Hole In The Wall

John D. Harvey/HOLE IN THE WALL

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John D. Harvey [email protected]

3,639 words (short story) © John D. Harvey

Just Another Hole in the Wall by John D. Harvey

My Irish blood didn’t make me open a bar.

I opened a bar because I was

told a blind man couldn’t pull it off, and that puts me on a mission. read me wrong here. of the blind. answer.

I’m no crusader.

Don’t

I don’t swim across oceans in the name

I’m just a stubborn Irish donkey that don’t take no for an

Well…maybe my Irish blood did make me open a bar.

The problem is that I opened a working-class bar in the city of Providence, Rhode Island.

A real Renaissance city.

Just my luck.

Somehow,

just after my place opened, spaghetti became pasta, coffee became cappuccino, and a friggin’ Banana Republic opened two doors down from my place.

I don’t

serve beers that have the words ‘blonde,’ ‘wheat,’ or ‘lemon’ on the label. I serve American beers with German names.

Period.

It didn’t help that I’m not a nice blind man. handicapped to be nice?

Why do people expect the

I think I’m a bigger asshole because I’m blind.

So, I was in a neighborhood of suits (who want ferns and mahogany when they drink), artists (who complain about poverty but buy $7 coffees), and

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students (who I can’t serve…legally).

I would have been better off selling

condoms in Amish country. Anyway, one day my bartender/manager, Tony, was in the basement ripping down some bad drywall. “Yo Mikey,” Tony hollered at me, “you gotta see this.” “I got customers up here."

Two meant I could use the plural.

“No,” he said emphatically.

“I mean you really gotta see this.”

Tony was a rare breed of Italian in Providence…quiet and low-key. don’t think he would have been shook up if monkeys flew out of his ass. I made my way down the steps to the cellar.

I So,

My seeing-eye dog, a shepherd

named Pup, was trained to keep my customers’ hands out of my register and booze. “You won't believe this, boss,” said Tony.

“I found a hole in the

wall.” “Rats,” I muttered.

“Shit.”

“Naw, not rats,” said Tony. know masonry.” rock.

“Not unless they’re as big as a dog and

Tony put my hand on the stone.

I could feel rough, mortared

Then my fingers curled around the lip of an opening at eye level.

The

stone felt like granite, but really smooth, like from a lot of wear or maybe someone polished it. The opening measured about twenty inches across. “How far back does it go?” I asked. “Can’t say,” said Tony.

“I shined my flashlight in there and it goes

back about ten feet and then dives straight down. far as I can see.”

All finished masonry as

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I took a quarter out of my pocket and tossed it into the hole.

The

coin’s clinks and clanks echoed back for about ten seconds and then faded away.

“Deep fuckin’ hole,” I said. “Yeah, well, it gets better.”

masonry surrounding the opening.

Tony took my wrist and guided it to the

I immediately felt the deep grooves where

someone had chiseled stuff around the edge of the hole. even in the A, B, C-type letters.

Not English, not

More like the picture writing the

Egyptians used, but not pictures of anything I could recognize. Having my fingers in those carvings, tracing them…well, that’s when I got my first hint that this was bad shit. I got this feeling like I wanted to do really bad things to people and there was this other feeling that it’d be okay, and I could do it to men, and women and old people and sure the little children and little girls and little boys and they’re so full of life and it wouldn’t just be okay it would be fun and right and we could party all night— “What the fuck?” I said pulling my hand away. “Yeah,” said Tony.

“Every so often there’s like this warm breeze that

comes out of it.” Tony had no clue what had just happened to me, but he was right. as I let go of the lip, this wet, warm breath of air hit my face.

Just

I never

wanted a shower and a drink so bad in my life. “We’ll call the State," I said, a little shaky. their chumps down the hole.” #

"Let them send one of

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So some guy from the Department of Zoning and Inspections comes into my place and tells me that I got a big hole, but there's no way he's climbing in there.

I can't remember what I said, but it wasn't polite and he gets

pissed.

Long story short, he tells me I might have historical hole and he's

gotta call in the Historical Society. to pass the building code.

So, I can't fill it, I can't cover it

He's not even sure I can have food or beverages

down here and he's gonna have to call the health inspector to have another look.

That would have been a good time for an apology on my part, so I told

him to go dry hump his mother.

He closed me down. #

If I had half a brain, I would have just told Tony to go buy some cement and bricks, fill that damn hole, and pay the fines for defacing a registered historic building. But I was hemorrhaging money, what with being closed for a week and a half before the health inspector and the historical people got through with me.

The health inspection went okay.

Air quality checked out fine and

dandy, but I would have to put up a wall around the food and beverages if I wasn’t going to drywall the foundation where that hole had been exposed. The historical professor was a pain in the ass, though.

Some nerd with

a fat degree and lots of space in his brain for useless shit about architecture, colonists and Indians. "This is really very strange," Nerd Boy kept saying about the inscriptions.

"The carvings look like ancient Sumerian, but really aren't.

What the hell were colonists doing carving this stuff into a foundation." "Maybe some freak carved it in later," said Tony from behind me. know, like some occult hippie who lived here in the '70s." Tony.

"You

Thank God for

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"No," Nerd Boy muttered, barely paying attention.

"The carvings look

authentic and the masonry is definitely part of the original foundation. This is really very strange…turn the lights out." "Excuse me?" I said. "Turn the lights out," he repeated. on here."

"There's something very odd going

So I told Tony to turn out the lights.

Makes no difference to me.

All at once, Nerd Boy starts swearing like a merchant marine and Tony's rattling off the names of Saints. "Boss," says Tony.

"It's glowing."

"What's glowing--?" "It must be phosphor in the stones or something deeper in the tunnel," said nerd boy.

"God, it's beautiful."

I could hear the two of them just standing there, breathing funny. Like they're with a girl and maybe they think they're gonna get some. a sudden, Nerd Boy says, "Gimme a boost. "Naw, you shouldn't do that…," episode, but it was too late. him shimmying down the tunnel.

All of

I'm going in."

I said, thinking back to my own

Tony gave the little fella a boost and I heard "Get outta there!," I said, moving to grab

the son of a bitch by the ankles.

Then I felt Tony's large, strong hand on

my shoulder, yanking me back. "He's fine," said Tony, sounding all breathy and worked up. believe it.

Tony had never put a glove on me.

I couldn't

I stood there too dumbstruck

to get pissed. "Holy shit," Nerd Boy said, his voice coming out of the tunnel flat and toneless.

"It's lit up as far down as I can see.

It's so BRIGHT!"

It took me about three steps and some fumbling before I flipped the light switch.

"Get the FUCK out of my wall!" I hollered.

Tony snapped out

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of it and helped pull the guy out. "Glowing shit's all good and fine, but I gotta bar to run.

What's the deal?"

"Ummm…," stuttered Nerd Boy. "Someone from Brown University might want to look at it and take some pictures. get in the way of your business." help.

But I don't see a reason why it should

He paused.

"As a matter of fact, it could

Something like this could be a real attraction." "Yeah," I said.

"Tell ya what, I'll run the bar.

You get the hell

outta here and look at someone else's old shit." # That hole definitely did not get in the way of business, because I barely had any patrons.

My customer base had moved out of the city and into

Johnston, Pawtucket, and South Providence. just to keep the power on.

I missed payments left and right

The bank called a lot and stopped being polite.

At the time I didn't think about it, but Tony spent a helluva lot of time in the cellar fixing the kegs, even when they were running perfectly. My other two shift bartenders had also taken an acute interest in the hole downstairs.

Dumbasses actually turned out the lights and tried to smoke pot

while the thing glowed away.

Like a blind man wouldn't smell pot in his own

basement. Then one day, I had to go into the basement for something. was moving some boxes around…he had been for a while.

I knew Tony

As soon as I started

coming down the ladder, I could hear Tony throwing boxes all over the place. "Jeez, Tony," I said.

"Whaddya tearin' my place up?"

"Naw, Boss," he answered, breathing hard.

"Just trying to get

organized." I was rooting around for what I needed, and then the hairs on the back of my neck stood right up.

Happens every so often.

You know how they say

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that people who lose one sense make up for it with the others. fuckin' true.

Well, that's

I can smell and hear a flea fart from a mile away. I could

hear Tony, still breathing heavy, but under that I could hear someone else breathing very softly. "Tony," I said. Pause.

"Who is in this basement?"

"Just you and me, Boss."

"Yeah?" I said, and he answered, "Yeah." "You in the corner?" I asked, and he answered, "Yeah." Before he even finished the word, I had a full bottle of beer in my hand and I winged it as hard as I could toward the mouth-breather.

Whoever

it was, he screamed like a puppy, and then I heard some lady scream, too. Jesus, there were two people down here.

Now I had a full bottle of vodka by

the neck and rivers of adrenaline moving through my system. yelled.

"What the fuck?"

"Boss," screamed Tony. people. moaning.

"Tony," I

It's cool."

"Naw, settle down.

It's cool.

I know these

Whoever I beaned with the bottle was on the ground

I could hear his friend sobbing a little.

"We just wanted to see

the tunnel!" she cried. "Boss," he says.

"I know these people.

They're from my neighborhood."

"I'm running a bar here, Tony!" I pushed him away from me.

"This ain't

some fuckin' circus attraction." "Yeah," he said, "but it sure could be." talking about.

I had no idea what he was

"Mikey, these people paid to see it."

crushed into my free hand.

"That's twenty dollars.

staring at a hole in the wall. Whaddya say to that?" #

Then I felt two bills

Ten dollars each for

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I say I’m the biggest, dumbest paddy ever born, but at that moment, with those two bills in my hand and the banks calling every hour on the hour, desperation had me by my stubborn Irish donkey balls.

I scraped up some

money for an ad in the paper and Tony called some of the reporters who had written about me when the place had first opened. In the next two weeks, I had ink in all the local and daily papers. The fact that nobody at Brown University, MIT, or Harvard could pin down who built the tunnel brought people to my place in droves.

I completely closed

off the consumables in the basement and charged ten dollars a head for groups of ten to stand in front of the tunnel for about fifteen minutes.

That old

tunnel earned me $400 an hour and then these chumps would come upstairs and drink beer. Aside from the tunnel, now my place had the reputation for being the "melting pot" of Providence culture.

Guys who hadn't worked or bathed for

months swapped jokes with guys wearing $200 ties.

Students came in and drank

my Maxwell House coffee for four dollars a cup. I bought new furniture for my apartment over the bar and Pup stopped eating generic dog food. # I didn't notice people disappearing until it was one of my regulars. Not one of my new, chi-chi regulars.

One of my rummy regulars who had been

faithfully sauced from the first day I opened. Paulo had lived in this neighborhood for decades, from back when it was a Portuguese working-class area.

The very first time I shook Paulo's hand,

all I felt was old, thick muscle wrapped in leather and scars. On one finger, he wore a big gold ring from his military days.

"Dis ring not come off for a

no one," he told me one time while I was running my finger over the gem and

John D. Harvey/HOLE IN THE WALL

the design.

Helluva rock.

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I don't get attached to people, but Paulo was a

good egg. Anyway, one night I notice that Paulo came in, told a few Army stories, but when it came time to close, he was nowhere to be found.

I asked Tony,

but he said Paulo had left early. "Without sayin' a 'see-ya-later?'" I asked.

"Naw, Paulo never does

that." "Dunno, Mikey," said Tony.

"Maybe he had stuff to do."

That was nuts.

Paulo hadn't had anything to do for years. At the time, I wrote it off, but it got worse. regulars stopped coming all of a sudden. seemed to drop off the face of the Earth. think anything of it.

Some more of the old

Then a few of the new regulars I suppose most people wouldn't

Shit, it's the bar business…people come and people go. #

I'll tell you when I decided enough was enough.

I was down in the

basement on a Sunday morning doing inventory and I dropped my keys.

I'll do

that a hundred times a day, and I'm pretty sure my keys intentionally skid into the most remote corners just because I'm blind.

I'm on the ground,

rooting around between the kegs, and my hand comes across a small, heavy metal object.

The moment I knew what it was, I also knew whose it had been.

Paulo's ring. Like I said before, that ring would not come off that hand easily. # Some bad shit was going on in my basement. Some cult was doing ceremonies to the Moon Mother, or some such crap. Maybe they were performing sacrifices.

If I was lucky it would be cats and

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chickens, and nothing worse than that.

Yeah, well, luck has never exactly

swarmed around me. Suddenly, my wealth didn't feel so great. fix my problem.

So, I decided to use it to

I got on the phone with some guy from a company called

Security Solutions.

These folks sold all sorts of James Bond stuff.

mini-cameras, motion sensors, and so on.

Bugs,

I thought of calling the cops, but

the top brass in the Providence PD went to the hole three to five times a week. I needed evidence to bring to the FBI. In the basement I had sound-activated, wireless, moisture resistant bugs that were smaller than a dime. system in my apartment upstairs.

I also had these guys hook up a playback

I figured I'd let the bugs do their thing

for a while, then go upstairs and check the tape.

Then I'd call the FBI and

let them clean out the freaks. # Saturday night was busy as hell.

I could feel them all smashed against

the bar, wet and sweaty, drinking and asking me about going down to see the hole.

I told them Tony handled all of that, I just poured beer. Halfway through the night, I told Tony that I didn't feel so hot.

stomach.

Bad

I had to go upstairs, take some pills, take a messy dump, lie down

for a while.

He wasn't happy about tending bar when he wanted to be in the

basement managing his "tours," but he did it anyway. I went upstairs with Pup and wound the tape back from the last few hours.

At first, it was pretty tame.

I could hear people entering the

basement and sitting in the folding chairs.

Chatting and making small talk.

Then Tony comes down and tells everyone that he's going to turn the lights off and start the show. off.

Everyone gets quiet and I assume that the lights are

I start to hear gasps and people going "ooh" and "ahh."

Still pretty

John D. Harvey/HOLE IN THE WALL

tame.

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Then slowly their voices change and now it's not like they're looking

at the Grand Canyon or fireworks. and I don’t mean poor quality.

They sound like they're having bad sex,

I mean candle wax and staple gun kind of sex.

In the background I start to hear this low, phlegmy,_ rythmic sound.

Now

that's getting louder, and I realize that I'm hearing someone breathe, but they must be right next to a bug because it's so damn loud.

But that can't

be the guys from Security Solutions placed those bugs where no one could get too close. Now they're all chanting or singing something, but it ain't no language I've ever heard.

Shit, I'm not sure how their mouths made some of

the sounds and now I got goosebumps crawling up my arms and my jaw is clenched so hard I can feel my teeth creak. louder than the rest.

I recognize her.

There's this one woman who’s

Systems analyst from some-such bank.

My God, it sounds like she's being gang-banged.

The breathing turns into

grunting and it's almost washing out all the other audio.

It's the systems

analyst and now she doesn't sound like she's having rough sex, she sounds like she's being hurt in ways a person shouldn't live through, and usually doesn't.

I hear crunching, cracking and sucking, and slowly the singing

dies. Suddenly, Tony says, "That's the show folks. please stay for a drink."

Thank you for coming, and

People exit and I hear them talking about how much

they like the show and other small talk. Now listen, I don't go in for all this X-Files shit, but I trust my ears better than anything, and I know what I heard. getting fed. Jesus, we put on a dozen shows a night. #

I heard something

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When I went downstairs and back into the bar, Tony said, "Shit Mikey, you look worse.

Not better."

Now I could hear it in his voice, and in the

voices of anyone who had gone down to the hole. There as a vibration that made your stomach turn. "Yeah," I said, barely a whisper.

"My stomach is real bad."

"So take it easy for a night," said Tony.

"I'll call in one of the

other bartenders." "Yeah," I answered.

"Maybe that's a good idea.

I think I'm gonna walk

around outside for a bit, maybe go upstairs for the night." Tony clapped me on the shoulder and I almost collapsed.

"Good idea,

Mikey." Me and Pup left the place and went upstairs.

I had some liquid

cleaners upstairs that I poured on the floor and walls.

After that, I went

outside and tied Pup to a lamp post behind a shop across the street.

He sure

didn't like that, but I wanted him to be far away. Behind my place, I have a tool shed where I keep kerosene and turpentine, as well as some gasoline for the portable generator in the basement.

I stayed low, under the line of vision from the windows, and

splashed it all over the exterior walls.

After that, I locked the back door,

locked the front door, lit a match, tossed it on the ground, and ran across the street. Arson and historic buildings are a great match. the roof in about ten minutes. windows.

The place cooked to

I didn't worry about anyone getting out the

I had bars installed when I bought the place.

They tell me about

ninety people died, but, like I said before, I'm not even sure they were really people anymore. #

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So, now I'm in prison for life, and there's a death penalty bill in the Rhode Island Legislature that's been designed just for me.

Suppose I could

have gone for an insanity defense, but that just seemed wrong.

I gave all my

money to the families of the people who came up missing in my place. They took Pup away, which sucks, but I'm sure he's happy.

They keep me

in solitary, which I thought would keep me happy as I'd ever be again. Here's the thing.

A prison detail was in the basement level doing some

work on the walls, and don't you know they uncovered this big hole with inscriptions all around the rim.

The media is having a field day with the

story and the "coincidence." Me, I know better.

I fed a stray, and now it's going to follow me

around for as long as I live. pass that death penalty law.

I'm not waiting for Rhode Island politics to I'm a smart fella. -- END --

I'll find my own way out.