Part 27
"So," Claudia said as the cigarette between her lips lit. "How goes it?"
Jorgen shrugged, sitting across from her in the booth in Eleven's club.
Set in front of him was a plate heaped high with various fried food from the buffet. He popped a boneless hot wing into his mouth and promptly chewed it into mush.
"How can you eat that stuff?" She asked, exhaling smoke.
"What? Is good!" He said. "It's amazing, when I was a little, we had chickens. Sometimes. But now they make weird chickens with no bones. I thinks they probably look weird, but they taste good."
Claudia giggled, "I don't think it's really wing meat, dude."
Jorgen bit into another wing from his plate, "It's not?"
She shook her head, "Nah, I think it's breast meat."
He thought for a moment, then nodded, "Yeah, you need bones, right?"
"Yeah, unless you're an earthworm or a squid or something," she said.
Jorgen nodded and continued to eat from his plate with a certain degree of enthusiasm. He took a hearty swig from the bottle of beer beside his plate and burped.
Claudia chuckled softly and asked, "So how old are you anyway?"
Jorgen paused for a moment, then shrugged, "I don't know. Old. Older than you!"
"Can't even venture a guess? What's the first world event you remember?" She pressed.
"Eh," He paused again. "I remember lots of being chased. They thoughts we were bad witches."
"So like . . . when was that?" She asked.
He shook his head and went back to eating, "Long time. In Sweden. Then lots of places. Before we moved to America."
"When was that?" She asked. "A few years ago?"
He laughed, "No, before the statue. We was colonels in Virginia."
"Colonels?" She pried, tapping her cigarette ashes into an ashtray on the table.
"Ja," he smiled. "It was good times. Not like being chased. Or when we was little. It was cold then! Snow all the time! Avalanche! And we was so hungry all the time. We got sick a lot too, Viveka almost died. Other peoples in our village died too. Sometimes they was sick. Sometimes they starved."
"That sounds shitty," she said.
Jorgen eagerly shoved some french fries into his mouth and said, "Ja. It was hard. And cold, for a long time. Once we came to America it was better though. Viveka liked it lots 'cause she didn't have to wear a wig like everybody else."
"A wig? Like a powdered wig? Like back in 1776 and shit?" She asked with her eyebrow raised.
Jorgen nodded, "Ja, but we didn't fight in the war. We just stayed at home, had parties, growed tobaccos."
"Tobacco?" She asked. "You had slaves?"
Jorgen sighed and pushed his plate away. He gripped his bottle of beer and drank it dry. He waved to Marshall at the bar who soon sent him another beer. A grim look came over his face as the waitress brought him his beer.
"It was different then," he said. "Everybody had slaves. Excepts poor people. We didn't wants them but we couldn't harvest and plant the tobaccos alone. Ands everyone wanted it! I was always nice to them, I woulds ride in the field on my horse and brings them things to eat. Viveka was nice to them also, she taught them how to reads and history. She learned magics from them!"
"Did you let them go?" She wondered out loud.
He nodded again, "Ja, we let them go. Then we moved here."
"So . . . who was the best president?" She asked, leaning toward him.
He shrugged and picked at the food still on the plate in front of him. He glanced over to the left stage to see Alize dancing. There were only a few others in the club so early. Claudia and Theresa had come in a few hours after Jorgen to turn in their cards and Theresa stayed behind to talk with Eleven.
"They was all okay," he said, chewing some fries. "I don't like politics. It just makes people mad."
Claudia shook her head, "Huh-uh, don't you use that Swedish Neutrality shit on me. Who was the best president?"
He sighed heavily, somewhat pouting, "George Washington."
"Really?" She prodded.
He nodded, "Really."
"Why was he the best?" She asked.
"He won us independent from the English. You don't know what it's like. Lots of parties everywhere. He was a hero. Biggest hero! We cried when he died. All of us. All Americans. It was so sad 'cause he was so great. The others was good, but he was the best," he explained.
Theresa came staggering from behind the employee's only door past the bar. Her eyes locked onto Claudia and came walking up behind her in the booth. She clasped her hands onto Claudia's shoulders, causing her to leap up in fright as she turned around to see who it was.
"Jumpy today?" Theresa asked, squeezing Claudia's shoulders.
"No, you just snuck up on me like a ghoul!" Claudia exaggerated.
Theresa rolled her eyes while she gently rubbed Claudia's shoulders. Jorgen belched and stuffed more fried buffet food into his mouth
"What were you two talking about in my absence?" Theresa asked.
"Claudia wanted to know about me," Jorgen said with a mouth full of food.
Theresa pulled the hankerchief from the pocket of her blazer and coughed into it several times. She wiped her lips and stuffed it back into her pocket.
"I see," she said. "How are you? And your sister?"
"I'm okay. She's at home, resting," he said.
"For how long this time?" She asked, feigning concern, secretly relieved she was gone.
"I don't know," he said. "She lock the doors and hides when I come in with her veil."
"Like Claudia?" Theresa smirked, Claudia rolled her eyes at the remark.
"No, her whole head. Black veil. I don't know how she sees me. I thinks it's because she's not done yet," he said, waving french fries pinched between his fingers.
Claudia leaned forward and asked, "What do you mean not done yet?"
"Not . . . whole," he said, straining to find the right words.
"I believe the word he is looking for is 'regenerating'," Theresa interjected.
"Ja!" He said loudly with a wide smile. "That!"
"Regenerating? Like a lizard growing back its tail?" Claudia asked.
"More," he said. "She was just bones."
"That's so fucking weird," Claudia said. "So she's just a skeleton walking around with a veil on?"
Jorgen shrugged and took a sip from his beer.
Theresa smirked and teased, "Yes, THAT is strange. Not the fact that you can conjure fire from nothing, or that both of them are at least seven hundred years old."
"It IS weird," Claudia argued. "All of it's weird. If it's possible for someone to regenerate from a skeleton, what isn't possible, you know? Does that mean monsters are real? Was Gilles Garnier really a werewolf? What about the salem witch trials, were they real witches? How long have people like us been around?"
"I never seen a werewolf before," Jorgen said. "I don't know about other witches. Maybe some of them was real but I don't know. Vampires is real though so maybe werewolf and mummy too."
"Vampires are real?" Claudia asked with an incredulous glare.
Jorgen sipped his beer and nodded, "Ja, not like the movies though."
"So not Dracula? They don't sparkle do they?" She asked.
Jorgen laughed and shook his head, "No, no. They looks like you or me. Except the teeths. Lots of sharp teeths. They don't smile."
"But they drink blood and avoid sunlight, right?" She asked curiously.
"No, sun doesn't hurt them. They probably drink blood, I never saw it though. You should ask Viveka, she knows more. I don't like them," he said.
"They frighten you?" Theresa asked.
"A little," he said. "The teeths is scary like monsters. They feel . . wrong. Like you."
"I am 'wrong'?" Theresa asked, pretending not to be insulted.
"Yeah. Like . . . you isn't supposed to exit. I can't explains. You don't feel like Claudia, she feels warm but sad. Eleven feels cold but good. Viveka feels hungry and alone. But you feels wrong," Jorgen expounded.
"Yet I DO exist, and I am quite happy that I do. So is Claudia," Theresa said, clasping her hand onto Claudia's.
"I knows! I'm glad you does exit. You make Claudia feels less sad and you helps the team good," he said.
The employees only door swung open and Mikey, a short, stocky man and one of Eleven's soldiers rushed out. He wiped the sweat from his brow scanned the club, searching for Jorgen, soon he rushed to the table Jorgen, Claudia and Viveka sat at.
"Jorgen, we need you back here. Tommy got shot up bad," he said, huffing in air.
Jorgen leapt to his feet and followed Mikey back through the employee's door. They hurried down the hall to Tommy, another of Eleven's soldiers, as he lay clutching his bleeding stomach in pain beside the back door. Jorgen knelt down beside him and brushed his black hair away from his face.
"Is okay, Tommy, just tries to relax," he said, taking hold of Tommy's hand.
Jorgen carefully moved Tommy's hand away from the wound and turned his head, shutting his eyes tight. A bright and brilliant flash of green light erupted from Jorgen's palm as he hovered it over Tommy's bloody stomach. Tommy winced in pain, gritting his teeth. Jorgen pulled his hand away and looked back to Tommy, the only traces of the wound that remained were the holes in his bloodied shirt.
"See? Goods as new!" Jorgen said with a wide smile.
Tommy chuckled, "Burns like hell every time."