The Last Building on Bay Street

The smell of coffee and pastries filled the coffee shop; at this point in his young life, Jamie wanted to throw up at the smell. He’d been the barista at the coffee shop in the last building on Bay Street ever since he arrived a few years back. The coffee shop had a name – something shit and mediocre, like ‘Bay Coffee’ – but to all the regulars, it was known simply as the coffee shop. Not only did the smell make Jamie want to gag, but the rush was slow today. The estate agents had finally turned their hawk eyes on Bay Street and were starting renovations from the opposite end of the shit hole. The last building on Bay Street wasn’t safe for long, considering all the new tenants pouring into the houses down the road that wrinkled their noses at the tattered building at the very end of the street before the shabby forest started. That also meant that other than a few rough-bred regulars, no one else dared brave the coffee shop. Which meant Jamie was bored.

‘’Aren’t you supposed to look inviting, or something?’’ came a cheerful, coffee-rich voice.

‘’Bite me,’’ Jamie grumbled, pushing back his wavy blond hair out of his eyes as he peered up at one of his closest friends. As with the rest of his group, Jamie became friends with Raphael Arevalo by accident. He’d moved into the piece-of-shit building on Bay Street because it was low-key and mostly forgotten. He hadn’t expected to pretty much wind up with a pack of new friends who, like him, had picked the building on Bay Street for its animosity.

‘’Is the air con not working again?’’ Raphael asked, scratching absently at his arm, tattooed in intricate patterns from wrist all the way over his breast plate.

‘’Was it ever working in the first place?’’ Jamie set about making Raphael’s usual hot chocolate. He was pretty imposing – tall and muscular, golden brown skin covered with tattoos, strong facial features making him look like he’d just stepped out of an action movie – but inside he was a ‘gooey marshmallow’ as Gus described him, ‘’when are you opening?’’

‘’First customer is in half an hour,’’ Raphael stretched over the counter like an oversized, tattooed cat and gave a yawn. He worked a level up, in ‘A Touch of Ink’, the only remaining tattoo parlour in the area thanks to those demon-agents that were trying to make the neighbourhood ‘nicer’ – and, thus, more expensive. Jamie had long since decided that if they decided to convert the coffee shop into a Starbucks, he’d quit, ‘’fuck, I hate August.’’

‘’Maybe you should think about drinking something other than hot chocolate?’’ Jamie said with a pointed raise of pale eyebrows as he set the cup in front of Raphael. Just then the beaded curtain hiding the shabby stairs leading up the tall, slightly wonky building, parted and Art walked in, yawning, naked from the waist up. Nobody in the coffee shop reacted, completely used to it by now.  

‘’Caffeine,’’ he mumbled, half-bumping against Raphael, ‘’now.’’

‘’Tough night?’’ Raphael guessed.

‘’I danced so much I can’t feel my hips,’’ Art complained as Jamie set about making his coffee. He slapped a few coins onto the counter.

Jamie rolled his blue eyes, ‘’you know you don’t have to pay,’’ another pro about working and living in such a run-down apartment was that the management was pretty shit. Which meant they didn’t care if Jamie gave away a few free coffees each morning.

‘’Tips,’’ Art said with a smile and then winced as he fingered his hips, ‘’can you believe the bastards paid me in coins?’’

‘’Yes,’’ Raphael said gravely, swiping his hot chocolate off the counter, ‘’laters,’’ he disappeared behind the beaded curtain.  

Just then the doors to the coffee shop opened with a muted ding of the rusty bell above the doors – it reflected the general state of the coffee shop perfectly, but at least Jamie knew how to make drinks. Buster came in with a big grin – and blood gushing from his nose. Art gasped, ‘’Buster!’’

Jamie groaned, ‘’you’re dripping all over the floor!’’

‘’Sorry,’’ Buster put a hand under his bleeding nose and hobbled over to the counter, ‘’got a tissue?’’

Jamie handed him a handful mutely, looking at him disapprovingly as if Buster was the sixteen year old. Buster grinned at him gratefully and pressed the wad of tissue to his nose, wincing, ‘’I thought you were waiting tables yesterday!’’ Art said, appalled.

‘’I was,’’ Buster said apologetically, brushing shaggy brown hair out of his eyes with his free hand, ‘’I was meant to go straight home, I swear. But then some guy asked if I wanted a job so I went and they made me guard entrance to some dodgy club. It didn’t go well,’’ he gestured to his nose, ‘’clearly.’’

‘’Buster,’’ Art deadpanned, grey eyes staring at him blankly, ‘’you’re a skinny piece of shit.’’

‘’Yeah, I know,’’ Buster shrugged cheerfully, ‘’but a job’s a job, so...’’

‘’Wait,’’ Jamie frowned, ‘’you’ve been bleeding this whole time?’’

‘’Well, no,’’ Buster dabbed at his nose, ‘’I bled a bit and then I stopped. I started bleeding again when I walked face-first into the tree down the road.’’

Jamie and Art groaned together, ‘’that’s what you get for not sleeping for twenty four hours straight,’’ Jamie concluded.

The bell chimed again and this time Val walked in – not bleeding, but bruised all over her dark skin. She sauntered up to the bar moodily. Her short, black hair was matted with alcohol or blood, Art couldn’t tell as he looked between her and Buster, ‘’what the hell, is this a roommate thing?’’

Val scrunched up her nose, ‘’what happened to you, Mickey?’’ she asked.

‘’I got punched in the face and then walked into a tree,’’ Buster pulled back the wad of tissues and touched his nose gingerly, ‘’did you win your fights?’’

‘’All but one,’’ Val shook her head, irritated, ‘’I swear to god, the chick they put up against me was a man. More importantly,’’ she dug into the pocket of her tattered, faded shorts and slapped a newspaper cut out onto the counter, ‘’you know how they’re opened the werewolf reservoir last month?’’

‘’Yeah.’’

‘’Well, apparently wolves all over the place have been claiming mates. As in, human mates,’’ Val tapped the newspaper cut out, showing a blurry photo of police officers pointing guns at a man baring his teeth while standing in front of a terrified looking woman, ‘’human mates.’’ 

‘’How does that even work?’’ Jamie frowned.

‘’Dunno,’’ Val shrugged, ‘’but here’s the interesting bit-‘’

‘’Wolves mating with humans isn’t the interesting bit?’’ Buster’s voice was a bit muffled, thanks to his nose injury.  

Val tapped the newspaper article, ‘’the wolves aren’t just sticking to opposite sex,’’ she said, triumphal.

‘’What like... guys get with guys and girls with girls?’’ Art said carefully.

‘’Nah, dipshit, like guys get with train stations. Yeah, guys with guys,’’ Val shook her head, ‘’apparently it’s as common as straight couples.’’

Jamie sighed, ‘’I don’t get wolves. They should have just kept them in their district.’’

‘’That’s inhumane!’’ Buster protested.

‘’And there’s one more thing,’’ Val said, ‘’apparently there’s a new werewolf gang around here. They’ve been biting people left, right and centre’’

‘’Whatever,’’ Jamie made a shooing motion with his hand, ‘’as long as they don’t bother us, they can do whatever the hell they want. Now fuck off, the lot of you. The Crypt isn’t going to work itself.’’

‘’Such language,’’ Buster chuckled as he, Val and Art shuffled upstairs. Buster and Val shared one of the three tiny rooms on the third floor; on longer working nights, Art just crashed on whoever’s floor rather than walking all the way back to the small, run down, spider infested basement he rented out under a car garage a few streets back.

Once alone at the bar once more, Jamie glanced around at the few comatose, mostly jobless bums that scraped enough coins to buy coffee from him. Were any of them wolves? No, he recognised them as regulars even from a month before when the wolf district, separate from humans, had been opened. Jamie chewed his lip. There was no way any of these wolves would make it to the ragged building that stood so apart from the rest of Bay Street, right?

‘’Jamie?’’

Jamie flinched as Gus snuck up on him. He glanced at the boy in a faded t-shirt and met his dark brown eyes, offering him a genuine smile that he only ever gave to Gus, and no one else. Jamie looked pretty innocent – blond hair, big, blue eyes, slight build...but he could fight like a tiger when cornered. Gus, on the other hand, was every bit as soft and defenceless as he looked. He’d moved into the third room on the third floor, just slightly bigger than a closet, a few months after Jamie arrived and they had clicked immediately, ‘’want tea, Gus?’’

Gus shook his head, soft, light brown hair flying, ‘’is it true what Val said? About the gangs and the wolves and the whole mating thing?’’

Jamie swiped the abandoned newspaper cut-out from the counter in a flash, ‘’I dunno, Gus. But trust me, you have nothing to be afraid of,’’ Jamie pointed to his own chest, ‘’after all, you have five badass humans to protect you.’’

*~*~*

Jamie thundered up the stone steps leading to the back doors of the basement of the last building on Bay Street. The thundering wasn’t from the sound of his feet but from the music pulsing like thunder underground. The Crypt was, as always, packed. Jamie guessed it was the crazy, slightly insane idea of an illegal underground club that packed the basement to the brim without fail every night. Getting out into fresh air, even if it was as hot as the inside of the club, was a relief and Jamie took a few gulps before walking over to the trailer parked behind the building. He knocked a few times on the metal, the various trinkets, strings of beads and poundland wind chimes rustling with the movement. There was the sound of shuffling from within and a moment later the doors to the trailer opened, revealing a short, old woman in a bright purple tracksuit and obnoxiously red shoes. There were sunglasses on her eyes, even though the sun had set hours ago.

‘’James, is that you?’’ the woman reached out a wrinkled, dark hand. In addition to being old and crazy, she was also half blind.

‘’Hi, DeeDee,’’ Jamie said, ‘’you could see me better if you took your sunglasses off,’’ he offered.

‘’Oh,’’ DeeDee scooped them off her eyes, as if she had forgotten about them.

‘’I came for the goods,’’ Jamie said, ‘’the Crypt is packed today.’’

DeeDee nodded her head and shuffled back into her trailer. For such a normal-sized vehicle, it was pretty spacious. One side had her bed with the patchwork quilt atop it, and her little TV from the 2000s. The other was packed with weed plants under intense lights that DeeDee cultivated with care, as if they were her children. DeeDee’s trailer was, essentially, a weed van, and was just one of the couple illegal businesses that bloomed in the last building on Bay Street. DeeDee re-appeared at the doors and tossed Jamie a few packets of dried goods, ‘’thanks,’’ Jamie said quickly, ‘’night,’’ then he hurried back inside the Crypt.

He was hit face-first with flashing strobe lights, the roars of the crowd and the music booming from the speakers. The Crypt was run by Jamie and his friends – the landlady didn’t really know about it, the police definitely didn’t, either. Jamie was amazed how for years they managed to keep the rave low key enough to only get a few police raids here and there. Since they funded everything from the drinks to the playlist to the cheap lights fashioned by the ceiling, they didn’t really have money for a DJ. Gus was usually on the music, curled comfortably under the bar with the mp3 the six of them shared in his hands, knowing exactly what song the crowd needed to hear next. Raphael was on the doors, taking the entrance fee and Jamie operated the bar. By day he was a barista; by night, a bartender. Sometimes he switched out with Buster, but the boy was now just sitting at the bar and sipping a vodka coke. Despite Jamie telling him not to, he’d gone out to bus tables for the cafe down the road after a girl called sick last minute. Buster had a nose for jobs – if there was one, he’d get it, no matter how temporary.  

And then there was Art.

Art did the dancing.

Aside from the reputation the Crypt had, Art’s dancing looped a large number of revellers in. Even Jamie, who had seen Art dance countless times, stopped on his way from the back yard and watched, mesmerised, as Art sinfully moved his hips, half naked on the stage set up permanently for him. Most were dancing and raving while staring at him – a few party-goers, male and female alike, just stood there, drooling. Jamie smiled, shook his head and ventured back behind the bar, ‘’sorry for the wait,’’ he slapped the weed down on the counter in front of the waiting customer, who slipped a few bills into his hand. Jamie bent down to tuck it into the box next to Gus, which he guarded while playing with the music.

For the next hour, Jamie made so many drinks his arms hurt from mixing.

At one point Valentina cropped up on one of the mismatched stools at the bar. Again, her black hair was matted, this time definitely with blood, and she had a black eye. They all had dodgy jobs; Jamie was a bartender of an illegal club, and a minor at that; Raphael was the bouncer of said club; Art was an uncertified gogo dancer and Gus the low-paid DJ; Buster had a different job every day, and half of them were for illegal contractors; but, out of all of them, Val had the worst one. Valentina was the terror of underground fight clubs. She knocked out most of her opponents and got enough cash for it to keep the small room on the third floor, split with Buster – but she always came out looking like she’d been in a mob fight.

‘’Shit, is that blood?’’ Jamie called over the music as he mixed a drink for an impatient customer, ‘’is that blood?’’

‘’Some cunt bottled me over the head,’’ Val called back, ‘’but she got disqualified and I got the money, so whatever.’’ Knowing her, she had probably been found by paramedics – and after confirming that she wasn’t concussed, she’d probably ran off. Now she sank her dark fingers into her short hair and mussed it up, hiding the blood as best as she could, ‘’I’m going to tap Art out for a bit!’’ she called and slid off the stool, sauntering over to Art who, despite not showing it, would be getting tired soon.

And that’s how the night went – by the time the August sun began rising, Jamie’s arms felt like noodles and Art was massaging his hips again, digging out any tips the customers had slid within the waistband of his shorts. Raphael came in, dragging the last of the party goers out. Jamie yawned. It was five am – he could maybe squeeze in two hours of sleep before his morning shift at the coffee shop. Raphael came over to the bar and dropped the little bag he used to collect the entrance fees onto the counter, ‘’I’ll get you guys your shares in the evening,’’ Jamie said with a yawn as he popped the bag into the box that Gus had been guarding. Gus was now sitting on the counter, sipping orange juice. Art cracked his neck; working to pay rent was easier in the summer, when they didn’t have to worry about school. Still, it was the best they could do – because most of them still had people, family, they had to provide for.

‘’Let’s call it a night,’’ Raphael stretched, exposing his tattooed muscles. Gus raised his glass of orange juice in agreement.

Just then they heard the doors open and the thundering of a dozen feet, ‘’yo, we’re closed!’’ Raphael called, right before they burst into the basement.

Wolves.

Armed to the teeth with knives and brass knuckles, eyes flashing gold in warning – the weapons were for show. They could rip out human throats with their teeth, ‘’so this is the infamous illegal club,’’ the leader drawled lazily, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a dagger loosely in his hand. He wasn’t particularly tall or butch, but his thin, pale arms were wired with muscle and there was a scar against his jaw, just below his pierced ear. He had a mass of dark brown, thin dreadlocks, half twisted into a bun at the back of his head, the sides of his head shaved. He was, in every sense, your typical gangster boy. The leader’s eyes, usually blue, flashed gold as they concentrated on Jamie and his hands, resting on the box full of money. He raised his knife slowly to point it at him as the dozen guys and girls behind him sniggered, ‘’why don’t you give us that, blondie? And your booze.’’  

‘’Why don’t you shove that knife up your ass?’’ Jamie hissed back. With the distance between them, he was confident he could duck before the knife reached him. Already, Val had grabbed a bottle, ready to smash it into a lethal weapon against the counter. Jamie saw Raphael tensing up in the corner of his vision and he took a half-step in front of Gus, shielding him from view.

The leader smirked at Jamie’s comment but the tightness of his jaw told Jamie that he had just signed his death warrant, ‘’I’ll cut that tongue out,’’ he said, deadly quiet, and took a step towards the bar.

In a flash, Raphael was standing in front of the leader, the knife pointed at his chest as he raised his hands, placating, ‘’look, we’re not trying to-‘’

The knife clattered to the floor with a clang as the leader’s eyes flashed gold and stayed like that. The features of his face softened as he reached out, resting his hand flat against Raphael’s chest, ‘’it’s you,’’ he said quietly and his wolves stood down, ‘’you’re my mate.’’