made home life even worse. And when gramps died… I had nowhere to turn to… you know.”

Holly looked… sad for once. Not angry. Not upset. Just… genuinely sad. The harsh features of her face softened. She didn’t look like “The Ogre” anymore just… someone who had been having a rough time.

“During a particularly bad fight my mom snapped at me. Told me it was all my fault. Because I was a mutant and a thug, I was costing her everything… So I ran away. If she didn’t want me, then I didn’t want to be near her. I just ran, off to wherever I could go, without even thinking.

Then, before I know it, I’m in the middle of a crosswalk and this big truck is coming right at me, and I mean really big, biggest one I had ever seen. It was like slow motion. I saw it coming at me and I froze. I knew I could have dodged it. Just jumped to the side… but…”

“But what?” I said, my question lingering in the air.

“I thought… maybe this was fate you know? Gramps was gone. School was torture. My mom hated me. Maybe I could just… let it hit me. End it all…”

Holly put down her drink. It looked like she was holding back tears.

“It was hard… ya know? It was the hardest blow I ever took. I was already strong… not as strong as I am now… but pretty strong ya know? I didn’t think I was strong enough to take a whole truck head on… HAH… but guess what… the truck lost. It hit me. I flew back god I don’t know how many meters. There was blood everywhere. But the truck was dented so bad its engine shut down. Did you know my blood is green? It’s pretty crazy!” she said forcing a giggle.

“The steak, for the lovely lady,” Jeeves said as he brought out Holly’s food. “And, have you decided sir?”

“I… think I’ll have the steak too, rare please.”

“A fine choice sir,” Jeeves said.

“Hah, trying to be tough?” Holly asked.

“No. I just like my steak rare. People have layers right?”

“They sure do,” she said with a grin. “Anyway, where was I. Oh yeah, so I got hit by this truck, and I end up in a coma. Hospitalized for a month. They said it would have killed any normal person, even most mutants, but here I was, healing fast. My parents wanted to sue the delivery company, but they ended up settling out of court. Pretty hefty chunk too. And that was all they needed to finally go their separate ways. My dad got a third of the settlement. My mom got another third. And a final third was for me.”

“Wow. That’s… quite a story,” I said attempting to sip the wine again. I couldn’t help but wince at the tang, and Holly held back her laughter as she saw me try to power through the sting of the alcohol.

“Yeah, hah, well I’m not done. You know you shouldn’t give a kid money?”

I looked at her skeptically, looked down to my wallet with my rainy day fund, looked back to her.

“You do see the irony in that statement right?”

“Shut up…” Holly moaned. “What I mean is that a good portion of the settlement was locked away in an account for my ‘future’ but the rest was just mine to spend, and I spent it foolishly. I had already missed a good chunk of the school year, so I just started blowing my money going to clubs, getting in fights. Rock clubs suck. Dance clubs suck. Everyone’s always hitting on you or trying to punch you. It’s the worst.” She finished her glass with a delighted sigh and looked around. “But then I found this place. Here, they don’t judge me for who I am. They don’t ask me to be nice. Or to smile. Or to keep it down. And if someone comes in and starts something, they don’t mind if I give em a good punch. I like the atmosphere here. I think gramps would have liked it too.”

“Sounds like he would have,” I said, trying to be supportive.

“And the more I came, the more I just got into the music, you know. I laughed with the big band music, cried with the blues. It was great. But then one day some assholes come in, some shitty business men wearing shitty suits, insulting the waiters, trashing the band, and of course, hitting on me, the local ogre. Ya wanna know what I did?”

“You beat them up?” I asked.

“Of course I beat them up! HAH! Wasn’t only me though. Even Jeeves got in on it. We gave em what for, busted up their group, sent em packing. Only problem is, we kinda messed up the club in the process. Broke some tables. Shattered some bottles. It was gonna take a lot to repair. So I did the only thing I could think of doing. I gave em the rest of my money. It was enough to get the place fixed up… but then I didn’t have any money left to come here so, you know, I stopped coming. Nice that they remembered me all this time though.”

Holly had such a huge smile on her face. She was ecstatic to be here. This seemed to feel more like home to her than any other place. Heck, she was smiling brighter than when she beat me up in training. She looked pretty, softly lighted by the clubs dim lighting. I liked it when she smiled.

We continued eating as the night went on. I had to admit, the steak was damn good. I could see why Holly liked coming here. I still couldn’t stomach the alcohol though. Holly was nice enough to order me a glass of water so I didn’t die of thirst.

Eventually the band came on and they started playing that Big Band music that Holly said she liked so much. She clapped both sets of her hands to the beat. Holly was into each and every song, hollering along as the crowd got rowdy to the music. The band was sensational. I never liked jazz music before but even I couldn’t help tapping my feet to the beat.

Between sets the soloist took to the mic to address the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, today we have a very special visitor that we have missed for a very long time. Holy Moly its Holly Molly!” Upon announcing her she stood up and the whole crowd applauded, like she was some celebrity. “How about you come up on here and join us on stage, like in the old days?”

Holly smiles and shouted out to the band, “You know I’m always ready!” She practically ran up on stage, grabbed a microphone, and began to sing! What the hell? I didn’t know Holly could sing! I heard her break into a rendition of “I’m Beginning to See the Light” and my mouth just hung slack jawed. What the heck was going on! I felt like I had been transported into a parallel universe. Holly might have looked like an ogre but she had the voice of an angel.

In the middle of the song, Jeeves the waited came up to the table. “Hey kid,” he said in a thick New York accent, very different from the proper almost British accent he had been using the rest of the night. “You treat her right, ya feel me? She’s been through a lot. She don’t need any more on her plate,” he said patting me on the back.

“Y-yes sir, of course sir!” I said.

“Good good. Glad Holly’s finally got someone lookin out for her. I’ll be right back with your grape juice… right?” He laughed and gave me a wink saying “stay classy kid,” as he returned to the bar.

A few moments later the performance ended, and the crowd erupted into applause. Holly hugged and thanked the musicians before walking back to our table, flirtatiously wiggling her hips before she sat down.

“Wow, Holly, wow that… that was amazing I can hardly believe it!” I said in surpise.

“What can I say, people have layers,” she said with a smile.

“They sure do,” I responded with a smile just as big.

“Oh and Ty,” her smiling face suddenly seemed a bit more… dangerous. “If you tell anyone about this night, anyone, at school or anywhere else, I will kill you, and they will never find the body.”

…. Well at least I had just verified that we are in the same universe afterall.