If you happened to have been a traveler on riverboats or railroads in Missouri during the westward expansion of the young United States of America in the late nineteenth century, you could easily have found a bar that looked a lot like this one. Or you may be sitting alone in darkness watching a screen showing closeups of the dozen or more bar stools handcrafted entirely from natural dark wood each lined up deliberately in a straight line on a bright red brick floor. This would be the point where melodramatic strings from a full orchestra swell up as if from nowhere. You realize you are seeing something very important, very unusual if not downright forbidden. You see the bar topped with old-fashioned, authentic shiny marble that looks ancient. Two or three glass beer mugs rest half empty on top of that marble. The eerie light is softly reflected from several hanging electrical fixtures that once were gas lamps. Wooden booths accented by thick red leather line one side of the establishment. You can feel the music pushing your emotional tension higher, higher. Elsewhere, there are several round wooden tables and chairs.
But you are not in Missouri. You did not just step off a riverboard or a train. And as the music becomes annoyingly frenetic, you accept that this is certainly is no ordinary bar where you would drop in for a quick beer or whiskey. One stunningly original touch in this odd place is a reflection you can see in the large mirrors behind the rich marble bar. The reflection appears to be that of dead man floating on his back. Is this a clever optical illusion of Victorian Era art? Or is that figure of naked, barefoot dead man actually situated in the wall behind the panes of mirrored glass?
A pair of old swinging wooden doors off to the side of the bar suddenly open to reveal what looks like a nineteenth century kitchen inside. A tall young man with broad shoulders and large arms walks through the open kitchen door and stands behind bar. He is shirtless and barefoot. The sound of those overly-dramatic strings are driving you crazy. If only you could reach out and just dial them down a bit. The man you see is wearing only blue jeans as if deliberately to mimic the hypersexualized style of male bartenders in 20th century male-on-male sex bars.
“I am Mal,” the man behind the bar says in a friendly tone to Ted Avila and Vincent Wauneka who walk together into the mysterious bar through a huge metal door. Mercifully, the overly dramatic orchestra music stops. “I am the bartender here. Yes, my name does suggest that I’m a bad or evil man. You’ll have the opportunity to determine that for yourself. But, first, let me welcome you to the Naked Dead Guys Bar. Our mascot is that big, totally buck-naked guy you think you see floating in those mirrors behind me. The number one question I get is: Who was that naked dead guy? And, second is: How big is his cock? I have no answers to those questions. And, no, you are not dreaming. You two are dead. Wearing only loincloths and nothing else. That’s our strict dress code here. And I must tell you boys, you look great in costume. Just amazing to look at.”
“What the fuck? We’re dead?” Ted Avila asks the bartender.
Mal replies, “What a terribly unoriginal way to ask that question. I’m serious. You know, you could have asked, ‘we are lost, can you help us?’ or ‘we think we were killed, what you can tell us?'”
“We both were riding in an off-road desert dune buggy,” Vincent Wauneka says to the bartender. “What happened? Did we crash?”
“Well, now that version is a lot more original. And believe me, I’ve heard the question asked every which way by now,” Mal says with a slight laugh.
“You’re saying we were killed in a desert dune buggy in Nevada?” Ted Avila asks.
“Fifty points to you, yeah,” Mal replies. “Both of you squashed like bugs. It was a rollover in the Mojave Desert at high speed. Instantly deceased. No suffering at all. And at least you died together doing something fun that you enjoyed. Don’t you agree?”
“Where we work, they do not let us stay dead,” Vincent Wauneka explains. “They bring us back using advanced technology.”
“Well, now, my Native American friend, you get points for extreme originality, sir. That’s priceless. I am so fucking impressed to hear that!”
“We’re not kidding. Sound fantastic, but we get brought back to life often,” Ted Avila says. “Just part of our job. What is this place? A bar in the afterlife? I don’t understand the point.”
“Hold that thought, will you?” Mal says. “A new arrival is about to join us here.”
Mal extends his right arm and points so Ted Avila and Vincent Wauneka will turn their gaze from him and instead watch the big metal door at the entrance to the bar swing open. They hear the exaggerated sounds an old and massive door makes which usually is only found in a gothic horror film.
Declan Andreas walks into the bar. He is also only wearing a white loincloth. “Another hot number,” says Mal. “Great-looking body on this man! This is my day for hot male customers.”
Andreas looks around and asks, “What am I doing here?”
Ted Avila answers, “I are dead. And you are dead. And we are all together.” The bartender smiles and gives two thumbs up in appreciation of Ted Avila’s creativity.
Andreas explains, “I was on a mission to some tourist ranch in Amargosa, Nevada. They sure have a shitty way of treating their guests. Used a serious flamethrower on me.”
“Wait, a tourist ranch? Amargosa, Nevada?” Ted Avila asks Andreas. “When were you there. Do you remember?”
“Yeah. The year was 2012. I was sent there to find out what was going on at that ranch. That was the year they opened to the public. That’s how I remember.”
Mal says to Andreas, “You’re irresistible. Could’ve made a shitload of money renting that body of yours to men.”
Andreas looks at Mal and says, “Can you stop being so mysterious and just explain.”
The dramatic orchestra music returns and all three of Mal’s guests look around the bar to see if they can discern where the sound is coming from.
Mal says, “You three boys need to understand the rules here.” He hands his guests their own individual white laminated card that is imprinted with stark black letters.
Welcome to Bareboot Dead Guys Bar. Read the Rules:
• You are here because you are dead. There is no God or Heaven or Hell. This is just a bar. Treat it as such.
• Because you are dead, you will never see any living being inside this bar or outside. No people. No dogs. No cats. No horses, and so on.
• You may drink liquor. You may enjoy the taste, but it won’t make you drunk.
• No solid food is available. The dead don’t eat. Food will only fall to the floor if you put it inside your mouth and try to chew or swallow it.
• Make the very best of your visit here because this may be a very short visit for you.
• You are welcome to share your story with others who arrived here after you.
“Everything has consequences here,” Mal says. “You do what I tell you and everything will go just fine. Do I look like the kind of guy you want to mess with here?”
“So, we’re supposed to believe this is a friendly neighborhood bar in Heaven?” Andreas asks Mal while confidently maintaining eye contract with him.
Mal chuckles and shakes his head “no” as he holds up his right hand and forms a fist in the air. As if to signal the overbearing orchestra to stop. Once the silence has returned to the Barefoot Dead Guys Bar, Mal says, “There’s no heaven. No hell below us. And, no religion, too. There is an afterlife, yes. Get used to it. I cannot explain why. Just get used to it.”
“All belief systems address life after death in different ways,” Vincent Wauneka says.
“Yeah, well, extra points for you. But those belief systems belong to the living. In another dimension. Not relevant here. Not important to any of your three stiffs,” Mal explains.
“I wanna know if we are being held here against our will,” Ted Avila asks Mal.
“Sensible question. Look, held against your will? Not my department. But, you are here barefoot in addition to being dead. Costumed in skimpy loin cloths. You feel the hot sunlight bearing down upon your skin from the sky through the big windows of this bar. The bottoms of your feet, therefore, will feel the heat of the sun bouncing off a wooden deck just outside if you were to walk out there. You will always be barefoot. This limits where you can walk because your feet can feel pain of heat or cold or sharp objects such as pointy steel nails or broken shards of window glass. Plus, this bar is the only thing on a very small island surrounded by hundreds of miles of water in all directions. The skies are always brilliant blue. And lovely, oh so fluffy white clouds floating here and there suggest a heavenly look. But that might just be good art direction.”
Vincent Wauneka says to Mal, “On the white laminated card it says something about only being here for a short while.”
“Best question yet,” Mal exclaims. “Smart man! None of you will remain here indefinitely, no. You all will be relocated somewhere else when the right moment arrives.”
Ted Avila asks, “Relocated? And how will we know when that so-called ‘right moment’ arrives?”
“Well, honestly, it’s not exactly a quiet or subtle moment that I’m talking about here,” Mal says. “One instant you are here sipping an ice-cold beer. Then, without warning, you are jerked upwards very rudely as though your entire body is being sucked toward the ceiling by some powerful vacuum cleaner. Not a good kind of sucking. Lifts you right off your bare feet. You kick involuntarily. It’s scary as shit to watch. Looks like it hurts quite a lot, too.”
Andreas asks, “Where do we go in that transition?”
Mal says, “You go back to a particular dimension for the living. Back into mortal life. You are here right now in this dimension because you are dead. This bar on this island. It’s only a waystation, so to speak.”
Andreas asks Mal, “You’re saying we go back to being alive on Earth?”
“After only being here a short while,” Vincent Wauneka adds.
“We were sent back to Nevada more than a couple of times to Amargosa,” Ted Avila explains. “Not merely one time. Not only one mission. We had a lot of recon work to complete. Could not finish it all in just one mission. Sent back over and over to Nevada. We grew to love the Mojave Desert. Always found time to ride in our desert dune buggy together.”
“Well, you had one last ride. Hope the memory of that sticks with you,” Mal says. “Because you will be reborn as someone else entirely. You start life anew. You’re a baby again. Usually on Earth, yes. But not always. Could be some other planet. But you get to grow up and you live your new life. Hardships. Triumphs. Unfulfilling sex. Couple of felony convictions. Prison. Erective dysfunction. Execution. And so on. The usual stuff.”
“Reincarnation?” Ted Avila asks Mal. “Is that what you are telling us? Do we get to keep our memories?”
“I am just the messenger,” Mal says with a shrug. “Plus I only work here. More like I’m a slave here, myself. I am forced against my will to be here. I only look human like you guys to make it easy for you to interact with me. But what you see is not my natural appearance. This is really boring for me to explain for the seven millionth time. Let’s move on to other things, okay?”
Andreas says to Ted Avila, “You were asking me about the tourist ranch in Amargosa, Nevada. You two have been there?”
“Just remember, boys, there can be no secrets here inside the Barefoot Dead Guys Bar. You can only speak the truth to each other while you are here,” Mal explains. “Or there will come painful punishments for you.”
“I doesn’t matter anyway if we are all dead. I am Ted Avila. He is Vincent Wauneka. We were sent together by our employer to investigate a tourist ranch under construction in Amargosa, Nevada. It was not yet finished. Not opened to the public. Our last mission was about a week before their grand opening. Apparently, we were killed while riding the Mojave Desert dunes in our buggy. We only wanted to have some fun.”
Andreas asks, “Your employer wouldn’t happen to be an agency named MMDI, now would it? And your place of employment is on the moon.”
Ted Avila and Vincent Wauneka quickly turn to exchange glances.
Mal laughs like he has just heard the funniest joke ever told.
“Listen, bartender,” Vincent Wauneka says in an elevated tone of voice, “We speak the truth. Technology. Our employer uses very unusual, very special tech. Sends us on missions through time. From living on the moon to working on planet Earth. If we are killed while on a mission, that special tech is routinely used to restore us to life. Always happens that way.”
Mal says, “So you have access to some time machine that can be used to cheat death. Is that what you want me to believe? Someone sends you back to the point before your death and you get replaced with a young, living version of yourself. So, in effect, you are immortals. Is that it?”
“Well,” says Ted Avila, “When you say it that way, it sounds like a bullshit story.”
“You three are nothing but serious fucking trouble for me,” Mal says dramatically. “I am getting a headache. I’ve heard enough. No further questions.”
The ceiling above where Ted Avila and Vincent Wauneka are sitting on their barstools suddenly opens up. A fierce downward wind blast pours into the bar from an oval opening above everyone. Ted Avila and Vincent Wauneka are immediately sucked upward with great force toward the ceiling by a sudden reversal of the air currents.
They kick their legs involuntarily and flap their arms as if that will stop what is happening to them. They shout out in apparent agony and humiliation. But, just as quickly, Ted Avila and Vincent Wauneka are no longer present with Andreas and Mal. The oval opening that was in the ceiling has closed and sealed over like there never was any opening up there at all.
Andreas asks, “Did you just cause that? Pretty fucking awful to watch those guys go like that. They look like they suffered quite a bit.”
“Happens on its own,” Mal replies, “I have zero control over anything with the transitions. But, you’re right. They absolutely did suffer a lot of pain.”
“So are you gonna tell me why I’m dead?” Andreas asks with genuine fear on his face.
“What do mean ‘why’? What I know about you: Immolation. Burned to death. Some religious ceremony. Like in the twentiety and twenty-first centuries. Islamic terrorists were known for that.”
“No, I was not killed by terrorists,” Andreas clarifies. “Not Islamic. Some other religious zealots. Not political. Not really even religious in the usual sense. These guys worships aliens from another galaxy.”
“And I thought I had heard everything as the bartender in this place by now,” Mal says as he chuckles. “Please pick bar stool and sit. You deserve a free beer.”
“You expect me to believe the nonsense that this bar is the afterlife?” Andreas asks as he sits down at the bar.
“I don’t expect anything. I don’t care whether you believe in aliens from another galaxy. I, myself, am not from your galaxy. So by definition that would make me an alien compared to you, mister hotstuff.”
“If you say so. What am I supposed to do here?” Andreas asks. “I need to get back to work.”
“Drink your beer. No more work. Think of this like it’s a long vacation. You are dead and gone, pal. All your colleagues back at work on Earth will wonder what happened to you. Some will even miss you.”
“Actually, I live at an underground base on the moon.”
“The moon?” the bartender asks. His face reveals an intense confusion. “You didn’t really buy that bullshit the other two guys were talking about, did you?”
“Not bullshit,” Andreas says. “Never met them in real life, but they were being completely honest. I work for the same agency they did. On the moon. We are all sent back in time to missions on Earth. I will not stay dead after being burned with flamethrowers. I expect to get sent back right away to Amargosa.”
“Yeah, well, I admire your drive and determination. But you need to hear what I’ve got to tell you about your employer,” Mal says solemnly to Andreas.
“You know more than you’ve said, don’t you, bartender?” Andreas asks with a worried expression owning his face.
“Something like that, yeah,” Mal replies. “Just listen, okay? You already met this person when you both were in the mortal realm. That other dimension.”
Mal describes Colonel Thomas Burke, a well-built Black man around age thirty. “In really excellent shape,” says Mal.
“He’s my boss,” Andreas says. “At the moon base.”
“Okay, so your boss has arrived here at the Naked Dead Guys Bar on multiple occasions,” Mal replies. “Just listen to me. Dead several times over. That’s what I’m saying. His boss ordered Colonel Burke to destroy a religious cult that started at the moon base. A top priority. Didn’t go well for Burke at all. What Burke said to me while here at this bar seemed impossible.”
He said, “Listen, I remember dying. So many times! It happened. I remember clearly. My life is taken by the very agents I supervise. Again and again. “I dream about it,” Burke says with no shame that he is sobbing while he speaks. “Every time I go to sleep. These men that I supervise are capable of such cruelty. They gang-rape me. Because I won’t believe in their religion. Because I hold a position of authority over all of them. After getting fucked by five or eight or ten men in succession, I learn what they want. Punish me to the limits of my tolerance. That’s what they want. They try to own my body and mind. They never will make me accept their beliefs. Their only option is to inflict hurt upon me—physically, emotionally, sexually. They are disciples of pain and death—tools of manipulation used against anyone who resists being converted to their religion.”
Andreas sits silently in shock.
“They forcibly violate me. Discharge into me. The thick scents of their sweat and semen and my blood are very powerful memories,” Burke says sobbing uncontrollably. He tries to keep talking aloud and says, “But they want my head. Most of all that’s what they want. I have experienced this over and over because of time travel. I keep using time travel to fight against them. They take whatever they want. I can never stop them. Each time my throat is being cut and my head is separated from my neck—. Then I am brought back to life using time travel. Unimaginable feelings! I hear the men shouting at me. There is joy in their voices as they celebrate my head being cut off.”
At this point in Mal’s explanation, Andreas has broken down into tears of sorrow and regret for Burke.
“And then, the worst,” Burke explains, “They make me see what they have done to me. They know I will return using time travel. They want me to see my own head—multiple instances of my own head! No man should ever see what I saw. I have seen five of my severed heads all lined up in a row on the floor of the moon base! Five in a row.”