Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: The Bravest Thing ::
by The Gabe
Richard’s eyes popped open in the darkness, faint blue light crept in through his window from an all-night bar’s neon sign, and he could still feel the touch on his lips from a dream kiss. Sweat soaked the front of his tee shirt that he slept in and it gave him a chill. His accountant’s mind sifted through all the details of his dream; there had been hundreds of candles all shaped like roses surrounding he and Olivia, quite literally the woman of his dreams. They had danced a waltz or something like it. Tony Bennett sang for them. He rubbed his palms into his eyes and tried to focus on the clock on the VCR and stopped his hands in the air. He could almost feel the imprint on his palms of the silk of the dress she wore. It had been green, like her eyes.
He adjusted himself on his bed, trying to remember more details and he felt a stiffness in his shorts. He remembered she had wrapped a leg around his thigh. He closed his eyes and breathed in slowly through his nose; a hint of berry scent lingered, or at least he thought it did. That was the scent of the shampoo Olivia used. She had kissed him in his dream. He licked his lips slowly, hoping to get taste of her but he knew nothing would be there.
Olivia Reintorro was a young woman roughly his age, about 25, that had started coming into the same little restaurant he ate at for lunch. She sat next to him at the counter and ordered her food and introduced herself. She was one of those people who weren’t shy about talking to someone and suffered from what Richard liked to call a pathological need for friends. They talked for their whole lunch break and agreed to meet again the next day. Richard took it as a major victory since he was shy to a fault. And he thanked God for leaving the only empty stool in the restaurant next to him. Unfortunately, the next day all she talked about was her fabulous new boyfriend and how lucky she was to have found him. And so for that last two months Richard sat and talked and ate lunch with her, and felt himself fall, inch by inch, in love with her.
Throwing the sheets back from his body, Richard got up and went to the sock drawer of his bureau. He pushed things around until he felt the hard plastic of a videocassette. He carried it to his TV and pushed it into the VCR. The raunchy music of Playboy’s "Women in Uniform" video came up; it was no Tony Bennett, but it would have to do. After he finished what his dream had started he turned off the TV and tried to fall back asleep.
The next day, Richard sat in his small cubicle on the 16th floor of Holdcombe, Schlitzpar & Smith accounting firm staring at the fifty-six page print out of a fairly successful chocolate making business. He held previously read sheets up with one hand and absent-mindedly turned on and off the halogen light at his desk with his pencil. Every once in a while he made a check next to a line that he thought might need cross-referencing later.
He wondered what kinds of chocolates Olivia liked. Did she like cream filled ones? Click; the light went off, the only light he got now came from the "energy saving" bulbs ten feet over his head, and they cast awkward shadows of his arm and head over his papers. She had a bit of a wild streak in her, he thought she would like chocolate cherries. Click; the light came back on, shining down onto his papers, reflecting white onto his shirt and arms and he guessed his face. He wondered if she liked Hershey Kisses. He liked Kisses; he bought a bag for himself every Halloween. Click; the light went off, once again throwing strange shadows over his work. Maybe she would like it if he bought her a box of chocolates. He could show up for lunch one day with a package and she would clap her hands and smile like it was her birthday. Maybe she would leave her boyfriend over chocolates. He would kneel down like a man proposing, and offer her candies.
Click; the light came on again, he realized that he had come to the bottom of his page and he didn’t remember anything of what he just read. He blinked and stared at his pencil as though it had been turning the light on and off all by itself. With a frown, he wriggled in his seat, more to get blood flowing back to his butt than to get comfortable, and scanned the page for the last thing he remembered reading.
Olivia had arrived at Esperanza’s Kitchen and Diner before he did and had chosen a table near the windows; she said she liked to look at all the people who walked by. She said they never seemed to think anyone saw what they did. Esperanza’s was a nice little Mom and Pop establishment that had a wide variety of deli meats and hamburgers and a healthy selection of Italian foods. The place had a steady following of patrons, the regular lunch crowd and a few random passersby, mainly due to price and location. Olivia said she liked the quaint atmosphere of the place, from the bell that dangled over the door to the classic red-and-white checker-patterned tablecloths. Richard had started coming here since it was only three doors down the street from his office.
"So, why an accountant, I mean, isn’t it a little boring," she asked before taking a draw on her straw that was stuck into a bottle of Cherry Cola. They had been discussing her career as a fashion consultant and how much fun she had and about all the interesting people she met.
"I don’t know. I’m good at it, I guess." Richard shrugged and took a bite out of his turkey club sandwich. Olivia wrinkled her nose at him and drew her brows together. "I mean, I’ve always tested well with numbers," he said around a mouthful. "And, in college my advisor put me in those classes."
"So, if your advisor put you in drama classes you’d be an actor today?"
"Well, no. You know, aptitudes and stuff like that. It was just the easiest route for me so I went with it. It’s not a bad job; I don’t have any complaints. And not everyone can work in the fashion industries," he joked. She cocked her head to the side and squinted with her left eye.
"But, don’t you have any dreams?" His breath caught in his throat and pretended that he had a piece of bread stuck in his windpipe. He could tell her right then. He could confess everything to her; tell her that she was his dream. He could tell her that he thought about her every hour of every day. This was his chance, he could tell her.
And she could laugh in his face.
Richard focused on his sandwich and made a show of deciding which side to eat from.
"Like I said, I don’t have any complaints," he said finally, disappointed in himself yet relieved he didn’t say anything. Olivia stared at him for second, mouth hanging open slightly, and then began laughing, her eyes turning into little half-moons while she smiled. God, she’s so adorable, he thought.
"That’s what I like about you, Ricky, you’re so easy going. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you complain about anything. You have got to be the nicest guy I know. You are a sweetheart." Richard smiled and took a big bite out of his sandwich, lettuce and mayonnaise sticking to his lips. "Besides," she continued, "if you weren’t an accountant, we probably never would have met." She laughed and took another drink from the Cherry Cola. Richard smiled and swallowed.
"You read my mind."
"I had another dream about her the other night," Richard said to Walter, a fellow accountant from floor 16. Walter leaned his back against an unstable shelving unit stacked full with reams of copy paper and bottles of toner. The light bulb in the copy room flickered and cast uneven light over Walter’s grinning face. He shook his head at Richard, his brows rose together in concern.
"Who? That girl you’ve been having lunch with? What was her name, Olivia?" said Walter. Richard nodded and kept his eyes on the copy machine to make sure that it would collate his papers properly. "Man, you can’t keep doing this to yourself."
"It’s not like I have any control over it. I mean it was a dream." Richard shook his head and tried to pretend that Walter didn’t get it.
"But she’s got a boyfriend, doesn’t she?"
"Yeah. Steve. Good ol’ El Steve-o-roony."
"Are they solid? You know, think you could break them up?"
"Walter! I’m not going to do that." Although, he’d thought of many ways in which he could try. "No, she keeps telling me how happy she is with him. They just went away on a trip to some cottage in Vermont last weekend. I couldn’t take that happiness away from her."
"Vermont. Classy. Have you tried telling her about your feelings? You know, chicks really dig all that honesty shit," Walter said while trying to dig something from under his fingernail with pen cap.
"Getting advice on honesty from you, this is a new low for me." The copy machine jammed on a piece of paper and made a small high-pitched whine. A green light flickered on the console.
"Yeah, thanks," Walter said as Richard opened the front of the machine and pulled out the paper tray and stuck his hand into the vacant slot, making sure his digital watch didn’t get caught on anything. "Why do you meet with her everyday if you’re not going to make a move? Are you hoping, I don’t know, she comes to her senses or something?"
"I don’t know. I just like talking with her, you know? She makes me feel good just being there with her." She called me a sweetheart, he thought. Richard’s fingers found the clogged paper and wrapped around it.
"What, I don’t do that for you?" Richard yanked the paper out and bounced the crumpled mess off Walter’s nose. "Seriously, you should either tell her about it or stop seeing her all the time. What’s the use of all your feelings if she doesn’t know about them." Richard shut the front of the machine harder than he meant to and it made an angry clack. He didn’t look at Walter. "Oh, by the way, I won’t make it to the game tonight. I got a date. Talk to you later."
He knew Walter was right and it annoyed him. He stabbed the ‘resume’ button with his finger. Walter didn’t know what it was like to be lonely all the time. He didn’t know how it felt to be the guy sitting next to the dog at a New Year’s party. To be the "nice guy," covering for someone so they could go out and party or pick up the slack when someone comes in hung over, all without the boss knowing. To be Mr. Dependable; to be the safe, harmless guy. He didn’t understand how it felt to make a few new friends and watch them all leave to be with their regular friends, their top-tier buddies. To be the perpetual acquaintance, never quite making it to the status of friend.
But then he met Olivia. Beautiful Olivia who hadn’t thought twice about talking to him and actually listened to what he said. It was nice to have someone who was actually there with him, at least for an hour. It had quickly become his favorite part of the day and he usually spent his mornings thinking of things he could tell her about. Then he had begun daydreaming about her. About taking her to dinner or to the movies or cooking for her, always laughing. They were such beautiful dreams and he didn’t want them to stop. However much sense Walter made, Richard felt it was better to live in his colorful dreams than in his gray reality. He knew Olivia would never leave Steve for him, but he could still hope and he wasn’t prepared to give up that hope.
The copy machine light went off as the final page spat out the side and the humming finally died down. He reached down to pick up the stack of warm papers and noticed that his watch read 11:11. Ever since he was a kid, when a digital clock read all the same number it meant you could make a wish. He never really thought it worked but he put his hand over the watch, closed his eyes, and wished that Olivia Reintorro felt the same way about him as he felt about her. He opened his eyes and turned to leave the copy room. He had to get these documents to his supervisor and finish half the payroll account before lunch.
At Esperanza’s Kitchen and Diner, Richard drummed his fingers along the sides of the table as he impatiently waited for Olivia’s arrival. He had picked a table that faced the door so he could see her coming but was near the back of the room. He didn’t exactly know why, but it made him feel good to see her face light up when she had to look for and find him in the crowd. He already ordered water and bread rolls for himself and Olivia, checked his breath and made sure his hair wasn’t sticking up in the back. He busied himself with drumming on the table, until a patron at the bar turned to glare at him to stop.
And then he saw her walk past the plate glass window that bore the reversed word Esperanza’s. Her strawberry blonde hair blew behind her slightly in the breeze and stylish black sunglasses covered eyes that he knew to be green. She wore a brilliant red jacket and dark skirt to her knees. Richard studied her profile in the seconds it took her to cross the window. The delicate strength of her jaw-line, her soft red-painted lips pressed together almost to the point of pursing, the gentle curve of her brow as it melted into her slightly angular nose. She turned toward the door and grabbed the handle.
She stood in the doorway for a second and removed her sunglasses, revealing to all in the restaurant her clear green eyes, scanning the room for him. Richard clasped his hands in front of his mouth to hide a smile. She chewed on her bottom lip while she searched and when she found him she threw her hand in the air to wave and mouthed the words, "There you are!" She held her purse out of the way as she made her way through the crowd on high-heeled shoes. She stopped once to apologize to a bald old man eating alone whose head she hit with her bag, and Richard strained not to laugh out loud.
"Hey, Ricky," she said as she sat down, smiling. Richard noticed that she didn’t take her jacket off. The air was cooling outside but it was certainly warm enough in here. Instead of saying anything about it he took a sip from his water.
"You look good today," he said. "New shoes?"
"Oh, thanks," she said looking down at her heel. "You’re such a sweetheart. Steve bought them for me in Vermont. They have such cute little stores over there." Richard’s smile floundered for a moment when Olivia mentioned Steve’s name, luckily she was looking down at her shoes.
"That’s…that’s great," said Richard as he tried to think of a segue to an anecdote he had thought of about a repairman at the office who knocked his ladder over while working on an air duct ten feet up and got stuck hanging there for five minutes. "Are you going to have your usual? I’ll get the waiter."
"No, Ricky, I won’t be staying," she said as she slumped her shoulders and gave him a half-smile. Her eyebrows rose apologetically.
"Oh…"
"Steve wanted to meet me for lunch today at that new French restaurant Pierre. I tried to call you at work but you’d already left. I’m sorry, I didn’t want to leave you high and dry." He must have been frowning at her, maybe even scowling, because suddenly her face pinched with guilt. Even with that pathetic expression she looked beautiful.
"Oh…Hey, hey, don’t worry about it." He stared into his water and dipped a finger into it.
"Ricky…"
"No, no, go be with your boyfriend. How often do you get to eat at a fancy French restaurant instead of this old greasy spoon." He gestured to his surroundings with his other hand and refused to look her in the eye.
"Are you sure? I feel bad about this. I could…I mean, we’ve been having lunch together for the last two months." Two months and six days, thought Richard. He pulled his numb finger out of the water and wiped it on the napkin in his lap.
"It’s not like I’ve never eaten alone before, I’m sure I can handle it. Go on. Go zee dee Frrrenchman preparrre dee flambay!" She laughed at his poor attempt at a French accent and he picked at a loose piece of wicker from the breadbasket.
"Thanks, Ricky. See you tomorrow," she said as she threatened him with her index finger, her verdant eyes daring him to not show up tomorrow. He held his hands up in surrender.
"Hey, that’s up to you."
"Oh, I’ll be here. You better believe I’ll be here." She laughed lightly and smiled sweetly at him as she got up and pulled her sunglasses out of her jacket and slid them on. They said goodbye and she turned and her way back through the crowd, once again nudging the same bald man with her bag and he glared at her all the way to the door. She pushed the door open and left. She looked up and down the street, pointed in one direction, as she seemed to talk to herself, and followed her finger in the direction it had chosen.
"At least she cared enough to come tell me," he whispered under his breath and he reached for the menu. A second after Olivia walked out of his view and man in a black leather jacket, cheeks full of dark stubble and had his head tilted back so he looked down his nose as he moved, walked by the store in the same direction as her. He looked like a leg-breaker Mafia guy that he saw in the movies all the time.
Richard stared after the man; he seemed to be walking pretty close to Olivia. Richard’s imagination took over as he pulled the menu up before his eyes, not really seeing it. What if that guy was after her? Some mugger or rapist that thought Olivia would make an easy mark. But he would protect her. He would come up behind the man who would have his knife raised, prepared to do whatever evil deed he had intended. It would be a spectacular fight, one to rival any Rocky movie or Van Dame flick. Righteousness would be on his side and enable him to meet the evil man blow for blow, eventually wearing the fiend down and beating him. The man would scurry off into the dark entrance of an alleyway and Olivia would be breathless and impressed, unable to take her eyes away from her savior. She would forget about Steve and she would go with him, bleeding from his lips and multiple cuts on his face, to lunch at the fanciest, most expensive restaurant in the city.
"Your lady cut out on you," asked a waiter who had appeared at Richard’s shoulder. The guy must have been new to mistake Olivia as his girlfriend. He was about to correct him when something twisted inside his chest and stopped the words on his lips. It sounded so good to have someone think of her as his girlfriend.
"She’s just a friend," said Richard. He didn’t think Olivia would appreciate it if he let the restaurant think they were dating. It seemed the right thing to do. He stared at the empty doorway for a second, hoping that she had changed her mind and was on her way back. He knew she wasn’t coming, he couldn’t even convince himself of that hope. "I’ll have a turkey club sandwich, hold the tomato." It was his usual, but the new guy wouldn’t know that. Richard handed the menu back to the waiter. The waiter nodded and smiled, told him it would ready in a few minutes. Before the waiter had moved very far Richard grabbed his sleeve. "You think you could make that a to go order? I just remembered I have some more stuff to do at work." The waiter agreed and left, leaving Richard to stare at the empty doorway and wait.
At his apartment, a three-room pad (kitchen, living room, bedroom, plus bathroom) painted in duck-egg blue, Richard rinsed and dried the last of his dishes. He had cooked himself a meal his mother had taught him years ago when he left for college; it was salmon in a white sauce over cooked pasta. It was a meal as easy to prepare for one as it was for five. As he dried his plate he wondered if Olivia liked salmon.
He walked into his small living room, barely long enough for the green fake-leather couch and end table, the table a steal at Wal-Mart for $15. The carpet was off-white, not quite beige, but he wasn’t sure if that was by design or neglect. He had toyed with the notion of renting a carpet cleaner but had decided he could tolerate it. A well placed chair and coffee table took care of the worst. An entertainment system and cabinet occupied the entire right wall, extending from the floor to the ceiling. He had a nice 35" TV, VCR, DVD and 5-disc CD player, plus a good size collection for each system; his electronics were his hobbies. Richard sat down on his sofa and puffed out his cheeks. It had been a long day; he was tired and still disappointed that Olivia had left. Walter wasn’t even coming over for their game. Four remote controls sat on the coffee table in front of him and it posed a real problem for him right then to pick one. After a minute of finger drumming and quick game of Eeny-Meeny-Miny-Moe, he decided on the stereo.
He picked up the appropriate remote, leaned back on his sofa, closed his eyes, and let his fingers, which had memorized the location of all the significant buttons, set the machine to random play. After a second of silence, except for a slight hiss from his speakers as the disc readied itself, Richard’s eyes popped open to the loud organ music exploding from the surround-sound system he had set up. He instantly recognized the overture of "The Phantom of the Opera" and smiled. He had forgotten he had that CD in there. He quickly switched the CD player to stay on this disc and tossed the remote back onto the table. He drummed the melody on his knee and swayed his head to the crescendos and diminuendos. His heart kept time with the organ’s pounding rhythm. "BAH bah-dah-BAH bah-dah-BAH bah-dah-Bah-dah-bah-dah-BAH…" It kept repeating and he felt himself get swept away by the driving, sinister music.
Suddenly, the driving music stopped on a harsh tone. He heard the CD player shuffle things around and Sarah Brightman’s voice flitted to him through the speakers, sweet, pure, and strong. A piano accompanied her softly, completing the angelic sound, as she sang "Think of me." Richard stood up from the couch and began to slowly dance to the music, sliding the coffee table over with his foot. He imagined Olivia was there with him, still in her red jacket and dark skirt, her sunglasses in her hair as though it were a headband, holding the hair from her face. He held his hand out for her and he imagined she would take it, smiling broadly up at him. He would pull her close and imagined the scent of her beautiful hair. He danced in a circle by himself and he almost heard the rustle of her jacket as he spun her in his mind. "Think of me; think of me fondly…" sang the CD and he imagined that Olivia was whispering the same to him. Richard closed his eyes and swayed with the music, singing the words softly into the air, hoping she could hear them.
The music slowed and died but Richard didn’t open his eyes, he waited for the CD to shuffle and play again. Gentle strings and a quiet piano eased slowly from his speakers and Michael Crawford’s voice sang delicately and reverently of "The Music of the Night." Richard sang along, pretended to cast his spell of love and illusion over Olivia. He loved this particular song; it seemed to tell him that one could achieve anything as long as one believed hard enough.
Richard made his small living room his stage, acting out each track, really getting into the character of the Phantom when his voice came out. Richard craved the respect given to the Phantom; he wanted to direct the housemasters to do his bidding as well. He wanted Raoul to run and hide, leave Christine to him. Raoul was young and handsome; he could have any woman he wanted, why did he want the only woman that mattered to him? Richard was the Phantom, he controlled the darkness. If Raoul wouldn’t leave, then he would make him leave. He would turn the Punjab Lasso on him, he would string him up like a— "This is the choice! This is the point of no return!" screamed the Phantom, demanding Christine to choose between Raoul’s death and life with him.
Richard stood in the middle of his small living room with his hand raised in the air and mouth open wide, singing loudly with the music, when he realized what he was doing. He was daydreaming about Olivia again, but this was the first time he ever saw himself as the villain. He took a slow step towards the couch and let himself flop onto it. When had he become the villain in his dreams? The CD player stopped, shuffled and "Music of the Night" came up again. Richard knew he hadn’t actually done anything, but he felt he related so well to the Phantom’s trouble that he could rationalize his wanting to kill Raoul. He closed his eyes again and rubbed his hand across his forehead as he sank into the soft cushions of his fake leather couch, he tried to relax. Michael Crawford sang once more of surrendering to his seductive music, there was no point in resisting, but Richard felt ill. He admitted to himself he was obsessed and he didn’t want to be. He wanted his love for Olivia to be pure, innocent.
He lay there, motionless on his couch inside his small apartment, and he tried to think of nothing, tried to keep his loneliness at bay. The song still played but he didn’t listen to it, he reached for the remote to turn it off when some of the words pierced the worry in his brain.
"Close your eyes because the truth isn’t what you want to see. In the darkness it is easy to pretend that the truth is what it ought to be."
Richard’s arm froze, aimed at turning off the CD player, and he listened to the words that illuminated a truth he didn’t want to face. He didn’t know where it came from, but his body was racked by wave after wave of emotion and tears. He couldn’t control it. He couldn’t decide if he was crying because he was lonely or scared or angry or just plain lost.
He pulled some tissues from a box he had on his end table, blew his nose and wiped his eyes. He knew he couldn’t live in his dreams any longer, they seemed hollow and cheap, devoid of color and life. They weren’t safe anymore. But at the same time he was very frightened of what that meant. It meant he had to talk to Olivia and tell her how he felt. It meant he had to be prepared for her rejection. It meant he had to be prepared for her acceptance. Unlikely as it sounded, he was actually more afraid of that than her rejection. He wanted it, but he was afraid of it, he was afraid he wouldn’t know what to do with it. His body shuddered and he wrapped his arms around himself, trying to give himself comfort. Reaching into the lamp on the end table, Richard turned it off. He rolled onto his side in the darkness, and tried to fall asleep between sobs.
He sat at the same table as he sat yesterday, towards the back facing the door, but he didn’t watch for her to come in. He busied himself with his napkin in his lap, twisting the corners to make it look like a four-pointed star. He tried to think how he was going to word it. Should he just flat out and tell her, or should he try and tell her in some poetic fashion? He imagined what it would be like if she said yes. Would she tell him she felt the same way for a long time? Would she jump into his lap and run her fingers through his hair? Would she let him kiss her? No, he couldn’t do that to himself anymore. He had to be ready for when she would say no. He wondered if he would calm, or if he would have to leave or if she would leave. If she did leave would he follow her? He wiped his sweaty hands on his pants and fiddled with a button on his shirt.
"Ricky," Olivia said, standing right over him with a concerned look on her face. She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear with a finger and her clear green eyes questioned him. He thought his heart was going to stop. "You okay? I’ve been calling your name since I walked in but you never looked at me."
"Olivia, I’m in love with you."
She looked down at him, her mouth hung open slightly and her head tilted to the side a fraction of an inch, but she didn’t say anything. His words hung in the air between them and Richard looked her right in the eyes, unafraid; fear no longer mattered. He was an accountant; he worked in a cubicle and collected DVDs, his life was uneventful. He knew he would never rescue a damsel in distress or torment an opera house. Yes or no, Richard knew he had just done the bravest thing he would ever do in his entire life.
