The stars winked above him without consideration for those existing below them. His eyes had just flashed open, though he almost wished he could continue the peculiar version of slumber. Kramer hated dying, no matter how many times it happened, but coming back always sharpened the bluntness of his pains.
"Alright," he mumbled.
Sitting up was easier just after a resurrection, his joints somehow more lubricated and less damaged. The pain of where he'd been attacked was always worse than when he was dying from whatever injury.
"Okay."
He stood on shaky legs. Another strange thing. There was the old exhilaration, but it wasn't exactly like the first time. His mind searched for that. Had it been 1952 or was it '62? The lack of surety always caused a minute or two of frustration. It helped take his mind off the internal daggers of healing. At least there was that.
Kramer's shirt was tattered. Blood stained the blue dye changing the surrounding areas to a sort of purple haze. He had to chuckle at that. He'd loved that album when it first came out. Purple Haze was immortal, the strings of Hendrix's guitar lashing out at a world not quite ready for his strange genius.
Immortal.
Like him.
He thought that was the case, anyway.
"Hey," a voice came from somewhere behind him, "You okay, man?"
"Yeah," Kramer answered without turning.
"You sure? You aren't hurt?"
"Only my pride."
Scuffling footsteps. The good Samaritan was coming in for a closer look. Kramer still didn't turn. He knew what was coming, didn't care to over-analyze the thing. Part of him, a very old part, felt bad.
"You got some blood on you, man."
A teenage voice. It was strange to think of where teenage voices came from. He didn't like to think about it. He let his mind drift away from the thing. He let one of those old songs from Purple Haze slip into his thoughts, the almost raging guitar filling his head. The footsteps were closer. He could sense the hand moving toward his shoulder.
"Don't," he said.
The word was so quiet that the kid could not have possibly heard it. Kramer wondered if he'd ever said it loud enough to really give a warning or if it was just his way of justifying what came next. He ignored the wondering and waited.
Fingers gripping his shoulder, causing bright spots to flicker across his vision. There was a voice there, one telling him that he didn't have to do it this way, that the kid was trying to help him and didn't deserve what was next. Same old fight. His right hand moved from his side, reaching across the vanished holes in his torso and toward the kid's hand. His mind screamed.
He's too young! You can't! You can't do this to him!
Kramer could feel the youth coming off the kid, the vitality, the strength. It wouldn't take much more than a caress of fingertips to make his pain go away. It could all be fine in less than a second if he would just touch the skin so close to his own.
"Fuck off," Kramer spat.
His hand jerked back to the area near his hip. His fingers balled into fists as the kid flinched away. Kramer closed his eyes, the crow's feet deepening at their corners. The kid stepped backward.
"Nice guy, man. Just wanted to make sure you're okay. Should've kept walking."
Kramer nodded his agreement, somehow finding the urge to limp away. The kid was right, and the kid was lucky that he'd found some kind of self-control. He hadn't always been very good at that.
A vibration tingled against his thigh. Great. The mugger had shot him four times and stolen his wallet but missed the cell phone. Kramer would have been far happier if he'd taken everything. He reached into his pocket, feeling the stretch against slowly healing skin. If he hadn't been such a softy, the pain would have been a thing of the past. Like his pride.
The screen was cracked in a thousand places. Correction on the mugger. He'd just left the phone because it was a broken piece of shit with spider web fractures lacing its surface. A distorted version of McEntire's name waited for him to answer.
"Hello?"
"Kramer? You sound like hell, buddy. Where you at?"
He was supposed to be there already, was already running late, and was taking a shortcut through Williams Park to make up a few minutes when he'd been delayed. Kramer looked down at his shirt, wished he had a spare or something. His eyes flashed along the border of the grassy area and landed on a convenience store that sold everything from cigarettes to hair nets. He'd be able to find something to wear there.
"On my way," he answered, his feet moving him toward the storefront.
"Well, hurry up. I'm already two drinks ahead of you and I'm lining up some... prospects."
Kramer couldn't help grinning. If there was anyone he could count on to get the ball rolling on a long and exhausting night with new friends, it was McEntire.
"Give me ten."
***
The place wasn't quite a bar. It seemed more like an adult version of that place parents always took kids for birthdays. Charlie Cheddar's? No. That wasn't right. He searched the crowd for McEntire, knowing it would be tough to find his friend in the mix of the place.
There were lights everywhere. Neon and digital. Screens of badly maintained arcade games flashed the images coveted by geek-hipsters everywhere. Bells rang from the skee-ball lanes and pinball machines. The only thing that could possibly cause over-stimulation in a place like this one was shouting at him from across the bar.
"Kramer! Hey! Over here!"
Kramer got his second grin of the night, thinking that a voice that could crawl above the throngs of chatter in a place like this one would never need a microphone. He turned in the direction from which it had come. There she was.
McEntire wasn't tall by any means, but she still managed to stand out. She was doing just that next to a pool table, her crewcut glistening against the tan skin of her scalp. She wore painted-on black jeans with rips in the thighs and knees, red suspenders over a white t-shirt that could have brought more attention to her monstrously over-sized breasts if she'd decided to cut exit holes in the thing, and the ever present Chuck Taylors to match her eyes. Neon green.
McEntire was a knockout, though one that would confuse most men if she cared to keep one around.
Kramer seemed her opposite. He was tall and well-built, attractive in most eyes, but there was no real flare of fashion. He was still wearing the Lucky Brand jeans he'd been killed in so recently, but he'd traded out the badly damaged blue shirt for a gray V-neck right out of the package. He wore heavy brown boots instead of his usual flip-flops to account for the January chill in the air.
They were a pair that often drew confused glances. They drew another as McEntire pulled him in for an uncomfortably passionate kiss as soon as he got close enough. Kramer felt a moment of utter mortification. He thought of the teenager that he'd almost touched, hoped that enough time had passed between his resurrection and the moment he was in. His hands automatically went to her hips when he didn't feel a change in his heartbeat.
McEntire plastered herself against him, her perfectly proportioned hips grinding into him as their tongues slid against one another.
"Did I get you hard?"
She was reaching for his crotch as she broke the kiss. He swatted her hand away, laughing all the time, and squeezed her jeans clad cheek.
"You kidding?"
Her eyes lit up, that bright green startling him in the way it always had. She glanced at the area she'd been reaching for, licked her lips, tilted her head toward the night's entertainment. There were two very attractive women leaning against the pool table behind her and Kramer knew the game right off the bat. She pushed him away an inch or two and began the introductions.
"Sadie and Annabelle. Sadie is a senior at FSU and Annabelle is some chick that I met in the bathroom that won't leave because I told her you were hung like a British mule."
"A British mule?"
The two girls giggled. They were drinking pastel hued drinks from touristy glasses and it was obvious to Kramer that they weren't looking to quit the drinking any time soon. He raised light brown eyebrows at McEntire, and she raised jet black ones in return.
"You get me a drink yet?"
"Fuck, Kramer! You know you owe me a round!"
"Fair enough. One cheap beer with extra spit and a vodka of some strange sort for me. Do our new friends need a drink?"
They consented that they did almost in unison. McEntire's lips tightened against the laughter that wanted to escape. Kramer tweaked one of her nipples, taking advantage of the bralessness she loved to flaunt, and turned toward the bar. He was breathing hard, still rattled by the way McEntire attacked him. Things could have gotten seriously strange.
He waived down a bartender in hopes that he'd be able to get drinks on the way before midnight came around. One of the blondes working the crowd of twenty-somethings held up an index finger with hardly a glance his way. He knew this one, had chatted with her a few times when the place hadn't been so full of Friday night idiocy. Amber? Amanda? He thought it was Amber.
"What can I get you?" she asked, finally breaking away from the group of barely legal patrons down the bar.
"Blue Moon, two rum punches, and a Tito's on ice."
"On ice? You mean on the rocks?"
She was smiling at him, pausing for effect. Kramer shook his head in return, some watery memory of a girl in a bar where none of the music was digital and the newest video game out was Ms. Pac Man sliding across his mind. He could only smile in return at first.
"Ice is more my speed. Rocks taste like shit."
