Dr. Noskivvies

“In this world I’m nothin’. I’m just like all the rest of these dead guys, walkin’ around like I ain’t figured out how to crawl into my grave like a good corpse should.” He rattles the ice around in his glass, tilts it at me. “Here’s to you man, least you know what you’re all about.” We drink. He’s rubbing his forehead, like he’s massaging something back into his skull. As he does, he brushes his eyebrows. Salt crystals fall like snow on the bar. Cap’n’s on a bender tonight, looks like. He’s clutching half a bottle of rum in his other hand, like the bar might naturally be rocking. It’s an unconscious move. “Out there I was the fuckin’ Cap’n. My people called me Godkiller.” He half smiled, half nodded with a far away look. Took a drink. Winced. “But here…” he looked around the room, swaying slightly on his stool, raised his glass and waved it at the other patrons in the bar, wrapping them up in the sweep of his arm. “Look at these pasty bastards!” A guy at a table near him glanced at the Cap’n and scowled. “What the fuck you lookin’ at, you sorry sacka whale shit.” Cap’n spits. The guy turns back to his girlfriend. The rest of the bar flat ignores him. “Nothin’ but puppet corpses.” He says to me. We raise our glasses and drink to corpses.