The Island CH 2

Remember what happened last night? Good. Now tell the world.

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The Galiant Fuck
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The Island CH 2

Post by The Galiant Fuck »

The woman lived by no one else’s standards or rules. If she had rules, she didn’t share them. We saw her now and then.





CHAPTER TWO: ISLANDESE



The oldest one went into her part of the house. The two little birds slept. I sat there in the front part, frozen in fright, from the television show on the black and white television. Night Stalker with his camera, in a mannequin factory.


The front door opened and I almost fainted. The woman came in and said, “Boy: grab a jacket and put on your boots. We going for a ride.” Then she went back out.


Well, I don’t know about you, but when something like this happens, I’m always up for an adventure. Like a good dog, huh.


The air outside smelled like snow was on its way. The ground froze all the mud and I tripped over the imprints of tire tracks and foot print holes. Last snow was about gone. Moon over head had a ring around it, wide. Last autumn’s leaves stuck out of the mud, like paper fists with middle fingers held high. Birds. Always with them birds.


The taxi cab smoked quietly at the end of the driveway, markers on, cap glowing Hired. How the hell could she afford one of those? We always hitched a ride, everywhere we went. It was a different time. Nobody got taken in our area, back then. Or maybe, the weather in the north was too cold for delicate insane people. You had to be strong insane to live that cold. There’s a difference.


I sat behind the driver, and she sat next to me, to keep an eye on him. She had been places. She knew things. Some of these things that she knew died with her, but many others, well, she shared. In a good way.


For that night, she had an idea. It was one of those ideas that seem like a good idea at the time, but for her, it was never a bad idea. Hell, she’d probably been cooking it up for a while on one of the many back burners she always had going. Teach the son some things. Débrouillage. Untying the knot. Making your own path out of a mess.


She paid the cab driver and tipped him well. Folks who have done service work for others in this country will do such a thing for other service workers. They understand. We stood on a corner in the second of the sister cities, those siblings separate by a big river. She pointed to the shadows. We were going to be stealthy.


My mouth became dry. This was not safe to do. When she went off like this, it was not proper behavior for proper people. I felt the chill form the cold air at a deeper level. I liked it. I would follow her. I would do this. It felt like trying to keep up in deep snow when she got further ahead, and I became left farther behind. A speck in the distance.


We walked behind buildings and avoided the streetlamps. Pale white light with a blue tint. Sharp. You could watch your shadow as it slunk behind you into the shadows; long and crisp until it became claimed by the night. Wisps of clouds slithered across the face of the moon. They covered her like ghosts. Her glow faded behind a shroud. Snow, pretty soon.


Mom pointed to a lone automobile in the middle of a parking lot. We slunk there like shadows, creeping along the ground low, smooth, silky. Of course it was not locked. I thought the worst. She opened the other door and I went to it and crawled into the passenger seat beside her. She looked around,over her shoulder, over my head.


She said, “We will teach them a lesson about being careless with this car. No, now hush. We will not hurt this vehicle. We will not steal it and drive away. We will not take money. We are looking for interesting things. Something odd, something that tells a story about the person. That’s it. Nothing more. What captures your attention?”


I pointed at the plastic shrunken head hanging form the rearview mirror. She smiled. “Take it.”


I did. I was doing something bad, and I liked it. It was stealthy, it was secret, it was bad. I looked at it and she said, “Now it’s my turn.”


She opened the glovebox in the dash and pulled out what was in there. She whispered to me, “Keep an eye out.”


I looked around. I felt a bit queasy. I was very nervous. It felt like electricity.


She held something up to the wan light shining in form one of the parking lot lamps. I said, “Why didn't this person park directly under one of the lamp posts?”


She said, “Probably the same reason that they left their car unlocked.” She frowned down on the envelope. I saw what was written there. It was a girl’s name. She said, “It’s a love letter, I bet. It’s unopened. This is too much to take. This is undelivered to a lady, or it’s unread, from a lady. No. Never take that sort of thing.”


She flipped through the pile of things in her lap and settled on a different thing to take. It was a flat, leather bound metal container. She put all of the papers and pens and such back into the glove box. She held it up and opened it, and sniffed. She said, “Booze.”


Then she drank deep form it. She didn’t even cough. She said, “Whiskey. Mmmm.” She held it out to me.


It was heavy. It felt powerful, like a pistol. I sniffed it. She nodded at me. I lilted my head back and took a long drink. My throat burned and my eyes watered and I coughed and dropped the flask on the floor. She reached down and grabbed it back up, put the cap back on. I felt the burn come back up my throat and then it shot out of my mouth onto the windshield, across the dash board. She laughed out loud.


“Now you have baptized this ride!” She chuckled and then opened it back up and finished what remained inside. Then she stuffed it into her inside pocket of her leather jacket. Her jacket had fringes on the arms. It made noises like ropes on thick paper whenever she moved. She said, “Let’s go. Don’t look back. Human face in the dark will draw attention.”


She slipped away across to the back end of the parking lot, into the depths of the night. I wiped my face with my hands, and used the car seat to clean them. I’d forgotten to bring my mittens, but I was getting used to the cold. It’s what happens when you live in cold weather, and you are not a weakling.


I crept along and did not turn back. I did not know where she went, but I could find her. I knew this. Once I left the ring of light, I could see her shape. I got close to her and looked up at her face. She watched the road on the other end of the parking lot. A single car entered the parking lot and circled the violated auto, inspecting it, then slipped back out to the street. She said, “Police. We will have to be very quiet now. We will walk in the woods at night. We have one more place to visit. Watch out for your eyes from the branches. Stay behind me a few paces.”


I whispered, “I know how to walk behind others in the woods, mom. Jeez.”


She chuckled, and we were off. We slithered like the clouds above, behind the stores and parking lots. There was the drive-in movie theater off in the distance. Folks across the river in the bigger of the two sister cities could watch the movie if they had binoculars, but they would not be able to hear anything.


Were we headed there? She stopped me. She pointed. High above the building on the street-side flew two flags. She said, “Disgraceful. You never leave a flag out after dark. You never leave a flag out during inclement weather. It will snow tonight. We will take those. We will protect them. Those folks do not deserve to have them.”


The shadow of the building hid us form the streetlamps on the other side. It would be easy to get up close to them, but it would be dangerous to take those flags so close to the street. I felt my stomach rumble. She looked down at me and said, “Now now. This is very important. These have been hanging outside all week. Whenever they come back to work, they will have to get new ones. Maybe they’ll learn to be more honorable.” This, form a thief in the night.


I said, “What happens if we get caught?”


She said, “Capture is not an option. We will work very fast. We will go back to the river. No matter what, always head to the river. The river will save you. Don’t jump in. Just follow it along the shore. Now listen. I will untie those flags and lower them very fast, and unclip them. You roll them up and put them on my jacket. They must never touch the ground. Got it?”


I nodded, and my stomach quivered, my heart raced, and I felt strength in my blood. I was charged up.



She took her leather off and ran, and she spread her jacket on the ground beneath the flagpole. I caught up to her as she untied the ropes. The flags whipped down and she unclipped the state flag. She handed it to me and I rolled it up. It was very large, but it did not touch the ground. I put it in her jacket and she rolled up the larger one. It had stars and stripes. She pointed to the river and off I ran. She wrapped up both flags tight in her jacket and sped off after me.


In the dark, we stopped to catch our breath. She watched the road and she set her jacket down. Nobody was coming. She said, “I can’t believe we just did that!” I couldn’t believe she just said that.


She took the smaller flag and said, “We will fold this up later. Put this into your jacket, front side. I’ll do the same with the larger one. Remember, these must never touch the ground.”


We both looked like we had just ate a huge meal. The flag was ice cold in my jacket. I shivered, but it was more form the excitement of doing something very bad, and getting away with it.


Fear can be disastrous if you can’t handle it, and danger can be an intoxicant, but there is nothing quite like doing something with your interesting mom. We crept back down the river bank until we got to the second bridge, and we waited for a taxicab to cross it.



Tomorrow would be another day, but nothing would compare to that night for a while. It was some sort of rite of passage, a ritual from the mind of someone I was glad I knew. I wish I knew what whiskey was in that flask. I’d give it another shot.


.
There is a Blackout Island. It exists. I've been there many times. The map is on the bottom of the bottle, to be read from the inside.

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oettinger
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Re: The Island CH 2

Post by oettinger »

"No comment" comment. Strange read
Drink!
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