The Anchor-age

The stench was a mixture of seaweed and sulphur.

Echoes permeated out of the catacombs in such a way as to distill upon impact with the open air, distilling before a wayward passersby would happen to stumble upon the proceedings within The Anchor, a successful restaurant in the light of day, a secret meeting ground in the still of night.

I had traveled alone in the cold. Traversing slick roads, crying children, sickly men, I pulled my coat tighter around my vessel. As of late, the cold and society had proven to cause a sickish temperance within my mood. I was hurried, I was famished. Tarnished with need, it was an order by the powers that be that we should have the Brotherhood coalesce into one vecter. Want fled once the cold was let in.

Yet, I carried on. I was leisurely, I was fed, or so the mantra tried feverishly to implore upon my consciousness. Stopping along the corner of my destination, the aforementioned concoction brewed haphazardly for the fancy of the poignant sense, smell, perforated my innards with a grimacing bite. I was near.

Stepping up to the hidden door, I let loose my overcoat. The mantra left as cool reality rushed in. I cared not for the smell, but only for the mantra to be rendered mute by the redundancy of true warmth. But I had to keep my wits, my memory. There is an order to the elements of our strange universe, and I had to abide.

I bared the sign stitched into my chest, unbuttoning my shirt for the guard to ponder. He decided it was of good fortune to let me pass. I gave him a shilling for his ponderment.

Traversing into the dank hallways underneath The Anchor, I smiled, beside myself. This was my order, my doing. The human in me would always cry mercy from the outer environments, but once inside, where transcendency reigned, the warmth of hope triumphed. The proceedings were of my calling, and I was on time. Fashionably late in my arrival.

A turn here, a turn there, I reached my destination. Warm firelight attempted to sneak underneath the blocked doorchamber, to hardly any avail. Again, I smirked at the dichotomy between survival and want. Something as trite as firelight abided the laws of Karmath, the laws of the universe, needing to escape to new corners, to find sustenance in any place dark. Yet, I stuttered, it shouldn't be surprising to think of one of the four basic elements to be a primary example of law and truth.

I shook my head. Time to swim to the surface. Time to meet the Brotherhood.

I knocked. I heard a rasp on the other side. "I drive, you walk, I say-"

I answered. "Salsa."

The door opened on my party. Baring the stitch within my chest yet again, the stitch we share as Brothers, the stitch of the chili pepper, we all bared our chests. We were well met.

I took off my coat, my mantras expelled like I had surmised. Speech was of the essence, and in that quadrant of my brain I now tried to work.

"Sit down, Brothers," I began.

The order, which consists of men and women, eight including myself, sat in chairs. Jeremiah, the caretaker of The Anchor and overseer to the proceedings, also shared our company. I remained standing, cemented in pacing within the center of a celebratory circle of chairs.

"I've called us here to talk of the past, the present, and future." Good man, start vague, reign it into detail. "We Brothers have been through a lot together. And recently we hath seen trial and tribulation at having our order separated across the good land of America. We are in pressing times, I need not remind ye. The order is threatened only in new members, but it is hard to let new blood into an already established bond of entertwined vessels and veins, is it not? Trust comes to mind, mark it, trust is very mischievous, yes.

"We started as three. Adri, Lord High Genius of Salsa, Louis, Chief of Salsa, Taylor, Chief of Salsa. You hath procured a fourth, me, Peter, Thane of Salsa. Together we four traversed our vicinity, minstrels on the path of enlightenment within the alchemy of guitars, bass, drums, and vocals. What we made carried over not in art, but in friendship. The Brotherhood was established, and this order came to rise. Our art continues, but it pales in respect to the Brotherhood.

"Our activities were overseen with the guise of prankmanship. While we studied alchemy, we passed it off as if we were children surmising to frighten the weary citizens of our vicinity. A traveller on foot, lost in internal thought, would suddenly be swept out of his tired dream and into a harsh realm of realizing they had just been . . . salsa'd. We, screaming from a better means of travel, an automotive, perhaps, would make them know their inferiority. 'SALSA' we said to the world on high. Say it with me now, Brothers!"

They all screamed "SALSA! SALSA! SALSA!!!"

"Yes," I continued. "And new members infiltrated the four. Gregory, of the Second Circle, which was not called tonight, Louis' family and friends, also of the Second Circle, et cetera, et cetera. We became quite a clan. Alas, our alchemy was proven false, and we drifted. We set out to have an abode, a true epicenter to the Brotherhood. It is here where we began our true blood tying.

"We brought Nicole, Daughter of Mild Chili, and her beau Ryan, Chunky Down Under, Kristen, Hot Wild Winger, and Marta, Smooth Queso Dipster into the fraternity. And they passed. One's blood flows within the other. We are one. And we are met tonight.

"Two years passed as we let the Salsa slip and we delved into the Queso, the cheese of our innards. We were friends, meeting with happiness, sadness, anger, and wholesomeness. We have moved into a realm of the new life, where our Brothers thought it necessary to embark on their journeys, yet never distilling the blood of the other from out their travelled hearts. Seattle, Washington D.C., Rhode Island, now claim our Brotherhood.

"I will now talk about the future, my friends. We need not dwell on the past, only in that it would be redundant to do so. We know what I speak, I speak what ye know. Redundancy in tow. We will dispense of this foul play.

"Our Salsa Ship hath sailed. Anchors have been cast aboard and let loose to the new territories claiming our blood. We have reached a maturity, a transcendence, into travelling Brothers, a place where we will need to be remembered for our past but prepare for the future. Marriages will proceed, children of our blood, we must bear the insignia of the new and mature. Let's dispense of this Salsa, take the stitches of our Chili Peppers out from our epidermis, and brand ourselves . . . The Anchorage.

"Three of our women folk hath branded themselves in this very sign. The Anchor represents a tool of travel, yet when the Anchor truly shows, the travelling vessel is at rest. Anchors are sunken into the bowels of the shallow sea so that its sailors may take heed in the land they hath discovered. They will rust away as the sea taketh, once we have perished, like the waves on a sandbar.

"I now ask of ye to see my persuasion. My motives are clear. Our Brotherhood is now the Anchorage. We shall brand ourselves in the mark, we shall call the eatery above home. A nexus for our meeting. We shall bring new members to this very latitude and test their blood for appropriation within the Anchorage.

"What say ye, Brothers? Do I speak in vain? I ask not for an answer. I only ask for your silent pondering. I will take leave of this proceeding, and see ye in the open air in the days ahead to tell me of your answers. Be well, ladies and gentlemen. Pleasant merriments."

And with that, I stripped myself of my Chili stitches. I dropped them to the floor, turned, and donned my coat. The warmth of my speech had driven away my mantras permanently for the night. In that thought, I smiled again.

Dropkick Murphys -- "Kiss Me, I'm Shit Faced"