Johnny Equinox was at work. Not the construction job he had in the mortal world to help make ends meet, though there were some similarities. Like swinging a wrecking bar, for example.

He didn’t know who the guy was that he was beatin’. Or why. He was big, so he prob’ly got over-confident and crossed someone. It didn’t really matter to Johnny. For him, all it really came down to was being inside his own body: the sensations, the rush. When everything focussed down into the pinprick of light that was him, his body in this moment, everything else went away, lost in the black.

That’s why he typically didn’t use a wrecking bar. Oh, he knew that it had more stoppin’ power, but if you killed the guy he didn’t learn anything. Weapons had their uses. Like, if he had to beat on a Troll the guy would barely feel his hooves through his thick hide. And he’d heard somewhere that if you used a bag of oranges it wouldn’t leave bruises. Useful. But no, he liked feelin’ it. Flesh and bone on flesh and bone. Nothin’ but the pain in his knuckles. Nothin’ but his hot, wet breath. Nothin’ but the power in his muscles. Nothin’ else. Nothin’.

His Keeper used to beat him with a thyrsus. That pine cone must have been dipped in more’n honey because it hurt like it was made of cold-forged iron. One minute it was wine and laughter and dancing, the next it was a blind, brutal rage.

It had been a dream come true at first. When those crazy women dressed in animal skins came out o’ nowhere and grabbed ‘em from around the fire by the old railway, it had been a trip! Maenads were wild with a few drinks in ‘em. They’d torn him apart, but Big-D had put him back together. Yeah, they’d also torn apart a horse and weren’t too fussy ‘bout choosing parts for the reassembly, but it wasn’t so bad. Better than what Simpson got. He got eaten! Raw.

And so what if he couldn’t go home. The farther he was from his drunk old man and his belt the better. He’d miss his mom, sure, but he didn’t miss her cryin’. Or her shame.

So yeah, fuckin’ insatiable chicks with his horse-dick and serving Big-D wine when he called for it was a great gig. Parties all the time! Well, most of the time. Sometimes that dirty old Fae would stop laughing. You wouldn’t notice at first. Everyone else would be carryin’ on, singin’ and dancin’ and fuckin’. He’d just get quiet. Johnny’d keep fillin’ up his cup, but all it did was feed his dark mood. Then, just like that, all the mean would come pourin’ out. A smack would be heard over the music and all eyes’d turn to the big man. A nymph, fresh from fondlin’ his cock, would be on the ground, cryin’, and would sport somethin’ of a shiner the next day for her trouble. The maenads would scatter like the wild animals they were, but the nymphs usually stood there temblin’, all wide-eyed and frozen with fear. Johnny hated that. And that’s why he usually got the worst of it. But it made him feel good that it was him and not them. He wouldn’t say it was a righteous pain ‘cause that sounded all religious and shit, but those aches made him walk tall the next day. On tiptoe, sure, so as not to waken the bug guy nursin’ his hangover, but tall.

And so Johnny kicked and punched that guy until neither of them could take no more.

“I thought the desert was supposed to be cold at night,” said Johnny as the bartender passed over a cold one. He had stripped down to his undershirt and would have removed that too if the sign by the door didn’t say ‘No shirt, no service.’ He swished at some flies with his tail. Why this skeevy bar on the Interstate was so picky about shirts, he’d never know. At least the women in the crowd were pushing the boundaries of the rules, as well. With both elbows on the bar, he surveyed the crowd of sweaty skinned mortals with a wolfish grin.

A text came in and he plucked it from the back pocket of his jeans. “Industrial road. 11:30pm. Usual rate. V.” He thumbed an acceptance and pocketed his device.
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