THIRD - The man with the gift

A very tall, blond guy got out of the bathroom and entered the small kitchen. The walls were painted with greasy, light green paint which peeled off in many places, the furniture was antique, complete with an antique "Obod" brand refrigerator from the seventies, and an equally antique, if not even older, stove. At the opposite end of the entrance door was an ancient couch, on which some of the boys would fall asleep if he returned to the house too drunk to find a bed. Unfortunately, there was only one queen size bed in the house, so even without getting drunk, one of the guys usually volunteered to sleep on the couch to avoid sleeping in bed with another man and inadvertently bumping into his morning erection. Next to the couch, a brick fireplace had been unusable for decades, high up to the ceiling, and although it hasn't been working for a long time, it stood out in antique, nostalgic way

"I've told you like a million times not to call me Bentley," the tall, blond guy said to another young man of same age, with a shaved head and an attractive, groomed beard. He ran his fingers along the strings of a classical guitar.

"Well, that's your name. Change your name if you don't like it."

"Everybody calls me Mickey."

"Because you made them. When they see your six feet four inches scary figure, they would call you Nikola Tesla if you told them to. Do you want me to call you Ford or Nissan?"

"Why is there no coffee?"

"Because none of us bought it" the guy with the guitar played a couple of tones accompanying his words.

"Bentley, I will never sleep with you again," said a boyish looking, slim, young man with light brown hair falling over his shoulders, as he stepped out of the bedroom. He looked sleepy and wore only boxers and a grey T-shirt.

"What did I do? I was careful not to get close to you." Mickey grumbled nervously, rummaging through glass jars in a futile attempt to find anything resembling coffee.

"That can be expected when Dick can almost pass as a woman with those long curls in the dark. What are you going to do? We had too much beer yesterday, you were upset, you felt a long silky mane on the pillow next to you, and you let your imagination run wild. It happens to everyone. At least you have one more experience." Although the guitarist on the couch said it seemingly calmly and reasonably, Mickey did not miss the hidden joke about him. He threw the pot at the guitarist, who skillfully dodged it.

"No fooling around in the early morning, Pope! I'm not in the mood," he said a little calmer as he found a few spoonsful of instant coffee at the bottom of a jar.

"Half past two in the afternoon," Pope said, putting his guitar next to him. "It can only be an early morning for you, Bentley."

"We finished the concert at five in the morning! This is why I will never finish college," Mickey grunted, mixing instant coffee with water in a worryingly equal ratio of the amount of water and coffee in a glass cup.

"Either way, I'm sleeping on the couch from now on," said Dick, sitting at the kitchen table," and you, Bentley, could finally find a girl so that your morning wood on my back wouldn't wake me up."

Bentley, that is, Mickey, was already getting ready to sacrifice his almost solid instant coffee by pouring it on Dick's head, when he changed his mind and sat down next to him. He drank some coffee and grimaced.

"Well, maybe I found her. You know that concert we're having on Saturday, in that bar over there in the right behind from Nowhere? Well, that girl I met at a party a few nights ago, where we played classical music, promised to come and hear us, as she is driving near that place anyway."

"Quite a precise agreement for a date. How much did you drink that night?" Pope remarked.

"Isn't there anything edible here!" Cried Dick, staring at the "Obod" refrigerator, which contained a sour cream with layers of bluish mold, two dangerously swollen cans of pate and a few already blossomed steaks.

"Speaking of precise agreement, who ten years ago gave a speech about how we will be famous one fine day, hold numerous concerts in the halls, get rich and change girls every day, all more beautiful than the other? And all that, what an optimism, in Serbia, country where dreams come true for no one! Even then we knew what awaited us, wars, crises ... And look at us now: three dilapidated, faded thirty-year-old men, in a failed rock band, who will play for everyone who pays us and will play anything, even at weddings! We are such catches! At least Dick has finished college in economics, and you graduated as a laboratory assistant, and what about me with high school and unfinished college? I am still a student, so I have no profession. And all this without a penny in our pockets. I'm such a catch! And that babe, I don't know if you saw her, came with that huge company, all business dude next to business dude, and business ladies. She was bored with those respected, high-end faces, so she went to the kitchen to hang out with us."

"I remember her, curly, black hair, big brown eyes, nice boobs?" Dick said while trying to find a part of the steak, that was not covered by mold.

"That's right. She is one of few people who can understand me when I was being myself, no pretending. Nothing I told her weirded her out, and I told her all sorts of things. I felt so relaxed with her. Usually, with women I have to be careful what I say. Nothing was strange to this girl, and nothing surprised her, she is so cool. I like that."

"Of course, it didn't hurt that she had beautiful, big boobs," Pope said, getting up searching for cigarettes.

"Such a woman usually doesn't even waste a look for someone like me. I don't have any money, I don't have a real job, and I'm thirty years old! I wouldn't have had a place to live if Dick's grandmother hadn't left him this house where we can live. Musicians are glamorous only in movies."

"Yeah, on commercial channels. But you first must sell your soul." Dick was trying to comfort himself while throwing steaks in the trash. "Maybe we should have sold our souls too, so we would earn something. Maybe become famous. After all, there were good moments in our careers. Do you remember when they announced us in that cafe at Stevan's' as the group 'Orman' (word for "closet" in Serbian)?"

"Ha, ha, ha, yes, that was good, and do you remember how happy we were for that gig at SKC in Belgrade until we realized that our audience was all Satanists?" Mickey sipped his instant coffee, grimacing all the time. from the bitterness of the liquid.

"Uh, I'm just happy that we got out alive, especially when they realized in the first song that we were singing a more politically-socially oriented rock and not perform satanic rituals. They almost sacrificed Bentley to Satan," Pope remarked, lighting a cigarette.

"Hey, those are business hazards." Mickey put the cup of leftover coffee on the counter, which was crying to be washed.

"I was very worried about you. Pope and I literally fell off the stage through the back exit when we saw that things went to hell, excuse the pun, but you didn't want to leave the stage and your keyboards. Then you made one of those disappearances of yours and we found you in our van two hours later, when we were already worried out of our minds. You never told us how you did it. I get the impression that sometimes you just 'disappear' for a while and reappear elsewhere. As in that accident. Remember, Pope? You and I were in the van, and because of those background vocals, Bentley had to go behind us in tiny 'Fica' car he borrowed from his uncle. At one point, I saw very clearly how a truck of several tons crashed into him from the side road at full speed and literally grounded poor 'Fica' into a mush. It was terrifying! We immediately searched for the remains of the car, but there was no sign of Bentley. We found him after a while, when the police had already arrived, a few dozens of meters away from the highway, wandering through the fields. Completely unharmed!"

"I told you I jumped out of the car when I saw the truck coming."

"Big as you are, it's a real miracle that you managed to get into that tiny 'Fica' at all but jumping out the window would already be in the domain of Houdini's skills."

"Yes, Dick, you're right, I disappeared by force of my own will, I dematerialized from the car and then materialized in the field and thus saved myself from certain death," Mickey said ironically, although that was exactly what happened. When he first experienced 'transferring' at the age of eleven, it was completely out of his control. He was in his room, and then, a moment later, he was surrounded by a thick, almost sticky fog. He couldn't see a foot in front of him. He was terrified. He turned around trying to orient himself, partly convinced that he was dreaming, and partly aware that he was very awake. He began to scurry through the fog in search of familiar objects from his room, thinking he was going blind, but instead felt only damp grass under his bare feet and stumbled upon something resembling a tall fern. It was not a short experience at all. It must have lasted a couple of hours and the boy felt fear and panic overwhelming him. When he noticed that it was getting dark and that the fog was getting dark but equally opaque, panic overwhelmed him completely. Some dark body, like a large dog, passed through the fog not far from him and at that moment he lost control of himself and ran screaming for help. He was stopped by a not at all gentle collision with the tree in the garden of their house. There was no fog anywhere and everything looked normal, except that it was getting dark, and when he was in his room an hour ago, it was barely past noon. He later found out that his parents had been looking for him for hours, but he was unable to say where he was. He stuttered and sobbed but, in the end, just stated that he wandered off and got lost. They told him never to do it again.

He did it again two years later, on a school excursion before high school graduation. The bus was driving kids to the small town in Montenegro, to party on the beach, and school buses stopped for a break in the middle of mountains. When, half an hour later, the journey was to continue, it turned out that one student was missing. They searched for him for almost an hour before he appeared, staggering unsteadily from the garden behind a rest stop restaurant. He could not say where he was, and everyone was mad at him for prolonging the trip without explanation. What he could remember was that he was going for a walk down a path behind the restaurant and suddenly it felt very cold. When he wanted to return to the bus to get his sweater, he realized that the path under his feet was gone and that he was walking barefoot in sandals on icy snow! In the middle of summer. Around him, the icy wind whistled, lifting gusts of powdery, dry snow, revealing, from time to time, a frighteningly white and lonely landscape. Truly terrified, even though this experience seemed familiar to him, he turned around in panic, looking for some sign, even the smallest one, that would indicate where he was. There was nothing miles around. Only snow and icy wind. It was June. This was sunny Montenegro. And he was on some frozen, icy land. He tried to squeeze his tall body into a ball in an unsuccessful attempt to warm up. The cold seemed like it was lasting an eternity. When it already seemed to him that he would faint and die from the cold, suddenly he felt relief in the form of a warm breeze. There was a familiar grove around him, and the weather was warm and sunny again, as it should be in June. After some time wandering in the woods, he managed to recognize the back entrance of the restaurant next to which the school buses stopped during the break and headed there. The professors and students who were looking for him immediately noticed him and started interrogating him and accusing him of irresponsible behavior and holding all the buses at the stop. He was silent, unable to explain where he was and what he was doing. That's how it ended, although this event drew an awkward tail of already unflattering rumors about him.

During high school, such disappearances, or as he called them "transfers", became more frequent than before. He experienced it again when he was fifteen, during time in a cafe with friends. He went to the bathroom, and when he closed the door, found himself in pitch darkness. Groping around for doorknob, light switch, door, or at least, a wall, he found himself in a space far larger than tiny cafe toilet. The darkness suffocated him like blindness and there was not even the slightest sound around. In relation to this experience, the previous one in a fog was a joke. It was awful. He wandered in the silent, deaf darkness, as it seemed, for an infinitely long time, shouting, desperately feeling with his long arms around himself, searching for anything to hold onto, but there was nothing around him that could be heard or felt, as if he was dead, lost in nothingness. He felt the light on him while kneeling on the floor and hysterically screaming: "I want to get out, I want to get out of here! I need light! It's so dark!" Some people heard him screaming, broke into bathroom and lifted him to his feet, asking him if he was drunk or drugged, or maybe sick, and then let him out of the cafe. Judging by the time on the cathedral clock, it was already two in the morning, which meant that he had somehow 'lost' the whole three and a half hours.

The other times this happened to him he couldn't remember where he was and what happened to him in a period that varied from a few minutes to a few hours. But even when he could, those were mostly seemingly completely deserted places, sometimes hot as a desert, sometimes cold, icy wastelands, sometimes places hidden in thick fog, sometimes dark, deaf black holes. It didn't happen every day, or every week, but often enough to draw attention to him, and he didn't want to attract attention, especially not in that way. Although he wanted to share his secret with someone, he did not have the courage to confide in even his closest friends.

Until he met Elena. Elena was eighteen at the time, the same age as him, and she won him over with her cheeky and confident personality. She approached him at a party for someone's birthday, where he was playing a synthesizer and started talking. Little by little, they separated from other guests, and not long after, they were a couple. Elena had him wrapped around her little finger. He was young and madly in love, and she was a skilled little manipulator and one day he was stupid enough to tell her about his "transfers". She listened to him carefully, with understanding and patience, and he felt relieved. Someone understood him, someone believed him, someone finally knew! Gently, although with noticeable hesitation, she kissed him, with much less passion than before, and with the excuse that she had to go home, she left him alone, promising to see him tomorrow. Tomorrow at school all hell broke loose. Soon as he arrived at the high school building, he realized that the whole school had found out what he told Elena last night. The other students were avoiding him in the hallways, and several of them accused him of being a freak, a madman and a drug addict. During break, a group of students stood in front of him, accusing him of scaring girls, told him to stay away from Elena, and to keep his "madness to himself". Few of them accused him of being a mad killer with blanks in memory where he forcefully forgets what he had done. Fortunately, due to his above-average height, they didn't dare to approach him or physically threaten him, but he was already crushed by Elena's betrayal. Betrayal not only secured him the reputation of a deranged madman and maniac, but also threatened to jeopardize his graduation. The professorial board heard about the rumors and invited him to question him if there is any truth about the rumors circulating around the school about him. If he is taking illegal drugs, they will initiate a procedure to help him before he harms himself and before that evil addiction kills him. They were so convincing in their efforts to help him, so much so that he could barely muster the strength to say that none of it was true. No, he doesn't take drugs. No, he never drank alcohol.

"Look at me," he said. "Do I look sick?"

He stood in front of them, tall, fit and broad-shouldered. He really didn't look sick or exhausted at all. And that helped. That and good grades. Luckily, the end of the school year was already close, and he graduated high school before the rumors that Elena treacherously spread about him could seriously harm him. Still, he didn't hate her for it. In a way, he accepted her betrayal as a warning that people should not be trusted, even if you think they are close to you and love you.

He kept "transfers" to himself and, when he had to, explained his sudden disappearances the best he could. In the meantime, he became so skilled in inventing excuses that no one ever noticed that something unusual was happening to him. From time to time, his disappearances were difficult to explain, but also, he was aware that several "transfers" became partially guided by his own will. At those times, he would be in a very specific mood and mental state, and he could cause "transfer" and manage it to certain place. Especially when he was sleepy and distracted, and when falling asleep, he would feel the reality around him dissolve, disappear and change into something else. It felt as if a three-dimensional projection that pretended to be reality is slowly fading around him, and the real world appears with threatening emptiness and devastated landscapes. Fear and high adrenaline also caused "transfers", as any state of mind would cloud his mind from thinking clearly and functionally. Those states of mind were favorable for his disappearance and "transfer" to another world or another place. The danger that one day he may never return constantly accompanied him on all his travels. It was the elevated adrenaline that saved him from the attack of Satanists at concert and from being crushed in pieces of metal in collision with a giant truck.

Ten years ago, he met Pope and Dick on the river beach, where they played live with their band "Analytic" in a cafe. They were supposed to play live until midnight, but the keyboard player left them in a bitter argument. Seeing this as an opportunity, Mickey did not hesitate for a moment. The band "Omen" was formed a few days later. Since there were only three of them, they had to be quite versatile. Pope played classical as well as electric guitar, and he was also a bassist when needed, but he also had a powerful voice and was a group main singer. Dick played drums, but he would jump in as background singer, and occasionally as bass player. Mickey had a horrible voice, but he was great at keyboards.

At first, it was great. They played out of pure love for music, sometimes for truly small sums of money, or even for free. They wrote and composed the lyrics themselves, and although those lyrics were often quite bad, they were honest and from the heart. They started out with lots of ideals, they worked honestly and sincerely, they worked with gusto, and they did the gigs they wanted to do. A few years later, when the need for survival threatened to become a serious problem, they realized that idealism and choosing gigs that were to their liking, as well as honestly written lyrics, simply did not bring enough money for them to survive. The bills piled up, and there were times when they didn't even have money for food. The first to realize that they would have to stop making concessions to themselves was the pragmatic Pope who one morning dramatically slammed a table with papers for a wedding gig. The offer was great, the money was more than good, but it required a certain range of music and lyrics that they had never done before for ideological reasons. Mickey immediately rebelled.

"I don't play turbo folk songs!" He said and slammed his fist on the paper with an offer and a job description which Pope arranged neatly on the table.

"Look how much they pay," Pope's voice was voice of reason.

"It is against my principles. You know that I play what the three of us wrote and composed and I don't do other people's material, much less turbo folk music. No way!"

Dick, who was standing silently behind them, silently opened the refrigerator and took out a softened cucumber that was turning brown, piece of cheese eaten by mold and not in a good way, and a sausage that had a rotten smell. Apart from that, the refrigerator was empty. He arranged an alarming number of unpaid bills on the table and several metal coins next to them. Mickey stared silently at that pile of paper, metal, and rotten food, anger raging in his chest. Then he got up and went to the bedroom to lie down in anger and despair, but not before he said that this time he would make an exception, if he had to, but that would be the last time.

When they received money and a tip, which covered their expenses, "the last time" repeated a couple of weeks later at the second wedding, then a month later at the third. They started accepting gigs in cafes and restaurants, and all the ideals and principles of the band "Omen" sank as if they never existed. They almost never played any of their original songs, and when they did, it was at the lowest paid gigs. Money, although good at times, was mostly in deficit, and there were periods when there was no work at all.

They had lived together for six years, struggling to survive in that ancient house, and things were not getting any better. They dated sometimes but most of the time were unable to sustain those relationships. Pope had way too many short meaningless relationships, as he said, "to prevent himself from falling in love", and Dick was in a serious long-term relationship that ended when she asked when they could start living together, and he suggested she moves in with all three of men in his already to small house. The gig at the pub on Saturday wasn't promising with the pay, but now, it was better than nothing, which is how much they currently have.