Oliver Benjamin
Roy didn’t know what to make of this and when he asked her
what she meant, she quieted down again. Still, she seemed to be
enjoying herself, drinking water and standing in the corner, smiling
at those who stared openly at her.
Niles, trying not to seem too eager, asked what her voice sounded
like. Roy told him it sounded like a Japanese musical instrument,
resonant and deliberate. They both stared at her a little longer, then
made as if there were better things to do and rejoined the festivities.
Colin was dancing on the counter when the police arrived. At first no
one noticed anything odd about him, as the room was dim and
everyone just thought he had a particularly badly-made nude-suit.
When the cops came in and turned on the bright overhead lights, it
became apparent that the reason the suit looked so bad was because
he wasn’t wearing any suit at all.
Colin’s exposed body was not the only thing that looked bad.
Things suddenly appeared catastrophic for Undergrounds. First off,
they were not licensed to sell alcohol, and although Roy had not been
charging for it, drinking booze in a public place was illegal. He was
therefore guilty either way. Plus, Colin’s nudity and the prevalence of
marijuana cigarettes, coupled with gross overcrowding seemed to
spell certain doom for the viability of any excuse they could possibly
think up.
But Roy was not stupid. He knew something they did not. After
handing the police some legal papers he climbed up onto the bar to
address the crowd.
“This place we are in now, Undergrounds, is also my home,” he
announced, “and is not what it appears to be. The truth is, it is
something altogether unclassified. You might say it’s in a kind of
limbo.”
“Limbo, limbo, limbo!” Colin yelled, unwilling to bend to the
gravity of the situation.
Roy continued, “When my father bought this property in the
1970s this had been a residential zone. He was retiring and this was
the house he planned to die in. It wasn’t until years later that local
politicians recognized the commercial potential and started a gradual
re-zoning of the area. Homeowners were encouraged to sell out to
business developers, and a thriving commercial district was born.
“The problem was that not everyone was keen to sell their
property. Most everyone had their price in the end, except for one
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