Tales from Jackson's - Of Mutants and Men

May 2066. Sambiong is drinking his soul till blacking out at Jackson's, Vince premium café. What should have been the happiest event has caused him to drown in a sea of worries instead. In a world where mutants are an ostracized minority, how could someone like him find happiness? Not wanting to see him suffer, Vince decide to takes the matters in his own hands and try to comfort his tiger hybrid friend...

(Proofread and edited by Kaleb O'Halloran)

“Another one, Vince.”

Jackson shook his head as he wiped down an empty glass with a cloth, his featureless eyes still somehow being reflected by its clear surface.

“Sorry, but no. You clearly can’t handle it.”

“Just one more, please? Please?!”

Jackson sighed wearily. He placed the empty glass on the counter and sat down, focusing his attention on the begging customer. Jackson knew him well enough – Tiger Sambiong, a muscular tigerman in his late twenties, and leader of the military group Delta Team. His feline features made him stick out among Jackson’s usual customers, his yellow fur covered in a bizarre, semi-regular pattern of black stripes. His eyes were but narrow slits, obscured by a thick brow. He was wearing some fairly ordinary clothes – a plain white t-shirt, a leather jacket, brown jeans, and heavy, military-grade boots. And right now, he was incredibly drunk, his gloved hand trembling around a pint glass he had been drinking from all night.

“Sambiong, at this rate another one will send you directly to the hospital. You do realize that, right? I’d rather not have to explain to your wife why I didn't stop you before you fell into an alcohol-induced coma.”

Sambiong slumped down in his stool, clutching his head in his hands.

“Leave Amy out of this and please just give me another damn drink. I need it, Vince. I don't want to think right now. I need to shut down my stupid brain. If I start thinking again, I'll... ugh... I don't know what I'm gonna do, Vince. I just... don't know.”

Jackson pushed up his hat. He'd never seen Sambiong in such a sorry state. Hell, he'd never seen him drink anything more alcoholic than still water, up until now. When he placed his first order of the evening – one pint of Guinness mixed with scotch – Jackson nearly dropped the dish he was cleaning. He had shaken his head in disbelief, asking the tigerman to repeat himself... then asked again to make sure his ears hadn’t deceived him the first two times. Sambiong drinking alcohol was perhaps a rarer event than witnessing a meteor in the shape of a unicorn explode into fireworks over Buckingham Palace. And, to Jackson's knowledge, that had only happened once or twice in the entire history of the United Kingdom. He stared briefly at Sambiong, before lifting up his chin with two fingers.

“You want to talk about it, maybe? I can’t promise I can give you great advice, but anything would be better than letting you sink into an ethyl depression. I really don't need another drunken idiot in my bar.”

Saying that, he very blatantly pointed his thumb towards the snoring, shapeless mass hugging the counter to Sambiong's right – the slumped body of a certain sharkman, evidently asleep after throwing up his soul in episodic installments for the last hour or so. Sambiong looked quizzically at the shark, silently listening to the sawmill-level noise emitted by his gaping mouth, and watching in mild disgust as saliva dripped onto the wooden countertop from his massive, toothy jaw.

“Does he... always end up like this?”

“Oh God, I wish. At least this time, we don’t have to endure him dancing naked on the pool table in front of a group of horrified underage customers, while singing Japanese pop songs and beating his beer glass like a drum... which he played with a rather peculiar drumstick.”

Sambiong stared at Jackson, his narrow eyes suddenly wide open.

“You’re bullshitting me.”

“If only. You can ask the local vice squad. They were just as shocked as you. I offered them all some free vodka to forget about it. They all took it.”

For a brief moment, the distraught tigerman's mind was flooded with countless grotesque images of Shaz’s burly body in that incredibly specific situation. He violently shook his head and began punching the side of it with renewed fury, in an attempt to quickly purge the abhorrent image the faceless man had planted in his poor, unsuspecting mind. If someone were to make out any details on Jackson's mouth, they would have noticed a dry, devious smile.

“So, anyway, what’s the matter, Sambiong? What made you suddenly embrace the bottle?”

Sambiong sighed, and slowly raised his head.

“Alright, Vince. Guess I gotta spit it out. Amy...”

He stopped for a long second, trying to gather the courage to spit out the words.

“Amy is pregnant.”

Jackson tipped his hat. He took another glass and began cleaning it.

“I would say ‘congratulations,’ but I assume that’s the last thing you want to hear from me right now.”

“You’d be right, Vince. This... this shouldn't have happened.”

Sambiong wrapped his hands over his head, lowering his gaze once again.

“Kids. With Amy. Hybrid kids. HELL no! No, no, no!”

His voice shifted in pitch, now filled with utter despair.

“Mutants... monsters like me should go extinct, not thrive! I don't want my species to live on! It has to end, we’re all nothing but abominations! I thought I was sterile, Vince, I really thought I was! I thought for sure that the bastard that created me didn't have the slightest idea how to make us genetically compatible with real humans! Hell, I was more human than what was left of him! We were expendable soldiers, Vince! Shock troopers! Why make us compatible with humans at all?! WHY?!”

Jackson shrugged.

“Good question. But there's a simple, trivial answer: when in doubt, use a condom. Safe and sound.”

Sambiong clenched his teeth, putting his head in his hand.

“Gee, thanks for the tip. Very useful. But I mean, seriously, what was the chance that we could even produce children in the first place?! That’s just absurd! As unlikely as–”

“You can't play the unlikely card, you know that, right? The longer life goes, the crazier it will get. We’re all living on borrowed time as is, in this twisted reality of ours. You and I know that better than most. We can’t constantly trouble ourselves with questions or what-if’s... we just have to accept that sometimes, these things are going to happen.”

Jackson took the glass he had been cleaning and filled it with a hot beverage, before handing it to Sambiong.

“It's just hot tea. Don't get your hopes up.”

Sambiong took a sip of the tea, keeping the glass in his paws. He exhaled deeply.

“...Thanks, Vince.”

Jackson tipped his hat again, moving to sit next to Sambiong.

“What does Amy think? What’s her stance on it?”

“...She’s happy. Really happy, even. I've only seen her that happy before on our wedding day... and the wedding night, of course. She was so excited when she found out she was pregnant, Vince. She hugged me, kissed me. She started crying from sheer joy. And well... I...”

“You were shocked.”

“Yeah. I couldn't think straight. I couldn't do anything. I tried my best to fake it, to act like I was happy too, but...”

“She noticed it?”

“I guess so. But she didn't say a word. She just... kept going. Trying to give me some of her own joy through osmosis, I think. I kissed her, I hugged her... and in the end, I still came here, alone. To think. Or, more aptly, to avoid thinking.”

Jackson patted his shoulder reassuringly.

“To be honest, family is something I have no experience with, at least not that I remember. I sometimes wish some of those memories would come back to me. You're lucky to have someone who loves you so much, Sambiong. And she's lucky to have you.”

“Me? A good-for-nothing mutant scum who went and got himself ass-drunk the day his wife told him he's going to be a father?”

Jackson rolled his eyes.

“Come on now, not even Ange would say something like that. Don’t get me wrong, he hates mutants with a passion – and he’s killed his fair share of them. But even someone like him makes an exception just for you, because he knows you’re not a bad guy... well, he also makes an exception for this sorry excuse of a drunken sharkman, but that’s just because he thinks he’s funny. I wonder if he’d have thought as much if he were here yesterday, during that impromptu strip-dance...”

Sambiong sneered.

“Ange, huh? Speaking of dysfunctional families... I wonder how him and Cyphr get along nowadays.”

“They don't. And that is why their relationship works.”

They both chuckled a bit. Sambiong took another sip of his tea, his mind slowly starting to overcome the drowsiness caused by the booze. He was finally returning to his usual, sharp-minded self.

“...Will it be a boy, or a girl? Something else entirely? Maybe even twins? What will they look like, Vince? Will they be human? More like me? Some completely new species? There’s too many questions flooding my mind, all at once...”

“I can tell you one thing for sure: if one of your kids grows up to be some one-of-a-kind sexy cat girl, you best not let Mr. Daevka find out, or he’ll call dibs on her as a ‘performer’ when she comes of age. Just you wait, he’ll come knocking on your door the instant she turns eighteen.”

Sambiong laughed.

“Ha, I wouldn't expect anything less from that old creep!”

Sambiong began to look around. At the snoring shark man, at all the other customers around the venue. Many people were staring at him, his mutated body. Some with curiosity, some with disdain. It was like being in a zoo. Every day of his life was like that for him. Jackson followed his gaze, tipping his hat. He didn’t need to have it spelled out for him. He immediately understood what Sambiong was thinking: that, for his children, it would be no different. That they would be mocked for their appearance, discriminated against, casually insulted by schoolmates and parents alike. He understood the tigerman’s doubts. He understood why he couldn't feel truly happy about this. Sambiong was looking far forward, over the horizon, instead of directly at it. As usual. His thinking wasn’t necessarily true, though – things could get better. The question was how. Even now, Sambiong was still receiving countless death threats, simply for being the first mutant to have officially married a human. Amy herself was denounced as a furry bitch and a slut in news headlines and on public television, mostly by unhinged supporters of the most right-wing parties. Jackson recalled the day of their wedding, as well; a protester started shouting obscenities at her as she walked inside the church, wrapped in her white, silken dress. Seconds later, that same man found himself kissing the dirt on the church's courtyard, missing a good few teeth. He never knew what hit him. Amy didn’t particularly feel like explaining to him how she threw him to the ground using his own momentum, so she didn't bother. In any case, Jackson was starting to see a more complete picture of Sambiong’s troubles now. He let out a heavy sigh.

“You know what, Sambiong? You're right to be worried. The world is crazy. Just insane, if you ask me. Wars, famine, racism, idiotic drunken sharkmen, and a bunch of organized morons trying to shut down the distortion plants after what happened in Euterpe. All at the same time. If I sired children, I wouldn't want them to live in this chaos, either. I can't even imagine how it would be for mutant children. But, think about it, Sambiong. You've already broken the system, haven’t you? You've married Amy. You live together. You’re happy together. You defied the arbitrary rules set by a bunch of senseless primates, who are apparently only good at yelling and calling each other names. And if all else fails, you both can defend yourselves well. And you both have friends who would defend you too, no matter the cost. Who better than you to become the first ever father of hybrid children? You and Amy, you two have have it takes! I would bet my bloody hat that there ain’t a single soul in this messed-up world better suited than you. And I don’t say that lightly.”

Sambiong lifted up his glass. He toyed with it for a while, and stared at his feline face reflected in the warm tea. The face of a man who had been through countless hardships. The face of a man with the potential to change things for the better.

“I guess... I guess you aren’t wrong, Vince. If not us... then who?”

Jackson smiled, within his featureless face. Nobody could have seen it, but he couldn’t help doing so anyway. He gently patted the tigerman's shoulder.

“If it's a boy, are you going to call him Shabeel?”

“Pfft, maybe as a second name. I haven’t thought about it yet. Hell, when I woke up this morning, I never expected to become a prospective father by the evening.”

A loud snore interrupted their chat. Shaz was sleeping soundly, and talking in his dreams, smashing random words together incoherently. Jackson decided to ignore him until closing time – when the cleaning personnel could unceremoniously dispose of him – and instead continue to focus on the matters at hand. He glanced at the big clock above the counter, just striking eleven-thirty, before returning his attention to Sambiong.

“How are you feeling now? Any better?”

The tigerman nodded, and quickly gulped down what was left of the hot tea.

“Sober, thanks. Whatever you put in this tea, it worked wonders. I'd better go home now. Don't want Amy to get worried. I should cuddle her a little. If nothing else... I at least want her to be happy.”

As Sambiong finally stood up from his seat, Jackson snapped his fingers in response.

“Be careful not to get her pregnant again.”

Sambiong's eyes widened, then he suddenly burst into laughter.

“That's not how it works, Vince! Are you sure you've been with a woman before?”

“The answer would surprise you.”

Jackson smirked, and adjusted his hat. Another night at the bar. Another story to listen to. The sharkman’s snoring, Sambiong's laughter, the background noise of customers all talking with each other, mingling together. The smell of alcohol, of sweat, of well-cooked food. The dim lights, the cozy sofas. This place was his world, his little microcosm. A safe haven for poor souls who have lost their way... and maybe, just maybe, all they needed was a few drinks and some gentle words to help them find it again.