Static from Cabernet Cabaret by DJFSpirit

Skysteel Manufactory!

A towering, thundering
Engine of the sundering
Of complex parts
Smithing screws and bolts
But also wires and jolts
Specialize in mechanism
Or techanism
A prism of the range of brain
Locked up tight in a tank of the most fabulous minds

The one I’m trying to find once wielded a hammer
A scammer, by the name of Velhaint
Spectacles
Tattoo of pentacles
Covered up with a buttoned up professional
Shirt and jacket
But he couldn’t hack it
With the rules and routine
And the glitzy machine
Had turned too corporate and mean
And when he took his cut it was a cut and run
Now he’s on the outs and employment’s done.

He keeps a lair under the Boozin’ Mare
But he’s a thinker, not a drinker
Don’t know how long he’s staying there.
Hopefully long enough…

Jigs in lock, no flex, no slack
Plates get checked, then stacked, then racked
Every part tracked, weight logged twice
Cut once, then buffed beneath the ice white lights.

We go back, Velhaint and me
When he got reckless
Carried away and feckless
I had been tracking a missing necklace
And we helped each other
Or did he help me?
It depends who you ask
I solved the crime, but he did time
I tried to get him a pass
I did.
I swear I did.

As I approach he is head down, holding one
Piece of a project, and a soldering gun
I knock polite, and he doesn’t say a word
I clear my throat, and I wasn’t sure he heard
“You’re in my light” is what he says as I emerge
From the verge of the room

It was a frosty reception but okay I had it coming
He was slumming
We weren’t chumming but I think we hashed it out
I think we did.
Maybe a little doubt.
And then I mentioned the pearl.

“Can you pull anything off it?”

(Velhaint)
“Depends. Do you want truth, or noise that feels like it?”

Room smells like burnt metal and old invention
He sets the pearl to settle, tightens up the tension
Runs a line to a box of smoke
Hold my breath while the pearl sparks — but nothing spoke.
I watch him start tweaking a frequency
From a row of knobs, in a sequence he
Was doing esoteric shit that I didn’t understand
But I could barely hear his mutter when the pearl shuddered

(Velhaint)
“People think linkpearls record voices, but they don’t.
They trap echoes.”

I knew he spoke but I hadn’t taken note
Of what he said
Because the pearl had spoken up though it was cracked and dead
And since Velhaint had never done as much as lifted his head
I assumed he hadn’t heard what I had

Bits of breath, a laugh perhaps
The sound of clinking glass
A woman’s voice, some kind of passage
Or, “passage, he,” but the words cut off
She says
“Stage it.”
A crackle, something about a Third Shackle

I ask Velhaint. He knows it.

Former lockhouse for debtors
Now co-opted by heavy betters
Kinda place you’d go to write a mafioso some letters
Buy protection or a selection of the black market
Secure collection or hit up a loan shark it’s
Exactly what I was looking for.

(Velhaint)
“It’s too far gone. I can’t get anything out of it. Sorry.”

(Aud)
“You never asked where I got it.”

(Velhaint)
“I'd only ask you questions if I wanted lies.
This was the last time. Get out.”

• Hip-Hop/Rap
• film noir
• hip hop
• Massachusetts