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32 
PUMICE SEED

Patrick Stoves
Copyright © Patrick Stoves 2015

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved.
1

Saturday, lost it all. I drank to forget and the only liquor I touched all night was brown with an aftertaste that calmed my nerves and purified my psyche. Faces circled around me all laughing and smiling reminiscing on old times long gone.

On occasion I would raise my head and snicker, look into the empty glass and not realize what I was happy about. Shook the half melted cubes that once danced inside my mouth around, touched by its unique fervour. It was loud and lively but I could only make out the bass kicking the speakers.

The world as I knew it split in two through my jilted vision, bound to a face that sagged dull. Couldn't take any more of it so I stood up then trotted away from the table. I held onto people while I ambulate through the congregation of bodies on the dance floor writhing up against each other like elks mating. Reaching out the door ran away from me as I fell into the restrooms planting hands onto familiar wall tiles and sliding across its bleached decay until I met the border swaying crossed grip to a new location.

A faucet drew chilled water. I couldn't wait and splashed it to my face. Music that flooded through timber and stone nullified by the walls haunted me, its tone undecipherable and backwards. Nonetheless that scattered pile of tissues, a dank-cold prison like box was my capsule of security. Badly stained urinals and a lonely cistern humming in isolation kept my nerves together somehow.

Only thing I remembered after that was his face luring over me while he was propping me up helping me to walk straight. That callous glee of his etched into my recollection, black lips, make-up and raccoon eyes assist me up the dusty path home. He talks to me but I can't make out the words so I watch him mouth out advice. Nod my head once the mimed sermon of his has ended.

He helps me into bed and takes off my shoes, even tucks me in. Then the light bulb crackle fades and I see the honey tinted dispersion from an open door swirl as it slowly creaks toward a matched slotted nook.

Alone now, I roll my depleted saliva around and guide a flat tongue across the roof of my mouth and out. A dog barks, I stir. Peering into the dark from the foot of my bed at the distinct wall that had been knocked through. Its brickwork protruding from the points of impact from a sledgehammer were jutting out in chaotic angles. Dust and mortar covered the floor, sporadic footprints in the mess fading into the concrete. Voices inside the hole resonate. High pitch, vocal and confident but a morass overtaking another as each one grows louder trying to gain authority over all whom hear their words.

The woman chatters enamel, a man chants his psalm. All I want is for it to end. My pillow beside me serves no other so I curl into it. Frigid shards of glass cascade to a heap onto a granite footer. That ancient itch of sand down my back as fire whips at my stomach. Am I sick or hungry? A hollow pop and that taste of powdered chemicals meets my tongue. Slowly I drift off feeling numb. The voices subdued partially as I sleep with only the sound of a cavalry drum spat from the mouth of a child looping in my mind.

Sunday morning, perspiration envelops my book, I flip it over and stare at the ceiling. Mildew collects in the top corners of the window frame extending out its reach like vines or bacteria, multiplying its stock it crawls over the edges. Lucidity wanders over to the feather. I look back to the damp stain and it appears to have grown. Desert grains tap at the pane.

Upright from my chair to examine Hot Springs matchbox of apartments. A shanty for the lesser worthy residents of Coachella Valley. A junkies and drunks paradise with all the pleasing entities at their doorstep. Springs is filled with pimps, pushers and whores. Some of them are outside doing their thing. When it got bad it was good, they would rob the other Springs blind across from Route 10, kudos to Palm Springs. Business and pleasures can't reside in the same building and the dealers like it that way but it doesn't stop the flakes from begging for freebies every time they've pumped their own vice into their body and ran out of stuff to fleece. This derelict was bait for any jumped up loser looking for a fix and I lived among it.

Out of my seat, feet onto an exposed concrete floor and its chilly as I tiptoe to the bathroom. Bottom feeders that walk the adjacent halls mimic my own steps.

The waters too hot at first then it drops to that perfect temperature, an everyday Goldilocks story for the masses. I stand there taking in the warm water directly onto the scalp. The fogged up screen becomes my new plaything, I doodled a smiley into the wet. Don't like to stay in for too long as it withers skin on the fingertips and makes me nauseous when I feel the bumps.

Pat myself over then wrap a towel around my waist tight. Push aside the medication bottles looking for a clean blade and I see the remaining one is all rusted at the sides. I use it anyway.

Cracked a sneer and wipe my face anew when I'm finished shaving. Both hands clasped around the sink I flaunt the mirror, feel my way around each hair follicle checking for inconsistencies. Out from the hall the phone rings. I took it and sit on the bed.

'Hello, that Ralph.'

'Who's asking,' I say.

'It's Stan. I'm um, standing in for Dominick.'

He sounded tired and wreaked of too many hours put in working the job a week.

'Is there a problem Stanley.'

'We can talk about it. I'm at the clam house on West Point. Can you come now?'

The sun's crown broke over the apartments and through the window its light entered my dark circles. While he talks I slip on some pants and over the shoulder I throw the trailing towel onto a chair. I go into the other room dragging the telephone with me its curly cord stretching in my wake.

'There's been a break in. It's important you see this for yourself.'

'Fine, I'll be there in two hours,' I say.

I hang up and smoke a cigarette, my ash tray a cup resting on the coffee table. I watch for a moment as the fumes rise.
2

Driving on the highway lifeless palm desert either side, Mecca long behind me. As I pass a banked right apex the watch downhill speed sign rattles as I cruise the stretch. Peaks come and go – drought stricken brush pass me by and a yellow blip off in the distance meets the edge of the road horizon. A tarmac haze shimmers encapsulating the vehicle whole. Vast stretching sky meld at the burning foot of the mirage. Squeezing the wheel, prising both thumbs into the worn imitation leather and electric tape I adjust into the seat again and drift grimly towards the eight track. Its dust ridden and out of place with the rest of the interior. A tape with the words, "The VU & N" scrawled onto the white label is already in the deck. I push it all the way in until it disappears into the slot. At ease as soon as the tape beats its tambourine tunes.

In the glove compartment is a quarter whisky. I take a drink.

A cornfield fed by irrigation sprinklers is seen through my left side window. In the background a figure running on all fours at the same speed as the car is half visible in the whorled leaves. It looks like a canine but the limb movement is an unnatural limp. It can only be made out through the separation of evenly placed crops until it falls out of sight as rows fade to more patchy desert.

Down the hill into view comes the Jeep slow paced as I head towards it fast. It glides over the highland almost floating above the cracked tarmac surface. Still far away the blacked out windscreen a reflected shower of light makes me squint. Stunted Camaro panels rattle at the incline as I step onto the gas hard followed by a jerked move slotted into the gearbox. Lost in motion, tread overlapping the road a crackle of broken bedrock, my view tilts back to the long stretch of highway 74.

A caught up wind buffets the car as I compensate with an oversteer around a mountain incline. The precipice becomes my shelter. Slight relief at the perceived change I relieve my grip from the wheel tired of fighting with its drag.

Predominating from above a whistling shriek passes through the various plants overshooting the clifftop sending soft matter cascading against the car roof. My wheels arch as I move out from the shielded hulk darkening the plateau and pass back onto a straight. Blighted forces hit causing me to vice my grip on the wheel again. I can feel the energy sapped out of me as I clench back against wild howling at the front of the car slowing me down. No movement is on the crest in front, only wind, me and the Camaro. A lonely highway with only a toneless whine and tunes from the tape in check.

Rockrose buds plucked from the stem caught upon eddies cross my path. Luminescent blooms that shoot up the cambers dazzling my sight, contrasted by the unforgiving palm sands as I drive continuous leaving a trail of colour behind me.

It's hot and air thick with humidity that the cars conditioner struggles to remove from the interior. I can hear that arid heat call sign as a cicada swarm somewhere off in no man's land rattle their song of praise to the sun. I crank a window and out flows that stifling choke from the car that slowly was suffocating me. The locusts call all the more deafening with the window down swapping one annoyance for another.

Broken stump posts separate a perilous pit valley as the road twists snapping back to a meander through the hills. Ash cinders kick up a desert blanket as my car hits the corner blinding my view of the route I ease from the pedal, march in steady as she goes. An in pouring of earth engulfs me stinging my skin through the open window and as I prise it shut grains fight to get back inside. Wheels biting into the dirt sending my senses wild with guarded alarm. A nervous tick, a stutter of my reactions. Starting again wiping my nose clean. Into the pale.

Its strangely latent in amongst the debris hindrance that blots out the sky. I've been sucked into a vacuum of nothingness as the darkling swept the bumper. An empty burning light shines on fast moving pigments turning them a deeper ochre the further I encroach. I am the interloper of a furious sandstorm with the painted lines in the middle of the road my only guide. Following these lines with a hunched head high to the roof I'm focused on the only reference point that can lead away from the sand scourge.

From out of the dark comes an engine of a car revved to exhaustion. I cannot locate anything visible from within the gloom of the sandstorm. Particles clatter the framework and begin to concentrate onto the windows further hindering my view.

Closer now the clash of mechanic parts brood from within the dust. I hear the roar of the infernal machine. In a panic I set in motion the window wipers at full speed then upon the first stroke my view outside narrows to an unpolluted band. I brake and turn off the engine.

Strained in tandem they play a chorus of dilapidated agony as they groan in symphony. Headlights pulse out of the deep dust cloud and head past me. Tension of the squealing timing belt is palpable until with rushed hands a turn of a key my own engine fires back into life drowning out the retreating cars.

Fog lights on I slowly creep forward. Hectic swathes of sand flock the skies with only minute patches of orange visible through the chaos. Looming out from the highway sidewalk is a humdrum cacti columnar buffeted by the unforgiving storm. It welts at the open pores where the stamens have been cast off from the turbulent wind. Until the hails of grit cease and my view clears.

Pushing up the rear view mirror I watch as the storm dissipates behind me. The wind moves on searching for a new host to torment and I alleviate a breath praising my journey was not at the bottom of a ravine. With a view out towards the mountain vista I see it come over the hilltop again. Several pimples breakout and ran a doggedness through me. It's only a few hundred yards out.

This driving has got me restless and I look around for something to stem the twitch in my legs. The Jeep sweeps past. Ejecting the tape I flip it over sliding it into the deck and tap my fingers on the wheel in presumption.
3

A few miles pass and I can see the urban complex mash of palm trees and Temecula's gated fences; a distinct disparity from where I've just come. Rolling hills of this place are supposedly the heart of Southern California's wine industry. For all I care it might as well be poppy's they grow up there.

I pass through the sleepless community without paying any due call to any of the features in muckraker dwelling ground. Lights up ahead force me to stop, flashing an amber caution my way. The still playing tape in the deck stops and now only a hum of an engine in park keeps me company. I wait for the lights to change vacating in that cardinal glow.

Sedans and roadsters pass the crossroads in my peripheral vision as I sit in contemplation. The air is clean it's easy to grasp some in the lungs and with the temperature having dropped considerably I could finally feel the air-con. The lights however wouldn't divert they weren't on my side they were in cahoots with the wind and the heat that had been pursuing me ever since I left Springs.

Lost my trance when I saw a fellow commuter come to stop beside me and tilted my head over to the right brushing my chin purposefully across my collarbone. The coarse stubble catches the fabric of my shirt as I caress it verging onto pain but never quite crossing that threshold. I roll down the window as desert grit crackles on the glass.

Outside I'm greeted with a plastic frenzy of recent estate developments for influential property hunters upgrading to a life out the city. It's the eyesore of the county, historic wooden homes surround and clash with a speck of new plastic chic at its lower extremities. The shallow housewife's of Temecula wave to their midday start husbands pulling out the drive to begin a late hours slog like clockwork. I'd always be passing them dawdling along, juiced with coffee while going to Sovereign or some place or another and think they were waving for me and the other tired busybodies. Why else would I be here, to consider a permanent stay? We weren't, just passing through, what'd be the point in taking to the road and not expecting to go some place new you've never seen. My wish is granted at last and I move out from the crossroads as soon as the lights hit go.

A quiet drive in silence with only a hollow car frame bouncing between the cracks. When I enter the valley close by canopy trees of the mountain state park huddle together in conference. They whisper a sombre trill. A shiver up the spine, a comatose fixation on what lies in waiting for me. Where am I going and why?

Light through the trees anoint me in a blessed calm, my grip of unease short. A transition to tarmac that is smooth and delicate a glided voyage through the wilderness passage. Advancing further the air little by little relieves. I can smell a salty sea brimming upon high then dropping onto me carried by the wind. Off went the air-con and up goes the window slowly, then it stops midway.

Lever is clenched tight and requires more of my reserves to be tasked upon closing a humble window. An oncoming truck surfs the road ahead of me. It dips into a downward slope and mounting the tip its low hanging chain rattles.

The tow truck and its haul crawls by giving me time to look into the sheer black of its windows but all I see is my own reflection. It continues down the road and I down my own, to Oceanside.

Left the car in an outlying lot then I cross over and head towards the crab place. The sign of the restaurant is a skewered anthropomorphic prawn with a smile and underneath perspires Stanley still wearing his bar attendant garb. Walking closer I watch him omitting my presence, fumble with a napkin. He tears it in half and proceeds to tear off smaller pieces rolling them into a ball in between his thumb and index finger. When he catches sight of me he flicks the paper ball away.

'Christ good to see you Ralph.'

'You too Stanley.'

'We can get some shrimp. This place is the best, it comes highly recommended,' he says.

'Later. First I want to know why you dragged me out here,' I say, enquiring the windows and seeing the diner seats occupied by manatees eating a super value buffet.

He paused. I could tell he missed his paper ball as not having anything to fiddle with he just looked lost until he staked his gaze elsewhere. 'About that.'

We walked from out of the shelter of the seafood restaurant awning and rested at a hotspot overlooking the beach. He momentarily drifted a vexed face out to sea. Cogs of thought whir as he folded his arms and slouched on the beach railing. I looked around to check my surroundings while he reached into his inside coat pocket.

'It's the Czech he put Dominick in hospital,' Stanley says, with a notable wheeze between words.

'Did he,' I say, under my breath.

The wind had followed me from Coachella and played havoc with a couples extended parasol dug into the beach sand. It rippled sending its vibrations through the thick of my skull. I sat and watched them for a while before the waves hit the beach. Buffeted seagulls stalled above as their feathers creased over in the gust. Stanley wipes his nose then blew aloud into the tissue he pulled from his pocket, inasmuch to make it so my own nostrils flared taking in the batches of crustaceans boiling in pots that vented out of the restaurant. He still looked at me and hold-up for a decisive response.

'Is it bad?' I say.

'Nothing that old caboose couldn't shake off, broken jaw and a concussion.'

I curled my lip into the corner of my mouth. 'I'll visit tomorrow, check in on the old guy.'

'Yeah,' Stanley cut in.

'What was my debt was now his.'

I felt a wreck, I needed to unwind. It had been a few hours since I last held a smoke in my fingers. A drink at my side too straight on the rocks. My quench for malt and cancer was a done deal but a magic wand to wash my problems away, out of reach. I yank my last cigarette out of the pack and just held it at my fingertips toying with myself to smoke or not. That's when I caught his glance stiff and uneasy.

'They took a bunch of stock from the club last night when they paid a visit. I've got Harry on it. He's round there cleaning up before we open,' Stanley says.

'No such thing as an honest dealing in this world any more, snatch and grab, less effort.'

'Want to know?'

'Tell me, go on what did they take.'

'Cases of liquor. Vodka, whisky, most of the juice. Swiped the cash register clean and messed up your office.'

'Replaceable, some things are not.'

'No kidding,' he says.

'I'll handle it. Going to swing by for a couple, check the damage. You need a lift?' I say.

'No biggie, I'm swell boss. Parked up over at the mall.'

Stanley raised his head and nodded at the gesture. I could have used the company with him being the first person today I talked to since the day before. Back at parking, car doors sticky and it needs a little love and a dab hand in order for the thing to open properly. Would be a real pain for most people to do that every time but on this occasion I like it, helps keep the mind from running away carelessly.

I spot him taking off out west in his hatchback and fixed onto the steering wheel I raise a hand then pull out in line with Stanley's car. A sleuth in his path I clench my teeth wondering if they had took it when they raided the place. Not knowing I hit the steering wheel.

Up ahead is the same crossroad I passed earlier. Stanley's car sails through while I slow down intentionally looking to meet a red light. Crawling along at a Sunday pace, a honk comes from behind. I flip him off as he overtakes impatiently. The lights change and I wait in this tinderbox of mine thinking.
4

Outside the club a middle-aged man walks the side of the road then steps onto the path. He walks with his lithe jacket almost zipped up to his nose looking down at the cracks in the pavement, carefully stepping in between the spaces. Reminds me of the youthful girls on my block playing hopscotch on a chalked up crooked outline of squares. They would sing songs, I would listen:

Rumble, rumble don't you tumble,

take your time and jump for me.

Click it, clack it will you land it,

take your time and sing for me.

Load it, lock it name it Margaret,

take your time don't jam on me.

Hold it, love it now you own it,

over the hill lord pray for me.

Old rhymes I never understood back then, so catchy it still stuck with me today. I don't know if they sung on what is now a hookers corner but maybe the next. All the streets look alike around these parts. Everything is built upon straight angles mapped onto a grid that backs up on itself.

I digest my surroundings. The face of the club is dated. A vertical neon embossed with the titular ident of "Sovereign" hangs above the entrance. Aged and battered walls, door frames peeling, an old poster that has sat in the window from way back when. Not to be unwelcoming to patrons the stench of an open sewer hits them upon first foot at the club doorway.

Halfway inside I pull the poster tearing it and nail off the tack then check an opening where Harry is working in the background cleaning. I pass by the stockroom after briefly surveying the lower floor.

Up the stairs and towards my office I can see the door has been broken off, busted at the hinges. Its hanging by the bottom tilted at one side where splinters of wood have shattered and have flayed.

Pushing on the flimsy mess I hobble inside greeted by paperwork spilt across the floor and all the draws pulled out. Paper sticks to my heel. It's impossible to venture around without trampling on something. I scrape it off my foot, an audit from a few months ago. A forgotten footnote in time that left my hand upon spotting an empty nook on the wall where mothers silver crucifix should hang. A cross shaped outline still mapped onto the wall that is prominent against the cream coloured paint. Below this, a dresser ajar, kept inside were things that she gave to me. I slam the doors shut after my second spell inside. Her collection of vases and passed down broaches were her most prized heirlooms but when I would look to the ornaments inside it reminded me simply of her, what she represented and how wise a mother she was.

The room had been emptied of anything worth keeping. No big amount of money was kept on the club ground so the ransacking perhaps another statement of power. Bending and picking paper one sheet at a time got me tired quick and my back hurt so shuffling them in a corner with a lazy foot an easier option.

Pausing for a scratch of the head taking in what I could. The Czech and his other minions had gone against taking my golf clubs still slotted into their bag. A present from uncle Hector and they weren't second-rate by any means. A hundred dollar clubs just left standing, wonder why. Maybe in the process they were disturbed or could only carry so much. Could be that they just don't know what quality looks like having been brought up in a dirt poor, European corruption of a country. I plucked out a club a seven iron, studied its markings and grooves with a delicate scrunched eye.

'Need some help?'

Standing against the door one hand on the frame was Stanley who always had a thing for baptismal sneaking when you thought you were alone. His head shaking at the sight, pursed mouthed but still with a cheery undertone. I turned back and carried on marvelling at the golf club.

'It's a shame, no respect nowadays.'

He tutted and whined aloud overemphasising every jerked reaction. I opportunely waited for the harassing innuendo to come. He'd already seen the damage caused at every corner of the club ahead of time but still he persisted with his fake sympathy driving me nuts.

'Listen you want to change over, need to take care of something,' I interrupted.

'I'm on it,' Stanley quipped, half-cocked and he gets right to it starting with the kicked aside documents.

Aborted the club in a rush without saying anything and outside popping the trunk of my car I took out a large duffel bag. Down the street more developments were being constructed. Havon & Mellor was the name affixed to the chain link fence where drilling echoed behind. They were laying the foundations. Luxury apartments and a retail mall were conceptually drawn on a billboard further along the pathway. I turned my nose up in the air crossed the boulevard and carried on towards the bottom of Neptune Way.

There is a pawn shop with a dimly lit up dollar sign betwixt the capitalized "Remo's Pawnbrokers". Inside, pushing the door jingling the bell above it, sets of cabinets with different ranging jewellery are laid out in neat order either side of the entrance. Its musty in here and at the bottom behind a thick glass with bars is an elderly man scornfully following my movements with his small eyes. I look away from him, at the rug which is damp and blotched stains cover its ultramarine strands, my own trainers are cleaner as I flex them.

Continuing my cautious advance I start counting my footsteps down the laden stretch to the cashiers desk. No music playing in this joint it's all about the trade and the owner seems weathered like he ran into a few dramatic situations too many to care about the customers any more. Was half expecting him to tell me I wasn't worth his time but when I reached the counter he stared at me like I was an untrustworthy nuisance that is disturbing him from his portable television that blares out a garbled weather report.

'There's a storm coming.'

'I know,' I say.

'Yup you buying or selling,' the old man says.

The name tag woven onto his pinstripe shirt held by suspenders reads 'Gorkov' who up close still held a twisted expression in contempt at my presence. Where's Remo when you need him.

He adjusted his view through his bug-eye glasses that reflects the room and me in its wide lenses. Onto the narrow base I held the bag and unzipped it revealing a collection of assorted vinyl records and signed framed posters in mint condition. Parting from the rest of the assortment of music memorabilia were things too ostentatious for me to use any more. Took out the heavy stuff first, candelabras and unopened cutlery when from behind the door chime activated which in turn old man Gorkov's pitted face drifted over my shoulder. I carried on pulling out items for his approval until the bag was empty.

'All signed and official. Real silver stamped, take a look.'

Held up the silverware to the glass as the broker sucked in through his teeth and craned his head to study the specimen. I was begging for a deal always being polite to this man who I really could not relate any worthy qualities towards. Smiling, nodding my head in understanding and gesturing at him in a manner, unable to break the mould and relax.

'Send them through I want to have a look closer boy,' Gorkov grunted.

He points to the large sliding deposit box covered with a metal grate and stainless steel handle at its brim. I unload the goods in there and as I do so turn to see who entered the store. Browsing the collection of bracelets a woman is cheerfully analysing which one of them will become her own. Boyish hair bob with uncoloured roots show through the old applied chestnut dye. Eyebrows raise as she turns still smiling to look at me. Her plain sight dazzles me as our fixed gaze locate one another with those lids of hers without any pencilled liner I've grown so accustomed to. A burgeoning smile that increases as we both recognise one another as fellow neighbours. The woman's name I don't know but she resides in apartment 109D being the sole resident. I could sometimes hear her singing along to show tunes through the walls separating us. On occasion friends would meet to party at her home and before leaving their noisy footfall can be heard as they horde out the communal corridor sometimes waking me up at peak theta rhythmicity.

'Some these are palladium plated. Six hundred for the lot,' he says.

I lost my pleasant expression, tapped knuckles onto the wooden counter in protest to the frugal amount of cash offered.

'No deal, not worth it for me.'

He smiles and conjoins his hands in marriage rubbing his thumb into the crook of his knuckle allowing me to continue.

'This one for instance seal on the base see its quality workmanship. How about two thousand Gorkov.'

Reclining in his chair the old man folds his arms and intakes a sniff as his out flowing nostril hair white and coarse flutters. He sits there not saying a word and casually flicks at a cheque book thumbing at the pages with that zipping sound of paper between a runty wrinkled thumb. Footsteps behind, slicker on the lacquer squeaking towards me. And there she rests her elbows on the far left of the worktop.

'Hi,' she says, with enthusiasm.

My stomach dropped adding further to that sickly feeling of mine. What must she deem of me peddling my wares at a place like this? Still contemplating my earlier words the broker sat and finally he picks up one of the silver candlestick holders and readies his sight toward the base. I swing back at the woman at my side who I have not yet fully acknowledged and lay bare an impetuous squint that must've looked crass and butchered beyond recognition.

'All right, let's say a thousand bucks take it or leave it,' says the old man.

Gorkov takes off his bug-eyes and replaces them with reading spectacles and sifts through my collection on his side of the glass. I wait until he's done then I gesture an open handed plea.

'I won't long be with you in a moment miss,' the old man huffed.

He did that on purpose just to spite me, grab me by the scruff of the neck and shame me into giving them up for a shady sum. Inadvertently saving me of my own dwindling dignity. I hesitate in bestowing an answer straight away and instead voluntarily gift my place.

'Let me think about it. In the meantime can you attend to this young lady I kept waiting so long.'

A detached fixation from both, confused by the brazen monologue. The old man gestures at the resting woman beckoning her with a hurried impatient palm.

'Are you sure. Its fine you know I don't mind waiting,' the woman says.

'No I insist I'm still debating a bid you see. I need some time to chew it out and that shouldn't hold you up now should it,' I say.

The old man behind the glass tuts, rummaging around with my items for consideration, getting himself flustered. Eventually he pushes them out the way then clicks his fingers consecutively at the woman who in response is notably shocked. Around a corner I sum up with an exaggerated hunch and a secret grin.

'I'm very busy today so please come, what you want,' the old man says.

Only me and my neighbour were here and the streets bare with the exception of construction men filling out of a cordoned corridor. Some sat on a cleft wall opposite from the shop eating sandwiches held in deli wrap while the draughtswoman sketched. Old man Gorkov bends while still seated and brings up a black fan splattered in white paint and plugs it into the mains. Looking out towards the gang of workers that have gathered, both arms are dug deep in my coat pockets postponed for the woman to attend to her business, when she snorts then a chuckle through her hand pressed over her mouth.

'I would like to see a particular item in that case over there. If that's okay with you.'

Her tone is immature in between certain words and almost borders an explosion of syllable eccentricity that she is holding back from full blown bawdiness. I peer from the corner to see her hiding those mocking taunts of laugher. Then she holds her tongue still as the old man stands up to leave the side passage watching him fumble with the handle he then pushes me with the door I was leaning up against. He jams the door under my heels, a space at the bottom catching the rubber sole and he deceivingly pushes back and forth prising the door from it. Out he walks slamming it shut then locking it and trying in vain to catch the attention of his new customer by ultimately resting his lameness on me tugging at the sleeve as he looks toward the front desk.

'This ways miss. Come with me,' Gorkov beckoned.

Out of the old man's pocket a stub of keys on a chain sway and clash together. The one key required he finds by quickly muttering to himself then grasping at the escutcheon he opens the case as the woman oversees. She dryly smiles. 'That one, green emerald with the white gold.'

With a delicate touch out he brings the bracelet dropping it to her. Unhooking the clasp she fits it to her wrist and slips it back into position.

'This is beautiful,' she says, cradling her new charm.

'Yes it's a marvellous piece,' Gorkov agrees.

The old man's eyes twinkle. He then turns at me, his face changes and sunken wrinkles relax as his blank expression untwists then he weasels another glance at me.

'I love it. There's no price labelled.'

She twirled at the alternating links and bit her cheek insistently. Slack jawed with a grip on aged hips Gorkov thinks. 'That item is listed at five hundred,' he says.

Her heart sunk I could see that clear. She could not afford its high price and slowly passed the bracelet back to the broker saying nothing. Even though she was let down and wore a big genial frown across her face she still was alluring. That plain Jane with that something special that I couldn't quite figure out.

'Could you settle for two hundred?' she questioned further.

'No ma'am the price is what it is and that is five hundred.'

With a coyness and twirled hair around a finger as she cajoles him, guilt relaxed, sliding to the corners the woman tried again.

'Could you bring it to let's say three hundred that's all I have.'

'Miss you and that jag off over there are sounding alike. So I'll say it again the price is five hundred.'

The old man shut the lid to the cabinet and locked it up tight. A brief look my way and when she fully faced me striding into my path I perked up having dazed off into a daydream.

'That guys a jerk,' she says.

'Tell me about it,' I muttered.

We hushed our words when old man Gorkov walked past grumbling under his breath foul cuss words then he slipped back into his den. With an arthritic moan he perched back on his throne with the fan still blowing. She stepped out to gawk at him biting one finger and lowering a knee to inch a spy at the old croak. Sniggering as soon as she had a foreseen encounter across to him then returning to me and softly laughing with her warm breath meeting at my skin. She kept her head down and says nothing except to laugh on occasion.

'What's so funny,' I say.

Under questioning she only carried on with her humours jeering all the more heartily until our host could hear.

'What am I god damn fodder for brats now,' he says.

'Careful, we meant no disrespect, just looking for a fair price is all,' I say.

'Listen you punks this is a place of business not a school yard. Now you'll want this trash back.'

The old man swept my belongings into the deposit box with a shrewd grimace that creased his wrinkled face into a ball. Gaunt skin enclosed around him as a veil that harboured deeper ulcerations perpetrated by someone other than me and my neighbour.

'Now y'all git out. You hear,' Gorkov says, with an angle through his bars.

I took my things from the deposit box and made my way out the store with my neighbour.

'Thanks for the time grandpa,' I called out from across the room.

Raised an arm in farewell and heading towards the exit just as we left through the door I heard Gorkov's cherished fan sputter to a stop. From the doorway the midday light shone bright causing me to narrow my lids as I see her standing at the curb. Still smiling my new neighbour friend folded her arms.

'I feel bad laughing at him like that, hardly a hair left on his head,' she says.

Waited on something, a keen girl while I yawned. Giving me this barefaced look of distinction when I never saw the funny side of it. I took the initiative to stand nearest to the curb as we begun slowly walking back up the street parting a subtle smugness at the workers as we went together.

'His hair did you not see it,' she asks.

'No,' I say.

'That's exactly it, that's why it's . . . Never mind.'

Thereafter an awkward pause as we walked and at one point swore I heard the workers from behind catcall at us. 'Let me ask you this, you ever been to that club up there,' I say.

I pointed up at Sovereign and she held up an arm to block out the sun.

'Once or twice. The layouts a bit claustrophobic. I usually head on out of town for drinks with the girls.'

'Take the time to share a drink, I'm paying?'

Silence. I smoulder away into a nearby window.

'Well I don't know really,' she replies.

The incline hastened my relief, keeping a slower pace than my usual walking speed to match that of my neighbours stroll. That scant detail cycled in my thoughts.

'How does six o'clock sound? You, me and your girlfriends can catch up,' I say, with some optimism.

She seized intimate ground and shone a brighter face than she normally wore shyly licking her lips and desists looking any further upward at the broken lights of the club until we both stopped outside Sovereign facing one another.

'I always had a thing for Mai Tai's.' She frowned, the sun caught her eyes. 'If you're paying.'

'You have a name or do I keep to calling you miss like Gorkov did.'

She fluttered her hair and ran across her brow when the wind blew a single strand across the face and into her mouth, she swept it to one side with a robotic sleight of hand.

'Elise.'

'I'm Ralph.'

'You really don't know me do you Ralph?'

'I'm looking to find out.'

We stood in silence again for sometime as I watched her hair bustle in the wind dropping onto her soft neck. Stuck in my pockets I offered up a frank linger.

'Well I better be going, you live in the same block as me right,' she says, with a sideways look.

'I'm shacked up in 107D,' I say.

She transfixed a guilty vow, showering me with my own regrets at not having paid courtesy to the sights on exhibition. Equally responsible as after a year living at that apartment I did not know anyone, neither my other neighbour who never left those four walls. She tightened her face crinkling up her nose and out came that smiling persona of hers once more.

'So we're neighbours, go figure.' She rolled her eyes. 'Nice seeing you Ralph.'

'You too, Elise.'

Up the street she walked only turning around once. Snooping on her all the way to the tip of the hillock then that warm presence faded as I faced the front of Sovereign and its shadow cast onto me filling me with anguish. For a time I'd forgotten about those problems, it all crashed back into existence. I could smell the sewer again. That partially open manhole held the potent fragrance of a carcass in its depths.
5

I lit a cigarette for the first time in a few hours and its burn was a welcome relief. At the first hit it took me, washed away that wretched weakness of mine and put me at ease. Although the incoming rush of nicotine temporarily dipped my focus (being an unfortunate side effect) its taste was soothing but far overdue.

Ash from the brittle end from one deep inhale was long and fell to the ground a crumpled mess that quickly vaporized at the fall then a subsequent gust of wind carried it off. Once finished I dropped the cigarette stood on the butt and entered the club to see that the lights are now all turned on ready to proposition an influx of locals.

Staff are at their posts delaying, some chatter in a group at the lower floor bar. I see Stanley standing at the top of the stairs. Muscles ache as I head up to meet him and holding onto the handrail I casually climb the rest of the steps with the bag in my other hand weighing me down.

'How's it going Ralph we open soon.' He flashed up Rosie palm and her five inbred sisters then I watched his enthusiasm erode. 'You all right you look a sore sight,' Stanley says.

Don't know if it was the heat that got to me or all the gloomy buildings I had visited that had manifested this sudden bout. Ran fingers through my damp hair and let the bag go.

'You know just the opportune words Stanley. Busy day and the night before. I think I'm due for a pit stop.'

Stanley wedged his chin upward flattening out his mouth throwing a jerked thumb back behind him at the office. My vision was clouded and I strained to look up so I pinched my fingers into my sockets wiping September grind out of the corners.

'If you want some sleep go ahead. I can handle it for tonight no need to kick up a fuss about it,' Stanley says.

'By the power of Ambien,' I say, pledging my scouts honour.

'What you talking about now.'

'I'm in the program remember.'

'Careful with that shit I heard people caught the bubonic motherfucking plague from a bad batch of polio shots, what they got inside your crap, ever wonder about that.'

'No I didn't. Hey you have fun now and don't overstress yourself with that thug guarding the front. I'm set on figuring a way to get rid of him somehow.'

As I spoke the thug in question clocking in late walked into the doorway sporting a black tracksuit and thick gold chain around his fat neck. The indentation of skin at the back of his shaved head folded into a collective bulge. A burly barrel chested man who walked with an ideal assurance although his stride was hampered by his whopping size.

'Would you look at that.' Stanley says so, staring at me curiously. 'Remind me what led to him being here?'

'You know who.'

'I want you to say it.'

'He who has a hard-on for inflicting pain on those who disagree with him,' I say, with an unwavering straight face. 'Remember this though I owed as much to that shark with my mounting debts hovering over me like a bad cloud.'

'Cute, don't worry about this one he's harmless,' Stanley says, with a nod in Dusa's direction.

'Keep the volume on medium okay, want at least an hours rest,' I say.

The pills were still in the office top draw and a handful of them went into my mouth washed down with black coffee. There is a fly in here that has been doing left hand turns for hours going nowhere. I try to whack it dead with a rolled up magazine but it escapes.

That three seater looked inviting from across my desk but I wanted to make sure I was ready. I'd find myself prepared to sleep but instead end up just wrestling with the sheets as the room becomes day. I spank the futon padding puffing up my nesting place and relaxed into the cushions. The music played a low comforting lullaby as the first guests walked into the club all pumped up for a hedonistic night out. An hour. Then I won't be late. It will be nice. I won't mess up.

The aroma of cut grass and summer, drinking red wine with a friend, the touch of another's grace across the body tingling the nerves. That's what I dreamt in those few hours before being roused by clinking glasses and what I took as the beginning of a fight.

With that twilight jadedness gone I tried my best to recount the events of the dream. Shouting from downstairs faded. Pulled myself into an upright position on the futon. My senses still tingled with delight so I shut my eyes and let it linger. Consoled I scrutinized a clock on the wall next to an empty crucifix outline. It was just after five and the hour and a quarter of sleep was enough.

Re-energized I held myself in a new light with clear thoughts and a feeling just a feeling of purpose. I left the office now without a door and proceeded to overlook the lower floors wearing the same desert covered clothes I slept in. The club was indeed very busy tonight, bustling with customers at the dance floor and the bar.

Outed a meek 'There you are' to the deities at the nicest turnout in a few months and held the banister tight dropping my pose over it downwards. Playing was a slow and methodical ensemble of electronica backed with a permeating sampled xylophone which enticed me into a foot tap.

'Muchas gracias citizens,' I say, with a cigarette stuck in my mouth.

I reached into my pockets searching. Cupped my hands and watched them dance. A shallow inhale raising my head mid sway to see a raven haired woman frolicking at the centre of the floor to the same beat. She's looking right at me while weaving in motion with music as a lime lit projection from above focuses on her separating her from the pack.

A goddess in flight who captivates rival desires. Rocking it gently, losing her gaze from me but then refocusing it back towards me in faultless synchronization. I'm freer at the notion of her working it on my mattress. Another collection of moves flow out from her in a controlled idiosyncrasy mimicking a nimble ballet of perfect timing and consistence. One surreal lascivious display.

She migrates into the crowd as the track briefly fades to a pause then a change to a different harmony and my grip of fixation ends. In a state of confusion I rapidly blink and wipe my groggy face and drift down the backstairs lightly grasping the rail as I go. Drew in my jaw a few times. Wax collects in one ear having lay on one side in my sleep and I try to use my little finger as a plunger to erase the blockage while I make my way through the groupies to the set of stools. I sit at the corner of the bar and order a bourbon then surfeit eyes of mine span across the dance floor and one by one I swat the irrelevant faces out of my memory. Indigo illuminations gets in my way and makes me stop so I turn back in my chair and purse my lips.

'I know just what you want,' says a woman from behind the bar.

Surprised by the voice, my senses still on the pillow. A high spirited face to set me straight.

'Cheers Jeanette honey.'

Horse's Neck. I stir the brackish bourbon, wipe a napkin under the glass and counter then rest the drink on the napkin. I haunt the far side of the bar where Stanley is talking to staff amidst the scenes of frantic punters vying for their poison of choice.

When I take my first sip of my drink, gulping a healthy amount of the highball glass I am whole. A pop and that one blocked ear clears. Resting knuckles in my mouth with the synth melody beating I lower my gaze at my feet. I'm wearing trainers in my own club and chuckle to myself as I finish the rest of my drink in one.

Lemon zest falls into dregs of ginger ale. It's at this bottom portion of the drink where the bitter taste is at, hide the gag reflex by casually lifting up my shirt sleeve then study my watch monitoring the point circle the dial an entire round trip.

'Well you certainly look better.'

Arms pressed down with black hair poking out the cuffs is Stanley opposite me. Gripping the glass resting beside me I hold it in place and with the other massage new warmth into it. Solemn raise a crinkled stare and glumly announce a poker face at him and he returns with an irritating dumbfounded shrinker.

'Listen, I feel good n'd all. Just been burning myself out lately for no reason,' I say.

'That can't be a healthy life to live,' Stanley says.

I had no witty words so I looked down at my shoes again thinking on blasphemes, meiosis and itchy skin, about to change the subject to something other than my unhealthy habits. 'You seem to have a knack for bringing in the locals,' I swiftly blab.

'Ladies you hear that I'm a delight to be around and you should be grateful, I'm guiding you to greater things.'

The gal's at the bar blurted out into a gaggle of titters, one jeered and chomped on gum clacking her teeth letting out an open mouthed bellowed heckle that seemingly belonged to that of a man. 'Yeah right sugar you keep telling yourself that,' she says.

Gum woman annoyed me but I could not help focusing in on her mouth gnawing with jagged saw-teeth as a white ball darted from tongue to palate. Anthea I remember was her name then served up a big tall pitcher of beer for a thin looking student, most likely under-age.

The music had been dialled up a notch and it was hard to communicate without getting close to one another. I watch her dour lips thank him as she takes the students money, all loose change as he walks off to his table struggling with the pitcher.

'Here you go,' Stanley says, flinging an indiscriminate piece of cardboard my way.

Sliding the beer mat closer it reads 'Ready when you are.' I reverse it without thinking and lay the glass over its label, still the words persist on this new side and through the refraction of the liquid, 'Ready' is enlarged.

'Stanley, get me another drink will you.'

'Whisky?' he asks.

A whisper only for my ears. 'Ralph, Ralph,' comes a call from the crowd but still easily audible over the music. 'Ralph, you want me don't you.' Too many faces for me to pinpoint the holder of that voice.

'Scotch make it a large one,' I say, in a hurry.

Focusing on Stanley, my body was trembling, breathing quick. I contained it. The drink shuffled under my nose and there goes another mouthful imbibed for the creatures scratching at me finishing up by slamming the glass onto the counter. A nervous look over my shoulder then across the width of the room.

'Want another?' Stanley says.

'Fill her up.'
6

A noisy commotion at the front doorway peaks my frustration. I train my ears toward the open door. The slapping of shell jackets and thick eastern accents converse in an unknown language that quickly changes back to English.

'How is the bum treating you my friend?'

'He okay, have good time.'

They laugh and I see him swagger into the club with two chiselled-faced females on each arm. I study the closest one to me. Flakes of tear-drop black hang off those lashes of hers while bleach blond locks gets in her downcast watch. She walks past me wearing pink hot pants and a dainty see through beetroot blouse.

I lower my posture, enshroud by the people in front of me as his gaze tracks the room, swivelling on the spot in a sweeping pivot with a Machiavellian grin across his face. Holding forcefully onto the arm of both his liabilities with ulterior motive he coerced them up the stairs and sits at a table with a view of the whole club.

'Is that who I think it is. I'll kill him Ralph, I swear,' Stanley says, reaching for a hidden bat at his shin level.

'Easy now. You know what he's like so don't go throwing away your life,' I say, still half crouched.

Stanley's puffy orbits bulged as I held him back with one arm hovering in front of his chest. I've never seen him like this before. All the veins tighten at his neck, always focused on the Czech even while he speaks to me. He wanted blood and a vision of Stanley lying dead on the floor covered in bullet wounds crossed my mind. My palm mitigates a thumping as I forcefully grind into my wrinkled forehead.

'I'll talk to him,' I say.

'And what point will that achieve he put my god damned sisters husband in a coma, that cocksucker,' Stanley says, knocking over bottles as I pull at his wrist. 'You mean I'm just going to let that slide.'

'He'll do the same to you. Now let me settle this got it.'

'He gets a pass and I have to live with that, it's all fucked up.'

'Girls, he's not feeling well,' I say.

'What's wrong with him,' she says, puzzled.

'Take him out back if he needs some fresh air.'

One of the girls tried to pacify him. He shook off the reassuring well wishes and instead kicked open the side entrance door clashing the sacrificial anode push bar against a brick wall and marched outside. His alcove, the Czech sat in was dark and only silhouettes could be made out against electric hue of the light that cloaked them.

'Perfect, just perfect,' I say, for anyone listening.

On pressure points I squeeze to succour my weary head again and paced bullishly before heading into the sea of people on the dance floor. 'Ralph stay with me.' Again that ghostly voice called me at first approach into the crowded floor. 'Here, over here.' Lost in the faces, blurred in neon and formulated fog I panicked and sidestepped my way through.

A ripple of a gown as free as a kite in high wind swept in varying proximity to me. Again from the left the same flapping high speed sound, her face again an apparition in sight but lost behind others. Moving faster now trying to elude the increasing deafening marching feet of the revellers but I'm blocked, a step around them each time her face and auburn hair catches up with me. 'Be with me, I want you Ralph.' I backtrack and fall over flopping out on the other side of the room.

Stand up like nothing happened and rush two a time to the next floor with a view into the crowd. Can't see her any more and my view darts from pillar to post, person to person a flash of bright blinding laser light. Then I see him cradling one of his girls by the throat feeding her an olive from a cocktail stick. She bites down and he watches her chew still with hands around her.

A deviants posture encompasses him as he sits with one foot on the low level table until his sharp features turn to address me. I take one last look at the crowd below.

'Ralph you come to screw one of my sexy bitches,' begun the Czech. 'Let's go, move it over here already,' he says, clapping his hands together.

His bitches as he calls them sit in an uptight position like mythological wildcats of Bubastis prowling my every movements to the foot of the table where they sit on the corner leather sofa. Behind them a collection of broken up mirrors dot the wall reflecting a trace of myself in its denim streak.

'Just come to talk that's all,' I say.

Especially close to me, sliding to the end of the kitsch sofa and when he reaches in I feel something dig into my crotch, I hear him cock the hammer.

'You call the pigs to come get me little pig, you know what the big bad wolf does to the little pigs don't you, telling tall tales.'

'No like I said just, talking is all.'

He augers the barrel of the gun into me as his guests laugh in a short burst hushing as soon the Czech brings his finger up to his mouth.

'Shhh, let him answer.'

They all waited on command following his every word. Ilk of Zmey Gorynych the viper himself. A manipulative soothsayer ready to use them as fodder while he makes gains at their expense.

'No cops,' I stammered every word.

'Wise decision, good. We're having a good time Ralph join us, sit,' the Czech says.

He relinquishes the gun from me and picks at his teeth with the cocktail stick. The string at my back had been pulled, took me over. I did as he said joining the ranks of his mindless drones at the table. A large bottle of house champagne on ice rested at the far end.

'Why so glum faced,' he asks me.

When I chose not to respond he lightly slapped me across a cheek. The goon parallel to me dressed in a smart attire poured a glass out and pushed it along to the waiting Czech at my side. I noticed there was a small pistol in the inside waistcoat of the man pouring drinks tucked neatly into a holster. The wait. Long and uncomfortable. He took the glass and swilled a portion of the bubbly liquid then looked down into the glass twirling it at the stem.

'I bargain I have a few of these at home Ralph very tasty.'

A cretinous perplexing look sucking in his cheeks like that, he sniggered and flexed his crossed fingers to a snap in his lap. He paused as if waiting for me to begin. Beat of my heart in time with the music playing, all my senses could pick up its tick-tock. He pushed a drink in my hand and beckoned me to share in this joyous affair with them.

'Na zdraví,' the Czech says.

'Salud,' reply the others.

All those present at the table kiss one another's left and rightmost then sip a taste of the champagne. I follow suit which makes me quite light headed after all the previous drinking I've done.

'You've got some colour in you now, would you look at him. Adorable.'

He pinches my cheek and tugs like an over friendly aunt who has sadistic tendencies of affection. My mouth baron still after that sip, a texture like sandpaper filled the void. Another sip a big one, room for some thought. That was enough for me as I gave a once over at the empty glass. It bothered me, why I could not speak up for myself or make some kind of an excuse to leave but I drew a blank, only focused on the now.

'Let's talk Ralph,' he says, with a politely unfurled hand.

He noticed my reluctance, a meeting of close intent, his nod a sign that permitted me to speak openly.

'About the money I'll have it soon,' I say.

Fumbled my words but never let my gaze drift away from the Czech. Being this close up to him it was notable the scars he had accumulated on his face with at least three on the chin alone. All very faint and small but a prominent feature that probably spoke volumes about the circumstances surrounding the gifted personality of the man. Baptised in filth's ampoule and a life of constant unease and suffering had shaped his current state.

The Czech looked down at me hand on chin. 'Don't worry about such trivial things right now. We are celebrating,' he says, with an air of grandiosity.

'What exactly are we . . .'

A feigned absence while he leaned back into the cushions threw me off my next thought. The Czech grinned during the recline and rested both elbows onto the top of the sofa. Which stretched his velour jacket as he grasped the corner padding then lightly tapped fingers onto its hollow framework backing.

Raised his brows and smirked when he spotted this flaw gesturing with his eyes at the weakness he had exposed. 'Oh, what is this,' the Czech crooned.

He then lifted the skirting cover and began to pick at the loose wafer thin material tearing off strips all with a grim look painted across his face. I watched in silence as the bundles fell to the floor and stacked high.

'I don't need to tell you what we are celebrating. Just be content that today is a worthy day,' the Czech says, still peeling the backing from the chair.

He dusts his hands and gets back to his girls, placing an arm around one of them he grew close to her. The twenty something had never taken her eyes off me since my arrival and continued whilst the Czech jostled to feel her eventually brushing his hand over a breast and downward.

Others meanwhile at the table were in deep conversation with one another in a foreign language. If there was ever a time to leave it should be now, so I stood up and slowly walked away while their distemper was elsewhere. Déjà vu. Resting close by at the banister I lower my sight at all the patrons below to see if I could grasp a glimpse of the raven haired woman. Come to naught, she was gone. My senses dulled as I subside out into space, an eerie repose washed over me. It was as if everything was running in slow motion, time flowed backwards. Did I stand up too fast?

Packets of light softened shifting colour to the end of the spectrum never growing any brighter then moments before. The animated bodies grew intensively robotic in nature. A gradual gradient fade of my perceived sight made my chest tighten. I peered closer to try to understand what it was I was viewing.

'I knew it I've had too much to drink,' I openly announced.

A blinding incandescent filament rocks my sluggish senses as warped acoustics deform but quickly escalate into complete incoherency.

I blackout.
7

The room turns when I first open my eyes and I don't know how long I've been out. Immediately struck with pain in my stomach, a fast paced crawl. I was too late and through my plugged mouth the sick seeped through until I released my hand and let it all out.

A pedestrian groan exchanged and turned heads. Everything spun and the stench of my own vomit marked the end of the night (an unwritten rule of western ritual). Curled up on the floor holding at bay my heartburn I felt hands on my back helping me up.

'Christ you're a mess.'

Whomever was upon me let me go, I slumped prone and sprawled out on my stomach. Sliding onto my side I studied my watch but it's difficult for me to get a time. Into an upright position, drunken motion threw my head into an inordinate slant and when my eyeballs rolled back into place I was hit with that sudden queasy feeling again. There was a ring of people surrounding me, all still keeping their distance. Some laughing, others seemed genuinely concerned with my well-being.

'You did this to him.'

Eyes crusted over stuck to the skin below. Opening them is a pain but hearing Stanley's voice forces me to try. Still immobilized on the floor I wrench in place to see him at the table wildly posturing at the Czech.

'Stand up you, yeah you lets go,' Stanley lashed a reckless tone.

He leans in and points him out as the Czech sits with but a shade outline of his head visible from my angle. His face looms from out of the dark and his open mouth seethes in air, stone faced it's hard to judge what the man is thinking. Lurking in the background without concern, to his feet. Casually tucking in a stray shirt into his belt flashing that gun in the process its hard chrome gleamed brighter than his belt buckles immaculate shine.

'So you want to fight me. You look like a big tough greaser guy,' the Czech says, laughing.

Now I see, the Czech is controlled and not alarmed by Stanley's antics, his face tightly smirking and both thumbs rest in his waistband as he talks in Czechoslovakian to his men.

'It's like you can just do as you please and not have to face the consequences,' Stanley says.

The two of them look at each other as an escalation in tension becomes apparent due in part to the reduced chatter within the club. They can feel it and so can I. They size each other up.

'Waltzed in here yesterday didn't you and took a baseball bat to my brother-in-law and now you do this to Ralph, spiked him witless.'

He points me out but due to my drunken state I cannot raise the strength to mutter any words that might somehow diffuse the situation. I lie there in the fetal position trying my best to keep them in my view. Stanley turns back to face the Czech who in return sheepishly laughs at my sight. Then he stops. A shallow wrinkle forming at his forehead.

'You think I did this. Ha, he's a drunken goof,' he says.

'Think? Slavs like you ain't capable of thought,' Stanley scoffed.

A shudder of rage vibrates through the body of the Czech cumulating with a tremor of his bottom lip. He slams down onto the tabletop, its sound acute, sharp. Over goes the table, flipped crashing glass everywhere and out he clumsily paces with open arms toward Stanley. A step back winding up for a clenched fisted shot to the Czech. Landing a blow directly to the temple of him who unfazed launches a tempo of his own toward Stanley. The two tussle and wrestle around the room as the thugs for hire at the table sit and watch on. Slamming the Czech's back up against a porous pillar cracking his head with a hollow clunk only serves to infuriate him more.

As Stanley places his hand over the face of the Czech squishing his nose and distorting facial features he bites on Stanley's palm forcing him to reel backwards. A dirty low kick to the groin and down goes Stan in an idle clutch followed by several more to the ribs until he collapses into a heap. I stop watching after the fourth slug and can only hear the wind being continuously knocked out of him. After that only whimpering and the occasional cough and spit. Closer a frantic aspiration draws nearer to me and then the click-clack of sole ends as he rests at my side.

'You owe me ten thousand on top of the two, you hear me.'

He drags me up to my knees. Through dreary salve, plain to see that he is badly bruised and blood ran from his temple. Bystanders shout and cause a commotion which dwindles the interest of the Czech from me to them.

'Call security, someone,' a nearby woman begs.

'Has the blood gone to your head, we are the security,' the Czech says.

She never replied. 'Špinavý hoar,' his parting words to her, and fixed himself fully on me. I couldn't resist a drunken moment of impiety while I still could face to face with this certified psychopath.

'Funny game is it?'

My smile didn't last as the blood poured out of his temple flowed into his mouth and drooled onto my clothes as he spoke. Sickness in my stomach I reached out to push him away when he grasped my blushers into a firm grip.

'I want my money by next week,' the Czech says, shaking me.

His aimed blood now dripped onto my skin. 'Get off me,' I shout, while squirming away.

As I flung out a swiped elbow he violently drove my head up and then let go but not before spitting his blood soaked froth into my face.

'You need me,' he says, while rising over me. 'We're a sexy team.'

A warm sensation trickled down my chin as I focused wide sighted onto the weaved pattern of the carpet unleashing a squelching drip drop that spliced into my thoughts. I wiped it from my face with a sleeve. The gathering of people had now brought Dusa to the scene who clambered for space to get through to ascertain what was happening.

'Sevastian what you do. Not boss okay, you leave now,' Dusa says, hands waving.

'Dusa my friend don't worry this is just a friendly executive meeting we are having here,' says the Czech.

The mood of him changed back to that usual belittling demeanour as he pleaded case and point. Regardless his presence was enough to garner a long conciliatory look from the security detail at the table. Muffled chatter between them at a close. They got together and confided with Dusa grappling with the Czech trying to calm him down in their native tongue. The contingent placed themselves between the Czech and on the other side me and Dusa who held his ground shouting over the ramblings of them.

'He cannot do this you must go all of you,' Dusa says.

'We will no problem, no trouble,' one of their number says.

Stanley had got to his feet and then rested on a chair, attester for the two arguing sides as I lazily tilted my view away from what was happening in front of me. Even though being jostled by a member of his own security the Czech had taken a firm grip on me, clenched fisted he grasped my torn shirt with several buttons popped off. Skin at my chest reddened from the constant tugging as a gusset tore at the seams until the groups combined struggle eventually prised me free. Stanley seems surprisingly unhurt when he looked my way. He was the less beaten of the two with not a drop of blood or a scratch on his face. Although he cradled his ribcage in a way that worried me.

'Wait now, I get you this job and you treat me like this,' the Czech questioned.

'It's not like that. Its business you know this,' Dusa says.

'Relax we go,' one man says who gets in their way.

Malice spilled out of the Czech as his group pushed him toward the exit almost throwing him down the stairs. With one foot braced on the first step he broke free of the accosting mob and took sight on his person of interest. Still on my knees my ears sting with a deafening velocity that sobered me in an instant. Out stretched he held his gun. The buzz of the bullet crack bounced around the inside of my skull. Iron molecules over flesh tinged with propellant.

People surge in panic, the club was in mayhem. A stampede on the stairs caught them and squeezed them together at the paltry opening downwards. Fire tocsin rang, its low hum barely registered as the exit doors flung open and people poured outwards into the street.

Dusa plummets and clutched at his abdomen. 'He's killed me,' he says. A yolk of blood flowed in between the stitches staining his white polo shirt a dark red. A lacklustre numbness displaced my feverish adrenaline as I caught him still-hunting.

He briskly jostled the gun by its walnut grip and then rubbed his nose as if his work here was done. Not quite. His stride towards me was methodical, purposeful. The kick he got from all that he could inflict was apparent on his face as he swapped hold on the pistol.

'Stop god damn it. That's enough,' Stanley cried out.

I opened my eyes to meet those of the Czech. Evasive feet scuff to see who called out. A few thousand in cash lay on the table and he begrudgingly took it. His weedy clenched fist lowered to waist level after he motioned to his security to exit the club.

'Yes you are right of course. Enough,' the Czech says, throwing the cuffs of his jacket out when he put his hands in the air posed in a mock surrender. 'You got me.'

He combed his out of place hair then with a certain bellicosity followed his men out of the club laughing. Shaking his head in a baffled nature. 'Enough, enough,' he repeated to himself as he left.
8

It was night now, the set spaced lights melted into elastic spit-chain pellets. We had hardly muttered a few words since the incident. The back of his head gave up little clues as he twitched and zoned back into the dark of the highway. He's fighting every pitfall on the road as I analysed him with a smirk.

'You proud of yourself?' I grumbled.

Squealing breaks from a thrust foot. Inertia played its game jerking me across a series of tugs caught on the belt. The hula girl on the dash hung up her shoes then bowed to praise her audience as the wheels came to a halt. A devil within me called out to prod him while he was weak. Stanley never wavered, hands still settled upon the wheel erred in the ill Moon road. Stiff spine, rigid a pose. Pinpricked eyes dart to the corners in the rear view mirror.

'What do you want from me Ralph.'

A lonely car from behind rode a path into the gloom of the night. An inebriated sway as I watched it disappear below the summit peak.

'You had to play it hero didn't you.'

'I did what I thought was best,' Stanley cut in.

'Couldn't play it smart,' I carried on.

'It's all I could do!'

I relinquished my tensed up wince, gave him some respite. I turned my attention from the eyes in the mirror to what lay outside. The way coppice stirred alongside the fluctuating wormwood helped settle my erratic breathing.

'It's in the hands of another now,' I mused.

'Don't forget about the team of people at Mesa intensive care, they're saints.'

'Them too.'

'Ten fucking hail Mary's just so that poor guy don't end up a corpse.'

'Amen.'

The engine still huffed and a red beam of light projected from the underside pending Stanley's pushed foot on the gas. Under Aurora's begotten glow the desert obscured in the fall wept for Sol never to return. Dried up vegetation lurked in the background ready and waiting to usher whatever rainfall it could muster.

'He won't stop until we're dead. You know that right?' Stanley says.

'All he'll get is his money in due time.'

'That's something you've neglected, tossed those grains of sand over a shoulder and hoped for the best.'

The plastic groaned as I straightened from a slump leaning closer to inspect the dried up humps out the window. We had been driving a while now and today's events flashed up in uneven order making little sense. I put those thoughts away for later as twinkling lights up ahead stirred a faint echo of home.

'You didn't need drive me back yourself,' I say.

'It's what friends do.'

His glance christened the mirror as he took a left up at the Alta vista connecting dirt road.

'I get it I'm sorry.'

'Save it will you.' Stanley cleared his throat. 'We'll do things your way from now on.'

'Not what I wanted to hear. With the Czech, would be the last thing I'd bring up, avoid it at all costs and hope it goes away. Just the idea of talking about it repulses me. Who knows what we should have done. I'm not the end all be all of decision making here.'

He chuckled. 'Just make sure you take a shower when we get there, I can smell the drink from over here.' Stanley lightened up and it brought out a wryness from me. 'That's my last piece of advice for the night.'

Dirt under my fingernails and the remains of a gore soaked shirt on my back. None of that blood my own. It all belonged to people who popped in and out of my life.

Up the bend an advertisement with a bikini clad woman in a horizontal position draws me in. She is strangely alluring, can't break contact, a face I recognize. The message on it: "LUST" in prodigious lettering – underneath this a prim young man in a business suit and bowler hat walks against the flow of traffic. Thick dust picked up from the motion of the car conceals my view, too distracted to fully notice him and the fact that he has no face or that its obscured by nothingness.

I turn away. Propped up on the headrest looking out the reverse window – another five or so miles until home. The sudden slow of the car stirred me from my short nap. A door opens and then another.

'Sleep it off did you?'

That intermittent scuff of gravel under his foot, yes I'm home. Wind encircles the monolithic buildings which in turn sieve anything caught in its way. Crisp foliage fallen from nearby trees gently scratch the ground they skate across. Don't want to get up right away and I've sobered up some more recounting traces of the night I cannot forget.

Twisting my face a spiteful shake of the head. 'Let me rest a while,' I squawk.

Half an eye open, Stanley reaches in to then grasp me under the pits pulling me out the car like a toddler in a high seat.

'Quit your bellyaching,' Stanley murmurs.

Some last ounce of pride makes me shoo him from me, clumsily I relearn how to walk straight.

'Okay you're on your own now,' he says, back-pedalling. 'Few hours rest and a cold shower will do you right.'

'I can play the drinking game, but the game is cruel,' I say.

'Are you positive you weren't slipped a mickey?'

'I'll never know.'

Walking to the apartment entrance I noticed several lights still shone in pockets and I wondered if anyone in their rooms were having a worse night than me. The thought that many of them most likely would be in a perverted way brought me a sliver of satisfaction.

'We still on for tomorrow,' Stanley says.

'Oh right, Dominick.'

He tutted. 'Well?' Stanley was hovering. Suppose the kick of gravel he sent flying my way a wakeup call.

'I'll be there, have a check up at the hospital planned the same day.'

'Convenient, bring the Courier he'd like that.'

I drift around expecting to careen some when I faced Stanley. Behind him stars populated the sky and the moon cast long shadows, mesa sands inundated in wisteria was a rare sight.

'I was thinking grapes.'

'Not with a broken jaw Ralph, anyway I'll see you at the hospital.'

'Dusa there too.'

'No they took him across town, he'll make it though.'

Stanley's taxi sailed on a bed of stones homeward to cry or sleep into his pillow. I don't know what I will do when I finally lie down for the night and make for the apartment past etched marks that covered the stairwell rail that I never touch going up. Patches of light illuminate the way, maintenance never was a priority for the folk here.

I reach my floor and pass into the corridor. Ugly colour theme on the walls with a cobalt stripe separating the flaking ceiling. Has that sterile smell to it. Too much bleach was used. Could never clean the dirt from this place with an unlimited supply of top grade peroxide. At least they do try.

Stop at my door with enough time between reaching for the key to find her door. Occluded light seeps under the crack of 109D. Sliding it carefully into the lock I sneak inside hit the switch then pat the door gently to a close. Heel a path of stacked boxes to the connecting left wall. Pressing my ear up to it registering nothing but dead air. Fair enough.

Getting settled into the armchair running my hands through my hair. I only see all the mistakes I've made. Many more nights to come. The hole in the wall didn't quite look right without the dark. Cut the chills up my spine in half. It wouldn't be long until it inevitably caught up with me, an old friend to say hello.
9

Monday, today's appointment booked for ten was pencilled on a scrap of paper stuck to the fridge. Watched an act do his bit on a comedy jam special I taped yesterday, a vector to whittle away the hours. They were a rowdy lot but the guy on-stage was four times their energy. He ricocheted the audience circumambient of the amphitheatre and beamed his voice and over sexualized comments to you without the need to look in your direction. It wasn't brute force, no instead it was natural for him being this way. While not a prop comedian in my opinion, he fruitlessly used the microphone several times in reference to his dick, dropping, bumping it on or around his face and open mouth. When it happened for the first time I got it, another six and I turned it off.

I left the apartment block without looking around too much and the journey was uninteresting, every day's the same only that the desert heat relented some and there was no itch in my back.

Hospital grounds were pretty busy for a dreary morning. Inside I'm greeted by my shrink. We shake hands. The guy is vigorous with everything he does. I sit in a wooden chair opposite Dr Metcalf.

'So, the anti-depressants how they working out?'

The chair creaked as I tried to hide it all.

'Any side effects, anxiety, panic attacks, unwanted bowel movements?'

I went down, unfolded my arms and fumbled with my joints. Lazily let my eyes screw towards the doctor.

'Not that I know of.'

Returned his fake smile with a one of my own. Briefly relaxed back into a blank expression. Metcalf loved to suck up air before he spoke. All I could foresee was of me slugging this dork in the mouth. I glance around his office. The window is more vertical than it is horizontal almost like the blinkers that cover a horses eyes. It guides me to what should be seen and obscures the rest. Gazing at the miniature bonsai plant resting on the window sill my vision drifts to the background.

Children are enjoying the park equipment on hospital grounds. Artificial grass trails the fence, diverse as rubber padding that covers the floor surrounding the swings and monkey bars. 'Well that's pleasing to hear,' says Metcalf. Some of them are yelling out loud, playing games while others are complacent enough to be independent and explore on their own.

One such girl aged nine or so stands out. She's skipping in circles and loops on the fake turf while her mother watches over her. True freedom, something I envy. Her pale little round face turns grey. She looks up and holds out her hand, interrupted by the sudden darkening of the sky.

Rain? The silky white clouds and azure hue make way for ice cold ambience. The office fills up with colour. But I'm empty.

Distant glass compacted underfoot rang throughout. It's an unyielding walk, as if the puncturing and popping under sole was not an issue for the person walking the path of glass. Intricate crunches have been intensified almost like everything outside played from within my own head.

A sky that bellows a deep prussian blue but the parents and their offspring don't notice nor anything else. The acoustics of the crunching glass changes to a tight reverberation, it's so close. A deep pulmonary like breath is released and contrasts against the now silent glass. The lungs of this monstrosity gurgle as it peaks maximum air intake and exhales sputum rattling.

'You pig, rancid puke, didn't even have the guts to tell your own disgusting spawn that her daddy was a rapist. And she was the outcome.'

Only the mother turns around. A spindly old figure comes into view in a decrepit and musty once-pearl nighty. The face of the mother strains in disgust, then horror. The cycle of repulsion repeats. Maude's figure comes into full view. Her back arches as a used coat hanger hook does. Spine projecting through her yellow stained nightwear. 'At three weeks this is the usual time we would look at an increase or decrease in dosage based upon the responsiveness of the antipsychotics,' Metcalf again. Each individual nodule is easily distinguishable even from a distance. Deep grained wrinkles cover what skin is visible and slightly hang over her clothes. Maude creeps towards the mother and daughter brandishing a broken shard. They take a step back.

'You don't run from me,' she shrieks.

Maude lunges digging her feet deep into the glass highway, grabbing the girl. She tugs at the hood of the child's coat and with the right manoeuvres the shard into a stabbing position. The child struggles as Maude effortlessly rips the coat from her back. She breaks free while the mothers maternal instincts kick in placing herself into Maude's path.

'Bitch.'

Sliced her way an angle into the mothers cheekbone. Blade finesse grazing bone is reminiscent of the finishing stroke by a blacksmith's wire brush to a metallic decorative object. She recoils and braces for a follow up blow. Maude grabs the mothers throat and clasps her fingers around her face and squeezes. Choking, the pleading eyes, a secondary strike lands in between her breast bone. Maude twists and probes for a way into the flesh. I try to scream but instead I slowly suffocate.

She finds her mark through sinew and muscle with intentions not to kill but to torment. I see Maude's frosty breath travel in the ultraviolet rays. The mothers cries stop the child dead in her tracks. As she turns dried up tears are replaced with fresh ones that well up into the cusp of her lower eyelids. Knowing that she is far enough away to be safe from Maude's blade, even further from being able to save her mother.

Maude has her satisfaction. Slicing a cleansing score to her already pock marked face. She snaps her neck in a jarring action to look my way, broken grin. 'Is there anything you would like to discus,' Metcalf says, with a shills smile. I jump out of it when he anoints me.

'Maude,' I yell.

'Maude, who's Maude,' he pries further.

'Oh god where is she.'

'Calm down, easy, no one's here.'

I thawed out and gasped for air. With hands lying flat on his knees he waits patiently for me to catch a breath. Trying to compose myself now that it's clear her spectre has left but I'd be her game, a main pursuant to her vital needs. It was hard to swallow and getting my words out a chore. He attempts to gain some focus by shifting up close to me. I wasn't to be found, lost in paranoia.

'Is she one of those who calls to you at night.'

Gripping the arms of the chair and rocking helped order my thoughts. Restless legs, my thing and now worse than ever, I never fought with it.

'She is and I don't want to talk about it.'

'So it seems Maude is not new to you then,' he says.

'Maude, I knew her name all right. She stepped into my world now and again and left her mark. I'd pick up the pieces only for her to return when she felt like it.'

Dr Metcalf talked to me while my head hung low. 'If it's too much of a stress Ralph then in this session you can recount what we were discussing last week.'

'I can do that.'

'Well let me get my notes and then you can start.'

The good doctor grinds the wheels of the swivel chair skating a path to his bureau. He pulls out a lean folder scoots back to his initial position and opens its contents into his lap.

'Here we are, the tragic events surrounding your fiancée and we lightly touched upon your childhood.'

He paused expecting me to remember. I shook my head. He understood. Nails and strips of skin smooth and not so. Dirt under them. My hands are dirty.

'Yes.'

'Whenever you're ready,' Dr Metcalf says.

'Must have been around eight years old in 65 and it was overcast just like today,' I say, while checking out the window again.

Was midway up the yard hopping from one stack of pavement slabs to the next reaching the hole in the outhouse interrupting the groups chatter.

'Guys, its full of stuff,' I said.

Dale was the first to take interest in the news of something other than sitting around talking. The upturned bucket he sat on would only support his weight for so long and it was necessary for him to rearrange this straddling position often.

'What's there?'

'Building stuff. We could make trenches and play armies.'

Everyone focused on me except Brett who was carving into the floor his initials with a sandstone off-cut. Dale looked outside through the hole.

'Whoa, let's go.'

'That's my dad's stuff don't touch it or I'll throw you out,' Brett said.

Irwin was bored and slouched, his hand meeting his cheek. He then picks up a baseball and held it above his head.

Brett frowned. 'No my dad wants the place tidy. So just sit here and shut it.'

Nobody else spoke. Everyone just looked at one another.

Dale piped up. 'But this is boring. You like armies, I do.'

Brett scowled and directed eyes his way. Being the smallest and the youngest Dale looked away from his gaze down to the floor sullen.

'Fine,' Dale said.

A pack of playing cards came out of Brett's pocket. These weren't your standard cards. On the front of the packet a semi nude woman posed in a risqué manner, bent over touching her feet. Covering the delicates of her physique were two lines of foreign text all which was gibberish to me.

'Eew, gross,' Elise said.

She begun by folding her arms in opposition to the choir of intrigue from the boys.

'Wait until you see what's inside.'

He started shaking the cards.

'That's rude and you'll get wrong if you get caught with those.'

The boys numbered four to one and Elise as the voice of reason was quickly crowded out. Us boys shrugged and carried on with the reverie of what lay beyond the packaging. Full of delight we giggled amongst ourselves, some covering mouths or stealing the gestures of others in turn as young boys do. The anticipation was the thrill and Brett wielded that power. Soaking in the excitement of it all Brett planned to play out that feeling for as long as he could. Bask in it and then unveil his ace when he so felt it was right.

'Boobs, boobs, boobs, we-want-them.'

The gang laughed in unison to the clever rhyme that Dale had mustered. It was an impressive ditty and all the older boys were quick to congratulate their youngest member. Compromising her abstinence Elise gave out a snigger as she was quite certain that Dale would not even know what boobs were.

The flap of the packet was lifted up and once the still laughing group saw this, silence. All focus was now on what awaits for us inside the cardboard pack. We could barely stay in our seats. I stood up, knees knocking. Elise shifted position.

Pinching his fingers to pull out the first card Brett intuitively licked his lips. It slides out halfway. Then stops and takes a peek before everyone else. He looks at it, studies the taboo figure on the front. Halting on purpose then sliding up to reveal the whole thing, shielding it from the others. He discontinued for longer than he did at the top half of it causing the group to become a mob.

'Is it sick,' Elise questions.

'No.'

'Let's see then.'

'Yeah show play fair.'

'Come on do it.'

The mob had spoken and the time had come however he was reluctant to release his prized possession to the group. A light rain shower danced on the plastic roof coverings, falling louder than the rain through the open gouge of the wall. Brett delayed a little longer looking touch-and-go from the picture to the group. Jesting with the card to the waiting.

'It's unbelievable. I bet it's the first time you've seen one.'

'See what. Is it scary?' Dale said, with a soft voice and a gasp.

We howled. I joined in with the others even though not really knowing what was on the card either. Brett once done laughing at Dales expense took on a serious tone. He looked at the group as if he was about to tell a ghost story.

'No Dale. This is big stuff,' he said.

Brett takes it and slams onto the makeshift table made out of a pair of ladders on its side with a piece of thin wood on top. Slowly he pulls his hand away to reveal the card. A fight to gawk at it. Pushing and shoving to get the preferred view. Brett sits back and watches the manic scene unfold.

'Look it's all red,' Irwin squealed.

Picking up the card he pulls it close to his face puzzled at the sight. The one that Brett chose to show first was the most graphic. Legs apart, fully de-clothed, colliding exposed breasts, being one of a few issued that had heavily trimmed fiery red pubic hair. Irwin held onto the card as the two boys jostled for a look. I made a play and grabbed it pulling at it while Irwin and Dale held on.

'Don't rip it numskulls.' Brett grit his teeth. 'Here.'

Brett collected the deck and emptied the X-rated cards onto the table. Those without one scrambled to grasp a one each. Picked up the first I could get at. On it was a voluptuous early forties woman in blotchy full colour. Arms covering her, areolae large and pepperoni shaped.

'Wow mine has some massive pillows I tell you,' I said.

'I don't figure that so Ralph, get a taste of this one.'

Irwin pointed to it in quick beats folding over the card as he did so. Passing it over to me I noticed Dale quickly looking through all those laid out on the table. Muttering to himself and copying some of the previous comments the group habitually used to describe the ladies on the cards.

'Hot, hoochie mama,' he parrots.

Dale gravitates from the top to the bottom and then onto the next. Not really knowing what he is viewing he glazes over them without really taking anything in.

'Massive pillows I tell you,' Dale continues.

Elise meanwhile has been staring at one card the whole time and I noticed her reaction is different from the others. It's a look of disturb mixed with interest. She continues to ponder at it as I watch. Her head tilts, she frowns and gets closer, every speck of the picture by now must have been examined.

Any final investigation of the card however comes to a halt when she becomes aware that I'm staring directly at her. We exchange contact for a moment then Elise blushes and puts the card onto the table.

'I don't like it.'

Elise's words are timid while I continued to stare at her longer until she looks away from me. On the table is the card she was studying. A cheeky gander at what was so upsetting about it reveals it's actually quite tame placed in juxtaposition to some of the others. A rosy nymph captured in her natural surroundings. Every vulgar asset is covered either with her own body or chiffon. Open palmed she is not even in a normal pin-up position. Just sitting on a swing smiling.

I don't get it. What's the big deal. It looks like some artsy pictures I once saw. Soon enough it occurs to me what if Elise might have been thinking outside the box. Who was this woman, where does she live, who is taking the picture, is she happy?

Brett broke the silence. 'Let's play a card game. Anyone have some money.' One at a time we turn to him and shake heads. Everyone acknowledges barring Dale too contempt with his cards to care.

'I have a broadway and a rubber band.'

Irwin flinched turning out his pockets. Warm gum stuck to his fingers a boiled confection and the band itself. He quickly sees this pushing his out turned pocket inward and picking at the gum stuck to him, splaying a strand bridge between two fingers.

'Nope, just forget it. We can play for fun I guess,' Brett said.

Everyone grabs a seat the same that they had used previously. I'm without a one.

'You can go get a chair from the sitting room. Get the wooden one with the green cushion. Its granddaddy's he won't mind.'

Feeling honoured I rushed through the kitchen to get the chair.

'And take your shoes off on the carpet,' Brett hollered from the outhouse.

I had placed one foot onto the carpet just as I heard him yell out. Slowly I pulled my foot away to reveal a muddy footprint on the carpet. Its half concrete. Not something that would be easy to wipe out if it dried solid. Reluctantly I take off my shoes and at a steady pace head into the living room.

Inside the blinds are closed and the room is dark. The outside overcast weather isn't helping either. Thrice around and still no sight of a switch. Scouting for a source I can't see the chair only the leather living room suite. Back tracking I spot the electric fireplace and contemplate turning it on for the additional light it would generate – but I knew better.

The door contrary to its wall, last place I searched and there it was, hidden. Flicking it on a halon bulb fizzled into life and at the same time imagined what I'm missing out on. I could hear the group chuntering away without me every now and again. It was fully illuminated although light emitted from that bulb filled the room in a depressive wash.

Could see his granddaddy's green chair tucked in the far end corner and with it in tow I ran back into the kitchen laughter getting closer at each step. No one else was in the house but us the gang of five kids. Was grown up to be left alone. Glancing at the kitchen floor I skip by my shoes and run through the door to the outhouse. Plunking the chair down in a rush I turn around to collect the shoes.

'Just a second. Don't start without me.'

Running back into the kitchen I pull on them grimy shoes and head back to the fold. Sitting in the outhouse in my chair is Brett.

'Hey that's my chair,' I said.

'Think again this is my house and my law. That is your chair.'

Brett points to the cement sacks stacked on top of one another. I don't question and sit eager to learn the game.

'Comfy. Then let's play,' Brett said.

I nod and so does Dale.

'Pokers the game. My old man told me how to play. Anyone else know how to play?'

Elise raises her hand in solitude.

'Is it the one with a river,' she said.

Brett flicks his clemency on a distraction to the left then his head follows suit. He puckers and pulls out a large map like paper.

'This is an adult game, ain't no rivers. It's not Snakes and ladders,' Brett said, in certainty.

Bustling through the large pamphlet he stops at a specific part and reads quietly to himself.

'Do we roll a dice-?' Dale said.

'There's no sissy dice in this game squirt. Now let me read.'

At eleven he was able to make sense in the most part of how the game works. Finding the 'how to play poker' section he explains to the group the rules.

'So you get one card to start with. No wait says here two. I'll deal.'

Placing two of them on each spot where someone sat and continuing to read the massive pamphlet Brett warns the group.

'Now don't show your cards to anyone but yourself or I'll clip your ears ya hear. That goes for you too Elise. No cheatin's or you'll be weeping.'

Elise looked a bit nervous at the prospect. She knew all too well what a clipping entailed.

'Okay now you tell me if you want to hit or stick,' Brett said, eyes down.

I don't understand the goal of the game. Regardless I blurt out, 'Hit.' A burlap sack is pulled out from underneath by Brett and placed onto the makeshift poker table.

'Shit almost forgot. Take some.'

Confused by the sight I grabbed a feel of the contents it holds. Brett counts out ten screws and slides it along to Elise on the left.

'Pass them on ten each.'

Elise lifts the sack. I take it and count out double for us and hand the rest onto Dale who is sitting next to me. Everyone now has ten screws so Irwin gives the bag to Brett. He drops it to the floor landing with a thud.

'One, six-seven-ten,' chirps Dale.

Brett extends his finger and taps at the table. 'You hit so take a screw from your pile and put it there.'

'Hit or stick honey?' Elise said, gently coxing Dale for an answer.

'Stick.'

Irwin swings back on the milk crate he is perched on contorting his face bemused. He closes one eye looks up to the ceiling and down at his navel snapping the crate back into position.

'I'm with Dale on this one. Stick.'

'Top choice guys.' Brett's perked up, rubbing each card, happy at moving the game along. 'I raise two screws. This is what you do to add more money to the game.' The rest of the group are unresponsive and don't get the play that Brett just initiated.

'Call,' Elise said.

She slides over two screws. Impressed Brett smiles widely in Elise's direction and then looks towards the next player. I mimicked Elise.

'I call too.'

With my choice we have a game going. Now they waited on Dale for his. Both cards are overturned and he is ogling the models again.

'You can't play now Dale because we can see your hand,' Elise said.

'I don't want to play. I quit.'

'That's called being bust. Sometimes it's the optimum move to do that,' Brett said, repeating a line he heard his father say to him.

Dale lifted his head up in a jaunty fashion at the thought of actually making a decent play. The rest of the group were happy without any further interruptions and we continued with the game as Irwin slides over his screws.

'Now for the big kahuna.'

Brett takes three from the deck and lays them on the table. A queen of diamonds, five of hearts and an ace of clubs. I look at my cards. A seven of hearts and a queen of hearts.

'Now check how they are,' Brett said.

Neglecting to state how to determine what winning conditions were I was amiss so I looked for patterns. As I began to free some cards for a rearranged order and acknowledge those on the table I heard a clunk then the rustling of bags. In strode a man with a large gut. He struggled to walk and was carrying large plastic netting and bags of bird feed. He placed the goods onto the kitchen bench and turned to see us sitting in his outhouse through the open kitchen door.

'Brett, I want you to pack all this stuff up outside. Say goodbye to your friends.'

By now he was franticly sorting trying to hide the pornographic cards. He snatched those assorted court cards from Dale dropping them into his pile. Me and Elise quickly threw ours onto the table but it was too late. Mr Jenner was firmly behind Brett and he could see everything. He placed his giant hand on his shoulder. Brett stopped scrambling.

'You been in granddaddy's titty box again boy,' Mr Jenner said, letting out a loud, unabashed belch afterwards. Wiping his chin and mouth, oily food remains smearing into his double chin he took the time to recall each of our faces.

The cards were all tucked into his lap as he sat hunched over. Brett bitter at being caught sat there frozen without muttering a word.

'Give me those. Hand em over.'

Mr Jenner asked for a second time and he did so without a trace of conviction. Brett more embarrassed than fearful, a dirty little secret unravelled. He shakes Brett. Again not a peep from him only a nervous passing of opportunity until boiling point.

'I'll not ask again. Here now.'

His father's voice more stern this time, a bulging mass towered over him. How could anyone turn away to a man of such stature. Mr Jenner grew impatient. Brett thrust around to his father still settled upon him.

'What you on about I don't have nothing.'

Without warning Mr Jenner released his hand from Brett's shoulder and thwacked him across the back of the head. Brett grasped his ear in pain and Mr Jenner spooned up the cards out of his sons lap as he was reeling from the shock of being hit. He slips them into his pocket for safe keeping.

'Now don't let me find you kids playing dirty games ever again. Got it. Don't be telling anyone about this neither. Ya'll in enough trouble as is.'

We all held blank faces. Mr Jenner turned to his son. I focused on Brett the oldest of the group shamed for all to see and hear. His face was red and scrunched up holding back the tears. He dusts off the smack he took brushing a lick into his bright blonde hair.

'You've got work to do. Double shift today.'

'I've got to go now. Let yourselves out.'

Brett's head hung in shame as he walked back into the kitchen to attend his chores. We said our goodbyes and went through the hole of the outhouse around the corner and into the side passage where a large wooden gate stood. Bolted from the top Dale could not reach and Elise had to stand over him to unlock it. Sliding the bolt back it was ajar. Elise obstructs us and turned to me.

'You think he'll be okay?'

'He's fine. My dad shouts much louder than he does.'

Elise encouraged exits the backyard. Irwin dropped the baseball he swiped from Brett's outhouse. It rolls across the drive and lays to rest at the foot of the embankment. We run out of the drive and onto the lawn. Irwin spread-eagle and pitches the ball sending it far into the medium patch of cleat friendly grass surrounded by a shabby sand. I deviate at some submerged paving stones. Its deep into muddy water and without second guessing lift up the stone slab until its tilted to a vertical position. Dale watches and Elise sits on the Jenner's wall an onlooker from the sidelines. I release the slab and it plummets into the ground. A swoosh of dirt and grit is emitted from the pit. The mud rains upon Dale still standing on the same spot not able to predict what was about to happen. His church clothes are stained in mud. Dale wearing high cut shorts is engulfed with a scattering of dirty water trickling down his bare legs into his socks.

'Why didn't you tell me you were going to let go of it. I'm covered,' Dale squeaks.

Both the faces of me and her a picture. This quickly turns to bawdy laughter and shrieking. I can't breathe, laughing so hard. Elise's titters slow when she sees him crying aloud.

'I Didn't see you there,' I said, still laughing, it's a pathetic apology and goes unheard by Dale as he storms off in the direction of his Grandparents home.

'See you Dale. Dale?' Irwin unaware of this atypical melodrama tries to bid farewell but Dale is not happy, goose stepping up the path home, shoes squelching.

'What happened?'

'He eat a mud shower,' I said, a finger to the dirt. 'That's what happened.'

Elise still smirking could not resist the urge to laugh. Commonplace platitudes the tipping point and it was setting in making us drowsy after joys of the poker game.

Irwin gestures towards the city park. 'Want to play ball up at the diamond.'

'Can't its getting dark,' I said.

'Yeah I should go too,' Irwin said.

Elise is already tempted backwardly along the street towards home and yells out. 'Last one up is a sewer rat.'

We run across the bank onto the path, Elise in front. Irwin overtakes with ease laughing fading as he passes further from me. I scrupled with why my legs can't carry me faster and push the sprint to a new limit. Still no progress and the two rejoice in their victory at the top of the path. My dash slows to a walk then a stop. Hands on knees, spine stretched I poke my head out to see the two siblings enter the drive to their home and before entering the porch they throw a wave in my direction, disappearing into the house.

Alone now. Walking at a steady pace. A fair vantage point overlooks the whole park, a reclusive sun bearing down on the horizon. Pearls of light restricting the view. I refocus, way back. Men in white overalls are dumping truck loads into a mound. The wind picks up and the perfume of organic mulching hits. Passing the Sutherland's home I stop to inquire the darkened windows for a look at her ferret face.

As I do so a car like the one from "The Greatest Show On Earth" races the street, it's a grey Jaguar. Inside a couple are arguing and pull into the curb. Stationary the two bicker and begin to jostle at each other. The driver grabs at her then throws a tangled crochet scarf on the floor of the car and begins thrusting his fingers toward the female passengers face. The driver takes off his hat unleashing thick black hair, parted. His occupant weeps into her hands.

I turn to enter my front yard grabbing the bush which pokes at my fingers and reach the stairs when I'm startled by the backfire of the XK as it sets off in a hurry. Opening the front door I watch the grand tourer turn the corner at speed and then a period of interruption of grey behind a row of conifer trees until it sinks away following contours of the banked asphalt.

Inside mother is in the kitchen preparing food. Dad sits at the table paper in tow, feet up reclining. He hears me enter the room but neglects to acknowledge my presence, head buried in sports.

'Just in time. Leek and taters tonight.'

She rushes into the living room with two hot steaming bowls of soup. At the table pulling the chair out I catch a whiff. Wet and onions, expecting a potato smell more than anything else.

'I don't, I'll pass.'

Pushing the watery mix to the far corner of the table I shudder again as mother enters the room with her bowl.

'Oh come on. Puts it to one side, he's done. You never even tried it,' she said.

I spit at the thought of putting the strong leek slop into the mouth. A dejected look from mother hand on hip. She lets out a sigh and sits at the table. The paper dad was holding is folded in two and tossed onto the table. My parents begin to eat in silence only the occasional slurp of soup from a spoon can be heard. Dad finishes his soup first stands up then moves to a new place. Relaxing into the seat he casually flicks on the TV all in one motion. The cathode ray tube hums as the screen lights up. The contrast is far too high and the sound is turned up loud. Mother finishes hers and me still not even a slurp. The slipstream begins to frustrate me as I fidget with it pushing it further away from me. Mother prises the soup bowl from me pushing it back.

'Mama ain't got money to waste.'

She looks at me and I look to her. Mother cusps the two empties and walks out into the kitchen.

'If you don't eat all that soup. Then it's an early bed son,' father said.

Fingers reddened from a grasp to steel I finally dip the spoon into the soup. Slowly raising an onion and leek rich spoonful to my mouth I stop to poke at the bowl, not a hint of any potato in the hot watery contents.

'Blah, this is not food. I won't, not this,' I said.

'Then get to bed now, don't want to hear a peep from you or it's the end of my belt.'

Hit by a sudden bought of butterflies, all the blood rushed out of my body which sends the head dizzy. I oblige his dreaded ire and stand up without making a noise heading out the room dragging my feet slowly out.

'Wasting food. Where the fuck you hatch from.'

A glimpse at him, face full of furies. Intent eyes bulging a fixed agitation that sees into me and through me. A last gulp out the room swallowing one mouth full of gritty soup adding to the misery. Past the kitchen where mother is stood piling plates for wash. She hears me coming and pauses but resumes fetching things for the drainer without turning. Up the stairs and into my room I look to the graveyard out the window. Scrunching fists into a ball then into my face. In frustration I jump into bed and lay there, covers over head.
10

While struggling with a sock from out of the kitchen I hear my name called. Last sock on then down the stairs picking at my breaches I enter the kitchen.

'Morning sleepy. Hungry?' mother said, holding some eggs.

I outstretch my arms, forced a back out, tin ribs showing under pyjamas.

'Please, one egg, two slices, not toasted, no marge.'

Eking out a cringe, a mothers kiss, 'Coming right up,' she said.

Still overcast and slightly foggy. Condensation licks the window pane and I put up a hand to wipe it away. At the bottom of the street next to Brett's home carriages are being led from a delivery wagon parked at the main roadside. Two go by with what looks like iron boxes partially rusted.

After breakfast I change into some sweat pants and a fleece. Fat and rested with new energy that needs burning off locks of the door unclasped to truncate a turn of the mechanism.

'I'm going to Brett's kay mah,' I said, sailing out the door just as mother was about to speak.

Halfway throughout I spot two figures playing on the green then I pick up the pace. The rush of air while running yields a carefree attitude. I breathe in deeply. At the green only Dale and Irwin greet me. Dale is playing in the mud, Billy boots splashing in the dirt.

'Hey what's going on with the big trailers carting iron cages,' I ask.

He acts puzzled and stiff. Lifting arms up and down, a large rainproof coat hanging over his fists. It's one size too big for him and looks like a hand-me-down.

'Dunno, go ask Brett they went into his place.'

Curiosity won so I goad Irwin's meticulous correctness and beckon him into the backyard. The tall svelte trees above the home zigzag in the wind picking up grit left over from all the construction equipment leftovers that catch in between the teeth of my smirking face. I brace for more of it wincing at the dash of grits. Suckling at the dirt in my teeth I spit out the remains.

The neighbours junker stood on stilts on their drive. It crosses over to the Jenner's side. Lights are smashed out and the inside has no seats or interior panels. Ink spots of diesel leak from a rusted gas tank covering the floor in an iridescent amalgam. The Jenner's gate has been locked from the other side and not the tallest of us can reach to unlock it. Bewildered I lean up against the home exterior coated in a powdered whitewash.

'Can you climb it Irwin,' I said.

Zipping up his coat Irwin spits on his palms then rubs them together.

'Watch this.'

A jump at the ledge above the wooden gate. He reaches and swings from the concrete mantle which comes loose in his attempt to beat the gap. Legs widely flailing a counter balance to his thrust. Ancient spider webs fall from the disturbed crook into his face. He lets go.

'Damn it. No way any of us are getting over it.'

Dale disagrees and vaults over the neighbours gate that has planks running through it like a ladder with an opening before the gate meets the top. Up and over, through and across the partition. On the other side of the gate only the scuffed scrape of climbing feet. It unlocks.

'How you reach that?' Irwin outdone by someone half his size questions.

Dale tumbles his hand then bows.

'Spiderman!'

We crowd into the narrow passage, footsteps bounce between the angles. The yard is clear of people, only a new addition of a converted greenhouse backed with layers of blue plastic. Then around to the outhouse hole. Inside Elise, Brett, kissing, making out. Undetected so far as we observe fumbles of Brett pitching for second base. He tries to lift up Elise's v-neck but she pushes away his accosting paws.

They carry on cuddling and kissing as Brett cradles Elise in his arms. Irwin cuts a jibe wince at Dale and me simulating a mimed make out scene tongue in cheek, lapping top lip to bottom and turning hands to flanks.

A kick from the heel to the wall, Irwin then walks around the corner out of view and senses of the couple in the outhouse turns outward at the sound. Dale attempts to hide and I'm left standing solo. Consternation hits the face of Brett a turn. Elise splits a tomato blush hand over face, anywhere but not into the prying eyes.

'Who's there,' Brett said, almost afraid.

In went Irwin, head into the excavation holding the fragile knock out. From Elise's point of view all the faces must have been a silhouette against the bright of the outside light cascading a gloomy picture of a pack of strangers. Her pupils focus but still a sputter of words almost question who and why.

'What are you doing Lizzy,' Irwin coats his words with an upper class tone.

Elise relaxes her grip from Brett as she had clung to him in desperation. A jaunty flutter of the eyelashes batter the folds till she reclaims a grip back onto Brett in defiance to the tomfoolery.

'What's it to you. Keep your beak out dummy,' she said.

Brett's incredulity with the conclusion was welcomed and he snuggled back into Elise, recouping her warmth.

'K-i-s-s-i-n-g sitting in a tree is Brett n' Elise,' Dale sung and we joined him.

As onlookers we did little to disturb the two confident souls in embrace. The longer we stood there the more we looked like the odd ones out. A lonely pocket radio humming the sounds of Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" drifted through the hole in the outhouse.

Breaking from the pack I found myself up the yard touching flat palmed onto stones moving further up than before this time. The plastic blue greenhouse. No windows only a door that has nothing to grasp. A black hole where the knob would sit. Shadows rustle and shift at the etched notch. No associated noise that I relate to comes out from the hurriedly put together shack. A finger into the void toying for an angle to view into its depths. I pull on the gap. No response. A wrap of the knuckles on the plastic outer casing. This time a shuffle and a sentient march of sprawling feet. Some batter into the flexible mesh from inside as the creatures vie for space.

Further up the incline yellowed pests propagate the plot sprouting through cracks in the patio flooring dying a slow death but determined to blossom even while surrounded by inhospitable conditions the weeds have overcome the concrete. Holding onto the moss ridden fence I secured a position looking for a view inside. At the back end of the greenhouse a triangle section is without plastic, an afterthought maybe in its erection. Or is it ventilation?

A better view is required so I place a foot onto the fence and lift off. The ammonia stench is nauseating. Both feet back onto the ground as a fleece sleeve is clutched to my face. A prompt look at the outhouse. Dale and Irwin are gone. But a foot is there in the hole resting with another.

Back to the fence, up again. This time expecting the ammonia with an inside of a fleece pulled over the nose. Bare foundation of the greenhouse visible. Window panes dislodged and replaced with wire mesh and plastic stretching halfway up the frame. As I push up further more details are revealed. Compressed hay scatters the floor. Then comes two animal feeders, ceramic. A flash of white coverts then nothing. Extending my reach too far, losing grip on the fence I twist and snatching at the open exterior frame, I see them.

Inside white and pink birds. Swans and geese huddled together with flamingos vibrant and standing tall even in the cramped space. A collective of eleven total only ever moving if stirred by sound. Testing the morale of them I shake at the covers of their home. It agitates some birds who attempt to fly, open wings that never fully maximise. Yellow slits from out of the dark thrust into the air, plumage balloons into the ceiling slowly descending back to the shuttered blight. A salmon coloured pinion cycles in the air. In I reach, a grasp. An open hand contains the single shed feather. Held up into the light its stem was sturdy, healthy. Fabled beauty from a dark place. Some of the swans were in quite bad shape. Dirty and traumatized, once white now blackened by hardship. At the mercy of the more powerful flamingos or the self-imposed masters who look at them as assets, nothing more or less.

It was dry inside, every drop of liquid evaporated. If to shed a tear at the birds plight at that instance not a drop would fall. Instead leaving only a feeling of weakness, lost energy.

Looking inside, the reverse of the door, mapping the layout. No lock just a latch and tethered cord holding the door in place. Looping it backwards and a tug of the nook the door opens.

Far from being cautious the birds flock out in file and emerge into a new world of the backyard. They examine the new surroundings and plotted desert willow buds become their pecking target. Dirt kicked up by exploratory heads deep into the dirt, some find their voice and squabble. The stance of the birds have changed from their low lying squat position they adopted in the shack. Now they stand tall colours enhanced by the suns light no longer a shabby dweller of the dark.

'Damn it. Dumb scamp led out the gaggle,' Mr Jenner said, stopping early at the base of the incline, letting his gout get the best of him. 'Brett, sort out this disarray an do it quick.'

In a fluster Brett ran out chasing all the birds around the yard. A feathered flurry danced a game of catch for an hour before they were subdued. One of the pilgrim geese flew out onto the outhouse roof and played hell with both Jenner's. It was worth the scolding look from Brett as he locked up his yard tight with me on the other side of the gate. Fatuously skipping a beat out of the drive I meet the others at the lawn.

'You see that I set them free,' I said.

Dale spun a yo-yo and gives a raised eyebrow. He catches the convolutional disk as it tugs at the string. Constantly moving his lip position in a random order then wrapping string around and lashing out another spin the plastic hits the ground eating up slack of the thread until its tight.

'Walk the dog.'

Click clack rises, big and vexatious. Elise chews a Jolly Rancher and looks over at me. Dale wanders off on his own accord down the slope scooping the toy into his pocket. Irwin winks a willing, 'later alligator' running to catch up with Dale. 'In a while crocodile . . .' The butterflies are still present, sliding a hand on my stomach to test the theory.

'What's with you always sticking it to Brett. He's nice and your always mean to him.'

Elise, gifted with a hint of scorn peered deep into puppy dog eyes. Twirling her hair around a finger looking away from me out past my gaze she lets out an overemphasized sigh.

'Help him clean up or something it's all I'm saying. Jeez.'

Hands in pockets looking down at my shoes, laces untied. Pivot of the foot the laces twirl a dance. 'Sorry, l-lets sort this out then,' I said.

Heading up to the front door of the house Elise trails off past the derelict car and stops to hold onto the gate as it groans out in pain. A look back, a smile and a jilted wave. Up the sidewalk she goes while the door knocker is raised back striking its mark. Primary knock is too rash, successive one is more conservative. Mr Jenner opens it. His mass rose over my skinny frame at his door.

'I, I'm. For help.'

'Spit it out. I'm missing the Addams Family,' he said.

Mr Jenner apparently impatient, tiptoeing on the spot as if he needed to use the bathroom. Hair bobbing up and down onto his sweaty forehead. Under his arm a bag of potato chips and some were in his mouth, three chips a time.

'I came to say sorry for what I did and, want to help clean up,' I said, relived at finally getting out the words.

'That's swell Rip. Brett's out back.'

Stepping up and into the house I noticed the footprint I'd left a night ago was dried and half picked at. A rugged mat had been placed over it to hide the stain (although slightly kicked aside). Through the kitchen down the scullery pots and pans in the sink piled up. All the cooking utensils hidden away. Take-out boxes in the trash.

At the backyard patio Brett stabbed at the topsoil with a rake. Sawdust ingrained to the path all the way to the set of stone steps. Freshly cut wood filled the air and particles of dust kicked up which made me cough.

'I thought I'd come clean up. Your dad said its fine.'

A pass off from the shoulder but still tending to the earth and a subtle nod while pointing at the brush lying on the ground.

'Yeah, hope you ain't planning on cleaning out the coop cause you're bad with birds.'

Tucking in my arms, chin on neck out came a chuckle. We were still friends after all. 'Tell you what this place will look better than ever by time we're done,' I said.

In agreement I climbed up the steps and begun brushing. The birds were in the greenhouse quiet, sleeping maybe.

Brushing out the last of it into a black bag held by Brett the two of us had worked for ten minutes or so. The soil newly turned with peat rich in the air. It brought me back to my time working with father in our plot of land. Together we would tend to the plants and vegetables. Potatoes and leeks smell much better when in the ground than on the plate.

One of dads quotes: "A weed in the plot is the mark of an ignorant gardener". The Jenner's had many weeds in theirs. Picking out a hoe from the dozen or so tools laid out I got to work on those up next to the greenhouse. One at a time I plucked a root, dropping it in a pile.

Watching from the bottom of the steps was Brett drinking from a glass, sweat beads collected in his hair. The window of the living room was open and outpouring from it was canned laughter. Much like my own parents the Jenner's also liked the volume on the TV dialled up high.

'You don't have to do that. Come on I got some cola,' Brett said.

Root and leaf rested up against the fence. It was now clean and free of weeds, sawdust piled into bags. In went the bundles of green. At the first set of steps and out stretches a hand holding a cold one for me. Carbonated bubbles brewing to the top colliding at the surface. Big gulps, it went down easy as we sat in the outhouse both on padded chairs. The sun broke through and slightly illuminated us through an opening of the outhouse wall before dying, brownout in the clouds.

'Why'd you let the birds out man.'

Lying back on the seat both feet out crossed at the ankles and still clutching at his glass Brett's finger begins tapping into the liquid.

'I don't know. Wasn't really thinking about it,' I say.

The laughter from the TV filtered into where we both sat. Cotton chops curled up into Brett's face tutting at the interruption. Again from out of the living room loud hawking laughter this time it was Mr Jenner. Brett's face grim with embarrassment placing his glass onto the rickety table spilling some of the contents.

'Come on let's get out of here,' grunting his words as he walked out.

Through the hole kicking mortar from the exposed brickwork we both climbed up the limestone wall to the greenhouse. Zipping up his coat, pocket zips too, Brett tilts his head shepherding my view to what was beyond. The fence in question stood six foot high and behind it slim trees poked out. Past the picket fenced yards on the right stood the tallest of them. A plastic bag caught between branches stuck there until it rots, in time it would probably float to the ground forever on the move. For now it was stuck there impaled in place at half-mast.

Clambering onto the post Brett guides his foot from the unpainted fence then wedges his other onto the gable pushes off and over. Now I did the same only getting half way up. Falling back down I look through the gaps in the fence. White and grey tablets etched with photos and words that aren't clear. The fence wobbles and I back off. Behind me lands Brett.

'I'll give you a boost up. Ready?'

Prising together his hands my dirty shoe is grasped and up I go. As I rise a full view of the smoking crematorium is laid out in front of me. Rows of gravestones bundled together in unordered symmetry. Some with flowers bright and fresh. Others dying, some with nothing. Gravel pits and stone columns all with intricate etchings none alike. The grass is well kept and shipshape borders meet with pathways. Chain link fences either side the main path lead up to the veterans chapel and the wishing well. As I push off the prised hands one foot lodges onto the top panel of the fence, a leap and I'm on the other side. Landing on one knee and a firm foot I'm now aware that grass is lesser kept the closer you get to the fence that divides private homes. All the hard work is pored into keeping isolated areas surrounding the burial grounds tidy.

My own perception of a graveyard is off target. Pleasantly surprised that it smells of pollen and peat, not ready for the smell of death. A flock of shrikes stagger against the nearby skyline then they begin perching together in between the thorns of a tree. A hollow thud lands at my side and I see a hammer land out in the open thereafter follows Brett who lands with a running stumble.

He grasps it once he regains his composure. Heading out towards the tended knoll we pass garbage full of rotting bouquets, clear plastic wrapping making up the majority of its contents in the overflowing fixed metal trash can.

'Never been in here before. See it every day but never inside,' Brett whispered.

We come to a clearing where a large tree is standing. It forever extends into the sky, its peeling, weary and scorched by the previous summer heat. Affixed to it are messages to the lost. Bows and teddy bear souvenirs nailed deep into bark. The bears cotton fabric exposed by time, its colour faded and the nail driven through its abdomen has caused visible friction damage that tears wider every day. Brett takes the claw and prises at the flattened head.

Lifting the flap of a postcard held in place by a single thumb tack I see the words written but cannot decode them. Instead I look at the front. A tropical flower and a generic landscape view of the ocean. On the back a US army postage paid stamp signed 'Penelope'. Brett gives up trying to free the bear. At the stump of the tree is a collection of trinkets and memorabilia. Our hands rummage through the votive offerings and we find our own charm to keep.

'Marbles and look check this.'

Eye to a magnifying glass he examines the terrain with his new toy estimating for what potential the loot is worth. Reaching into the new-found treasure and shifting through glass baubles did I find something metal with a grip at its dome. A bell which when rang causes pigeons resting to sprawl from the tree above us. We both squat pressed down checking if anything else heard the bell toll. Nobody noticed, the area is free of people. Quiescent since we entered and so it is still. A dose of reservation hits us.

'What is all this stuff anyway,' Brett said.

'Looks like a garage sale where everything is free,' I say.

Standing back up both of us filled with the knowledge that no one populates the close vicinity. We replaced the trinkets took from the foot of the tree and cross a path onward further into the graveyard. In amongst the gravestones only the pretty etchings on their faces are bothered to be looked at. Reading any of the text mounted onto the stone themselves is a bore that blurs one epitaph to the next. Brett jumps into a gravel tomb pit as if it were a game.

Further up I spot another grave containing fine synthetic crystals but I hesitate to be as bold to play in amongst the lying dead and instead while standing at the side point out the new find. A running dive from Brett as he steps directly onto sundered plots and into his new sandpit two feet in tandem. He lands with crash of gravel parting at his feet.

'This place is great. We should visit more often,' Brett said.

'Yeah, we should.'

An upward poring of stones fly into the air and rain back down clattering onto the heads of both of us from the deliberate hands of Brett who wallows in his pit of stones. I take two steps back, my calf meeting at the side of a tombstone.

There is a withered photo parallel to another both in a gold finish. A couple laid to rest together after years of marriage, young love, tears, kids, happiness and friendship. Two lives joined together forever deep in the ground now. Newly upturned, moisture clinging to the raised soil beams a jet black. A large crystal vase is placed on the foot of the grave. An obelisk to the dead. It's a rotunda with a progressive curve that tightens at its base, diamond patterned groves criss-cross its circumference. Windmill in a pot, gifts either side of the tombstone. Lilies, shades of pink & burgundy in a delicate arrangement on the left. To the right roses grip the holes of the chrome planter. Out from his pit comes Brett as he meets at my side.

Studying the grave in silence, the sun tries in vain to circumvent a path through. Haunting shadows pass but never land directly at our feet. An arm cast around his back pulling at the waistband of his sweat pants and Brett produces in his hand a wooden handled hammer with decay visible at the tip. He gives it to me and running on auto pilot I accept it into my hands.

'Smash it,' Brett said.

The smoothed handle almost falls out of my weak grip as the hammer jerks at impact. Cascading glass meets midway with other shards. It trickles and bounces once connecting to the raised platform. I remember standing and watching the last shard ballet.

'You need to open up Ralph if you want me to help you. From this session I have established that at some point in your life you were eight years old, ' Dr Metcalf says.

'That time already,' I say.

'It seems so, there is a need to practice communicating fully and staring out the window like that, just work on it for me.'

'Same time next week then?' I ask.

Dr Metcalf scratched his head and then typed a few lines onto his keyboard. He presses the enter function. The screen phased green and out of the printer spewed a punched prescription.

'This will help with hallucinations and please discard the previous medication I gave you.'

'Have an idea if these will actually work this time.'

'Let's hope so.'

He looked at me different than usual and produced an appraisal that he did not perform in the mirror before he pulled on his clothes in the mornings. I slid a finger down the thin end of the paper then through the rifled holes. The chair creaked audibly when I screw balled the paper into a tight jean pocket.

'You know what Philip, can I call you Philip,' I say.

'I don't see why you can't.'

'The woman, there was a girl from my younger years, Elise.'

'Yes.'

'I talked with her yesterday for the first time in years but I never recognized her.'

A glance at his watch and he was lost within a daydream into his thighs. 'Sometimes the brain forgets things from long ago and most times its for the best. It might not be due to your schizoaffective disorder at all. You're not a major candidate for memory loss.'

'It's that simple,' I say.

'Not so.'

'But she was an old friend and I couldn't even picture her face to a name.'

'Psychosis is never so simple Ralph, see the memory may be blocked because the events around the time, needed to not be there.'

'I see.'

'Another session perhaps.'
11

High noon sun. Fluvoxamine 100mg once per day. Maximum dose 300mg per day. Ralph Tullman. BN 62195A. EXP 11/94.

'Huh, guess he's worth the money after all.'

The spring loaded door winds shut for me. In serenity, a jingle from the nearby wind chime grounds a fickle mind better than any other sound in the world. Wooden floorboards creak and groan as I cross them, down the steps seeking the courtyard where the juvenile patients are still playing. A last nervous look back at the chime hung on the porch followed by one hard tug on the car door and it opens. Inside, somehow it's a worse fit than Metcalf's wooden seat.

Breath across my face tickles the slick of my drawn back fringe. 'I need a new everything.'

Engine backfires, the radio plays, flick through the first three stations then light a cigarette with the dashboard lighter. The desert, cornfield and that billboard again. A sudden need to piss. Look around for the nearest rest stop. Anywhere will do. I pull the car over, unbuckle and relieve myself.

Old decrepit shack to the right a tattered flag ripples in the wind, nothing else but sand. A motorcycle pulls up. The engine snuffs out and a kickstand stabs the earth. It flashes it's lights and siren once, twice in quick succession.

'Shit, let me get my dick in my pants asshole,' I say.

A raspy man's voice calls to me. 'Caught with your pants down again I see.'

From the shack and out across to the road, tail-end of the dustball nothing moves and the same for the officer, solid in place midway caught in his walk. At the horizon a storm towers a mile high. Charged current seeps through, it begs to sweep across the landscape. Springs has lost its sheen and my hearing is flooded down to new depths.

All is pressurized and all is still, except one patch of ground moves or rather vibrates. A head then a tail, its slither the only giveaway. It flexes and scales twist together. Purple split tongued rattler and not a commonality for one this far west of Arizona. It shimmy's paving a way in the upturning dirt that clings to its hind.

I zip up and hold my ground as the diamond-back twines onto the damp log and coils. Zebra striped its rattle plays its tune. On the burgeon it gets larger and doubles in girth. Groaning from within, bones poke through and spread elastic skin translucent thin as they snap into place. Dislocating then feeding calcines to muscle it grows fat and oblate. It stops its growth.

Dusting off his scalp he begins. 'Brutus, pleased to meet your acquaintance.'

'Brutus?' I say, in awe.

There a man sits ready at the stump. His doublet is that of a Victorian monarch, frills and padded buttons. Came across very much human, though he does seem dead in the face. Unkempt hair pokes through the white'd up face paint as he grins.

'Quite a predicament you're in wouldn't you say.'

Brutus uncrossed his legs and sulked as sweat from the crown of my head trickled down the nape of my neck.

'What are you.'

'I already told you my name, what more do you need.'

While I wished him gone he drew "S" shaped lines in the sand with a tattered corn stalk. I couldn't stop my eyes as they darted seeking, clarity.

'Listen Ralph I don't carry business cards with me this side of Abacadia's realm and your thoughts are bleeding out into the ether.'

'Have I lost it, is this it?'

Brutus dropped the stalk and coyed his head. A never blinking, blank slated, zebra face of paint restrained the nervousness I should have felt.

'Why of course you have tootsy fruity why else would I be here.'

'No.'

'Yes and you're going to play this my way, understand.'

His head leaned further left almost so his cheek touched his shoulder. He gestured an explosion with his hands then slunk one into a waistcoat pocket producing a brass watch.

'Time is of the essence.'

My medication. The cap clicked threefold as it met the groves. One last twist and I severed the seal.

'Don't mind if I do.'

He snatched it out of my hand. Brutus proceeds to empty the parcels into his mouth.

'Got a bad case of the jaundice and these hard candy treats do make me smile.'

'I need those, give them back,' I say.

'Gone.'

He purred as he licked at his fingertips, smearing white powder from the corners as he siphoned its taste into his mouth.

'You're driving me insane.'

'That's right but even though you've lost we can still win. See him over there take a look.'

Pointing with a stubby finger he winks. The moustache touting cop still unmoving wears aviator glasses, a shepherd's warning within them.

'So, he's going to give me a ticket.'

Brutus sits back upon the log and sighs. 'The child doesn't see.' He fights with the frills of his cravat and straightens his collar. Looking around in hope he searches for a muse. A dose of excitement overcomes him, a premature eureka as he slumps back down and begins searching once again.

I measure my options as he seeks his wisdom. My car is behind me, ignition still primed. Its mirrors glint a steel blue invitation. Eyeball the troublesome handle.

'Speak as you come and come as you, no, nope that's not right. A man's voice is but a wave, wait a second I have it. Boulder on your back walk fourth into the fracas with stead fast legs and feel the earth buckle under your weight.'

'I don't get it,' I say.

'Just run out into the god damn desert, understand.'

'No thank you, goodbye.'

'Are you certain,' Brutus says.

'Stay away from me.'

I left him and followed tracks around the dried up water pan. 'Go fourth and prosper my beautiful pilgrim!' His words almost a shout cause me to stumble on uneven ground, concentration down at the sprig that bounced back into shape the moment I stepped off from it.

'Sir I saw what you were doing but I'm more concerned about your broken tail-light and the fact that your exhaust pipe is touching the ground. Can I see your licence and registration?'

Head into his paperwork the officer writes out some kind of citation. Brutus is gone and the world moves as it should. Confused the officer looks at the log then he turns to my car.

'Let me get them for you,' I say.

'Sir, this car is in no fit state for driving.'

I take a look at him over my shoulder. He is kicking into the sand with his heavy duty jackboots, now and again stopping to take a once-over. I show my forbidden halves and then take my keys and pull away the plastic sleeve quietly laughing.

'Here we are, in this heat officer.'

His face damp with his own sweat is brushed off and the excess flicked into the air. Taking off his gloves he checks each document I turn over and puts them by his motorcycle.

'Please place your hands on the hood.'

The officer moves close when I press onto the warm metal of the car. Kicking my feet further apart he begins patting me down then carefully checking my pockets until he gets to my crotch. Continuing up my torso, armpits, the length of both arms. I'm focused on what's ahead, into the interior past the front seats and out at the desert through the back window as he runs one last check on my ankles and shoes.

'I'm going to need you to blow into this breathalyser,' he says.

'Got it.'

'Keep blowing,' the machine beeps. 'We're done.'

'Did you find what you wanted,' I ask him.

'Wait here,' the officer says.

He's strafing around the car inspecting the wheels, culminated by squatting at the rear. Chewing his pencil he tests the strength of the exhaust.

'No ace. The trunk open it.'

'Just let me get those.'

Back into the driver side open window stretching for them. Checking the empty notch of the keyhole with a thumb my veneration turns elsewhere. The inquisitive cop still stands waiting, obstinate here and there in the mirror.

'Sure is hot, right,' I say, head pressed into padding.

Underneath the seat feeling my way through a mat and galvanized fittings I find it. 'Dropped the damn things.' Keys in hand I fondle my way to the back of the car and attempt to greet the officer with a smile but I can't. I turned to the trunk and slid the key into the recess. It creaks open revealing a sheet overlaid hard angled boxes. Pushing me out the way the officer lifts the rusted coverings and I clench my fist.

'There's your problem, when was the last time you tuckered this old hog into a mechanics?'

Flecks of iron rot danced in the air then settled upon the rim of both exposed holes in the trunks upholstery. I could see the ground below through the opening as the officer tore off a metal chunk that broke down in his hands.

'Your keys,' the officer says.

I passed them over then nervously waited, caught on the log and the barren landscape. Back at his motorcycle with my confiscated necessities and the empty medication bottle he took earlier he opens a satchel and begins taking more notes. Crows heckle as they flew in tow with a Gulf wind shepherding them to newer pastures. Valleys ahead waned in and out as heat from the earth burdened them in stature. I eased my grip, the metal pipe fell from my sleeve and hit the ground.

I ran.

The pan was hard on my feet at first but then the dunes became soft further out. I just kept moving one in front of the other. When the officer noticed he gave chase with far flung strides. All the while I'd romped across the glades of monochrome into a forest enchanted by the beauty of it all. Swans on the lake left contrails on the water and children all with happy faces much like mine caught butterflies with their hands. A woman's trailing dress, an abandoned picnic. She hides underneath a tree then faded when I caught up until she appeared at another further ahead and slunk behind it. Passing silhouettes danced in the pallid outer reaches of my view then dew encumbered petals of great blooming plants covered them over.

Moving deeper into the twisted sights aching to know what belies at its end. 'Stop,' came a voice in the fog. I traverse new tundra passing open caves, dwelling ground of bears or worse. The path twists and I follow it or it follows me, I can't tell.

Cobwebs coated the thick of the deeper reaches of the forest and for the first time I thought about terminating my sprint. Vines competed with thicket that encircled in front and lead me down a path of rock. A squall poured through the prickly funnel and out of it a balloon on a string bobbed as the person holding it ran. Apricots grew wild from the spiralling branches that embower me, the only colour that differed from the greys.

I eavesdrop the person ahead of me ignoring the distractions. 'Don't run from me, hold it,' he called out from a great distance away but it only served to speed up my slowing pace. I'd been running so long the sand in my shoes now an anchor to the truth. I didn't want to, the balloon, a beacon.

Stopped and listened to the birds chatter and a stream of water that trickled through the rocks. The fog evaporated down the tubular opening of light ahead and the stream filtered past my feet, wetting them. I turned to see if I was still being followed, no one.

I walked a few steps forward bounding ankle deep as the undertow almost tossed me off balance. Locked in place by sand, silt and blinding light from the tunnel exit ahead, instead I head the opposite direction making little progress in the turbulent waters now up to my knees. It started as a stream then it flowed as river, a flood and when it drags me under I won't drown. I'll breathe. Bumping into vines the flow of water confuses my orientation, I don't know which way is up until I'm jettisoned off the cliff down the newly borne fall.

Dark sky, clouds skirted across it, a hiccup in the brain neglected to inform my open eyes. Dry mouth and a headache, sweat that's gone cold touched skin. I curled my fingers and scooped my pick of regolith. Raised my head a little seeking a bright patch as my waypoint. Something off in the distance, vertical like an old telegraph post.

The few hours spent in this ditch bear my marks in the ground. Excavated mounds of dirt lay either side, finger marks dwindling off at the ends. Footsteps from my journey are tightly spaced and how far they stretch I'm uncertain. Sitting up my limbs weak from the outback, I stretch my neck and wait for the crack, a helping hand tilts my head further and I get what I need.

Limber enough to stand I close in on the pole and then rest on it. The upward mound in front over time eroded then slid into the rusted crutch I rest on and bent it some. Empty my shoes before even thinking about trekking up to the top and once I can move freely I follow a short dip and move up then take a step onto the incline. I test my dynamism, a shortcoming in my plan as I decide to walk the gully to a lower spot. Along the narrow path I come to a root bursting out from the layered composite. Climbing it I take hold of the very upper most part hitherto, a known unknown dispelled when I pull my body over this stumbling block and know what it is. Its man-made texture smooth and purposeful, but where it leads puzzles me.

Oceanside in slumber. Not a car cruises for delights or a person graces its pathways. My watch reveals it's not long gone eleven. Someone is always hustling this district and the quiet has got me oddly sullen. To the corner where Judith runs the postal office, empty store after another. Total blackout. I'm running knowing that the next corner leads to a place that must harbour a signal of life, solo feet of mine collected throughout beating the streets like a feral dog.

Late night convenience store is open and I press my face into its window then try the door. A faint electronic buzz emits from the sign above, the door slowly swings and I let it hit the store interior. I don't want to step in and look around from outside.

'Anyone here.'

Aisles categorised, prices inflated but still with sale labels on them. Cashier is absent from the pay point but the far end door is open. I enter and chase the rows for a view down each stretch to the end and check the alcohol section.

'Hello.'

Stopping midway through to pick a random cheap wine. Cautiously peak over the shelf focused on the open door that leads to a smaller warehouse room.

'Waiting customer here.'

No response so I rest the wine on the shelving and walk back to the exit. Other side of the store two refrigerators hold bottles of soda. I pull out one and drink it halfway and take a breather. The magnetic suction squeezes the door tight then a rabble of feet march down wooden stairs from the warehouse opening. Retreating away my back flattens out on the polymer window. They softly negotiate the last two or three bottom steps and come to a standstill. I expect them to come out, they don't.

I hang around scrutinizing if they'd mistook me for their boss on a late night check up who caught them messing around with each other. From my pocket I spill loose change onto the mini kiosk. Dimes and nickels cede to silence.

I step back and linger at the door never turning my back as I leave. Heading into the heart of Oceanside I close in on the corner of Neptune Way passing by Remo's place now with shutters down. A faint but distinct clash of familiarity rang out from nearby. It came into view and lit up the block. Sovereign's neon bulb hums a flat beat in amongst a chorus of music. Its rouge lights creates new shadows, welcome life in the streets. Electronic synth billows out from an open sublimate filled entrance creating an ominous pulse vibrating my centre mass.

A figure walks out and rests one foot up against the outside wall. The door slams shut. I get closer hiding my yearning for human interaction.

'You're a cunning one.'

I am, or was . . . Sharp teeth bite into his bottom lip as I collapse into my trembling hands. Slapping myself out of this state I want it to end. A knee on the road he gets slightly closer. Through the slits in both hands I see him usher my view towards the arcane opening door of Sovereign.

'I wouldn't do that, so far away come closer.'

'Why should I,' I say.

'Let me show you, after all words only do so much.'

The fog that pours out changes its shape, disturbed by outward rushing air. From greyish it turns a vivid yellow deepening my auroral fascination with its ever twisting grace. When I stand I look to my side and take note of the deep blackness that now surrounds me. Sovereign's neon the only source of light in a bubble of nothingness. Holding out his hand Brutus waits, a dark figure like the night that's all around me.

'Show me then,' I give in.

When I accept his request that toothy smile widens and a grip that's firm but lifeless pulls me into the entrance. Spry on his feet for such a wide bodied man while I ebb behind on my toes. Masked in a deluge of camouflage weary faced patrons of the club passing by with frowns eschew direct contact with those near them. They make their rounds and do what they please all talking at once as a medley of voices over the course of one night in a passing stroll. Into the cloakroom, a portal to another worldly place as the surroundings shift to dry plains and messianic architecture. I have no choice in the matter and into its depths I'm dragged.

The sand here, it's just like from home only too vibrant for what lies below the mesa. Following a cobbled path through this land the heat and baron twigs of vegetation gone all too quick. Up some steps into a hallway, pillars of basalt hold at bay a semi collapsed ceiling. From its opening ground down granules fall to my leather coat. I wipe it off and catch a glimpse of Brutus' face torn with delight. A throne room, its steps to the base invaded by nature and time sprout through its surface and bask in accomplishment. Brutus relinquishes his thrusting tug on my arm and walks the steps to sit upon his assorted bone throne wrapped in creeping plants.

'Welcome to my home.'

'You live here.' I say.

'Everyone has a place of their own, that you'll find out sure enough.'

On his side a bronze chalice distracts him from our conversation and he runs fingers over the contents within it. He pulls out his chosen piece and throws it into the pit with chains bordering its square outline that merges with the outside sand through triple lancet arches. A thud as it hits the ground spawns a quake from under our feet.

'Ready for this,' he says, with urgency.

Lying on sand piled upon sand the golden mineral rests. From below something traverses then pokes its head above to inspect the oblation, docking itself at the inlet. Its jaws open and it tastes the air. Expelling dust from its nostrils the sand cucumber like creature retreats back into the depths carving a path away. Similar to a great whale that roams the bedrock it slinks downwards releasing a burst of sand from its descent.

'Well, not what I was expecting. How unfortunate.'

'Could you tell me why you brought me here now,' I say, puzzled by the outcome.

'Maybe you could feed her, been sometime since she's tasted human.'

Resting hand on chin he ponders the thought all while tickling his calf. Stuck between words he can't spit it out and stutters aloud then stops a while to look back at the dunes outside.

'Valeria my life my blood not too far. She gets restless.'

'You're not feeding me to your pet,' I say, disgusted.

Brutus turns a different shade and leans upright grasping onto the femur nodules which serve as arm rests.

'No, no not me I wouldn't dream of such a thing.'

'Then good.'

'Perhaps any spare scabs or teeth will suffice if possible.'

'Not anything ever, period.'

I turn away and scour which way leads to home. Through its tall archways this structure the only one of its kind that stood out from the low plains for miles. I pale at the blank clod of earth Brutus calls his home. How could I wish to espy for that of Hot Springs cramped hallways.

'Quite a view isn't it. I find to sit and take it all in for hours very rewarding.'

'I don't think so,' I say.

'I know we don't see things alike but what I want from you is correlatively, wished.'

'Meaning?'

Standing up and joining me at the window Brutus places an arm around me and takes air deep into his lungs.

'Sometimes I'm satiated with the mere idea that I could swim the sands as she does, majestic, yes. So I did.'

'I always, wanted –'

He nudged me at my hesitation and stalked my ceaseless expression with his amber vortex irises.

'– To fly amongst the clouds like a falcon.'

'Wouldn't it be wicked to get the things we most desire Ralph.'

Retracing his steps Brutus climbs his throne once more only this time hiding his face from my view.

'Incidental is it that you continue to ignore and not take. Outside of the confines of my realm of course, when your hand is not being held.'

When he faced me the intent look of him shook me from afar. A senseless hunger palpable changes to a subdued rumour in an instant and even with his teeth sheathed behind his smirk it felt as if the earth still quaked like before. My feet tingled and a thundering heart beat strong, alas it was before the inevitable.

'It's a merry ride you've ridden but it's time to get off.'

'You make little sense,' I say.

Jumping to his feet he begins to encircle me, walking around again and again.

'Why don't you do it Ralph.'

'Do what?'

'Seeking out new experiences. Funny because to me whether you lay down with a woman or shoot up its always the same chemical reaction firing off. Why bother looking Ralph.'

'It's what all people do.'

'But you're different aren't you, ignorance is your armour and you wear it with pride.'

'Maybe I do.'

'You know that fellow has a place of his own too but you'd never see him.'

Slipping away I gain as much distance as I can from him and spot what I anticipate is an exit. Entering the nook with a view of the hallway illuminated by oil lanterns I take a few steps then stop. Draughts whip at the flames but the ever moving light never reaches into the high alcove ceiling leaving me apprehensive to walk its straight corridor.

'How is it that your life is in ruin, ever stop to wonder and use the fleshy grey.'

'The things I want when they are under my nose, ready for the picking, it's too easy. So I set my goals higher and then it's too far gone and I'm left with zero,' I say.

'Then let me help you. Stick around and stop sulking away like a newborn babe without a teat to suck on.'

'I don't see how you can that's all.'

Brutus rotates the crown of his brass watch and lifts the cover to reveal its mechanical guts. Sprockets churn the more he turns and the time pieces skeletal structure becomes apparent. No hands or a dial only a series of clicks offer any feedback to its owner. He looks to it with keen insight then closes the latch and tucks it into his pocket, chain and fob.

'I found her like I find most of my curiosities, on the ground. Left for me to find in amongst the other specimens. This clacker be mine now and I cherish its company,' he says, clutching to his hip. 'Yes and rightly we, as I said are not alike because you had something and let it go. It was shaped out of dedication and laid to rest upon your wall.'

'My mother's crucifix you mean.'

On the table he overlaps a knife and spoon into a cross shape and holds it up for me to see as he perches his rump ass onto a chair.

The pigmentation of his skin below the knuckles adaptively match to that of its silver when touched and further stain him the longer it goes on. 'Purged it from your mind like it was of no concern, but now it's been brought to your consideration, and it's all you can think about.'

'It was taken from me by people who didn't care to ask my permission. Bad people, parasitic in nature, they cannot be reasoned with.'

'Taken from you you say. No it was given to them in appeasement due to your neglectful ways. Do not, I repeat do not allow your temporary amnesia to take control and make these pressing issues go away. Nothing will get done.'

From the very same table a dinky rodents carcass is swept up by its tail from a festooned plate and into his mouth he chews its bones.

'Now you get that beloved back from these bad people and when it's in your possession we will show them what it is to truly lose something. You can leave that up me, understand?'

'If I must.'

'Less if, more do then you'll be all set.'

'I can leave now.'

'Wait before you go know this.'

'Know what?'

'Ignore every word I just said. The tip of your tonsils says why, I can see it. Truth is none of this matters, nothing matters, all of it. It does not matter what you do,' Brutus says, standing up.

'Please can I go,' I ask again.

'You may and could have at any point you deemed right.'

'Which way should I head, can you show me.'

Swallowing the remnants he wipes across his lips a fine handkerchief and points out at peaks beyond the halls of his domain.

'Keep going that way with the heat on your back and when you mount the hilltop ridge you will see the dead city and the delta ford. You will find your world thereafter.'

'I need to travel how far exactly and what about those creatures that swim the sands.'

'Creatures.'

He looks to his watch again with impatience and squints into its shell. 'You have legs use them,' Brutus says, unhooking a chain he waves me to pass through to the outside.

'You won't come with me.'

'Uncertainty creeps in again, I'm always here if you should need me now do papa proud.'

I step off from the pyrite slab and when I plant my feet on its lower surface I sink, quick sand has me in its downward grip.

'You lied to me,' I say.

'A white lie. True though there is nothing beyond those hills. Nothing.'

Brutus shoehorns my grasp off the inlet lip and the sand reaches my arms and I flail in the mixture hoping to stay afloat. He watches from the confines of his safe secure floors and bends to speak directly in my ear.

'A fitting exit don't you agree.'

As I succumb to the depths my last view is of his dark skin hidden by face paint, stricken with petulant laughing.
12

Awakened to the rustle of leaves on the ground. Ushered under my head stone steps, a mild breeze and sight on new skies. Someone is at the apartment entrance.

'Should I call an ambulance,' the onlooker says.

'I'm fine, water is all I need,' I say.

'Best get you up before anyone sees.'

With some hesitation she steps down and tries to lift me. That face comes into view only without its usual airy expression.

'Elise I don't know what happened.'

'Quiet its late, you'll wake the neighbours and Mrs Thatching will have you evicted.'

Hearing this I stand aided by her and climb the first hurdle into the entrance. I cling to an arm and skirt the walls upward then stumble into her room.

'I'll make some coffee.'

She left me on the couch and made her way around to the kitchen and filled a colander. Her foyer was mostly the same as mine in its layout although it smelt sweeter and the walls were less brown. In one corner a web hung from its silken strand, an imperfection of sorts. Planters piled in the narrow space the windows length could offer and below her undergarments hung drying on a wire rack.

'You worried me finding you like that all curled up and lifeless.'

Giving me the coffee Elise took a seat. When I grasped the cup she lit up and shot up out of her chair in a fret. She begun opening draws and cupboards searching. Observing one hand I could see they were badly cut. The left not so maimed as the right was covered in an oily slick smear.

'Let me look at them,' Elise says.

In her hands she clasped mine together. Dumping the sachets from a pack of bandages she stripped the plastic covering off one and applied them to my cuts.

'What happened to you out there. Were you fighting, drunk – some sort of an accident?'

'Neither, do have any aspirin.'

'You didn't answer me Ralph.'

As she knelt on the floor and looked up it made her frown all the more apparent. When I studied the confines of her quarters some more she pulled on the end of the bandage stuck to my finger and dressed it forcedly tighter.

'I can't feel a thing, but if you insist on knowing, I may have overdosed on my medication.'

'Then you should go see a doctor it sounds serious,' Elise says.

Finished tending to my wounds she sat back in place. The ragged skin at my fingertips and knuckles were all covered over by children's themed band-aids. Coloured images of dog paws, an anchor and one of a bear showing its teeth. I tilted it further and read the words on the last one.

'Grizzly bear attack.'

She buried her head down showing me the roots of her hair. Gingerly picking up a handful of the rest of the sachets I picked one out.

'I really wanted this one instead,' I say.

Elise raised sour cheeked to look at the finger that slid out a new dressing. Shaking her head she pulled it from under my finger and placed it back into the box.

'It's not funny.'

'Still have a nasty cut right here see and Pirate Pete can help.'

'Stop.'

Playfully she brought the woollen fibres of her sleeve to her lips covering over her smirk. I sipped at my coffee.

'They were on sale okay and they happen to be the only brand I have so just be grateful.'

'I am, if you never had found me who knows how long I could have been out there.'

Wiping my brow I lie back in the chair and exhale. Elise was off rail, torn about the whole dilemma. I watched the fan on the ceiling spin. Nervously she took the cup I was holding out from my hand premeditating I was about to sleep but I wasn't. Too much thinking plagued me.

'How do you feel now,' she says.

'Dizzy, confused. I left my car.'

'Where'd you leave it?'

'Not sure, I'll pick it up tomorrow,' I say.

'How can you get it if you don't know where it is.'

'I have an idea where it'll turn up.'

I wound up fixed on the mantelpiece freshly dusted as were the family photos, faces peered out and I looked to them. Got close to touch the music box and watched the cylinder revolve on its own accord striking its pins to a steel comb and a few notes of "Those Were the Days" play in sequence.

Bricked up the gas fireplace jutted out and in its place a hastily fitted electric one sat. Beyond that, my room and its vacant mortar lay waste to my thoughts. Cursing it a hex with a frown, I sat back down. Only when I figured to that what opened it were elsewhere did I swallow in resolution. Bit into my thumb and licked at the nail, nursed some moisture into a tough cuticle that had formed under the white crescent digging at the root.

'I don't mean to intrude Elise.' I paused to fondle the stubble on my chin. Shook my head in angst at which of my contemplations I should address first. 'But, I need a place to crash, just for the night.'

She run the tips of her fingers across her eyes momentarily shutting them and then blinked a few times. 'Fine, its fine but the couch is all I can offer you.'

'Feels comfy to me.'

I tested its spring and lazily she produced a flat smile then it laid to rest.

'I'll find you some blankets, be a sec.'

She stepped into the bedroom and behind its door Elise searched through draws. I could just make out her bed with plastic bags strewn across it. At the hinge sized crack I made sure she could not see me as I reached over to get a better view inside. When I looked over bundled into bags were necklaces, ring cases and other assorted jewellery, some hanging out with tags intact. I sat back when I heard the draw shut. Onto my frame she placed the night coverings and collected cushions from the other chair and rested them to one side.

'Sleep tight,' she says, walking back to her room.

'Wait,' I say.

Holding the blanket she gathered for me I compacted it and sheepishly looked at her like I did all those many years I'd forgotten her previous.

'We should get lunch tomorrow, I know a nice place, at five.'

Squeezing the narrow of the door one thigh out she held onto the frame. Nodding tired, touching the fan string and pulling, she slid her leg inward until only her face was left. The click of the door was from a raised but gentle push and once again I'd be sleeping in my clothes. I lay on my back pulling the covers over me without a look to them in check.

A last struggle into a comfortable position I faced the assorted members on the mantel. Black blobs indistinguishable now I turn away into the bulk of the sofa. From Elise's room a muffled peppering resonated on the woven pile carpet as she shook her bed clean. Listening carefully to her every movement the mattress wanes as she climbed onto it, finally I close my eyes.

Tuesday, radio jingles played at first light and the door to her room was still closed. Outside it was raining, scissored fingers parting the knitted textile for a view. The streets were cleansed of settled dust as it collected with a downward flow into an engulfed sewer grate that glugged to its brim. It was cool this day, a farmer rejoices but the crack dealers count their losses. Twiddle my thumbs when I spot that reflective quality of glass the relatives pictures provides tucked in one corner and I use it to inspect my hair. A few loose ends tidied up I approach her room and knock.

'Elise are you awake. Just wanted to say thanks before I go.'

Silence.

'You're leaving,' she says.

'Well I'd like to speak to you for a while.'

'Come in.'

First thing that caught me was the oval mirror, liquid mercury held close. Then at her bed table she applied shark fin emerald earrings. Her chosen signet tempered on them a resemblance of a Mayan frosted glacier.

'Sleep well,' she says.

'I did, yes.'

As she picks up a heeled shoe her repressive smugness fouled the air. Slipping it on to half her foot, sighing when it wouldn't fit. 'Your fingers, better.'

'Elise I'm fine,' I say, in earnest.

She never looked my way still struggling with her shoe. 'Certainly have a lot to explain if not to me then at least to yourself.'

Patting her updo bun she stood and went to pass me. I'd impinged on what space was available and cramped her into the small of the bed and wall without realising. I let Elise through and followed in her path to the kitchen. Plant myself on a folding stool and an elbow pushed away the assorted condiments.

'The medication was it.'

'What, oh yeah I was given something new to trial and it ended up not working out,' I say.

'You forget things often as a side effect?'

Dismayed I sought a safety net. Found my refuge in the label of a ketchup bottle. Vinegar, spice and herb extract, celery and more spice who'd of guessed.

The reluctance in my face must have sent Elise on her way into the confines of the pantry. Off from the hook she put on an apron and tied it at the back.

'I'm making breakfast you're welcome to stay,' she says.

Letting go of the ketchup I put it out of sight and instead followed the curves at her hips with an apron dangled over them. A hen with her pans, gas on high and all the classic assortment of breakfast morsels lay on the kitchen unit.

'I thought I was taking you out,' I say.

Elise turns slightly and lifts a brow. 'Nothing quite like being fussed over, right.'

She pressed the button on the TV, a boxy thing next to the bread bin that has seen its fair share of continuous splashes fostering spore cultivations. From it some ape hoots about how to save a dollar by spending one and then it cuts to his assistant a pretty blond.

'Some deal,' I say.

'It's a ponzi,' she says, glaring at the remote.

A wave of relief hits me when she switches it over then drops butter in the skillet. She toasts the bread.

'What have you been up to all of these years,' she says, while gyrating the pan.

'This and that, you know.'

'Parents still live in Springs,' Elise asks.

'No they're gone.'

'Tell me you're joking.' The pan drops to the metal cooktop and she turns with a look that I mistake for scorn. 'Gone, gone?' she affirms. I nod.

'I'm so sorry, the two of them were always very close.'

'It's been sometime since I've thought of them, honest. They both went months apart, it was so sudden and I moved on as best I could,' I say.

'Such a shame.'

'And yours, they well.'

'Moved up to Alaska of all places. Dad likes the wilderness, says its innocence is yet to be tamed by man.'

'Does your mother agree with that statement.'

'Well she loves him.'

Serving the plate of bacon rashers and side of toast we sit and eat. Oily fingers pick apart strips separating the fat. When she's done all that's left are the curled remnants of rind that litter her plate.

'Did you ever count upon moving out of California?' I say, wiping my face.

She casually shrugged. 'It's easy to do when you have no commitments, hit the road and go.'

'What's holding you back.'

'This is home and I could never again see myself leaving it,' Elise says, while collecting dishes.

'Wherever you go it never feels like home,' I say.

'Right.'

Repositioning the chairs and folding sheets I used last night in her arm Elise sidesteps to be congruent of me in the room.

'Sit here,' Elise says, stretching to pat the couch.

I do so and take note as she heaves her laundry. A hamper catches the cotton bundles and swells up at the load. I turn away and check the contents of my pockets then flinch as the bedroom draperies are pulled back shrieking on the rails.

Elise goes back into the living room and fully draws those too. My pockets are desolate except for a lottery ticket, dud scratch card and receipts.

'Got something that might take you back,' Elise says, as she sits next to me.

'What is it,' I say.

She curls a leg underneath her. 'I've had it for years, cooped away in some box.'

Elise produces a leather bound album clean of any markings on its front. Upon opening the first page compressed by time it comes unstuck. Plastic peels from its binding brother and "73" is written across a glued into place Polaroid. Even attempts to straighten one corner that has been flattened between the pages.

'Was seventeen then, that's when I left for North Dakota,' Elise says, pressing a finger to her lip.

'I remember,' I say.

'Look at that hair. Denim two piece and buttoned pockets across the top, why did it ever go out of fashion,' she says, with a sly eye.

I agree, nodding my head. 'Could be worse, as in the horror show Dale would turn out in each season,' I say, pulling at my cuffs.

Pushing off the huge stack of padding Elise gives a single chortle. Wincing she stuffs her face into her cushion and laughs aloud into it. She looks my way a while then sits back with a view out the window.

'Dale, whatever happened to him.'

'No idea,' I say, crooking my head, a stroke for the bony nodule at the base of my neck. 'Last I heard from him he was signed up for the army reserves.'

'Crazy. I bet he looks handsome in uniform.'

'Irwin?'

'Married, two kids,' Elise says, riffling the photo book in her lap.

'Good for him,' I say, readying myself for the page turn.

Skipping to the front seeing myself as a child in a passing page I hold my thumb in the albums spine before its gone.

'This one,' I say.

'Here,' Elise says, tilting the album.

'All of us, together.'

'Like this picture, mm hmm.'

'Remember what I was thinking here,' I say, studying my younger self.

'And what was that,' Elise says.

'I was like, sometime today please.'

'Hey that's my mother who took that,' she says, pushing me from the hip.

'Oh, sorry,' I say.

Slunk to the contours Elise let her head jerk back as she sighed. 'Ralph you're such a square.'

'Whatever.'

'That's better.'

Holding it in place with a knee Elise lifts the plastic exposing its glue backing. She neatly scrapes it free.

'Take it.'

'Really?'

'Yes really.'

Back up she places the album onto the side table and picks up her car keys. 'Should we make a move then,' she says.

'I've already waited too long for getting my car back.'

'Better than doing nothing.'

Green tops and Buick's. Palm litters the route. Elise's suburban commands a lane.

'It's not because if you look around and see nothing's changed except a few satellite dishes sit on roofs now.'

'Remember Oinky's.'

'Yeah,' I say, laughing.

'That whole estate he lived by is gone.'

'One less schmuck, that's a plus.'

'They turned it into a field. Some kind of nature reserve,' Elise says.

Out the window my fingers find the groves and I skate the sealant. On a dizzying edge far away the twinkling specks on the ocean flutter. Sail boats hit the coast and drown in sand as the car speeds past craggy rocks.

'How was North Dakota,' I say.

'It was, average,' Elise says, and turned to the breeze.

'You came back though.'

'Can't keep me down. Not when there's sex and liquor a block away from here, North Dakota, humph.'

'It's my trade don't you know,' I say, waiting.

She turns while the suspension bounces over a pothole. 'How come.'

'I own Sovereign, the place on the North Coast highway. We cater to the finest men and women you can find and get their fill they do.'

'That's nice,' she says, checking herself in the mirror. 'First time I got on a plane Ralph was back when I left here. It was exciting being on this tube flying through the air at hundreds of miles an hour.'

'First times are the best for anything,' I say.

She pulls up her skirt showing the lace at the top of her stockings and nosedived to grasp the material. Pulling it up further as she lifts off the seat.

'When I got there it kind of killed the buzz. I had no friends. It was always below freezing.'

Drumming fingers on my chest. 'That all,' I say.

'What do you mean it was something big then.'

'I'm saying was there more to it.'

Elise nips at her knee evenly spreading the stockings down to her ankles. A hand to the wheel she scoots closer and kept her smile she discovered gaining ever closer to flatten out her skirt and folds it back into shape.

'There's more sure, I got so bored in rough rider territory I often thought about bashing in little animals just to keep off the boredom. Hang them by a noose after caving puppy brains with the blunt end of an axe.'

'What the fuck Elise.'

'Where we going here.'

'Take the left to Winchester.'

We close in on the big diamond where ridges of the Jacinto end.

'Midnight drives here must be fun.'

'I'm coming clean, it's not that ideal as you see it,' I say.

'Too far.'

'Gets to you, see, after watching people spend their time how you would like to you know.'

'Why not just move closer to Oceanside.'

'Middle ground. I had businesses scattered all over the place and then they went bust.'

'That not a sign.'

'Here.'

'Huh?'

'This is where I was at.'

We drive by the roadside and park some way down. Looking across the great stretch the valleys line up as before.

'You sure this is it,' Elise says, scanning the reservoir off in the distance.

Pulling on the handle. 'I'm sure,' I say, pushing the door to one side.

Walking off-centre to the pan I step into the dried straw and proceed to gamble on a well-trodden path into the desert. Spin a whirl and hold my head. The drummer boy had returned.

'Looks like they packed it up with a tow,' Elise says, pointing at the ground.

'I know,' I say, unmoving.

Elise lets her arms drop and smack against her thighs. I can't bring myself to finish what I was looking for where he first spoke.

'Let's go,' I say, turning back to her.

'Go where?'

'Oceanside.'

'Come on Ralph I can't take you another sixty mile,' she says, standing there in her way.

'I'll pay you.'

'Now you're making me feel bad.'

'What else can I do hail a ride.'

'Get in,' Elise says.

When we hit the I-15 she picks up the speed. For a while we sat there without a word. Then Elise whistled a tune. One that I only grasped by the space between our walls. Her favourite show theme that aired at seven for half an hour every Monday.

'You get bored doing the same thing each day sometimes,' I begin.

'Doing the same thing for me isn't for the thrill of it.'

'And somehow you evade falling into that trap most people do, walking around with happy faces when all they really want to do is cry.'

'How do you know I'm not one of them.'

'It's fake the chalk smiles they wear not like yours.'

'Thanks. What's your reason for not pretending to be.'

'Why bother either way you're a casualty.'

'Ouch. That's a pretty impulsive way to look at things,' she says.

'It's really not.'

'Only you say so.'

'Wrong.'

'What do you like to do then Ralph.'

'Pursuit.'

'Go on.'

'I want to be.'

'Happy,' Elise says, prematurely.

'Where I was always meant to be. Myself. All worthy things like that come from being in that place.'

'Normality has in itself an identity?'

'When you can define it,' I say.

'Rules of fools, written by robber barons.'

'I'd think of it more as humanity at large.'

'They did a fine job sorting out that minefield.'

'I'm sceptical they've scratched the surface.'

'It's always someone else's fault for your problems,' she says, in a pedantic jest.

'Not any one person but the whole lot,' I say.

'That's that then.'

'What about you and venting on defenceless animals?'

'I was joking.'

'But.'

'I get the whole venting thing.'

'I'd contemplate doing nasty things but only for a millisecond and then logic would kick in. However a lot of things could happen in a split of a second. You catch your wife cheating or other way around and you lose your temper. What do you do?'

'Grow up, Ralph.'

'Define that for me.'

'Realize what you are about to do is immoral.'

'Logic, in such a small time scale. It goes out the window and favours action. So all you do is act.'

'Pretty primordial for me.'

'Well I guess so.'

We stop at the back of the club where the nobodies meet the pavement every weekend. She keeps the car running.

'We still on for tonight,' I say.

'I'll pick you up here.'

'Sounds good.'

I get out and watch her car hit the bank and turn the corner. Can still smell her on me, sniffing at a potpourri infused lapel. Knocking on the door I send Morse code on the buzzer. It opens and cautiously peeking out is Harry.

'Hey ass hat use the front.'

'It's me kid,' I say.

He opens the door wider. 'Ralph, thought you were someone else.'

'Don't worry about it.'

I enter the back area and scan for any unwanted visitors. 'How is things.'

'The usual take a look,' Harry says.

Two of them at the bar are babbling at one another in words only they understand. One turns to the other and grabs him. They grapple and the redface pulled by his neck hammers a fist onto the bar.

'Gir nother two of em for me uhn us,' Rasmus says, pointing at the cooler.

'Six-ninety-four,' she says, sweeping the top off an already waiting pile of cash for counting.

Mack leans into his friend and pants in his ear 'Tap err front would you.' He chuckles taking a look. 'From that view I'd say so,' Rasmus says, making suggestions with his hands.

'Keep an eye on them,' I say to Harry.

I find my way to my office. A new door in place. Varnished in silk. Pulling the blue pages from a stack I search through for the sheriff's office number. Giving the clerk my registered vehicle details I'm told its over at Vineyard only a few miles north. I check in with the pound to see if I can recover the car today. I'm given a vague 'yes' and then hang up.

The fly from before landed on my backhand and checks for a pulse. I'm drowsy by the skulks honeycomb pods and watch it clean itself. Its head cross examines and it buzzes towards the nearest light source. Next I book table reservations for the date today. I hang up and look about in a fever ready for something else to do while I was swinging chores out the park. The top draw held my things. From it I took my passport. Stanley enters and sucks at his lip.

'Where were you,' he says.

'I'm busy.'

'Too busy to see a man at his hospital bed,' he says, licking at his gaping lower lip.

Pulling at tufts of my hair I stand and go to pass him. He holds the door steady.

'Uh-uh I wanna know why,' Stanley says.

'I have an errand to run.'

'Naw, well excuse me. Be my guest,' he says, bowing, in pain.

Its drumming louder. I try to itch it out. 'Listen,' I say, pointing with a finger of peace. 'I'll come back and explain it to you but right now my car is in the pound.'

When he sees me make for the door he follows. 'Do you even want to know how he is?'

'Yes of course I do,' I say, half way down the stairs.

'Well he's conscious and talking. Doctors say he'd pull around and he did.'

'That's great news.'

'If you were there you could have said it to him yourself,' Stanley says, taking hold of his chest.

Carrying on I talk with the perky bosomed girl serving at the bar. Put her worries to rest and draw her company nearer out of the drunkards way. 'I need you to give me two hundred out of the register,' I say to her. She has a glazed over look and I notice the sly peek up at Stanley. 'Not sure if I'm allowed,' she says.

A pause to tense up and curl over in frustration. 'I need that money. Your names Caroline, yeah so,' I say.

'No,' she says.

'Just give me it,' I say.

Long faced she lost her power and gave in to open the register which I know missed a balancing. Taking this week's earnings out she left it for sorting. I count it.

'Seventy dollars is not enough,' I say, with distilled procrastination at a nearby buzzing pest.

'That's all of it.'

'Check the other one.'

In with a hand, out with a fist full she passes it to me including the chump change. Next to me Mack and Rasmus laugh.

'Still short,' I say.

'Maybe if you got down and sucked his dick that fellow upstairs, he'll give you it all.'

I turn away in disgust to see him perched on the balcony over-watching. I bite my flesh, hold down then cast a sneer across to them. Place a bet on myself awaiting judgement. Several grinds of my molars later after thinking it through I slide to them and take the money pile.

'Would you lucka diss,' Rasmus says.

'It our drinken money that friend,' Mack says.

Into my pocket it goes and in a passing blunder, a pat to him on his back. 'I.O.U.' I say.
13

Commuters wait for an intercity greyhound to Long Beach. In park is the bus I need without a person ready to board. I run to catch it. Nearly having missed it spending too long checking the timetable.

Arriving at Vineyard the auto centre bays plentiful of new and used cars dot the centre. Pallets made up of mostly whites sit on show. My stop comes up and I clench the hand rail as it comes to a halt. Through the main windscreen an aqua film smudge at its top I found the pound gates, vehicles of all sorts locked behind them. Getting off I was followed by one other woman who quickly blended into the pavement – to get her bambino a new ride or pass words with others under golden arches. When she stopped at a crossroads looking lost I found myself battling to move until she herself chose a path first.

A goodwill thrift store is open and I look into its windows. Metal shelves hold the tat people left and their clothes are displayed on round spinnable hangers. Finding the pointy corners of my passport and the wad of cash I'm tempted to spend it on some crummy piece of porcelain for Elise. She'd hate it and turn it facing the wall. Extra money for me to waste on a slot machine, blowing bubbles as I lighten my step.

Up the street passing by the woman in khakis and a flowing crop top who focuses on a written note, still standing there lost. I swap the cobbles for steps and enter the pound. Waiting is wasting, spending time looking out at the lot where my car is held. I see a Chevrolet, it's not mine, different year but a similar model.

The interpersonal chaser chirped, 'How can I help.'

'Picking up,' I say to him.

He hands me some documents to sign while I wait for my identification to be scanned through their system. Sitting down and bending to reach the pygmy table pushing the glossy magazines with front covers of the perception of perfect. Fill in the blanks in the most uncomfortable way wondering why clipboards don't come with Kenny G's sax. Click the ballpoint pen when I'm done and straighten my back.

An old woman clutches to her purse and tries to meet me with a sensibility of we're both in this together aren't we, lets chat about that and talk about how many times we went to the toilet today. Or better yet let me inform you miss of my libido, to find things that ease the days. When I'm awake I'm an alcoholic, who also has time for painkillers and an exceptional amount of prescriptions which I of course also abuse. Being broke isn't so bad, at least I have my car and a dream. But there is more, we are passengers you and I on a collision with the mundane. This is my nightmare. How could an angel break my heart, yes dear a classic.

'Number 41.'

She stands and goes to the front desk. I take hold of the pen, click it and test the arrow clip, its mine now. The retiree says her thanks more than necessary in departure and I spot the Irish bar across the road. A group of young men entered but some broke away and talked so fearless they did not hear their friends call when they strayed too far. He waves them to come back up the sidewalk.

Misfits with bizarre mohawks skate past in denim and studded leather. The young ones at the other side of the street see them. A certain polarity as they cross paths accommodating their own and nothing but that. Yaw drops wide on their boards and hits the square pavement nooks, not being the crux of their problems in this instance. He places a foot down to speed up. Barbell piercings stretch a nasal septum to an extreme diameter, hair that is swept to a lick held in place with product between patchy spots a blade could not go. After they were gone I saw that the others hadn't hung around. Another number is called out. I stand scrunching up the ticket and dig deep.

'Sir,' he says, making a sedate movement up to the ticket display. It's my number. The teller taps at the glass behind the booth. I rummage around for the sad man and find his preamble ball mixed with dollar bills.

'We really need to do this.'

'Indeed.'

'Not long ago I handed you my papers and you want this red slip in exchange,' I say, searching.

'That is correct.'

Unloaded the contents of my pockets into the alloy tray and sift through. Flattening them out from a shrivelled curl I begin to separate the fives from the tens and the dirty from the less dirty. Rolling around Alexander Hamilton's face is the red slip. He picks it up and opens it, barely looking at it.

'Thank you sir. Be ready to collect your car in around half an hour.'

'Why the wait,' I say.

'Some last minute formalities need to be addressed and A516 is currently in the side lot. You are welcome to stay while its pulled.'

'I'll come back.'

I'm already across to the door when the teller starts shouting 'Sir,' at me. 'Please take this and pay at the point of exchange,' he says, I take the money and almost run out the place.

Into McNeaney's and the soot of an inconceivable amount of spent smokes fills my soul with a taste of what's to come. I like the place already.

Young ones are there in a corner and a row of stools but two are taken by the veterans. It does not take me long to slide into a seat and catch the contagious desolation off a gruff voiced man next to me. Disease crusts into stitching at his throat and I blame myself for staring too long at it.

'You waiting on something,' he asks me.

'How could you tell?' I say.

'A man sits down but won't bother getting a shot of elixir in his belly as quick as he first sat. That is a fellow who has to be holding back on his impulses.'

I nod and the man stubs out his cigarette into an ashtray filled to bursting point, from ash and ends. After he takes a drink he makes his first direct contact with me and studies my profile from toe to head.

'Are you hustling on a lady,' he says.

I pass the question through a series of checks and my body follows the uncertainty of my end result. I turn my hands upwards.

'A lady, yes, my cars coming out the pound.'

'Vince is my name, nice meeting you.'

He offers me up his hand and I shake it. When I tell him my name he looks at me in a way that we somehow may have met before. I don't know his face. He's a Jew not in appearance but it's in his accent.

'Is there someone special that has you in here,' I say.

'I'm saying goodbye to a dear old friend of mine.'

'Sorry to hear that,' I say, lowering my tone.

Vince moves one boot up onto the foot rest and pulls the coat he wears at his shoulder. Pointing a cut jaw the skin at his neck tightens. Across his staples he runs a fingernail. The surgical scar follows almost ear to ear, dried collagen and plasma toughened to a scab.

'Cancer,' Vince says.

He sits free and throws back a nut into his mouth. 'It's the menthols that did it and this is my last,' he says, while he chews and opens a pack with a single white stick. 'No more after this one.'

'Sounds like a struggle, I'd quit too.'

'That'll do it but there is no saving me.'

'I had a cat when I was a kid. It got cancer in the stomach and kept falling downstairs, this is when the vet said we should rethink about putting it to sleep. We didn't and it lived for another seven years,' I say.

'Well that fills my heart with hope but your cat would not have smoked for going on, let's see now.' He tallies up a number with slack fingers. 'A sinful part of three decades so it's hard to judge,' Vince says.

'Don't get me wrong I know it's not the same but it's something. What about the prognosis from the doctors, optimistic or bad.'

'Why I think they said its hopeful that I will recover. Won't know for sure until I go back in a few months. The operation took out all the cancer they could get at. It was all localised above the vocal chords, lucky for me.'

'Does it hurt,' I say.

A blank faced sigh came from him. Vince thinks about it and he thinks. Meanwhile a waitress comes over and smiles.

'I'll have a lemonade,' I say.

I ask her the exact price and count it out before she walks off. His face has turned glum, bags have sunken showing the rim of his eye socket and the bent lashes stand out more with the vacant dilation behind.

'There is no pain. Knocked out most of the time they are cutting. It's just, I have been living out of a hotel for the past three days since I had the op. Not seeing my family that long is what really hurts me. How could I go home and explain to them daddy's scar or even begin to get into what might happen if things go wrong. I can't do that.'

'Then mull it over and when you're done doing that go see them. Kids don't pay attention to the details.'

'Are you afraid to die,' Vince asks.

'I will miss this place sure.'

'And how does god fit in all this.'

'That's a loaded question.'

He folds his arms. 'I'm listening.'

'Take Pascal's wager, he is or he isn't. Forget about your misgivings and why not throw in your hat with us and place a bet on Christ. You're not losing a cent if we're wrong. Nothing is lost; except your dignity would be.'

'Really now, be serious.'

'Say it ain't so. That whole principle is a hoax to prey on the weak.'

'What's in it for those who are not weak then,' Vince says.

'Everyone should expect to see a funeral or two in their lifetime. This is not an unknown. Why we are afraid, well that's because deep down there is more at stake without a heaven – let's celebrate life and not get caught up in the whole meaning of existence fiasco,' I say.

'I want to believe.'

'It keeps me going knowing that I'm not made that way. I have things to do while I'm still here and so do you.'

Now Vince has sat up from his slump and appears quite brash. He picks up his pack of Dunhill and the old navy Zippo lighter and quickly places it into a breast pouch. I remove the straw from my novelty tankard given to me and wipe it on the cotton bar towel.

'How can you say such a thing and be sure, I ought to send a golem to you while you sleep, you like the idea of there being no point in the world.'

'It's not important what I evoke. What is is how you as a person interpret the concept,' I say.

He scrunches his bushy brow and shows his plaque and fillings as he chews another nut. 'I don't associate with any of them rabbis, imams, or pastors and sure as shit don't with the Pope on his Vatican Hill but to say there be no order just sits with me wrong,' Vince says.

'People find solace in spirituality and hold it dear to their views on all the evil that takes place today which allows them to conveniently explain it away with a test from a higher power. I prefer the truth as its much more tangible to see the way things really are.'

'And what is it, the way you see it as.'

'That we are alone and no omnipresent being sits on his cloud looking down and is passing judgement. Everything around us was bred out of chaos. Trees don't exist to give us mammals oxygen now do they? We attribute cause to many things, it implies meaning. If the trees gave out sulphur it would not be the case. Those of us alive here today are very fortunate in that respect, as are you not having succumb to that disease.'

A heavily drunken man leans next to Vince. 'Don't believe this guy, I have seen the work of our righteous lord, so should all men,' he says.

'You, with these thoughts as if you are somehow backed by infallible truth,' I say, with a firm bottom lip.

'I'm Italian, I have the word of god.'

'A big nothing,' I say to him and he turns away as if to sleep. 'I'm not wacko – went to UCSD, what of it.'

'But is it not right that a man can search for what he believes is right,' Vince says.

'Nothing bad about it, in fact its admirable for such a person to do that, long as whatever has been discovered they use and don't foist it on others that is,' I say.

He is quiet for a time. Vince leans in and whispers. 'In the coming end are you fearful is what I really want to know.'

'My understanding makes the end all the more sincere. When you go that-is-it. It's a moot point of view because on the face of it you see it as a bleak outcome slowly creeping up on us. But, it brings to light that we should do right with our time. My eyes are open and everything looks so, appealing. Knowing one day it won't be any more.'

'Sure, sure it's better to, how can I say, being thankful for what you've got,' Vince says.

'When there is no earthly place to seek salvation, you must look elsewhere and to do that you must dream. It's not a selfish act but in fact a survival technique.'

'A higher power.'

'That's the trick. Those Russians who'd be screaming for mercy in the gulags were just as likely to be saved by divine intervention as the Bosnians that are all over the news right now,' I say.

'Yeah I saw that, messed up what's going on. Be glad we're not commies,' he says.

We share a laugh but it was too much for Vince his voice already very hoarse begins to wilt. Hockling into a tissue he folds his spit into it and apologizes and I wave his needless admission away.

'Keep forgetting I can't do that for too long or, well . . .'

I wince at his hacking but was sure he would be all right after the fit subdued. How close he came to a statistic on a boring, insufferable man's pie chart in some government block. I find him very easy going when he put away his tissue and pulled out a menthol from his pack and I did the same. I used his lighter and thanked him.

'My wife will be here soon to pick me up and then to home it is, so I should finish this before she catches me in the act, so to say.' Vince deigned any further comment with a rocking motion past my head to see outside.

'Good luck to you and to the last,' I say.

'To the last,' Vince says.

No more balsam or a scalpel to deal with and then he would go on his way. I felt for him and his plight but, consider what the wife's self-esteem is like. Would she be round with missing ankles and wrists in submerged layers or be a pretty dame obligated to a malady husband.

Me and him toast and then say not one more word to another. Every other car that passes close causes Vince to hide his vice in the ashtray until a car pulls up, a beige Ford he recognizes. Before the beep of the waiting car he is already up and at the door. Not just yet his feet seemed to say as he slowed the closer he got to his wife who couldn't be seen through the dirty windows of the bar. I let her go this time and rest my spine with a slouch propped up with a tight elbow to the table.

The side room is all too sharp, working man's incubator, stiffened my face laying sober sight on the ring of people at a single table playing dominoes with drinks in their hands since this morning. Well behaved the young ones further up next to the entrance are made up of a single woman, two girls and four adolescent men between the ages of sixteen and twenty plus, who sit facing the stage way expectant of a show. May play a tune or two and flash a petticoat in an impromptu rendition of Irish dancing. Back stage the rigging light was on, this I had not noticed.

'Anyone playing today,' I ask the barman.

'Not now, not until the weekend,' he says, shining a spout with a shag cloth.

'Are they worth the wait?'

In one corner close to the young group the barman points out the local listings for events. Hung on an out of place spike a blackboard contains this weekend's band "The Streakers" and booked as next week's also.

'A father-daughter duo.'

'What's with the name,' I say.

'Meh, nudists they could be,' he says, to which only heightens my incestuous evocation.

Standing up and darting to the jukebox a tall man with tightly cropped ringlets of hair places a quarter into the slot. The intro to the song slowly warms up the roguish young ones as they begin clapping at the niche jangle pop blaring out the limited sound system.

'Twist, Twist, Twist!' the young ones intonation reaches her.

Upon setting sight on the group I saw that one of their number was missing, then she appeared from a slit in the curtain, hips swaying to her spot standing at centre stage. Somehow she had rigged a microphone and its headache inducing high frequency squeal lessened my expectations. She started to sing along and I immediately turned away, grimace smoothed out by my trailing view on the barman and those who were drawing from the boneyard, both uninterested with what's on stage too.

'Hey barman,' I say.

'Yes son, another drink,' he asks.

I shake my head and feel the vein at my temple deliver fresh thoughts as I bend down to the bars myriad of scribbles and bumps in its wood. Its character only keeps me entertained for so long until I look back to the gamblers. Holding my view on the exit I lapsed and let my meditations rest upon the teens who have relaxed with arms folded or around a partner, all but one is not, he relishes this occasion with a shameless smirk then points to the stage and watches her some more.

Back to the exit I lean on the table about to lift off when from outside an out of focus blot fills the opaque glass. A winged angel presses a hand to the door. Her trumpets call plays and from outside a parade carousel beats in tandem to the spin and bump of the horses. A procession of people dressed in white and wearing pointy hats go by. A pale blinking light as a collective in motion filters through at every window in the bar. Glands begin to swell and I unbutton at the top for some room. From the larynx it quickly spreads upwards proliferating its bloat and touching each side. Feeling my cheek bones puffed out I checked around but no one acknowledged my panicked disposition not even the young ones.

'Barman!' I say to him again.

'Thirst bucket, you ready for a beer now.'

'Barman, hey I need something.'

'Hey yourself,' he says, looking elsewhere.

Try to swallow and it just about goes as the woman on stage hits her chorus and stamps a heel absorbing every degree of praise she receives from her approving troop. With a small tincture of the soda left I savour the last gulps it gives me.

'Go ahead and sing,' she softly warbles.

It was her. The redhead from Sovereign's dance floor. How could I not have known it? Was the shape of her face dipped behind the crescent umbra too long leaving her features unattainable; or was it just in her nature to be like that, an enigma. She steps off the stage and her young ones rush to seize her.

The carnival has passed and its followers whistles shrill down the cobbles. The curly haired man pulls up an uninvited chair and introduces himself as Artie. I stare at the stiff hand he produces and regret nothing when he claws it back in without the right sense of empathy.

'Seems like my friend has caught you, she is rather infectious,' Artie says.

'Which one.'

'Her stage name is, Twist.'

'Quite the looker, what I don't get though is why you're here,' I say, now looking upon his pampered skin, not an out of place capillary or blemish to him.

'With such a remarkable voice to match the rest of her beauty.'

'You said it.'

'I do.'

'Okay!' I griped, raising a fed up tone.

'Then you will meet with her then?' he asks.

'Why not,' I say.

Our conversation quickly fizzles out as he goes to her and whispers words to let her know the outcome. Twist at times lauds my presence from over at their corner. As a final reassurance she gives credit to the messenger and saunters over in her glittering ruched bodice gown.
14

Off the shoulder neckline certainly stood out as did the dress colour and tight hem. When she came over hips swaying I opened up, cue myself to look free of tension as an offset to the power walk she slaved getting to me.

'Hi sugar.'

'I like what you did.' I find myself unable to stem my grinning. 'Nobody was watching but I did.'

'It was just cosmic,' Twist says.

'You do that sort of thing often.'

'Oh my I love to sing.'

'And to dance,' I say.

'Very much so,' she says, with such passion her 40's style earrings clatter both lobes.

In deafly silence Twist performs a curtsy and steps back onto her coinciding foot. Stiletto turn to face away and the lightest of steps onward she raises her arms and undulates, rhythmic belly shows under soft crêpe the more she stretches, thrusting vertical hip rocks for what feels like minutes.

'Some moves have real power when you're into it; shame when it's not. Reiterate the very same thing without that spark and the more you keep going the less people care. All that matters is that sublime moment.'

In her own time she comes over to the bar counter then Twist fawns to the back of a chair tired. Taking hold to help keep her straight a glimmer of earthly impulse flashes from snowy skin, the ashen mothers halo.

'We could have a bona fide time you and I,' Twist says, while ruffling my hair.

'What do you have in mind?' I say, under her skylark spell.

'Let's do something naughty.'

Caressing my face she places a thumb into my mouth and then digs nails into my five o'clock shadow. Too rough for me as I snatch her wrists, stand and reverse Twists body into some stools parting them until we reach a solid surface. Charmed wood at her back holding us still as I squeeze at her ass, cashmere dye melting into my hands. She kissed me and her lips left a satin stain. I feel its weight on my skin and wipe it away then escort Twist by the hard abdomen she has worked so long for me to grip. Subdued I take hold and push her to the door of the men's but see her drift to him. Ex vivo Artie waits for me to lock on him and when I do he plays an invisible violin all melancholic, mouth wide open but with no words he strikes his notes on quadruple strings. I push on the door.

Inside the "L" shaped restroom, urinals lined up either side of the cubicles, I find it funny that this girl has not got a comment in her about them like the blondes back at Sovereign do. Instead she waits to be placed into the cubicle and even says 'bless you,' as I hold the cubicle door. Sliding the lock into position I feel my way around that hourglass torso and begin to unbutton my pants. While I'm sitting on the toilet lid Twist moves closer so I help her, laid upon hot muscle, stroking both thighs then down came her boyshorts. Climbing on top with a hunger within she places her forehead to mine. Moaning now that I'm inside of her she holds tight to me and I hurry to feel her skin lifting up the cashmere dress. Sweat at the concave curvature flows into the impressions I make at her back. Wild hair unleashed hanging in front of her face is shook free liberating her quivering lips.

'My armiger,' Twist relents at a climax.

Stepping off from me she allows me no time to continue and then my eyes open. Things get hazy then outright terrifying when I see the room has changed to an open bath house of a sort. In a white robe is Twist, hair altered to an upright bunch held in place by a tortoiseshell hairpin.

'The hell is this, you . . . you evil hoar,' I say.

An old balding man in a toga stands with a pebble in his hand that when slung connects to my temple almost knocking me out. 'Silence, walking fossil. Of what right do you have to speak,' he says, with a wandering lisp then sits, with the other forty or more men and women on straight angled slabs.

Luckily the abrasion felt under my finger is not too deep and must have been a glancing blow – unto the sea bowl of a ceiling that's rollicking with bodies laced in a gold carapace. They are the very mariposite carved into temporal statues of lovers writhing in pleasure. Central stone steps lead to her throne. She waits at its lower end and disrobes. Pillars follow the path either side covered by moss and plant life hanging from on top of the capitals.

The dining area at the midway point is surrounded by banners with the insignia of the owl, harp and sickle in a neat trefoil. Large tables on both sides of the room are filled with people and food. Some of them are the young ones from McNeaney's bar. Artie and his curls bites at the skin of a kiwi, all the fruit is exclusively green only.

At the peak she reaches her destination, a ceramic bath with smooth sides refined to a wavy ellipse sunken into the floor itself. Naked and with many watching Twist enters the vat of water disturbing it and the lily pads that float on its surface. From the reflection in the bath more embracing beings present themselves turning in ecstasy as they project from out of the stone then disappearing once the ripples cancel each other out.

'What did you expect, my love,' Twist says, now regarded a duplicitous vixen, swishing hot water onto her breasts.

'Indeed my imperatrix. Did he expect a tribute delivered to his feet, absurd man,' spoke a beastly creature from the front row.

'There is something of worth make no mistake and that is, your here baby,' she says.

'That's a positive,' I say, apathetically while the oddities in the gallery turned rowdy.

'Unkind.'

'You can drop the act. No need for that Midwest accent any more because I know what you are,' I say.

Twist dips her hair further into the water then resurfaces and strains it. 'Don't know what to say other than, this is how cute old me has always been.'

'I've dealt with things like you and this right now that's happening, none of this is real. All I have to do is, want you gone and it's done. Just like that,' I say, scouting the walls for a weakness.

'More water,' Twist says to her servants.

From a jug freshly, a handmaiden, pouring into her bath hot water simmered upon coals that descends in a muted atmosphere as I scurry about the room incapable of seeing any immediate way out. It dawns on me, what if I'm wrong.

Totally hopeless to continue while the space between the back of my eyeballs itch and resting on the sculpted blocks I try the rolled into place boulder that guards the entrance but it is far too sturdily set.

'Here's the rub, if you really wish to return so bad then why not let one of my guard run his pike through the lining of your stomach and see if that works, would you for me.'

'Go ahead,' I say, showing my puffed chest.

'Don't be silly Ralph,' she sighs and looks up dejected. 'Let's go back to where we started.'

'Yes.' I turn to the members of the gallery. 'Pick up your stones hypocrites and finish me off,' I say, taunting them.

She carried on coolly. 'Before, were you talking about that rime witch and the chameleon.'

'What.'

'The others you have dealt with are heretics.'

'You mean you know . . .'

'Of them? Yes unfortunately,' Twist hints, looking upon bubbles of foam scooped in her palm.

'How come you're aware of each other!' I shout at her.

'Brutus periodically known as the Chameleon, the Hound, Pitdae or the Sand Cucumber!' she let loose back at me.

The same old man who greeted me waddles to the side of the chambers. 'Don't believe the lies of that foul creature.' Cane steadying his elderly frame he looks to me with a deathly truthful expression. 'He is the prince of indifference and would be the bane of this court if that thing were ever accepted within our halls. He holds no reasonable person in the right party. A most odd being that will never adopt the correct behaviour suited of our standards. Morphing into unsightly beasts and then he has the nerve to inform others on what goals they should pursue.' He beats his cane to the floor. 'A disgrace. That is how a jockey do.' He continues but chokes and starts repeating what he already said. 'People create problems in order to amuse themselves.'

'Enough Phineas,' Twist compels him to stop but I could tell she agreed with him.

'And what do they call you, queen of the succubi,' I say.

'I imagine they would,' she says.

'You all want something from me. That's what a slave does. Look at me, here to serve. Now I'm dwelling on it, correct me if I'm out of your comfort zone here asking this but what exactly do I get out of this.'

'We are at war Ralph. A war of attrition in which our numbers grow ever smaller each day.'

'One, why does any of that matter to me personally and two I was doing just fine until you came along.'

'You were,' she says, with pouting whorish lips.

'This, this is why I might just end up siding with that Chameleon fellow you are so fond of.'

'Phineas what happens to those who leave my house.'

'An act of apostasy is certain death for that individual,' he says.

'I have said my piece,' I say.

'Then we are at an understanding,' Twist says.

'What choice do I have.'

'Marvellous.'

'Welcome to the club old boy,' Artie says, raising a slice of fruit stuck to the end of his knife.

'Very well. You asked for an understanding to the recent events that have unfolded and I will scratch your back if you've got mine. We'll get together and have a little talk. Later, for now let me fill you in. The others that you have come into contact with are just some of the many we seek to quell and with your help we will. Gone, from your life I'd have you romance that thought . . . Now to begin with I seek only one of them. Suppose it's at your discretion which to choose. However they are far too tenacious to simply purge and so I want them alive.'

'If I don't do this, then what.'

'Then I'll hunt you down and ruin your, otherwise perfect existence.'

'How do I get them?' I say.

'Capture those rodents by whatever means you have at your disposal. Try telling them you are ready to do whatever they requested and lead them into a trap. A prearranged location. We will ambush them. I can summon one of my consulship to you, ready and waiting. We'll make things right.'

'An excellent proposition,' Phineas says.

Taking in staggered air I nod in her favour. 'I'll see what I can do.'

'I somewhat envy this inherently gifted man,' Artie says.

'A fine young man. Now you wondered what would be your reward,' Twist says.

'Is there a one.'

'What do you want,' she says.

'I don't know actually.'

'Oh surly you have something sweetie. What about that pretty girl with the short chestnut bangs. I can make it so you have her.'

'No, I don't want it like that.'

'One of my catamites then.'

'Not that way inclined.'

'Name it.'

'Guess I'm just maladjusted.'

'Anything.'

'When I know you will be the first to find out.'

'Right on sugar,' she says, stroking the bath rim.

Twist steps out of the water and into the waiting robe held open by two servant boys on the balls of their feet. They pull the robe over her and move off into the back room. Another set of servants come out and set up a space at the dining table. Barefooted I hear them meet the silicate and in an eager push they march to the side and line up against a wall, on hand if their master should ever need them.

Coming down the steps Twist stops and holds still her ruffles to converse with a malnourished woman sitting in the right wing of the gallery. After I judge the apparent size of this acquaintance of hers it's all too shocking when she rises, standing at around six foot tall in full armour minus the helm. Her long hair bound in a plait looks healthy and flows halfway to her waist past patina rivets. She too disappears not long after Twist sidles into a chair at the fully prepared banquet.

Two men wearing chain mail drill their boots, lift me by the arm and force me to join her at the table. Lavish delicacies comes out and I'm too happily informed what each of them are, plamoa and other poultry, nex escalopes, vuaan steak. A farce.

'Eat.'

'Twist,' I say.

'Yes my dear.'

'Who was that woman you talked to.'

'An aide I employ when I need to send a message.'

'What sort of a message?'

She laughs churning food around in her mouth. Savouring the last morsels of sweet sauce on each of her fingers as well.

'Why did she look so ill.'

'She worries too much.'

'That explains it,' I say, quietly mumbling.

'What was that,' she says.

'This food is delicious.'

Sliced open a giant prawn that looked so fresh and juicy I thought it was alive. It was tasty, what I wanted. Chewing on succulent white meat, I got distracted.

Her cleavage kept coming out while reaching for huge servings of mashed goerr and again when she sticks a fork into a braised prime rib covered in marinade.

'Try the maeagus.'

I self serve some onto my plate and taste it. I nod, so she mirrors my nod with a sardonic expression of contempt. 'Now your pee will smell like pristine cupric.'

Clattering from the stairs came the bag of bones in armour. Twist turned and held an expectant ear up to this woman.

'Is it done Froda,' Twist says.

'Yes my lady.'

'And how did you do it.'

'I put my fingers down my throat after I had downed a gallon of ale,' Froda says.

'Did not hear a peep from you in here. Do the sound you did while it came up.'

'It went something like, uwe, blaght.'

'Nonsense you're not trying.'

'I shall try harder.'

'You need to learn how to take what is yours.'

'I will.'

'Put your fingers down your throat again to give us that authenticity,' Twist says.

And so she did. 'Yuck, yuck, urrrhck.'

'Excellent.' Twist applauds her effort. 'Isn't she funny Ralph.'

She had made a mess of the floor. Entirely made up from a clear liquid that pooled around her boot. I found it hard to look her in the face for too long with heavy tears streaming down and puke around her mouth.

'Your all humourless twits, what about you Phineas.'

'Amusing my imperatrix.'

'Next time we ought to put out your eyes Froda, my honourable one, toughen you up the right way, no the only way.'

'I agree wholeheartedly,' Froda says, starting over.

Twist's fingers ascend to the shape of a pyramid. 'We should convene with the counsel now.' She looks to Froda again. 'Clean yourself up then send them in.'

Watching them come in, a few I recognize from before and a few are newly met. They come with beards of wisdom, cloaks of superlative intricacy and hair of majesty. Some are strange creatures not of this world or any I could imagine.

'Fellow members as you know we have a guest in our midst. This person has decided to join our ranks in an established effort to rid the realms of usurpers.'

'Here-here,' they shout.

'The net is closing in on our long time enemies, as they fortify their keeps with wooden ramparts we come to them with our own weapon which renders such things ineffective,' Twist surmised.

'Drink well my brethren as we shall soon test the moral of them dirty dogs until their back is broken in two,' a regal brute says, holding up his cup.

A child they call Bea stands on her chair. 'Let the saints of the treasonous flag forever burn in our victory,' she says, showing off tartan colours to the crowd.

'Come one, come all and never forget the love of our fallen brothers,' Artie says, silencing the room.

Twist coughed aloud into her hand. 'I must say now more than ever we are close to having it all and all is precisely what we deserve.'

'What news is there of Yjorn and Vulpes. Will they not join us,' a creature with searching mandibles says.

'No word has been given from them,' Phineas says.

'So they will perish,' Twist concludes.

'There have been reports by our mounted division that the Relic had submerged too deep for us to recover or destroy so all expeditions to Parochia are off the table.'

'So be it.' She paused and pressed her praying hands under her chin. 'What of the Grey?'

In all his own way Phineas shook his head and rubbed his thumb over his sacred beads looped in place at his wrist. He left the room with his typical waddle and once again there fell a silence of more than a couple dozen stray beings.

'Please my imperatrix, the lady Abacadia should be spared because she knows no evil and would join our cause if she were not so early declared as a neutral,' came a tender hearted voice from the back.

'She made her decision Synavieve, now rest on it all of you and leave me.'

Countless chair legs are pushed out at once and as they begin to straggle, cluster which prompts quiet conversation between them while waiting for the men to haul the rock out the way. A schism penetrates the lovers above as they turn their sheets over a shoulder until they are reduced to a still mural.

With the last of them gone the exit is covered over by the great rolling boulder and I begin to feel Twist playing footsie with me.

'We weren't serving this at the table, why not,' Twist says.

'Just what the hell do you think I am?'

'You're my arms bearer,' she says, with a tapered tongue.

'And what is it that makes me special.'

'You're mine.'

'Answer me,' I say, nasally wheezing.

'Hun, you're an instrument like the others, even me and we all play our part.'

'How are these worlds connected, yours, mine and the others?'

'I'm horny, come service me in my quarters,' Twist says, about and walking.

'Have you always been such a sleazy harlot.'

Her masquerade grows weary and she promptly claps at which two men without delay come over to kneel at her feet.

'Send him home.'

'No wait,' I say, in horror to the fast moving pikeman.

I'm left with a sharp pang in my liver and the slumber blackness with only a flushing sound slowly rushing at me. Next doors latrine hisses at me as I regain consciousness on the urine soaked floor. Droplets of blood have gone too stale on the grout and turned a dirty brown. A stain is left where my head hit when I slid off the pot and gashed my temple.

Cheapskate made the sheets come out one a time and they hold no water and fall apart at the slight hint of friction to my temple. Keep pulling on them till I have enough and dab it to my slightly congealed cut. Pants are pulled up from around the back of my crack and then straightened from the front. I take plenty time getting up careful not to slip and break my fall with my head again. Do my fly and sniff at my clothes. Pissy.

Wash as much of its stink from me that I can with a paper towel and check my new addition in the beat glass. Serrated edges bulge through the tightly knitted hairs as I search my scalp finding my inflamed eminence. I cover it over with clumped hairs. Got myself the shakes, only on the left, my weaker side. Must've shot a nerve. I let it hang low out of sight and walk out the restroom.

Stage light is on. A man with greying hair under a bowler hat reads his newspaper. Over to my old space I get strange looks from the barman. They're still at it with the game. Its bright outside. I look at the drinks menu and use my bastard hand to explore my pockets.

'You finished here.'

He's got a grasp on my empty tankard alongside another and has chose to stand with this stupid fucking hover over my glass till I play Simon says its time. A fucking quiff, really? and his faggot gait in his shitty bar with his moustache Pete tickling his potato nose.

'We done with this,' he says, switching his resting leg.

I check the hands of the festive imp pointing at 3:27 on the clock. Its late and I stand up to leave.

'See you kid,' the barman says.
15

I make for the pound. Sweeping across the thermals of twisting tarmac, glass and warm bodies comes the sounds of the city far away. Pilots are likely spitting crosstalk on the squawk box as Delta 727's pass miles apart but those inside are blissfully unaware they're already falling to a prolonged deficit. Closer to pauper heaven up there and I wait a while to get a satisfying look at the vapour trail condensing away to fundamentals.

Roads are getting busy and I dodge through resting traffic to the other curb. Inside are a few blue collars waiting and one is being served. I pull off another red slip from the dispenser.

'Mr Tullman,' I hear a man say.

'Yeah.'

'Officer Burgess, nice to finally catch up to you after all this time.'

'Am I in trouble?'

'Well that depends. You forgo instruction from an officer of the California Highway Patrol. Now do you want to explain why you ran off from me.'

'I was not myself.'

'This here empty medication bottle have anything to do with it.'

'No sir.'

'What about the valuables in there. Do they belong to you.'

'Yes sir.'

'Apart from this not even mentioning the wear damage underneath that bucket of rust why should I not haul you in.'

'I have a date at five.'

'Really, well that's just dandy.' He tears away two pieces of paper from the pad he's been writing on and its tucked under one arm. 'Since I'm in a fairly odd mood today all I'll do is write you up for the disorderly conduct and the failure to comply both misdemeanour's of the second degree and in this instance you will incur a fine. You have yourself a great day now Sir,' the officer says, separately handing each of the fines.

It was over so quick that the surprise part of it was still with me. When I approached the teller who must have known I'd be his most troublesome customer today because not this time did he ask to see no slip. To my amusement he made way to his initial customer having ordered all my forms for signing with my keys just sitting ready for me.

'That'll be forty dollars and your John Hancock here please,' the teller says.

With the logbook signed I take what's rightfully mine and march out into the yard feeling like a million and one basket case. I climb into my car at the curb and wait for an operators electric buzzer to slide a gate out my way. I drive fast towards the bay. With my crippled arm tingling I make easy use of the stick sitting in sixth most the way. When I get back I check to see how much the sun has moved, not much.

'The prodigal son has returned,' Stanley says, waxing his hair behind the bar.

'With an uncrushed car too, some fines, headache . . .'

'I can see that. What happened there,' he says, making a face while pointing to his temple.

'Nothing.'

'Drink all that money did you.'

'No, what are you my father. Cars around back, here's the receipt, file it under, B for bullshit,' I say, mashing my starch fresh complexion after he takes the papers.

'Whisky for that frown?'

'You pour one out too.'

'All right.'

Settled onto the table is a bottle of Jack Daniels, two glasses. I see that Mack and Rasmus are still at their long attested posts speaking their typical patois as he pours another double into the glass. Stanley watches me drink it down before he gets a taste himself, a kind of patience I don't have.

'Has anyone called in looking for me today,' I say.

'Not if we're lucky they won't.'

'Stanley you're quick to jump the shark you know that, it's a girl I'm taking out tonight.'

'When is your dirty liaison with her?'

'Soon.'

'And you're going out looking like that.'

'I was planning to yeah.'

'What kind of a man takes out a girl festering like a trash collector.'

'What do you mean, I look fine.'

'No, you don't.'

I take a second to see what I'm wearing. 'Jesus you're right.'

'See in my day you take a girl out some place special you got to look the part, know what I'm saying.'

'I can't drive back home it'll take hours and I got no money for new threads.'

'Remember back when you were still with that Rita girl. Well we had gone to Vegas didn't we the night, before, you know.'

I finished his words for him. 'The night before she got coked up and killed herself.'

Stanley raises his hands and submits. 'Old wounds I'll have no part in it. Anyway, I was saying that you left the tux that night we got the call.'

'It's still here after all that time.'

'Let me fish it out,' he says.

Leaving me alone to search the upper floors I sit and look straight ahead. All my favourite liquors sit on show with labels scribed like ransom notes and dead or alive posters. Malts, bourbons, the finest scotch and Tennessee's best. We got them with enough light on them to get Chuck Berry interested. I hold the neck of the Jack Daniels bottle and slip down its square body. I push back on my stool to see what is taking Stanley so long.

At my back the vinyl floor is buffed and polished and empty. An empty facsimile of the nights before taunting me with all the sounds of yesteryears. At the doorway I wait for it to come. A crack in the door allows the wind to whistle its way inside. Two or so minutes later its footsteps and heavy panting fills up the space at the door. Heads hot like old dynamite ready to go off at the slightest disturbance in an unstable slurry. It opens up.

'Howdy Ralph, you our new acting guard.'

'Something like that Anthea,' I say, taking a shaky drink.

She waddles inside and swallowed words, instead chose to butt her lips like she saw something tasty to eat. 'I was talking with Stanley on Monday,' she paused. 'Caught up about how that poor man got shot and before him Dominick,' she says, through brittle teeth. 'I'd have never thought I would see the day a drinking hole would end up as dangerous as the streets of L.A.'

'It's a social establishment,' I say.

Thinks it's okay to claim shenanigans, bending in front of me testing my nerve on how close she can get. Breath reeks like coffee and rotting vegetables, she utters in my personal space. 'I could've been killed and its only right that I'm rewarded for my loyal service.' Taking on a split legged stance she's almost out of puff. Crimp in her back easing her upright. 'It's nine years at Sovereign for me this coming month and in all that time I made do on minimum wage and other peoples scraps. Now it's bullets coming my way.'

'Not this time Claire.'

'You know you've called that name and this name and others more than once and I've never said a thing of it.'

'Speak to Stanley about it.'

'Speak to me bout what?' Stanley says, joining us.

'I have to go now my shifts coming up,' she says, walking away.

'What was all that about.'

'She wants a raise.'

'Who Helen does. Oh yeah and I wants one of those cups of everlasting life but I hear Walmart's all out.'

'That's her name.' I click my fingers. 'So this is it then,' I say, coveting the shrink wrapped suit on his arm.

'It is, what do you think.'

Pulled out its seven year slumber it still held a fresh off the line smell as the bag burst under Stanley's plying nails. He proudly holds up the tuxedo for my approval.

'Not a complaint?'

'No I like it.'

'You're making me blush.'

'I'm glad it's not white.'

'Hey I picked them of course it's not white, what's wrong with you.'

I check the labels of both the pants and jacket avoiding the dress shirts high collar, missing cuff links and frilly bits. My hands move across the inner lining of the jacket.

'You feel that. One hundred percent Bemberg.'

'Swanky,' I say.

'Would have cost a fortune but these were rentals.'

'Rentals?'

'Johnny Larson got them on a fake ID.'

'Doesn't he want them back.'

'Said we could have them and don't suppose it matter, Johnny's been in the can for years.'

'What he go in for.'

'Fraud.'

'I better go change.'

'I'm eating into my break here, later Ralph.'

Straighten up the tie but I don't like the way its tight on me. End up unravelling the blasted thing and find that I'm back at square one. Regardless I head out to our meeting point. She's early. Loitering in her car with her bare feet hanging out the driver side. Big sunglasses on such a petite woman. They steal away her pretty brown freckles and most her nose, not to mention the obvious delights. Sees me coming tipping them shades but she don't move an inch. When I stop right by Elise I squeeze her big toe and laugh when she goes over the top with it. 'Noooo,' she's ticklish, reeling from a reclining snooze.

'You keep them in shape,' I say.

'Don't touch.'

'Ready to go.'

'I see you found your car,' she says, flashing over at it.

'Question is, your car or mine.'

'That's a super important question and I have another, how do you suppose they get those ships into small bottles.'

'Those dimples come with that sarcasm, madam.'

'When I need them.'

'We're late,' I say, feeling a plastic tag stuck into me. 'It's my fault,' I added, ripping it away.

Two butch tomboys cut into the alley with a glare aimed at me and Elise. Both look like they could make it for the Chargers, wide receiver and a linebacker.

'Feminism is really taking off right, I thought it was an urban legend,' I say, gloating in the cars confines.

I find it funny that women do this. A notch on their Lego is missing and they don't fit well with the other bricks. By some fate women who belong to this fad practice misandry and bear a grudge that's plain to see across their face.

A handicap. Invading piercings and oddly dyed hair that screams; I'm sick of the world and the privileged are my chosen target to degrade, justly making myself feel better within the glass house of dogma, fanaticism and preferential treatment!

It makes a mockery of normal women. Every movement has a sell by date and this one is overdue, but they keep scraping off the funk and persuading gullible types it's safe to consume. Why not take one step over these masochists and include both genders to the list of things to badmouth. In that little black book.

Humans in general get my hackles up so bad at times I wish they'd just go away for a day and take a big sleep. The way they talk, eat, walk, smell its vile. Then I see the beautiful things that they can create. Of what we've achieved and it's like I'm stuck on this great big teeter-totter alone. With me at one end running around squalid to the other seat when something irks me. It never stops. The ride isn't wild weighing down at one extreme but it's what I've got. All I have got. Stumped, I try to draw some kind of moral certainty. Foolish lovelorn comes to mind.

'What do you make of this,' Elise shows me her magazine that was resting on her lap. A close-up before shot of a sweaty girl with bad skin and next to it is a drastically different after of the same woman with professional cosmetics applied and straightened hair. 'She went from this to this,' and points to each profile.

'I'll tell you this should be illegal – or mandatory.' I show some teeth. 'Pick one, there is no in-between on this subject,' I say, with a, deadpan delivery.

'How do I look,' she says, catching me off guard.

'Beautiful.'

'I put on this concealer just for you. Scratched it off the front cover, see.'

'We should go,' I say.

Elise looks me over. 'Hop in Capone,' she says, simpering in the front seat.

'I thought we could take my car.'

Both feet stretch out then they're gone. On the other side she locks up and runs around to grasp my arm. I pulled her in.

'Reckon it'll be nice to have a walk on the beach,' Elise says.

'After we eat, sure.'

'Got a hankering to put my feet on soft sand.'

We drive along the coast road. Its breezy this close by the bay and I take a look out at the cove. Multicoloured gashes opened up in the sea and displaced the crest of relentless waves crashing midway at La Jolla.

'What do you think about that for a place,' I say, wind watering my watch on the cove.

'Aren't those surfers kind of late.'

'They lucked out on that storm.'

'It will do us just fine,' Elise says.

We arrive a few minutes late as I come to park. Running across to the restaurant we push our way inside.

'Hey y'all and welcome to the clam house,' he pauses after with expectation as practised a thousand times already.

'Hi, table for two, names T-U-L-L – MAN.'

'Please follow me folks.'

We go with the cornball to an area that holds both a view on the bay and the kitchen. Upon sitting we are given menus with a cartoon prawn on its front.

'Can I get you some drinks.'

'Red?' I say, clueless.

'A bottle of rosé and a red thank you,' Elise says, for me.

The waiter goes away and comes back again leaving our wine unopened on the table.

'Coconut shrimp,' she says.

'I might get a salad,' I say, watching people eat.

'Oh you are such a riot. You take me to a seafood restaurant for a salad.'

Rubbing my hands together I watch as the chef refills a shelf with plates ready for serving. He's wearing one of those chequered pillbox chef hats as a mark of quality. Underneath a sweaty forehead has taken the brunt of his labour. Elsewhere the bulk of people eating seem to be doing little talking with clams and inexpensive lobster in front of them. I browse the menu when I see Elise look over warily.

'Still thinking about that starter?' she says, with both elbows on the table.

'Actually I'm going to skip it and go straight to the main.'

'I'm okay with that.'

'Let me open this for you,' the waiter says, returning with a corkscrew this time.

Off comes both cork's and he spills wine into our glasses. We order, I get the lightest dish I can see on the menu, crab cakes and Elise gets lobster. The waiter writes in a notebook our choices, licking his thumb to sift between the pages causes me to squirm in my chair. We hand over the menus and he goes off again into the bowels of the kitchen through a double action door.

'Not bad, Ralph try it.'

I sip at my own wine and its slightly acidic but not bitter and full bodied as our reds at Sovereign.

'Yum,' I say, before a full chug of it is thrown back. My view rolls back to the plywood ceiling.

All pleasantries as she too gave a best 'Oh là là,' as Elise stood the wide glass base on the coaster. She rested elbows flat, big fat garnet ring on her middle digit. I took hold of her and turned machine cut parts to the window.

'One hell of a present you got there. Rich ex?'

'Nobody, I buy all my own things.'

Elise lets me hold onto her hand and when I squeezed my other on top she went all shy and smiley. 'Me and, well us. It could be a thing we take to the next level right here. All our days together could be like this.'

'I'd like that,' Elise says.

I had never giggled like a school girl since, I can't remember ever being like this. For whatever reason I resisted what I wanted most. Saw it in her too, sometime ago she was a China doll who caught someone's attention and she was replaced with a newer find. At one point we both had this innocence, a naivety that made the world appear more interesting than it actually was. It struck me as being counterintuitive to common sense. Everyone suffers burn out given enough time only to see it replaced with an inescapable cynicism. The things that we want. What I want. I could finally have.

'We enjoy each other's company don't we.'

'I'm glad I caught you at the brokers.' She's cautious when she looks at me. 'I had tried to see you before,' Elise says, with a huff.

'When was this.'

'Walking around the apartments, taking out your trash in the early hours, in your car sometimes. That Camaro you own has a certain sound to it.'

'How long we talking about here, did you know it was me all the time,' I say.

'It's been three months since I first knew for sure it was you. You would question after twenty-seven years one of us would forget the other. So you're forgiven,' she says.

'If I had known.'

'I went past you a couple of times but I didn't know what to say.'

'What were you doing at the brokers?'

'I followed you.'

'Come again.'

'I was going to say hi at that club.'

'Sovereign,' I say.

'Yeah, your club but you ran out the door before I could say anything. So I went down the hill to see what was up.'

'I wish I'd caught on sooner.'

'We do what we must,' Elise says, while her cheeks went all red.

'No its stupid of me.'

She shakes her head. 'People forget its perfectly normal and you have more going on than most,' she says and her hand folded to mine.

'Twenty-seven years is a long time.'

'A long, long time.'

'Though, it's always bugged me that I can't get how we weren't an item back when we were younger,' I say, reaching over for a cheese biscuit.

'What's that your saying?'

'Why'd we never hook up.'

'Ralph we smoked cigarettes in the back of a shed for the first time, caught our first catch in the Pacific, you showed me how to throw a ball sort of straight. You couldn't be my everything.'

'Did Brett have that honour?'

'My first kiss, it was like my first fight.'

'Neither of you knew what you were doing.'

'Betty Kraimer, pulled my hair and I ripped at her shirt then it was done.'

'Did you, you know lose it to him.'

'No,' she says, with a hushed voice and carefully checks to see if anyone in the room is listening. Licking her lips she looks down shaking her head.

'Who was it.'

'I won't tell.'

'How old were you then.'

'Nineteen.'

'So that was after you left Cali. Hang on you declared the north was utterly average and there you are getting busy with the natives.'

'Hey, quiet down. It was boring, now you go ahead and spill.'

'Okay I was younger,' I say, placing the biscuit back on its set up.

'Early bird,' she says.

'Evidently my little Maid of Dakota.'

'Shut up you, I don't even know what that means. Wait I don't want to know.'

'Fine, how longs it been since we ordered.'

'About fifteen – sixteen minutes.'

'Seems longer,' I say.

'I'm hungry.'

'This looks like ours.'

The same waiter comes in with a certain devotion carrying disproportionately sized white oval plates. He lays them out one at a time. 'Enjoy,' he says, and we politely smile back at him.

I pick up a fork and cut my way through the crab cake until I hit the other side. Elise snaps the back of the steamed crustacean on her plate. A crack of its shell separates the meat and its tail is ripped apart. Important reinforced areas of its tough shell have already been pre cracked by the chef for easy eating but some simple parts have been left to Elise. She tears into it and looks like she is having fun.

I fork a little taste of the crab into my mouth. The large whiskers on her food stand on end. An elaborate dowsing rod just sitting there doing nothing attached to this hulking great red lobster. She grabs its face and ejects the rest of its insides leaving this hollow remnant at her plate side. This bile coloured goo falls out of its head and is quickly scooped up with a spoon back into a precise section of her plate. Elise licks her fingers clean.

Seeing this sprouts up some kind of an internal fever in my loins at first then I recognise the sweet bloat when it reaches my throbbing lesion at my temple. I put the food in my mouth again and the red dulled the pain. I was done first and anticipated when Elise would be finished eating. Beat onto the table, tobacco end of a rolled up smoke and placed it to my lips.

'Do you mind not doing that.'

I rip it from out my dry mouth. 'As you say.'

Placed it back into the roll up tin where I got it, my inside Bemberg pocket. A loss of sensation filled my mouth. Held pressure on it till the flow stopped. The neat nick at my bottom lip sent forth a pulsation when my tongue pressed to it. I wired my arms in a knot.

'Phew that was something,' Elise says, probing down her blouse to pull the stuffed napkin.

'Glad you liked it,' I say.

'We should thank the chef when he has time,' she says.

'We should?'

'There he is look.'

I turn to see the man busy witching his craft in amongst hot pans under searing gas flame. He's turning some unknown and slowly fading creature in a broth or prepping a cake with its iced topping.

'Get your glass Ralph and raise it for him.'

'Why he won't see.'

'It's funny, come on, play along.'

'Okay.' I raise my glass. 'Thanks for the cakes,' I say.

She laughs and swills wine then pours a third glass out the bottle. Raising her own to the chef she has a nice buzz going.

'My deepest gratitude sir for this s'lobster,' she says, laughing.

With the waiters observance caught upon my elusive stare and finger wag I order another bottle of rosé. When I finish mine the timing of the new bottle was pleasing and I immediately filled up Elise's glass then my own. We chimed and drink.

'I'm such a lightweight,' Elise says.

'You seem pretty well cooked.'

'Don't let me get too out of control.'

'I promise, dessert,' I say.

Elise guides her eye to the menu I pass to her. 'Wonder how much this is going to cost us,' she says.

'Don't worry about that,' I say, tightening my tie.

Her face lightens, elated she sputters, 'Strawberry tarts.'

A penetrating cackle comes from across the room, an old hags tone. I search the area to find who it is. Laughing is getting louder. It ends abruptly.

The chatter of plates squeaking under knife and fork stops dead. All the patrons look at our table in surreal silence. Every male at their tables stand up. Uncles, brothers, fathers and grandfathers begin to unbuckle their flies. Out of the kitchen I hear a scratching sound.

'So the lady wants to leave with a mouth full. Give the lady what she wants Ralph,' Maude says, working maniacal in the kitchen whisking up a meringue in a bowl.

I let out an almighty breath and suckle air out the mouth and heave fresh breaths from the room. My nose runs from the pressure exerted and I dab a napkin to it looking back to the plywood.

'My god what's wrong, you're bleeding,' Elise says, confused.

'Yes, yes I am,' I say.

Aware that people are watching I hold up my hand to them, 'I'm okay it's just a nosebleed.'

'I don't know what to do Ralph,' she says, worried now.

'We should get the bill,' I say, signalling at the waiter who's already looking my way.

He comes over and drops the bill to the table. I read it and put all the money in my pockets onto the platter. It wasn't right and I pretended to stem the gush of more blood.

'There is not enough here sir, miss,' the waiter quietly whispers to us.

'I see that,' I say, angrily through bundles of napkin.

'Here,' Elise says, dropping notes, adding to the total contribution.

We get up and I make sure to take the bottle of rosé and steal two wine glasses while the waiter has his back turned to us. Elise holds the door open for me while the rest of the room watches us go. I bow my head to her ear level. 'Did you leave a tip, I don't leave tips, not for these people.'

She looks back traumatized and nods at people waiting on us leaving. 'Can we just go,' she says.
16

My arm was numb but I could move it freely. Ran it down her back just fine while we sat in the sun on the beach. Our wine bottle dug into the sand and a flattened out portion was where we kept our drinks steady.

'Could you imagine if we got a white,' she says, watching the seals bathe on the shore.

'I'd hope you could chug fast.'

'We are going to take our time mister.'

'Suits me just fine Elise.'

Kneaded the knots out her shoulder and watch her groan as she takes a curt drink then I slip off her bra straps and lower the dress letting radiation reach unsullied parts. Short sightedness failed me before, now I see the split ends that divert into bite sized junctions. She falls into a REM state when I stroke her hair and I become sleepy watching as both pink lids have their own autonomy.

A gentle breeze makes mine close too until Elise lies up against me so I connect the pores to sparse freckles on her chest. People wearing their holiday get up handle bulky cameras in two hands and pose in Dutch angles. They get close to the seals happening for a funny moment to arise. Those seals on the shore don't look fazed by sunburned humans stepping close to them and only the ones sitting on the rocks ever bother to bark.

'I want to go swimming.'

'In your shirt and pants,' Elise says, unimpressed.

'Believe me I would be out there if I could.'

'We could put our feet in it.'

'Let's do that and take the last of the wine,' I say.

We share what's left of the rosé filling both glasses halfway leaving the empty Bocksbeutel in place. Walking down La Jolla cove beach away from the wildlife we find a spot by the palisades. I remove my shoes and socks, douse my feet in the sea not expecting it to be so cold. Elise pulls me by the shirts neck and tilts my chin her way. 'Looks like the class bully stole your lunch money,' she says, scooping out some of the sea.

Liquid drains fast from cupped hands so she rubs them together to capture the most of it. To the short hairs within my moustache she dabs cohesive droplets. Burns a little under one nostril and it smarts as salt begins invading the cracks of my follicles.

'Is it gone,' I say, wiping from my top lip.

'Much better,' Elise says, sparkling in the surf.

Kissed her lips briefly. Three fledgling came running past screaming with a kite held by the leader they chase after so we stopped and went along the promenade to buy ice cream from a mobile vendor. We held hands eating vanilla cones up Scripps park towards the coast walk trail.

A homeless man runs up to me asking for a refill on his coffee. Barely five foot tall and worn down by the lifestyle I frown at his stature. A stink on him curls my nose and I can see the fruit logo of a banana flavoured MD 20/20 he is hiding in a paper bag.

'A buck for a poor diabetic man,' he says, directly to Elise with his hands out.

'You shouldn't be drinking coffee,' Elise says.

'R-ig-ht.'

'How much money do you have,' I say, talking to the high peaked knitted beanie he's wearing.

'On me? I got bupkis.'

'Don't lie.'

'I got a dollar ten.'

'You're in the plus. That's more than can be said of me.'

'Can't be, I heard your pockets jingling when you came past. You're Ritchie Rich compared to me, squire,' he says, with lifeless shark eyes.

'I have a mortgage, two high interest loans, a monthly subscription to golf digest. I'm in the red. That's a minus line before the numbers on my balance. Can you understand that. Do you even know what a negative is? Pay me instead,' letting go of Elise I step forward onto the lowlife and ram his hat off with a conserved stroke.

'No way mister,' he says, backtracking between his legs to pick it up.

'It's seventy seven degrees out here and that halflet is wearing a beanie, are you kidding me,' I say. He left quick. Elise never had anything much to say although I could tell she was turned on. 'The comedy store is only a few blocks away from here. Fancy it?'

'Who's on the bill,' she asks.

'A guy I saw on a tape is making an appearance there,' tasting dairy and salt on my top lip. 'He's funny, you would like him. A little dirty but that didn't hurt nobody and he's got that unpredictable energy I like, the kind that can instantly kill a crowd.'

Elise scuffed her leg on an upward root walking the trail and I grabbed her arm as she stumbled. Only got in a few ample licks before the cone crashed to the ground. We found a bench where she could rest her big toe with an elevated view on the long stretch of wilderness next to the urban sprawl of Del Mar further down.

Evasion on the melted parts near the cone base stopped it from running onto me and I devoured its whipped top. At the balding meadow lies a flayed tabby cat baked by the sun into jerky. Fur blusters about in the coastal uprising and in a paw is the captive thin bones of an undetermined amphibian corpse. I smoked my rolled up cigarette and watched the waves hit against eroded cliffs.

When we got back to Springs it was decided that I would cook fajitas. Salsa was a month out of date but I didn't say anything about that. Upon opening the front door I showed her around and in return she says, 'Already seen the place just the opposite way around.' With that she studied my things on shelves, now and again flipping through a book.

Hung up my jacket on the hook and squatted down to see that a folded note had been slid under my door. I picked it up and at first glance it seemed blank so I disregard it. Elise shook her sass over with a book to her heart.

'Bookmark,' she says, thieving it and placing it in the pages of her chosen book.

'Not that one,' I say, smug and dismissive.

'Why not.'

'It's cotton candy writing.'

'How come?'

'Kids love it but it's not very nutritional,' I say.

'What about this instead.'

Opened to a page she reads aloud 'In the Chase' by Toribio Kobalda. I lay back on the couch and kick off my shoes. Flower and brush are one in the same while the Wilhelm character plagues her passion. Imelda Cabello paints the cardinal's portrait wearing his favourite galero; she tries to do that. (A pillow is thrown at me and for a latent period when she up and reached for a spot of Jim Bean I swear she fit the bill of a tyrant on canvas, very same one she just described). King Zigor wants to go for a stroll. The horizon streaked of black and it got colder that one's respirations could be seen out in the alpine wastes of an Iberian fairytale.

Sweet Reina was 'pickling' on the bank, no, 'picking' – he picked her on the . . . 'that's it,' I say, 'I'm done with this,' and take out the makeshift mark from her book. I open the four times folded ruled note.

It reads: "Can you disclose the location of the first target, please respond, AJ".

I open the front door and look around. I shut it, chain it and leave the already forgotten note in the tuxedo jacket.

'Got yourself a secret valentine?'

'It isn't important,' I say.

What I couldn't ignore happened later in the night when I came out the shower to find Elise touching the sledgehammer under the hole in my bedroom wall. She picks it up and tries to swing the thing. It weighs at least twenty pounds and almost certainly will end straight in the floor. I run over and hold her at bay. Never got it higher than a knee.

'Careful with that. I don't like the room as it is but let me handle renovations.'

'That big hole part of your current project,' Elise says, lurching drunk.

'When I get around to finishing it, it will become one big room.'

'Your living room and bedroom together.'

'I only stopped because of old gas fittings that would need to come out and I don't have the expertise for that,' I say.

'Does Mrs Thatching know?'

'She doesn't have to.'

'Why don't I help you out with it,' she says.

'Stanley, my friend, knows a guy who can do it.'

There's no carpet under her feet. Boxes pile up in the other room, don't remember the last time I cleaned the windows. She takes off her dress and it falls to the concrete. Only wearing a bra, I found out the panties stayed at home in there draw when we met around the back of Sovereign earlier today. She climbs into bed.

At least I freshened the bed, that was wise. Elise wraps herself up in cotton sheets like a present waiting for me to unwrap and fuck so I join her. Caress her forehead then bite her lip. A kiss and we roll to the side. On top she pulls at the hair at my chest under the covers.

Sax, sax, saxophone. All I hear is sax. It's about two in the morning and beside me Elise sleeps. When I wake fully, sitting up in bed the overt legato overshoots its mark. The springs of the mattress feel like a rough ocean. I try my best to get the creases out of the duvet but they won't come out so I keep trying. A scuttle from the far end of a darkened corner has me out of bed.

'Where are they.'

'Here.'

'Over here.'

'Don't let them.'

'No please, please.'

'Find it, I'm under the bed you see.'

'Inside the walls.'

'It's safe.'

'Go, climb into the wall?'

'I'm inside.'

'They won't find me here.'

'We'll be better off with them out of sight.'

Falling down the excavated hole headlong my legs get caught in a jam stopping me going any further. Pulling at insulation under the antiquated fireplace I slide into the dark past pipes that once fed gas before the conversion.

'Further.'

I go deeper and it starts getting hotter. I turn a valve anticlockwise. The pipes are raging hot, rusted red. I don't use my hands any more and like an eel I burrow with nocturnal instincts. Lateral walls feel fleshy as my head props up to it and its sticky residue takes some of my hair with it as I pass.

Ahead an obstruction blocks my path. Pressing my face into its membrane sac I poke through, birthed down a canal with no solid sides. In the dark deposited with the sac still wrapped over me I see through it light at the bottom. Landing on shredded silica fibres shaped into a lopsided slant I roll to its base and can't gather why I'm not cut. I find my bearings.

It's the insides of a stalactite and crystal underbelly receding into a deep pointy mineral pit. In the middle of the cavern I walk across a bridge sloped to a point of a figure skaters blade. At the far end is a shard throne. A vortex of cold cycles the central complex and the slowing of its angular momentum causes the giant floating mother of pearl to evaporate.

Covering my path ahead with arms as my shield, crossing close to the limit of my reach some fast moving lump hits the ground in front so hard I don't know which way I should turn. A naked pale woman lies half suspended from the highest point in front of me covered in toxic algae.

'Exhibit A! Look at her, it's your cunt wife. Or should I be saying, not quite wife or dead fiancée? Oh well, what does it matter. She liked to party, ate speedball like it was another man's cock. Remember how blue her veins were when they pulled her out the ocean covered in seaweed. Did you still want her Ralph, nice and easy to position her bare buttocks, she would've struggled. Not with you any more. Have your way with her backside and wipe her down for the next go. Play pass the parcel with the trollop as a prize for all I care. Just make sure she's kept below zero though or she'll go off,' Maude says, knocking her skinny knees together.

'Shut your mouth,' I say.

'Fuck her, fuck her silly.'

Up on her bunion stumps for feet Maude picks up Rita's corpse by a heel and pushes her to the edge where her over hanging head hair flutters upon a bowl shaped pit. A snapshot from the day she drown complete with spume flowing from her nostrils. Placing a foot on the groin she spread Rita's legs wider, opening up her vulva and threatens to put her other foot tip inside.

'The birthplace of all humanity.' Maude pegs her sinus shut and retches. 'Rotten.'

Her petite breasts boar nipples that are erect and blue veins are all over her body. Seaweed chokes at her neck leaving red marks in her skin and I want to pull it off. I need to and move closer and she pretends to whimper.

'No!'

Maude kicks her over and in an evanescent reprieve it takes but a murmur before the crash of split crystal comes spattering back up to us. In subsidence it's like Rita died all over again. She steps over to look at her fancywork and drops a phlegmy spit below.

'Betrayal! You drove your soon to be wife into a bluebottles liquid lunch.'

'What do you want with me,' I say, crying into the ground, tasting the fibrous nature of it.

'You're never safe, you should keep running and don't look back, lest you repeat the same mistakes,' she says, snarling.

'Run? From who or what, you.'

'Me, yourself, everyone and everything.'

'Why,' I say.

'The day you ran away from that pig cop out in that desert, you should have juss kept running,' Maude says.

'I don't have to listen to your shit,' I say, breathing steady.

'Then you will want to follow her down there,' Maude says, drawn to the fall.

With all my strength I try to approach the shard throne with intentions of ripping off her face but I can't, every time I do my leg sabotages my plans and starts shaking out of control.

I look over the edge shuddering at the human pincushion skewered on two gigantic spikes.

Maude laughs. 'What's wrong, chicken?'

'No more running,' I say.

'Filthy rotten double crossers have fed you lies the moment they saw you. "No more running," listen to me. Take a plane, a ferry or swim just get gone.'

'Do you know what they said to me Maude.'

'I don't need to hear the whole story to know their ways. She came my way looking for a truce and I set my willow rook on the whores messenger. Now the nelly has me listed as an enemy of the three houses.'

'They look at you as an insignificant thorn.'

'How I want um thinking sugar daddy,' Maude says, wincing as she slobbers a gummy root.

I warm my hands and see her frailty. 'They really don't care.'

'I'm not known for my mawkish acts of affection my boy. Would you like me to happen show you what I do, do.'

'I can imagine.'

'You disappoint me,' Maude says, with my father's voice. 'Left all the capital a man could want and several more businesses to boot and you bury our family name in debt.' My father sits on the throne. 'Shameful,' he says.

'I'm done with you,' I say, backing up to the pit edge.

'Going so soon. I was just about to refresh you on what it looks like when parents fight into the wee hours.' Dejected she acts out how unhappy she is pulling on the empty tags of skin for cheeks. Can see her gumline, teeth and tongue through cuts like a port side window to the orifice. 'Say hello to the replacement from dear old Maude would you,' she says.

I'm already going to ground and everything above escapes me. When I wake I realize I'm in trouble. Wedged in the cramped confines of the chute I manage to adjust to the fact that I'm looking not down while gravity pulls me up. Ventilation fans either side of me draw in air from the outside. Voices from this close inside the core sit disturbed upon my breech loaded vessels for ears and vibration through the life stream tickles the bloat away. I kick my legs. Stretch amongst the ruins.

'Ralph, Ralph's awake.'

'Take the rope. Take it. Take the rope, go on take it, the rope, the rope man,' a voice from above says.

'I can't see,' I say, sneezing uncontrollably.

'Don't worry about that and concentrate on the rope.' A figure shines a beam with a flashlight through the narrow space. 'Feel it,' he says.

'I've got it,' I say.

'That's perfect now attach the harness to your waist.'

Threaded through both legs straps. It clicks into place and I test its ready to hold my weight then signal to the man above that it's done. Horizontal lattices dither elbows shooting a jolt to my forearms. Tikity-Tak, Rikity-Tak, Tikity-Tak. Pipes push together my blades and pierce skin as I hold tight any sudden outburst. Hoisted up what must have been both floors of the apartment I come to the end of my journey pulled head last out the hole into safe hands of many.

Emergency crewmen pass information to a standby radio sending feedback through multiple receivers. Rescue red, white and blue paints my bare walls. A fireman in tan overalls guided me to a paramedic and he checks me over. Elise is sobbing with Mrs Thatching for company in the hallway. Gauze and sutures come out a mobile kit the medic has brought with him. He cuts tape and places it across my nose. I start for Elise but he's not quite done with me. Petroleum jelly is worked into a wisp of facial cuts and I try to speak to Elise again. She doesn't hear me.

'We should take a look at you in a hospital for some observations just to be safe,' the medic says.

'I don't need it, I refuse to go.'

I'm given the okay. Out the doorway comes rigging equipment carried by two men. They leave save for Elise who's gone quiet and leans up the back wall outside.

'I don't know if I can do this right now.'

'It will all blow over I promise,' I say.

'No I can't,' Elise says, fielding the outskirts of the hallway away from me.

Dreadnought of 109D slams and I'm left to my own devices. I rest my head up against the peep hole when I close the door. That note fills my thoughts and its out of the tuxedo and opened up on the coffee table where I stare at the words. Onto its other side I write: "She's in the walls, RT".
17

Wednesday, shower muck from me that falls into the soapy suds and away in a swirl. A pinch for the nasty scratch across my nasal bridge under tape. Squeezed out any remaining trapped air. Apart from that I'm set. Blind searching inside the wardrobe I found a shirt to put on without a care to its colour. On the same hanger a pair of bespoke terracotta corduroys are slipped off.

Leaning on the lattice it gives in when I pull too hard on getting the one size too small pants over my gut. Falling slightly inside but righted by a foot, stopping me going in all the way I hold on to its corner and pile pressure onto the flimsy bracket. It comes loose from its overzealous pilot holes and I launch it across the room.

Flung open the remaining door watching as it came to a standstill against a drywall. Brawled on the thing for doing me wrong and stuck out a heel and kicked off an entire section at the bottom. I pulled out my leg taking its toll on the slide. Wooden fragments fall at the breaking points and cover me and the floor in splinters.

From under the kitchen sink I took out a dustpan and swept miniature divisions up off the tiny patch of carpet by the door. Took with me the large pieces of wood that came off and slung it under one arm ready for the trash. Brushed a last speck of debris from my leg and cleansed of any remarkable clues I head to work.

Getting busy with the cocktails Stanley serves the first group queued up mojitos. Harry comes over and lets me know someone called for me while I was out. He shows the number that was left.

'Did they say what it was about,' I ask Harry.

'Hung up when I mentioned it,' he says.

'That sounds like his kind of shtick.'

Over at the bar Stanley was not expecting me so I leave him be. Headed upstairs after thanking the kid and gifted some paper for tending to such rancid deeds. Closed the door, walk to the golf bag pulling out a random club and slam it back down hard. False flag on the five mistaking it for a three I sit and take my time to skim a travel brochure on my desk. O'ahu island is 2,500 miles away. I circle the page superfluous until the steady hum of the dial tone is intercepted. Starting over I redial the number and get to it when he answers.

'You left me your number.'

'What you got for me Ralphy, Ralph,' he says.

'What do you need?' I say.

'The world and all her possessions.'

'You want me to make a start on that today.'

'Come off it this isn't a shake down. No, I bring with me news. My boss would like to speak with you,' the Czech says.

'Your boss wants me.'

'Just come to the mansion on Blackgold road 9838 at the back of Torrey Pines at three.'

'You know what he wants.'

'I do. I've gave you some shit the last few months I know this. I break balls but this is a momentous shift in your luck if you choose wisely.'

'That good huh,' I say.

'It is so say yes. See you soon.'

I chewed nails in disbelief at the outcome of the call with the Czech. This was not the way things usually went with him. A series of negative thoughts creep into my solvent hypothesis inferring that this was not just any friendly visit to his boss. His boss' home?

For the sake of it I go through this month's wages, bills, renewals and more working off and shedding almost half a solid block of paper for hours. Big hand on the clock says go early to show some initiative. Superstition has me silly and I down god gotten pills from my draw not caring what they are. The unopened Fluvoxamine I picked up from the pharmacists a day ago however I make sure to take, the right amount. If my head turns over in their presence, so be it.

One long stretch of open that is the west coasts Interstate 5 makes me wish I was born of a different era. A one in which I'd probably be flying to meetings instead of gracing the same network for hours getting nowhere fast. A vision of the later part of the twentieth century seen on cinema posters as a sprog was a ruse and looks nothing like the reality. The alternative spacewoman of the future sure was pretty and the colony backdrop of the futurist's concept was inspiring. What we actually got was mobile phones as big as bricks, an overburdened hulk the papers call the Space Station Fred and floppy disks. Where is my light speed at, it don't cut it.

Propaganda, of the sort now rationed in flea markets to jingoistic brethren. "Abolishment" is a title that comes to mind, typifying B movie horror schlock, illustrating a devil creature sitting on a pile of humanoid skulls with a loaded gun in the left and a bloody knife in the right. Romance, space operas and spaghetti westerns still drew in the crowds but the audiences craved more than that of capitalistic self servitude and what it was unbeknownst to them at that time, was later to be known as the fateful missing piece of every cinematographers puzzle; honesty, integrity, truth.

In and out the heights I get lost on the turn off and end up in Carmel Valley. An ox crosses the road stopping the car in its tracks. The thing before me is strong – ginger hair coarse and heavy to the resistance of its movement. It stops there looking at me, brown buttons transfixed. I honk the horn. Unperturbed its blood is pumping and that steady beat of the heart is visible at the ribs and neck.

A herd of beef behind him stream past. Hooves spill onto the roadside and thud the dirt on the adverse ranch track. Black bodies blur by with a few brown ones making an appearance. It makes me dizzy, gaze still on the loneliest oxen. A nudge from the pack sent the beast running now unrecoverable in motion within the torrent of bodies.

Circling back I find the highway again. Past the campus, Torrey Pines golf course in sight I make it at a quarter to three. At his gate an American flag flutters at six foot high. I buzz the main house. The gate opens and I enter the drive to a checkpoint where men in casual dress sit in a red cedar gazebo. Parked cars are guided by a chicane at the mansion exterior and a man argues with another who is washing them with a sponge.

'Don't scratch the Jag, idiot.'

'Sorry Mr Havon,' the wash boy says.

'Use the Waxwow for the paint and a normal sponge for the glass,' Austin says.

'Yuss sir. I thought you wouldn't be travelling today.'

'Son you will be travelling aright when somebody beat your ass and then what.' He sees me coming, extends his welcome and I almost flee the other way. 'Ha, ah see you chose to come and get your medicine,' he says.

'I'm curious as to what you mean.'

Austin, the larger than life magnate puts an arm on my back and takes benign guesses in walking us together piecemeal under a truss extension with dormer eaves into the entrance past Texan décor and crossed sabres on the inside walls. A party is going on and guided to the kitchen Austin makes himself a drink.

'You want anything son.'

'Beer will do,' I say, taking the Corona he cap pops.

'There you are. Give me some swiss miss,' Austin says, to a teenage girl.

'Thank you daddy,' she says.

'What's that smell on you,' he says, sniffing at her.

'Nothing.'

In a one piece she kissed him on the emanating musk of a cologne and he air kissed her back on her own unique brand of perfume, then waved at me as she left. Couldn't get a drink in as he took me again and away we went to his office through four wide spanning rooms.

'Do you have children Ralph.'

'No I don't,' I say.

'They're hassle.'

'Never mind my own when I can't even get a straight answer from my niece, too busy thinking on boys,' I say, playing along.

'My Isabel, she's not too different. With her its pot. If her mouth is moving it means she's lying,' Austin says, biting into a liquorish lace.

'Her pupils were pretty big.'

'You noticed that too, huh. Coons, it's the coons selling that awful stuff.' Taking another nibble out of his treat. 'It's like, gummy bears to em,' he says, lifting his brows.

'I understand where your coming from.'

'I like you Ralph,' he says, shutting the door. 'Down to business.'

A man holds onto his hat and stands up to shake my hand. Slim, clean cut, crew cut, polished shine to his shoes the man is well kept.

'Ralph this is my accountant extraordinaire Raymond LaRoux,' Austin says.

'Nice to meet you,' I say, accepting his handshake.

'I've heard things, magical things. You're made of the right stuff,' Raymond says.

'We need that Ralph that's why I had you come out here,' Austin says, pointing with his candy.

'With an incentive to maximise productivity.' Hesitation rang from his uptake. 'A stimulus package for a fair amount of work,' Raymond says.

'What we are talking here is a chance of glory. Reclaiming the heat before we skitter below room temperature. I am willing for forty five hours a week of your time, offering you a chance of a clean slate. Any qualms you had, you hadn't no more, we've scratched it out and on top of that you get a wage.'

'So you are . . . looking,' I say, getting half the way.

'We have you in mind to fill a space in a business venture we're testing as our regional manager at the newest entertainment franchise, Havon,Inc,' Raymond starts.

'The one stop place to get your burn on, dine, shine, dance, yoga, tennis, pilates, line dancing, squash, aerobics, bar and grill, chicken sticks, BBQ on hickory, trimmings, meatloaf, its hot, it's now. We're rolling the carpet out and taking the preorders till the slots are cock full of new guests,' Austin finishes, flushed.

'There's more. A huge chunk of our business up north will be the private equity market, casino and entertainment side. Retail in San Diego is there to entice people to spend elsewhere,' Raymond says, perched on the side of a table top.

'We are going to be blinded being so close to the big lights of New Vegas but we have our angle. Our special sauce, we'll clue you in about that when you agree to our terms, isn't that right Raymond.'

To his nose he brings a handkerchief laden with cajuput oil. 'Vegas is one part, two pronged attacks work best with the right people at your side getting dirty elbows deep in the cannula of life.'

In a snide way Austin squeezed into the conversation without pardoning or pause. 'A rival of ours has got a roller coaster in the upper strip for the children outside a joint we own but Vegas will always be for the needs of the adults no matter what anybody else says. There's only so long a tyke will sit still and watch the fountain outside the Bellagio.'

'Such ambiguity!' Raymond says, in such a contradictory tone that it impaled me to the spot like a bad chicken-fil-A in my gut. Their combined admiration of the estates panorama equipped with its very own spitting cherub ends with me. 'So what do you say my friend, are you game.'

'I'll need time to take all this in,' I say.

Austin brought together his hands in a clap. 'I like how you're going to think about it before you stab me in the heart. What are we doing here.'

'Are there any paper notes I can look over while I decide,' I say to him.

'Come over here a second,' Austin says, huddling me into a corner of the room. 'Enjoy yourself while we get all that necessary reading materials that describes your job role, okay, get a drink, Isabel you help this man, be right back,' Austin says, pushing me out the door.

The daughter looks at me like she gets this all the time. 'Follow me then,' she says. We stop at a punch bowl and she scoops a juice cup out and filled it. The party guests behaved distant like a skeleton crew waiting on their next shift rotation.

'I've got it,' I say to her.

'Are you one of my dad's enforcers.'

'One of his what now.'

'No, you're too wet behind the ears,' Isabel says, unflinching.

'Is it your birthday.'

'Yes.'

'Happy birthday, how old are you.'

'Sixteen.'

Old fruit golfers with leathery faces come past talking to excess about their par and stroke this. It's all about the game you bring to the green not the sausage club afterwards, I desperately want to shout this out. Have no time to riddle them with the etiquette of a gentleman's game and so I press onto the adhesive sides of my tape.

I took a lengthy mouthful of the punch. 'You have a pool.'

'It's a pool party.'

'Great turnout.'

'My dad invited them.'

In the aptly named sun room is a sunbeam by the pool, most of the guests are my age or older. It's a hungry gastronomes metropolis. If they're not rubbernecking then they fill paper plates with grapes and assorted party nibbles. Next to each partition is a wine sampler. The buffet serves those with a taste for cheese with around ten or more different types to choose from. Brie, provolone, queso blanco and string cheese to name but a few.

The backdrop is a mile long stretch of fairway, and bunkers scoop the land as if empty sea shells littered my communal plot of grass back home. Trees part a section of the course and another high fence secures the duff shots from ending out of bounds. Multiple water hazards on what looks to be hole fifteen cuts the entire golf course in half. Must've gotten water logged when it rained hard a few days back. Visions left in its metabolic divots are open to the skies rich quark of the hour. It differs in distance. A bronzed couple take a dive. From my point of view the deep blue curaçao of the pool splashes clear diamonds on the gunite. A yipping comes from the sable Pomeranian dog, other side of the sliding doors leaving its breath and dribble low down. With keen interest Isabel too looks longingly out the window.

'You want to do some pot with me,' she says.

'No,' I say.

'Will you tell my dad I offered, you know what.'

'He already knows.'

'Never said anything about it.'

'Who did you get it from.'

'My mother's drug stash. See her over there, that's my mother.'

'The woman on the Davenport wearing the scarf and sunglasses,' I say.

'Yeah, scarves she always wears them. Hundreds of coloured polka dot ones in a single line in her closet,' Isabel says, needlessly huffing.

'Ralph!' I'm called for from the office.

'I have to go Isabel,' I say, in leaving.

'Shut that mutt up or I'll kick it in the pool girl,' Austin says, slamming his door.

'Sure,' she says.

It's a few decibels louder in his office having gained new guests since I left. I open the door to see him in a plain Henley long sleeve jersey and the other guy who I don't know is decked out in a polo shirt. Cigar smoke and rum flavour the meeting as Raymond readies himself to document his minutes.

'All us who need be here are present so let's get to it,' Austin says, bringing a cigar between his bite, fingers decorated in gold bands. 'Ralph, this is my son Jack.'

'Pleasure,' I say, shaking Jacks hand.

'You already know Sevastian,' Austin says, picking tobacco bits from his mouth.

'Anything wrong Ralph,' the Czech says, gesticulating elastically at me and my face. 'If you need someone to sort out adversities of yours, come to me, okay.'

'It was an accident,' I say, sureness in my footing.

'We all make mistakes,' Raymond says, from across at his mirthful corner.

'Sevastian here has convinced me that you are our man, alongside my boy Jack you will be at the helm of one of the biggest entertainment pushes in San Diego for decades.'

'You might be surprised by just how many want to get in with us and don't,' the Czech says.

'So many beatniks want to join the fold. Cast em out and purge them from the flock I say,' Austin's face bent out of shape. 'You however we want,' he says, in an unusual baritone.

'How do you flirt with that,' Jack says.

'I'd like to say yes but what will happen to my club, who will run it in my absence,' I say.

'Sovereign?' the Czech says.

'We could let you run it as you want or you could incorporate it wholly into our existing business. It's up to you to decide its fate,' Raymond says, chewing at his pen lid. 'Some people are followers, there are the creative ones and then we have the leaders. At a certain point you have to stop and ask which one am I in all this?'

'At what point does bigotry become a leap? When you invest all your trust in nothing,' I say, and this impels them to shut it, mouth agape looking over for my own mercy or a quick death.

Austin pours another and has himself a drink. 'This rum is some top notch shit.' He holds up the bottle of Captain Morgan's Spiced, with a man propping his leg up onto a keg. 'You see this privateers face, that's a face of sex. This man knows what he wants. He is confident and gets it done. Be that man and accept.'

'On what terms,' I ask, nice.

'I'll buy you out for a hundred thousand and give you upfront, let's say, five g's to get you on your feet.'

'That sounds incredibly reasonable.'

'I'm that kind of man,' he says.

'Of course.'

'After a year I'd workout giving you back some capital or a few points, salt or pepper?'

'About time I had a change of scenery, I'll do it,' I say.

'I knew it, I knew you would say yes. Draw up the contract with Raymond and don't be afraid to set your own terms. I want your time with us to be comfortable.'

'Ralph, let's get it done then,' Raymond says.

'Gentlemen excuse me while I enjoy the rest of today's golfing and my daughter's birthday party. Welcome to the family,' Austin says, hugging me. He goes to the door then stops himself walking out. 'You like golf Ralph.'

'I live for golf,' I say.

'We'll get along stellar you and me,' he says, leaving the room with a skip in his step.
18

In a gentle way I bring my thump upon her front door. I get no response.

'It's me Elise. Will you talk to me,' I say.

She opens the door. Half awake she looks to have gone back to sleep at some point and left her tears from the early morning stuck within her mascara.

'Can I come in,' I say, eagle pacing her reaction.

'No, you can say it right here.'

'Okay I will.' I see peaking out her door Mrs Thatching in hair curls and a stereotypical beauty mask.

'Are you all right there Elise,' Mrs Thatching says, when she sees me cutting through her condemnation with a frown.

'We are doing just grand,' I say.

'Are you okay Ralph,' she says, rather blunt.

'Right as rain Mrs Thatching.'

I look at her with a foot in Elise's door frame stretching my neck to the elderly landlords place at the end of the hallway. She drags herself inside, two gravelly sounding dogs wailed at the disturbance in their routine.

'Can we go for a tipple,' I say.

'Fine,' Elise says, darting inside.

On the ride over every now and then I will find her wiggling a knuckle shy from its resting place releasing a burst of nitrogen from its cavity prison. From within two half pennies, a reflection of the glass I could see her sky bound gazing at daylight Venus.

We find ourselves almost alone in Sovereign and take a corner table. I wave to Stanley letting him know I'm home and sit opposite Elise waiting on something to arrive.

'Probably should start off by saying, I'm sorry for what happened,' I say.

'I found you at the bottom of a shaft at night blathering, the most horrible noises.'

'What do you want me to say.'

'I want you to swear on your mother, rest her soul that you will get help, proper aid not some hack who deals you pills and tells you lies. He should be stricken off,' Elise says.

'That's over with now. Starting anew with a better doctor tomorrow as you ask.'

'Hope you are being genuine.'

'I am. What happened prompted me to see different. I mean I've had episodes like this, worse than this. After this morning I'm working on things with an emphasis on making sure it's about me,' I say.

'Monday night gone you were all banged out of shape at my feet. Now it happens again so soon after. Was it always like this.'

'Pretty much so. I was diagnosed a schizo at twenty one.'

'That's rough,' she says.

'Raw end of the pact me and the big man had planned but it's set in stone.'

'Why were you climbing into the wall,' Elise says, gulping as if something went down her gullet the wrong way.

'Never can remember why I do those things. Only that it's a death wish if I don't deal with it right away. End up one in a hundred times near something risky rather haphazardly. One of the worst was when I climbed up a transmission tower, totally out of it of course. When it's time to wake up and above me is this high current buzzing and the thirty foot drop below.'

'Jesus, did you make it down yourself?'

'I did. Barely and only me and you should know about my vertical adventure. What happened a few hours ago is up there with it. Got enough story's in me to keep you here for hours,' I say, making out Stanley coming over with a rickety tray.

'Whisky for you, cream soda for me and what would you like, brought with me a B & B because you look like a Benedictine kind of woman,' he says, dishing them out.

'Don't believe you two have met. Elise this is Stanley the manager, Stanley, Elise my neighbour and old friend.' I smile and nudge her at the cute, faltering 'Hi' she gave Stanley. 'Don't be shy, he may act like a wild coyote but he's house trained,' I say, laughing.

'I do occasionally bite mind you,' Stanley says.

Elise flipped her lour droop upside down. 'That will do me, thanks,' she says, accepting the cognac snifter. 'You two, are funny,' she cuts out her end words while sampling the B & B.

Got an inundation of her uplifting side profile, raising my rocks glass to my lips sipped a taste of the Neck. Sweetest drink I've had in days with the right company too.

Atmosphere in the club without the hipster music blaring is how it all should have been from the beginning, my style after my first grey hair sprouted. It seems so obvious now as I spot the flaws in the art house mosaic's interlocking socket panels. Its gaudy.

'What's up with the face,' Stanley says.

'Never mind that. I'll tell you later. What we want to know is how that rates.' I lean to her side. 'Stanley makes the best drinks don't he,' I say to Elise.

'Superb. Never had this before but I guess you were right I am a Benedict disciple,' she says, nodding with intensity.

'That's why I will never let him go. My days would be numbered without a cocktail man of his calibre.'

'Twenty four fucking years serving I should be. Forget all that juggling bullshit it's the quality of the mix that people remember.'

'Take it you're not a fan of Cocktail,' Elise says.

'Screw that Cocktail movie.' Stanley folds his arms and shakes his head breathing out through his nostrils. 'Fuck that pretty boy he don't have shit on me,' he says, driven on by his own chagrin.

'Is that really necessary,' I say.

'A bad film is a bad film, enough said.'

'Exactly its only a film.' I plead Elise's way, 'He gets like this at times. He's a passionate man,' I say, forthright.

'We work hard for our craft,' Stanley says.

'Help me out with this then while you're at it. Every other time I've had a drink from one of the girls its bitter.'

'They put too much Angostura in there.'

'Figure it would be a simple thing as that,' I say, checking the consistency in the liquid.

'How about your Mai Tai recipe,' Elise says, getting involved.

'It's in good shape.' Fitting complexity with fast touting hands. 'Next drinks a rum then you tell me how it tastes,' Stanley says, always a sucker for bait.

'That's the way it goes with him,' I say.

'Holy shit, see this,' he held his arm out steady. 'The hands of a man with faith,' Stanley says.

'Language, please,' Elise pardons, stroking her tact.

'It's better to be alive than dead. Alive and kicking profanity, then dead silent,' he says.

'Go get us a refill, boy scout,' I say, drinking faster than usual.

'Who made you captain of this team. I call a mutiny.'

'Please and thank you.'

'Sure thing,' Stanley says, pointing and winking at Elise. 'Mai Tai for the lady.'

Cocked my head to watch him leave. Time passes fast and I sit with her while it goes by tallying up our blood alcohol content into the afternoon. The club once more fills up with bunny boilers seeking redemption and the obese chair sniffers in fake tans come in to say one liners to ten out of tens. Imagined the guy who took over from Johnny Carson would spend his nights much in the same way. Two-bit loser like the rest of us humble Homo sapiens, but this was before the showtime slot came and filled his sock draw with escort cards that he meticulously arranged in price, experience last. That show to me will never be the same.

No boundaries to separate folk, those down on their luck types. Doctors, lawyers, judges even the perfect ones will inevitably get their tash wet and cry into that secret diary, or go to a quiet place to mope. I see the same faces go home humiliated and alone all the time. My luckiest night because for once I was not a member of their "club alienation" and it was strange to be an observer.

'Have you ever stopped to people watch,' I whisper to Elise.

'Sometimes,' she whispers back.

'Let me help you with a few,' I say, pointing across the dance floor to the other corner.

A gangly girl they call 'The surfboard.' Who I know is actually called Lucille sits at the same spot she always does with her velvet ribbon in her hair, a call sign for the men she has a certain taste for. If she was out of the strapless mini dress she'd be the poster child for innocence and in this context its perverse to see close up the way she treats the men who turn up.

'Adventurous one, she leaves ad's in the small papers. Often when she let them know how she likes it they up and walk away.'

Other times she takes their fist and bashes it to her chin or pined away for a gut shot in frustration depending on how wasted she is. That was one way of getting off, she liked it kinky and as much as I respect her "submissive" nature I would entertain a hint on how to inform her it wasn't right to be frequently hiding a shiner under bronzer or a sling under baggy clothes.

'The lonely peach' is a guy who will pay for three different girls drinks in row and still not take a hint. 'Christ knows what he does for a living but it pays well.'

Stains he wore like medals and his banter was enough to bore the girls silly. Complete gloat and not ever did I tell him about our riff-raff policy, three strikes over with this guy. More than usual he will bag a gold digger who drops the eager obsequious behaviour whenever it's time to powder her nose. When money is involved she drops the panties. These broads will pick a man apart and the peach was ripe for the kill.

'That badmouth, him, braided wigger in VIP is Chauncey.' Like the rest of the dealers uptown he had acquired a taste for his own product. Was a known exhibitionist and given a daredevil reputation by the locals. People would record him as he performed stunts back north in Hot Springs that ranged from jumping into cardboard boxes way up on top of abandoned high-rise buildings to fighting backyard style with the homeless for kicks. To me the guy was a junkie who did things people who bump angel dust ought to do.

'The nude bowl resurrection was partially financed by him.'

Turned the place into a commodity, which for a man that spends most his time topless showing off his ink and who is uncertain what the function of a belt is was not bad going.

'Rebel, rebel, over there is what I'd call him but people seem set on other names for him. Used to bounce here in the early days for me but one night he roughed up a customer too hard. The guy nearly died due to a brain clot and when he sued and won, well he had to go. We're still on good terms and he's always liked Sovereign so he kept on coming as if nothing had changed.'

Elise observing the menagerie of underdogs moves her mouth but it's too dry to produce words. With a lip stuck to the bottom a sip from her straw planted in a newly delivered and busy highball saves her in time. 'Interesting hobby you have,' she says.

'Over there that's Betty. She likes the unhip dancing you see. A fading pastime with each generation, especially with the commercialization of today's music. So the old lady likes the slow jams we play on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. It clicked that her husband died or something because he would come along too but recently it's just her, soloing it. Sometimes when its quiet we swap the disco for a spruce of the golden years when I see her come in. Makes my day, really, when her arms go up when she hears a song of hers everything is all right all of a sudden.'

'Poor lady, all alone,' Elise says, watching Betty, watching others.

'Doing my part to keep things fair.'

'Do you know a song she likes,' she asks.

'Those ones they played in the speakeasies. Swing, ragtime, the classics.'

'Anything in particular?'

'I've got something.'

'Dare you to put it on.'

'It's getting pretty busy.'

'Please, Ralph you have to do this – for me.'

'This is why I should keep my mouth shut. Not once have I played her stuff this late.'

'I want to see her face, change.'

'Wait here,' I say.

'Yes, I love you Ralph.'

I leave the table and go behind the scenes to where the record deck is at lining myself up to play it and run back. Placing a turntables stylus to the compilation album there comes a whaling of his key strokes as the track begins then the big band starts pounding double bass.

In a fever I chance upon her illusion floating on the backs of countless moving souls, unshackled to common promiscuity from the rats closest to the free flowing glug. Feeling my leer loll into a mild sedation at the thrill of the brass blaring from the speakers that I'm standing so close upon to my relief I press a hand to my brow covering my sight. I reeled in the moment and bring myself flat to the source of the thrashing until I was calmed. Arms folded I scout the area. Betty's not dancing but some people currently are. The others.

They move around with crude footwork shaking their practised rhythm without a care. Two step shuffling about in a line, veering away like they are conditioned by an invisible turnpike where they work their way to lead the line as a team to throw each partner around by slickened hosiery. A lady hops it into shape and follows his lean. Kicking into the air a mix of passion whereas also looking as if they wish to put a stop to it but can't. Since they can't they keep going a hundred-ten beats per minute. Escalating. The semitones command them to continue and so they do till they are forced to drop. Falling like a bunch of stooges on their shins.

This droning comes from out of nowhere disturbing the leitmotiv and sounds like lumbar on moribund axles grinding a repetitive static. Drifting in and out of it, wiping away the sickness I return to the back area – when its discovered the track is skipping and resume the normal set playlist, checking the indelible mark on the surface of the record I pulled out the player – so long swing.

'Ralph, come over here,' Elise says, cooing me over.

'Did you see her,' I say.

'That was a disaster. To make matters worse she left when you broke her record.'

'Maybe she only gets in the mood for jitterbug.'

'Do you want to get up Ralph.'

Hunched my shoulders. 'Can't dance.'

'Sure you can, I'll show you,' she says.

'My moves, I'm forever hauling luggage.'

'You're just saying that to get out of it.'

'Could be. Why don't we meet in the middle.'

'Well what's your proposal.'

'In a while we could go to classes. That way I won't feel out of touch while people watch.'

'I'll show you in private how to dance.'

'What does that mean?'

'Give me your apartment key and you'll see.'

'Oh now I get it,' I say.

'First we'll do the foxtrot then we'll move on to some salsa.'

'I see, so you're serious about the dancing.'

'I am, now hand it over and I will let you in when you come home.'

'I'd like to hold you sometime Elise without interruption.'

'Hold me now.'

'What can we do, but . . .'

'Shhh, I would say yes,' she says.

We danced a little jig to the beat of the rock'n'roll, in with the runaways as a dynamo duo while I held onto my wrapped wrists supporting her back until the barging legs of others picked us apart. She turned once more and took me fitting snugly into the dent at my midriff as we rocked together until the end of the song.

'Give it to me,' she says, looking up.

'Take care of this it's the only one of its kind.'

Not sure what I signed up for I slide the perforation backwards upon the link and exchange it for a peck on the cheek from Elise who has begun to tie her hair into a pony tail. Accepting the key into her tiny hand, last communion complete she pulled me away.

Following her lead to the club exit, dusk had arose from out of hiding and the first intelligent photocell of street mast row is set in motion. It'd be nice to see the night out to its conclusion with her but I can't. My duchess of misalliance has things to do and as usual they don't involve me.

Think myself lucky to not be the fools jester amiss at the reaction of the nomads anger at less than perfect contact on demand like it goes in their dreams. "Why is my glass dirty," they would screech. "Our beer tastes warm, leave my girlfriend out of it, make me, how much?" These has-been suspects took a day off and for that I was grateful.

At least the missionary priests at Yonkers wake to a service bound to a certain code on how he spends his time each day. Makes the scandals worth it. Put it out of its misery I say like a swansong bullet cracking in a darkened alley.

For me it was to live in uncertainty that superimposed itself in another light. A one of Gomorrah's highs, the in between and lows of Springs. Pattern seeking types need the fixed routine to keep them sane. Stop them from scaling the walls deranged as any curmudgeonry man or woman would be out of the loop.

One fine day I'll wake up wasted and go out for a stroll, get caught jaying by the local school bus making its early scheduled rounds taking me out on Riverside junction. Flattened out on that forge, a buzzards roadkill supreme.

Poor darlings, worry for the children. How they will exclaim in horror at the sight. The very next day they will be finger painting and hanging pasta collages on the fridge for their parents pleasure. Forgotten and gone. A night to remember then for when I come to pass on a state issued death dealer, cast iron and fluff. I kiss Elise goodnight and did all my best to smile.
19

Back inside. Revellers calling sends already loud music a notch higher on the dial. In my Petri dish corner a revision of our leftovers that strew the table causes me to bunch them from lowest to highest in height. Elise wins outright with the tall funky decorations Stanley likes to cram into his drinks. Harry comes over and puts each of the glasses onto a round tray.

'You have some guests, they'd like a word,' he says.

All I get after is his back as he fritters away down the pre-empted route programmed into a regular action of his since the Valium teens kicked in out the blue. If he said he's done I'd cut him off and be done with it but we're happy here, great big ties that bind a syndicate.

I go over witnessing the subliminal affect his grievous voice has on others. A white substance goes up his nose. 'Waah, I love drugs man. You know,' he stopped to rub the rest into his gums. 'Taste like ripened cranberries from back home. Ever been to Prague Ralph you would like it. I used to traffic there, anything that was big in demand. Auto mobiles, Chinese medicines, drugs, the little children, even foreign chocolate was a highly sort after commodity.' He scrapes his pointing boot looking side to side and sighs. 'I miss my home Ralph. I do and I can never go back,' the Czech says, testy till the end.

'Glad to see you're enjoying the evening,' I say.

'As always, you want in.'

'I'm trying to cut out all my bad habits.'

'You like steak, a fat, juicy plumper across those flames,' he says, dreaming something else.

'No food.'

'Pink, melt in my mouth hot,' he continues.

'Sure.'

'I love the women here too. I love America.'

'I should've learned my lesson a long time ago on picking up strange women from the club.'

'What you could be saying, could be true I just don't care. I let my prick guide me through the day, it goes this way and that way and I follow. Simple,' he says.

'If I threw a bail of water over you, would you melt,' I say, seeing how drunk he is.

'Nah, I'd thrive. I love watersports.'

'I'm willing to bet you're not lying.'

'Where's the outsider?'

'He is working.'

'I've got something for you,' the Czech says, startled by the passing rainbow of Fresnel from the battens.

'A surprise for me.'

Not catching on to my drift we walk across the dance hall past crazies reflexive to the happening beats of the yuppies Armani crocodile skins. I fend off an argyle turtle necker wearing klutz who gets too close and he receives a load of the Czech's palmed punt to his forehead.

'Chunya, go home,' I think he says.

We go outside, greeted by a new face and that of Jacks. A bearded fellow scratches his bald spot and looks about. A modern day Neanderthal standing upright with knuckles still scraped. He must have walked a long journey. 'Dusa's replacement,' the Czech says, with that the chosen one went to the club front and parks himself solvent.

'Tonight's the night,' the Czech says.

'For what,' I say.

'To pay me.'

'Who is this guy?'

'I can vouch for him,' he says.

I think throughout the preliminary stillness. 'What kind of payment.'

'I know, the deal, our terms standing hold, that is correct. I just want what's mine Ralph.'

'I don't have the money.'

'It's okay I know you wouldn't so I want you to boost me that Porscha over there.'

'Steal it.'

'We need a fast car for transport,' Jack says, excited at the thought.

'He's got this jack.'

'I do?'

From the back I study the confines of the agile fitting interior and pace to my own car at the side of the alleyway. I open it and search under the driver seat – go back to the Porsche bringing my newly constructed metal rod across its window. Bounced off – and before I can hit it again the Czech is loudly lauding it up to himself.

'Crack me up Ralph, you know this, stop, stop,' he says, wiping earned tears of joy.

'I don't like the position you've put me in here. Do you want it or should I return to running my fucking club,' I say.

'Back off with the window smashing it's a null plan. You run a valet service here, okay get the starter from the bowl you crazy tweaker.'

'Gee whiz it must have skipped my mind that they are inside,' I say, ironically opposed.

'What you waiting on go get them.'

Slid into the cloak room to the desk where my destiny waited behind the curtain with the other keys all in a mix. I count thirteen different sets and only one has a black mare emblem accompanying its centre. Peace of mind as I head back to them lost when I see their cargo in the trunk. Pulled up tight the car is filled with surplus, pistols, shotguns and assault rifles. Bumpers a few inches apart, both them wait ready for the transfer.

'Open it up Ralph,' Jack says.

Bending to get the secondary turn it cranks wide open, surprised by the size it immediately takes dumped shells and firearms dropped to the space from the bundling hands of two drafted, very anxious new friends of mine, I help them.

'Isn't this fun Ralph. It's just what it was like when food was not so easy to come by back home, we find a car take her for a ride. Pieces of junk compared to this but it was a profitable business even if the margins were tight,' the Czech says, busy racketing shells out by the load ramp of a Benelli. 'Thank our luck for German engineering.'

'What are you planning to do with all these weapons,' I ask him.

'Rob some banks, no I kid, it's been sold and none of this merchandise is mine to hold any more.'

'We better make a move its going to get busy out here real soon,' Jack says.

They hop in and leave the space at the helm for me to take. Squeezed in the back seat the nerves on Jack are tested by close passing headlights on our tail. Feel my involuntary lip twitch over to the extremities. Starting the car I read him in the rear view mirror and put the smirk back where it was previous not caring even while the Czech watched as he clicked his belt into place.

'Where now?'

'Downtown,' the Czech says.

Potential silver badged haunts of mine go hallelujah in a hail of gains on the free main road to wherever. Metabolism fit for the reviver, can taste it on my tongue snap. A goodbye for now a lullaby for later when I close them peepers shut after a last dabble at the tonics for a near to perfect nightcap. Doing two times the legal limit at a guess, driving such a beast of a car as this, maybe pushed my foot on the throttle more than I should have done but who cares its stolen.

After dark my view on the high tones is marred by the charcoals that swoop at cone intermits on dividing stretches of centre median guarded by mono girders that only stop for intersections. Kicks into me when I put down my foot watching the needle on the dial stall, throttled from nothing to maximum at each gear instance. My passengers heads fly back.

Lagoons close by the San Diego highway leak muddy ooze into a flatland bog, an unbroken, recycling of its inner guts. Over the hills cold seep rising but kindly hidden from sight under two layers of brine, an underwater lake under the bay.

I hear the rattle from the trunk of death as a wag tailed bullet gets lost inside the inner workings of the coupé. Slow it to under sixty, a mild float easing off the pedal and turn into the outside lane, power steering, the work of voodoo. Upcoming bypass gives me options, opting to take the coastal route through La Jolla village I make a detour to pay my respects to the seals on Seal Rock. Pulling up I see the tip of Point Mencinger emerge.

'Why you stopping.' Panic in his eyes he wouldn't sit still. 'The cars hot keep it going,' Jack says, looking out with his head stooped.

'It's okay I need to stretch my back.'

'What if the cops see us. I know they patrol around here.'

'Jack shut the fuck up, shut the fuck, up,' the Czech says, heading outside for a breather.

I get out too and hunt the beach for a view of them but I smell them before I see them. Not as nocturnal as I thought being huddled together asleep near the shore like bags of ubiquitous salt.

At the advisory boundary line stretching across the upper vicinity of the cove poked out the sand is the bottle of rosé me and Elise consumed. An illusive false lookout giving misguided directions to ships when a high sun is up on a presently shiftless ocean. Over the edge a steady stream of pebbles ejected by the Czech bounces on rocks below. It hits one of the seals and belly slides among the sleeping to get away. He laughs and pelts it more. Maybe this was my punishment for past sins. Penance. All humour is based on pain. He spits far below. I wait until he's finished and hit over the back of his head the Czech turned pulling at the gun in his waistband.

'Why'd you do that,' he says, touching the open wound I'd given him and right after comes the end of the rod shattering his teeth sending him backwards off the cliff.

When he hits the first flat stack of rocks I can see it breaks his bones. Loose change spills out of his pockets as he goes tumbling down and chime against the outcrop as he spins picking up momentum from each hard surface he collides with. Shock from the final impact blew off his shoes. He lands with an implosion on the pebbled beach shore. The seals at the lower area of the cove make way, and as he rolls into the sand they bark. His stolen change still bouncing to its final conclusion as he outcries in agony. He's moving down there lying on his back staring into the dark. Took sometime to get over but he does, and he brandishes his colt.

'What did you do,' Jack says.

'He'll be fine once I'm done with him,' I say, hands together, squatting.

'Fuck that I'll fucking shoot you man.'

'Do you like this ass pushing you around all day?'

'I-I'll, I mean it.'

'When you sold out and sucked it large for the corporates did a little part of you die inside.'

'I've had it with you,' he says.

'Follow me.'

He keeps pointing the stubby revolver at me all the time we walk down the trough junction of steps meandering to where he rests. Splashing through while he jumps over with rolled up pants I rodeo the Luna seamstress in a rising volley of sea air watching her waves lap the cove. Still breathing when we reach him, just can't move.

A stray nerve runs through me as euphoric as the plucking sound of a harpist's nylon. Blood engulfs his airways as he calls out in vain. I stand over him and watch him spasm in shock gasping for air. One-sixth of his ribcage looks deflated. I coy my head at his struggle. 'Sevastian, what the hell you're a tough son of a bitch.' He draws the lined up barrel on me and reasserts his trust in the gun with both hands on the grip. 'Help him,' Jack says, assertive but shaken.

'Okay I will,' I say, hands up.

The Czech makes an attempt to get up but can't. 'Shoot this piece of shit Jack, Jack what the fuck, do it pussy,' he slurs, on broken teeth and relish the taste, a bitten tongue but most of it due to having the wind knocked out him.

Checking his pockets the Czech lands a strike on my wrist. He leaves a bloody smear as I slap his pleading hand away. I find a jotter full of names and numbers. Amounts in dollars and franks, marks, and pounds in the margin. His wallet is fat as I squeeze it.

'He won't do what you tell him any more and neither will I.' I could feel my face was tightly clenched, overbite grips at my mouth, narrowly peering at the havoc I unleashed. It was so confusing to me. This Zen.

'Kill him, kill him, Jack.'

'Here's that money I owed you by the way,' I say.

Reaching to pick up some of his own change I throw a ceremoniously minted quarter onto his chest. Again to the offshoot of sagebrush by the bank I pick up a rock and hold it over his head. With all my force I bring it down upon him. Expectant that it would explode I'm dissatisfied when it's only flung deeper into the beach sand with the rock that rests upon his inward forehead.

Sharp snoring replaces his silence and each time he does so a convulsion follows its arrival. When he started agonal gasping, sincerely wished I hit him harder. Throat singing I peel the obstruction from his face beholden to the wreckage of an expiring waste.

'My god, oh my god,' Jack says, belated.

From the belt I relieved him of his weapon and interpret the imprinted serial number below the slide. When I turned with it I didn't aim with the sight and when I pulled the trigger it blew Jack's brains all over the steps. He fell quick and made little sound. I dropped the gun, went around him and followed the beach steps up to the car.

Skidding away I notice all the logos on the speedometer. Across five dials on the hooded panel above the steering wheel and all offer a different set of readings for the driver to make sense of. Testing a few buttons out I try to find a set for playback, furious at the lack of a CD player. All the new sports cars are fitted with these, seems to be an optional most would pay extra for.

Daydreaming on the parked trailers in a private lot at the end of my view I blink and they've gone. Through the near pass rebels are chased by a helicopter blinking its strobe that buzzed the ground behind the talcum homes at the windward end of my tour of the interstates saintly midpoint stretch. Next exit, Via de la vaile on exit 36 reads the sign that stands above the flatlands.

Wide tires planted to the pattern of the tarmac fix a set incantation in parallel to the rattle of the crankshaft. Ghosted down at the wheel. Never looking away while the path is set in motion to send me straight.

A chug of fluid discharged from the exhaust (now) and spontaneously wakes me from the onset with a self indulgent hypnic jerk but an unwanted noise that's neither here nor there really gets me off the beaten track. Is it the fender coming loose? Has a certain dampened quality to it, deflecting sound to unattainable heights. This subtle drumming of the bodywork of the car is lead astray, outside the steady flow that I've grew accustomed to, interrupted. I try to locate it. Shake my head when it can't be found. Pitch of it goes "hake, hake," micro to macro into the very present step.

It's unmistakable this was a conjuration welcoming whisperers sent to invade my privacy. It begins with a gavel knock. A back seat inquiry hosted by demons begins at sunrise. My eyes weep then shut.

'Are you going to kill more tonight,' the unknown one says.

'Do your own biding, my Ralph has his duties to fulfil,' Twist says.

'Torture, torture them don't kill them,' Maude bites back.

She came along for the joyride too and slapped me from the back of my head. Stunned I lose control of the car but gather my grip on the wheel before it slides completely off road. The skid of the car runs its course and has me facing the wrong way on the empty highway.

'I always liked the beach,' Brutus says, from the front seat.

Opening the door after pulling the hood release handle I step out and take a look at what the situation is like in there. Weapons of all kinds, mostly cheap exports from the Soviet's and the rest of the bloc. On top of the pile is a suitcase with a few magazines inside and I test which ones goes with what.

Bakelite's has the most with three bright orange magazines for me to take. Some sort of rifle will fit these things and testing one after another I come to one I know from it doing the rounds on national news dubbed the "Krinkov," a one the Arabs like to turn on and kill Ruskies with.

The ammo fits right in the slot. Other side of the divider a Lincoln fades away into the early morning smog. I intend to stay at the verge next to the reserved shoulder, test it, refresh, then again consider quitting until I can't see the tail-lights any more and pull back on the charging handle.

Aiming at some spit in the ground I sent off a single round that spools into the pasture splashing a ripple near enough where I wanted it. Ensuing round jam fired and seems nothing but a clean up will fix it.

Eight inch barrel of loud packing forty five rounder's, a neat trick – folding stock turns the Krinkov so tiny it can fit in a man sized jacket or suitcase. Along with the Browning Hi-power with extra ammo the folded rifle goes into that suitcase. All the rest of the guns I dump in a swamp and watch them bubble away to its basin.

Burglarizing, picking up hitch-hikers, bad blow binges, skanks from the club all things I've done but there was limits written in the back of my heart, of me that I never crossed. I guess the car looks to be about same as I found it, same bay, empty fish-bowl. I put down the single key anyway in a deserted club after hours.
20

Thursday, sat down with my baggage and donned bean roasted Ray-Bans to reach around for an ice and water in a tall glass. Filled the rest with malt whisky to the halfway mark, green tea in a ring pull can forms the frothy head and bedded a Heineken chaser with a misplaced Xanax after its creation for good measure.

I could extend my hiatus forever in thought with the quiet entropy leak of debased appliances buzzing away. Dripping taps and faint noise pollution serve to starve a man of his pestilence. Given enough time the lack of stimulus would ally with the addictive hemisphere of my brain to fill the gaps of tedium with all kinds of amusements, some that are familiar, others not much more than a lazy anomaly.

If a foe could ever be in direct control of your actions without a weakness to exploit or defensive agent to back your corner then that's the wild side of an ultimate power trip. Scary as it may seem that very thing exists. If not brought to existence, to be self aware by the scores of whom belong to its unwilling hegemony as prisoners of war. Lose the shackles, free a generation but how. Ditching the pills was my idea. Let nature take her course. She'd patch me up in time. A crushing failure in the end. Freedom is fickle.

'Since when did Roy Orbison lookalikes come to a joint like this.' He winks almighty crude in spite of my wings dangling on a hangover tightrope. 'D-ream on buddy let me fetch my finest candy coloured clown. Hold on just one second,' Stanley says, ploughing a call-sign at nobody. 'Ralph oh my where could he be, I wonder, woe is me.'

'Quit it, ain't laughing,' I say, a silken tang on my buds.

'No but I am. Going to call you Swifty Lazar from now on.'

'Staying for a malt breakfast.'

'Yes boss, its ten in the morning but on your orders.'

'Not like you to ever indulge in such a thing.'

'Protein,' Stanley says.

'Worried your hips will pack in when you turn over at the break of day.'

'There's only one thing I'm doing when I'm in bed,' he says, thrusting.

'Riding horses in your nightmares?'

'That reminds me I've got to do my exercises today.'

'What for.'

'Doc says I might have the deep vein thrombosis and he made it very clear that I should start eating healthy too.'

'Look at you in your maturity.'

'I've got all my teeth don't you know,' he says, stretching his blubber, showing those toffee caps for inspection.

'Get a load of those puppies, it's like a vandalized row of urinals at the Murph,' I say, reeling back.

'You look peaky today, I'm serious, maybe it's you and not me who should be jogging laps round the block.'

'Yeah well.'

'Eat your seven a day.'

'Daily dose of vitamin D, C, A and whatever the fuck else they put in here,' I say, welcoming him with my nightcap brew.

He sifts the straight glory of a gin and that face of his, kissless as it is from most the broads come rain and shine who visit us on the weekends might be, its, improved, safe enough for his coot of a mother if she had survived the rowdy ruckus that was the civil war. In his sights he takes it upon himself to study my suitcase like a four way solve on a Rubix's cube. My words and drink almost come out at once when I see him scorch a look at it. Know better by experience on using the floor as spittoon and instead chose to choke on it till it was done with me. My oesophagus burned a new kind of threat.

'Hand's off LBJ,' I say, coughing between breaks.

'Hey, kiddo, I told you not to call me that to my face.'

'Put her down smooth and walk away and it'll come into effect.'

'What you got in here then.' Stanley rattles it hard. 'Going on holiday without me.'

'Hawaii,' I say, joking at first.

'Aloha, aloha.'

'Why not come with, soak in the lotion, you could use the moisture.'

'And, you in pretty garland and grass skirt,' he says, smitten.

'A sick fantasy of yours?'

'Yeah, something like that only it's an Amazonian blonde, big missiles for tits wearing it.'

My head is pounding and the fermented ambrosia helps make it go away. Temperature on the tarmac outside quickens and its white glare akin to the smoke and mirrors in Halloween themed kill rooms, blasting pyrotechnics while geeks in overalls buzz the chainsaw overhead, Leatherface style.

Pins and needles in my blood vessels won't relent swaying me from lighting a smoke or moving around too fast. They're empty and I don't know why. It's the days fault blinding my hideout, this I reckoned. Whenever I've sat in the club its always been dark and that was a feature that had drawn an initial wave of Goths back when that was trending. Lack of any windows upstairs makes it hard for all but the artificial stuff to get inside via long tubes of xenon gas that burns day and night. If only from the beyond I could hug you all.

Got the crazy drooped eyes that startles an early customer who stammers into his happy place he calls the wall as soon as Stanley opens our doors to the public. I must have changed his mind though because he comes into the front lines while I'm still looking at him. A willing boar moving as one with the bric-a-brac, reincarnated as the sorrow of Pushmataha's traitorous shade, haunted by his fallen kin.

Drink will do it, drive a hungry man to a state of peril. He's got it bad. The faster he can flush his system before Vegas and pack them with new toxins for gastric acid to eat upon the better. We open several minutes earlier than the competitor and to him that equals a hecatomb worth of ritualistic slaying.

This kind of deadbeat I've seen before but altogether he's a new fish to me. Tar face, hair more wild than usual for a paint huffer, going off the puce bits in his beard. Scrubbed his face raw to get out as much as he has done with what I picture would be a thick brush with heavy set bristles, the kind you'd see Mammy Two Shoes use to clean a floor. The sights this poor chickenshit must have seen.

'Take a seat we don't discriminate here.' I say, making his profile. 'Unless of course you got a knife or gambit you wish to test.' For some reason I've always felt the need to provoke without provocation and did so to what was renown as the toughest kid in school back in my heyday who sat in front of my desk in class for all of senior year. Next to him another weakling did the same thing and took a harder beating now and then for calling his mother by her first name in such a lame way. I drew parallels to a real encounter I was witness to in a Sierra Nevada hunt; pair of Coyote heckling a slobbering wolf until it ran away from a fresh takedown. Don't know if that's why I do it. I'm more interested in why I still feel the need to impulsively act on it to this day. But in this instance, it felt wrong, with this bum it's something different.

'Say no more, that's not what I'm here for, look see,' he says, and lifts his army camouflaged jacket up showing that he's not packing heat. 'All I want is my gulping juice.'

'Don't we all,' I say.

Flipping the hinged pumps feeding our taps they deploy inflating its hose and Stanley serves the Indian fellow. Like clockwork the rest of the human zoo will enter our premises and spend his or rarely a her, welfare check. Only labour these screwballs have ever seen is on turning their insides black and to become desirable, for their better half, with a fine dusting of rosacea.

A common grooming process involves slack jawed illiteracy cut by the closest thing in the first world we have to full blown trench mouth. Foetidness is another important aspect of attraction as over the decades most senses dull and so to substitute for that any strong pungency they can use to distinguish sexes is a plus. Their behaviour isn't complex. If its whet then you're in luck, she'll give it two thumbs up and you get her legs up for one night, mileage may vary.

'Remember, if you're desperate enough and want to get your rocks off then look for the twenty dollar perm and gold chains in amongst a crowd. Whatever you do make sure never to look them in the face too long, they don't like it, confuses them,' I say, to Stanley quietly.

'Very funny Ralph I'll be sure to look out for your sister,' he says.

Next to come in like usual is the panda faced grotesque with a fair girl on his arm. He orders his club soda as vestige to his weaning rhythm he learned from alcoholics anonymous and sits near the pink neon palm tree. I once went to one of these meetings to spew my guts about how my grandpa gave me my first taste of alcohol at age eleven. I gave them my name and told them what I was. We'd sit in a big circle jerk and feel sorry for each other, tickling the others gonads until we were cured of our addictions. It was all part of my plea during an awkward intervention to go once and try it again down the line. Now that I killed a few men that was no longer an option.

Lay my head on its side and become aware that what's in front of me is sliding into a carbuncle vault, my quake of Frisco in the present. Uncontrollable fires spill out the bursting windows and engulf the skin on the freaks while its tarnished by the pyroclastic clouds that flows out any available organic vent. It hovers about the surface, recast and drawn upon its own weight it collapses by its own density, sucked back inside. I just want to shut it out. My own insecurities won't let that happen. A walk of shame through the peddlers of delirium that resides side by side at claimed seats greets me on my journey. Upstairs I find the futon and throw myself onto it.

'Ralph come look at this,' Stanley says, waking me up late in the day.

'What, what is it. Can it not wait.'

'Only the best news I've heard all year.'

Stray pixels from the next room, mumblings of a prune reporter on screen announces the end of an era at the beach as a suspected gang affiliated double homicide. Bangers and bikers come as the first of those accused and I smudge my nose tickled by the matter of fact way she raises the topic of who done it. Producers of today's broadcast will likely be sitting close to their always connected screens with fried egg for brains in a secluded area behind the scenes.

'We're free, don't you know,' Stanley says, holding me in a headlock. 'A meagre sum of affairs, yes, but that jackal is out of it for real. He had it coming.'

'Now what,' I say.

'We celebrate,' he says, letting me go.

'A man's death is the cause for a party, not likely.'

'Two men died get it right and prepare to pucker up because I could kiss you,' he says, actually thinking I'd let him near me.

'Casanova no.'

'What's the big idea. Frightened I'll break your heart,' Stanley says, reaching once more.

'Like it or not I'm glad they're dead but to toast them passing . . .'

'Shuffled off his mortal coil, the Czech and that yokel's kid. We truly are among the blessed.'

I turn off the news and check the weather report on another channel for today and the rest of the week, its hot all throughout until next Sunday. Evening creep was a surprise to me more than the campaign of splattered brain I left last night reaching the tendrils of the authorities. Around back I stepped off the curb into a stinking puddle and bathed in the peaked midday sun reaching the skin – passing its collateral as I pass oxygen to halt the panic attack surging at my chest.

At the slightest of sounds it flared up a disturbance in me. Something rotten. Rascals on the block are dared to run through the cooling spray of a hydrant. Watched as they move about in rainbow vapour with great dexterity as the water drains to one side and I flaunt with an idea of why it's not evaporated yet.

The gleeful whim of him as I walk back inside spurred on by the clinking of glasses seemed to be a thing of former glories. A shout of 'Drinks on me for the first ten,' from a festive Stanley trapped him in an unsuspecting charge by the sicko army. With an approving salvo they march toward the bar. I approach and wait for the ten to get what they want.

'Coffee for me.'

'Really?'

'Black.'

'Kitchens not even open, try a beer, go on you deserve it,' Stanley says.

'Beer it is then.'

It's strange to see that the wasters when you give them a taste of what they want and it's free are transformed from babyish to mellow and suddenly they've spawned manners. All by a token gesture but ultimately I wonder how long will it last for. Only the sober know peace from this kind of outcome.

'With the extra money shaved off with him gone we could refurbish the club.'

'We have to make money before we can spend it,' I say, attention on the busy lot.

'It will happen.'

'They just keep coming.'

'See, cheer up,' he says.

I see the reflection of a passing vehicle filter through its square blocks on the back wall then flash across my retinas. A fortune to myself I stand and announce my departure with a knock to the empty base of the beer bottle.

'I'm going home now.'

Feels like heaven to touch the wasted, warped materials of my Chevy Camaro. Decals on the wings are still held on by epoxy. When I start her up the vibration connects to the main panel on and around the dashboard. I've missed that sound. Ran my fingernails across a felt lining the lower trim. Its dirty engine chugs and turns about as quick as a mule yanked away from its tease in heat.

At the Wendy's I kill time eating fries and a frosty in a booth all to my own. I watch them come inside as if struck by a neurotic disorder that makes them wander congested through the doors like the very cattle they place to their lips did. I speculate for a while after I'm finished. Playtime pretending to eat as they do, spoon feeding slop to my mouth, a swinging king of the jungle.

A line has blossomed, now to a six person deep orgy. A mother with her urchin, is barely able to concentrate, head in her purse with two brats holding onto a leg a piece scratching ladders in her tights. They take their time being served. Those in the lurch clamour for another serviceable pay area to become available. Interestingly the select roster that has turned out is varied. At the very end is an engineer in retardant overalls with an insignia of a triple headed beast on his arm: "HELLHOUNDS, MALS – 39," it reads above and below. He is accompanied by an airman in fatigues and his wings are of the divine stallion, Pegasus: "EQUITATUS CAELI VMM – 161 THE FIRST," adorns his patch. Fanning her ebony face with a Boney M. album an inquisitive mousey haired woman leans to one side. Painted bright pink her fingernails are false and hair weaves on a budget. Next to her is a guy flummoxed by the reception his mobile brick transmits, a trader going off the business pages he clutches. Taking place two and three are a couple hugging and a short boy who keeps looking around when the pair keep forgetting he is there. I watch them one at a time order and deduce why these calibre of peoples have such tastes.

The menu all powered up, showing off the prime ground beef patty in a toasted sesame bun, nestled in a bed of lettuce, numbered rows of items to buy. A black girl with a headset strapped onto her serves me and for the sake of her college education seems to be in her element. Handfuls of sugar, salt and plastic's are placed into my travel bag and with a point at the soft drinks menu my ever faithful Uhura recorded it on her computerized log. With that I stepped back smug to the counter and ordered two hamburgers for the ride northbound.

On the same road I check my map when the horizon becomes more dominated by the mount of San Jacinto. Stopped to swing a club at innocent golf balls next to a scenic overlook my folks liked when I was younger. It was always quiet here and the colours kept any childish hyperactivity to a minimum.

A downside for us back then was anytime a friend of my father's older brother, an antique specialist called Jeb got invited. It wasn't so much him that was the problem but the change of atmosphere he brought with him. Out of hibernation he talked proficiently and dressed normal. A gifted charmer that could get away with most things even while he did it in plain sight under the guise of elderly friendliness. Kept to himself most days unless it was hot out and then he'd apply sunscreen to the same crusty patch of skin whenever he roamed about the camp. Some say it was a workplace accident involving boiling oil. Those bifocals he wore and rank body odour only made things worse.

His camper always had newspapers blocking out the sunlight and the shell outside was polished but stained yellow by chemical reaction. Was one of those busybody types when he wanted to be. A third parent telling us what we can and cannot do. Because of his shortcomings he was actively avoided and given a social stigma that promoted a growth of his bitterness. Quite often he could be found sitting outside in a deck chair grilling his dog for nothing. The poor thing always seemed to be hungry and searching for food even though it was well built. Why it never ran off I'll never know. He wasn't a sick man. You can't hide mental illness.

I have an urge to know if people like him and those who secretly chastised him are responsible for how a new kind of segregation came into fruition. An endemic paranoia that started from a suspected thought and ingrained itself into society as the norm. The way we treat each other nowadays, becoming the forbearing land of indignation that it is now. I can't say they are wholly responsible but instead part of a natural progression to a rot. It was well known in certain circles that he was a creepy loner but nobody spoke out much. A lack of dialogue, yet; if there were any to begin with it could have been resolved, that entire sordid mess. Raising happy children to become miserable adults, I'll never understand it.

One day I was unceremoniously told, when with old age it was no longer possible for him to clothe himself or provide basic every day provision that Jeb stuck a noose around his neck and swung. Didn't react much to it at the time.

I picked off a blade of grass and chewed it. Reached for another and saw the worms in the soil. It wasn't in me to find a place to call home, not anything like a settled life of that my parents chose. A nuclear family seared an image of me spitting limerick and changing diapers late at night while recovering from a hefty hangover. Staying put and playing it safe was such a turnoff and an outcome of "try it out first, test them waters," I'd get from people was crazed, it'd be easier to slow a stray firework from exploding.

On the trek a barricaded mine had been empty since the rush days according to the plaque at its entrance. At the inlet I stop to look in past the scaffolding. There was nothing left to see.

Near the out of the way fall I finished my last hamburger and let the plastic wrapper float on the currents to be whisked into a downward flow. The camp grounds are not in the venerated condition I had them for but the view hasn't changed. All that's important still works, the flowers of the desert like it here.

The rod I beat the Czech with travelled pretty far into the brush as it whistled down the canyon. Afterwards I took out that suitcase and rested it between my semi crossed legs. 1-9-4 – 4 swivelled into place on the combination and it clicked open. Revealing the folded weapon in a peep show gap. I close it feeling the prowling vigilantes on me even where the wild flowers grow and take it back with me to the car. Its rightful place upfront.
21

Along the hallway I hear a Latino family singing happy birthday. Party horns are going off at noisy intervals as they cheer. I pass the room they have gathered inside to celebrate another year and they fall silent when it's time for the candles to be blown out. They begin to clap and I head up to the second floor.

I put my keys away. A telephone is ringing non-stop inside someone's room. From one end I see my apartment door is half open. Pushing it further the folly arisen from out of hiding and she waits for me sprawled on the floor. The unfastened suitcase hit the ground and cracked on its hinge, spilling its contents about. Dropping to my knees I hold her tight.

'Here I am, Elise.'

Can see the dead in her eyes the light gone. Her smile won't come back tomorrow. Lifting her upright I try to shake her into life and wiped dried tears from her face with a thumb gently coaxing for some sign of life, of what Elise used to be. They took that from me. Her face now relaxed was once transfixed with fear. Now she showed only pale beauty quietly resting in my arms in dormant slumber. A fabricated dip in my inamorata to toil in the oncoming beat from the lonesome heart come inland. I begin toying with what or how the situation went down.

'Elise.'

Did they mistreat her before they shot her? I see what they did to my Elise, a bullet to her chest and thigh. Her sorrow is now mine as I absorb what's left of her and transform it into my own maleficence. Damp patch at her back where the bullets came through. It drips off her dress and I press my face into its cotton. Amid the softener a hint of spice emanates from her.

'Come on wake up.'

Touching her face it was cold, both pupils pin holes. She still wears her upright pony tail that was tied at the club. I close the front door and hold the knob looking at her from this fleeting macabre angle. Elise's final death throes is hunched with crooked fingers into her stomach grasping at herself, face side onto the floor. Rigor mortis has come in to play destroying her pith but not quite done with her muscle bides its time.

How it came to be how she fell in those last moments fuel my wish for prey to brutalise. I can't believe what they've done to my Elise. I don the horns of war. Sliding my hands down my aching, alert face. When the apartment is made safe, pointing the rifle in every corner of the room and ending with a non voiced finale behind the penultimate door I sit on the bed and breakdown. Praying with the Krinkov to my forehead. Death, death I pray, the death of them.

Whoever was calling next door gave in and was glad when its ringing cut out. I look at her again. An emerald bracelet is on her arm as I pull away her grip from her clothes. I slide it and another bangle off her lifeless wrist dreaming into the inlaid setting and touch the sterling clasp she dabbled with only this morning. Flex her ring fingers revealing nothing in both palms and hold on for the sake of it and find that I can't let go straight away. I allow them to recall back stiff to their final form. Cross her arms, at peace now I shut her lids and revert onto my knees once more.

'I always feel lonely on Wednesday nights, today is Thursday, that's right. Always hated Thursdays you know.' I stroke her hair. 'Was, you were going to show me how to dance today, wasn't it.'

This systemic trembling starts in my hand and spreads to my legs so I get up and try to shake it out of me. A clawed response into a leather chair of mine becomes my stress reliever. Out the window it's still too bright. I turn the chair around to face Elise and sit down.

A dripping sound from the sink overflows the dish, soiled with last night's leftovers. Turning the tap it shudders the tank, the pipes call out, yelping like a rabid mutt sorry for its trodden paw. Fast flowing water comes out at a cut throat opening localizing its pressure per square inch and I let it run itself clear. Mould has boiled the kitchen paint into a bleb that burst sometime ago so I dig my nails inside a flake not noticing below its overflowing and leaking until it gets me wet. It goes clockwise to turn it off. The sudden stop of the tap rattles the housing of the copper.

'Elise the communal water looks cloudy, have you noticed this. Its Legionnaires' disease I'm sure of it. Maybe I should wash my hands in manganese to be on the safe side. What do you think?'

Wiping my hands dry with a towel she didn't say anything and looked away to the other rooms partially fractured crannies in the torn wallpaper. A faint god ray shone through it onto her skirt – flap of its split is disturbed and it crosses my mind, what if they had . . .

In the room is a holistic pack of incense sticks turned to ash in a soap stone elephant that has been burning for hours. Of the several surviving sticks only one is still alight and it ebbs from the stem when I lick my thumb and forefingers to snuff it out, watching as it fades. From a draw I take out a floral sheet and cover her body over. I sit back in my chair.

'Tic tac toe, now that's a game we can play,' I say, scribbling crossed lines on blank paper.

With a cardboard box for support I hold it in place. Draw a fat "X" to the centre and leave it on the arm rest. Rolling my eyes across the front door I open the suitcase so its flat and organize the parts to the rifle. Assembled together what rags and cleaning agents I have at hand I lay them down next to another and prepare to fieldstrip it.

Upon examining the Krinkov's receiver its recoil spring is pushed releasing the cover. I pick out the spring, piston and stubby bolt. Pin release for the gas tube is tightly compressed and I wiggle it loose. Muzzle booster takes a couple of spins to be set free from the rest of the rifle. She slips off the thread and I stand her upright on the flash hider cone. Inside the barrel I follow the twist rate cut with a cotton rag stuffed in with a bit of bamboo I pulled out a planter. All this powder blackens the cotton rag in spent waste from untold burst rounds shot by ex owners of the carbine. Days gone by and it fell into my keep, my welcome hands. Each part is dry wiped and the barrel lubed. Hammering on the inverted stock something comes loose out the barrel. A heat worn lump of black coal falls out.

Placing the individual elements to the gun in its own separate area on a specially laid sheet on the concrete so I can keep track and after inspecting them one at a time its humbling putting it all back into working order. Top left first then follow the pieces to the puzzle in sequential steps and with the Krinkov whole once again I test her mechanisms, which all seem slick and give me no trouble what so ever. The charging handle no longer sticks and it freely cycles. I test it a few more times.

'Guess I lied when I said all our days together could be like it was before, all this. Had an inkling that what we had wouldn't last. Called it right. It's easy to incite a fire in a man's stomach if you give him something to love then take it away and he'll find out there never was a chance of anything in the first place. That kind of thing can't survive. Now I've got to make a choice. If we don't get what we want then none of us do. I could make it so. It's a tough one.'

Give the plum fascia on the rifle a last buff and put it back inside the suitcase and use my upper body weight to close it shut correctly this time. Slid the case across the floor and stood up to remove the chain and opened the front door checking down the empty hallway. My path is muffled on felt carpet backed by non-slip rubber. I'll walk into once fully illuminated spaces now consumed by the dark and wonder what I've done wrong to deserve this. It was quiet and I became a phantasm touching doors for a sense of movement behind them.

For five days a window has sat malignant. It whined when the wind came and right now a gentle evening breeze rocks the cradle. Ensconced ghouls with their usual habit squat in corners to converse at nightfall. Peeking through the square fire glass of the double door it becomes clear this night they aren't going to be a problem. Pushing the wooden frame for a gap to look down the stairwell an empty space is home to the rolled up mummy bag next to the shorting light.

While going to inquire the entrance its darkened noticeably outside. Stuck a wedge into the door, holding my breath when I stood up straight, cautiously prowl the pavement annoyed by the noisy crack in my legs. I stepped out to check the Camaro and while I was there I jimmied the trunk. It was quiet out. Even the wind was elsewhere.

Stopping at the cast iron postal boxes it seems they're all in slumberland. Inside my own personal locker box I turn my chubby key upon its lock and sift through to get my home depot catalogue when a grey parcel bound by shoestring with my name on its front falls out at my feet. I bring its visceral lines to my face and squint at the spider legged flicks of the joined up writing mess. Placed back into the box I lock it away and go back to my room.

'Only a few more hours Elise and then we can leave. I don't know where but we'll figure it out. Some place we went to when we were munchkins. I would like that. Those lower shoals we went to once is still nice; been to San Jacinto and it's not doing so good. Always have that image of the other mountain we'd play on, the one with a man made dam. I close my eyes sometimes and see you dive into the water and I'd follow and we would float along as logs letting the sun dry us off in the partial shade. It was real hot, this I remember. In the north there is Lake Arrowhead we would go to and it'd be nice to hold a piece of mulch and smell it again. What about the beach, no, not so soon after the first visit. Its where I killed him you know that tick that wouldn't let go. Should have walked. Too foolhardy to stop because that attitude of his was what got him places to begin with. Gets you in the end, being that way. On the bright side me and Stanley made things flourish. It's difficult with him to know if he hates me or pity's me when we fight. He's a hard worker.'

Going to the kitchen taking a step over her corpse to pull a carton of milk out the fridge and sip a sample of it giving myself a creamy moustache. Filling a jug with water from the tap checking its colour while it flows I use it to fill a pan. Expecting on it to heat up I go through the cupboards looking for food. Last time I ate real food Elise was still alive and for a while then I was in charge.

'Take it back,' I shout, rocking the supports of the fitted unit.

At the back are some packeted snacks and tinned foods. Sardines, tinned tomatoes, tuna and some freeze dried stuff. The pan boils over having left it on the hob too long so I turn it down a couple notches on the burner and empty a packet of ramen noodles into it dispersing some of its heat.

'Don't mind me. I'm not the most elegant of cooks out there but if you give me something to work with, to really get hands on I can perform miracles.' I kiss the air. 'My lasagne, bellissimo.'

Stirring my bitty broth I add a sachet of powdered beef flavour to the noodles in the pan and turn off the heat. I strain excess liquid into the sink and the rest goes into a bowl that I take with me back into the living room. Sitting with it ready in my lap I hold the pen and add a dual "X" in the top left corner.

'Your turn.'

Twirling a few strands onto my fork I suck up its taste into my mouth and continue to look at her after each mouth full while I eat the entire bowl. When I'm done with it I lean at one side of the couch and hang my arms out lame to the sides. I have control of my breathing, my faculties are in order but my mind races. Not sure if it was the ramen or my thoughts that have made me sick I sit slumped and useless. It spreads quickly to the stomach and has me questioning why this came about so soon. A hostile magnified reflection on its convex resin leaves my sight when I take my thumb out its decorative inlay allowing it to tilt back level. The fork in the bowl rattles around and squeaks on the slope. Left with an acerbic taste in my mouth that gushes from glands in the corners, I swallow its abundance. Was it from the water I cooked it in or is this a vile placebo I'm thinking too hard on?

Back into the draws of the kitchen I pull out handfuls of pills and take a few codeine phosphate tablets. My first two add up to 30mg and the next batch gets me up to twenty five pills for a total dose of 375mg. None of these have caffeine or any other useless additives so it should kick in fairly quick. After an hour I'm drooling and my tongue feels like it's an inflatable castle but by far the worst of it is the itch, an itch that can't be scratched out. The redder I make my arm with this histamine reaction in full swing the stronger the itch. I chew at myself and can feel its warmth under my skin, that need to fill again. Squeezed a patch of it on my wrist until it ruptures. No blood only a clear liquid seeps out of the chewed line of mauled red. Dotted across the skin are small cysts holding a viscosity within them. Curling my toes to stop me from tearing chunks out of my body it gets the better of me and, I still resistant to the damage of my nails use friction of my clothing to stem the urge. Touched upon my few days new wound. Anti-histamines for pollen allergies will do the trick and shortly thereafter a single lozenge helps cull the wide berth I had been giving the window. Outside the ground was dark but the skies were tame. Golden cumulus linings for the golden state.

I grope my face and chin to find that I had grown a beard, that was new. Inside the bathroom I tap the sink with a razor hoping more hairs will fall out the blades. When they don't I force them out with a nail brush and shave with the chipped single blade that graces across my cheeks in stifled slashes. When it's time to wash I look at the shower head and use the same brush to scrub away its calcium grime in the trypophobic perforations. I undress. Soap and a sponge are used before I turn on the water and with its lathered coating applied to my body I release the valve on the thermostat. It squirts into life and jets cover me in the doldrums. Herbal shampoo is taken from the caddie and I open the cap and squeeze the scent of apple to my nose. I work it into my hair. With it running over my scalp a trace of its foam gets inside tender tissue and makes it sting. My eyes hurt too and I rub them until its neutral. Starring at the nozzle while it comes out I sag against its tempered glass scrubbing at my wrist and the rest of the screen fills with condensation. A mark left days ago shows up within the mist.

Rinsed my hair clean. I drain the thick of it in my crunched grip and upon stepping out water evaporates from the top of my head. When I'm dressed I look out the window again while buttoning some jeans and know its time.

Latex gloves morph to a new topology. Ransacking the kitchen draws I pull it off the runners and search through it on the floor. Finding what's needed I roll it out at two equal lengths around Elise's body. Flaying each black bag from its other and with a taut shake they inflate. Her feet, delicate feet go inside. Hands, full arms to the elbows and torso all squeeze into the restrictive fitting plastic. Scoop her hair by the base of her neck and ease her into another single bag. I duct tape her neck, ankles, wrists and finally torso.

Checked that my essentials are with me and open the front with an inspection for sound. Turning back to her I see on the coffee table there is another note. I line them up by sliding them together and open both notes half fold. The first one is an old one written by my hand and bares the ink of a pen I stole from that pound in Vineyard. Still have it with me and I screw it in half to make sure the origins of the ink match and they do. Succeeding note has the same flicks from the package downstairs in my locker, it reads: "Understood. Thank you for replying and for the memories my special cinnamon bun, hope you're happy too. T". With it and my own note I threw them into a portable electric fire and turned it on for all of ten seconds and it melted to the element and buckled around its child guard.

I lift up the body keeping steady as best I can, aware the noise that emits from a rustle of all this plastic I've wrapped around her. Proceeding slowly down the corridor with her close against me I turn my back and brace for the impact of the double doors. We traverse some stairs passing by a returned sleeping homeless man in a corner of the flat stairwell and bump through the apartment entrance to my car parked right outside with the trunk already popped. Elise dipped inside by the crook of my arm fell into the trunk and I closed it looking around to see if anyone was about. I moved out of the apartment lot and headed out south towards the coast highway running on half a tank.
22

A crust of earth as big as the irrational can fathom swallowed me and the highway and I didn't give a damn about it. I found I wanted to smoke myself into a stupor, help me forget everything before the point my lips first touched the filter. I'd give in, resent the cigarette and allow its pollutant into my system. Except that hallowed figure in my trunk didn't like me smoking around her.

Two shadows darted across the ground. Power lines. By the space ahead I don't seem to be moving, let alone closing any distance on this stretch and its straight wobble that changes little, mile after the next. A bit of brush here a deaf dust devil wisp playing catch up over there.

Hit a single bump in the road which sent my sunglasses crazy. I levelled them at the bridge, neat behind my ears. Feedback from it has me looking backwards in agony. Stark escarpment in the view back at the spa resort; same as the front.

Caught in the thick of a subtropical steppe its undeniable being on this the illicit side of the fault zone is akin to pandemonium compared to that of the valley. Its fertile in the vicinity of Mission Creeks sliding tectonic plates carrying with it an occasional seismic wave and a huge swathe of groundwater. Thanks to the aquifers this allows the crops to germinate. Here in the badlands nothing grows.

Taking this journey for the two hundred and thirty ninth time this year I went long for a change. An arbitrary sentence depending on which way I'm going, its either time to go right or I go left. It starts with the canyons that belong to that of the Morongo people, here lives the giant Cabazon Dinosaurs that eats tourists for lunch at five bucks a pop, past Beaumont onto the flats of Perris, I see the Sun City summit and pour out some of my drink to christen those few friends lost on the sharp bend, it escalates here between two paths of which I switch on a habitual route of one for departing and a longer way for home. All roads lead to Temecula. Thus beginning the onslaught of the Avocado and the Escondido expressway, again depending if going South or North. A connecting route 76 is where it takes me, ass end of Camp Pendleton.

At the coast an algal bloom rides inward on the surface with the tide at the harbour, crimson, only visible under a flood lamps aurora. I used to like the sea and its motions but not any more. Mostly because of what kept creeping into my plan uninvited any time I passed it. An idea of having Elise 86'd into that swamp with all those stolen guns. Wrong, plain wrong but she needed to be safe some place. I'd flip a coin but I don't have one with me. If I endure she will be pleased. Not lady luck, I'm talking about her lesser known sister.

Back on the I-5 so soon. Made record time what with the traffic being out of the way as it is. Withdrawn by the passing of single cars on the other lane the words on signage when they come into view bring with them a dazzle of aberration. It's still too bright even with the glasses on. I keep to my own and hope the visor will do the trick.

Inert gas enters through grilles in the bonnet connected to a duct and is processed by the radiator, bringing an air blended stench with it. A steady gasoline dream gets me high and culls all the synapses firing on time as expected.

A travelling troupe of evangelicals outside a chapel make a sign of the cross and kneel at its doors. The holy symbol on its spire followed me on the curve down and I take a left at the bypass and enter Carmel valley. On the El Camino Real route and as far back to the vales of the Cristobal, across open ground lies the home to wandering game in denser parts. A lost mule deer sounds off with a roaring grunt and a faint callback arrives just as I spot the Dodge Aspen closely following me with its headlights dimmed low. I know the car. It was one of those being washed by a scrawny boy at Havon's mansion.

Tired body, weary soul. I keep a lookout with a repetitive right to centre stare. I've become rigid. Every movement starts with an ache at the tightness in me. A passage that takes me around the houses comes up but I skip it. The main stretch I chosen instead is long. It's a predictable way ahead.

In passing a wind blasted field – covered by the fallen sails of a tricoloured banner – it jogs my memory. The ranch outline is scanned at the convergent peaks of slender chimney tops.

Taking a turn off into a dirt track the cowpoke let those livestock of his rove free as usual. Awakened from out of the depression an all seeing eyeshine cast upon me. They parted instinctively trampling ridges they never did cross until now. Amnesty on a cattle thoroughfare, making little to no noise but that of what's under their hoofs. Second guessing them while they pressed against each other exhibiting panicked behaviour servile to the monster and collapsing again when I sped off once I had cleared the last cow. In my rapidly expanding view behind I see them fall into the trap. A meat checkpoint held them at bay and I stepped on the gas to escape. Soon enough they were hidden by the hills.

Mother nature had spared me an ending for now and I stick my head outside to kowtow the almighty and feel a rush of its power come at me. A word for the upholders of pantheism. By virtue of the truest form of spirit pre-dating the barbarous power three (now in the laughable teens) by millennia.

I yelled as one with the deer out my window, 'Suuuuue, su, soo, sioooouxsie,' my quickly chosen, borderline war cry.

Hyperventilating with laughter, a cure for fostered urges. Swerving on the bend, crossing over to the other lane they wouldn't close the distance I have on them yet and in my brief period of puerility lag vital seconds when I straighten up after getting too close to the brink. Scattering gravel in the pit I stop the car and hold onto the headrest. Soon I see it on the corner coming fast on the road like all hell was chasing them. For too long I was a fraternizer with this hulk of metal hurtling for me. More, much more of it filled my vision.

A volatile response took over. Speeding away on the crumbling shoulder the lead that I had once commanded whittled to a mere rift. While they are pursuing me like this my foot never leaves the floor. I look to the side and around back, I look down and check what I have brought with me. The suitcase, tee's and a handful of pearl white and luminous golf balls bounce around the foot rest dropping off the seat.

Looking back again I couldn't make them out. All this dust scattered from the wheel arches stops me from seeing where they are. It floats their way and spread thin enough to encompass a slight advantage. Coming to a clearing I see a spot in the hills thick with shrubbery exactly where this limited road forks.

Slowing down I jump out the runaway SS too preoccupied to find the handbrake and stop. The suitcase comes with me and I watch the car roll into a ditch nearby. In a hail of worry the keys are left behind and headlights still shine on without me. Embracing the dark beside a single sleepy rosewood I make my first attempt to hide and notice how close to the road I am. Stepping over the parks stone wall I fall through the barbs of cleaver weeds and an undergrowth amassed to take snatches at me like ravenous pincers waiting on feeble vermin.

Climbed up a short highpoint in the hillside and stopped to look back onto my obvious abandonment of the Camaro. With a susceptibility to decide, I chose to wait on them to pull up behind my car for a better look on who these people are.

Hearing the Dodge coming I swing open the case keeping a low profile in the dirt as the headlights come probing into the trees. Pulling out the rifle it bulges to the touch on its machined receiver by which I hold when I turn it upside down and slot the magazine into the well tight. I unfold the stock and pray I put all the pieces back together the right way. A spring or a gas cylinder out of kilter means I'm dead.

I get a long look at the driver when he switches on the interior light above his head. A weaselled faced menace, most unfortunate that I don't recognize him or his other three reclusive passengers with him.

Professed my need for him to stop, I take it all in. There's no markings on the vehicle and their clothing, it's not that of an official or anything close to that of the authorities. It's the regalia of pond scum, filth, nothing that will be missed. I line up the iron-sight over him when I see their pistols come out of concealed holsters while they reach for the door handle.

The echo from the blast is delayed. A steady fully automatic burst collides with the driver when he about steps out the car. It tears through him and enters his passenger spraying a bloody imprint across his window. Both slump dead and the others in the back open fire on me. From a safe vantage, the earth protects me from their pot shots and I point my Krinkov over my head blind firing the rest of the ammunition. Reloading the rifle the silence of them tells me I'm winning even when I look into the suitcase and see that last remaining magazine. Peeking over they are out of sight and must be hiding back, other side of the Aspen. If I concentrate I can hear them talking with one another, giving away their position.

'I'm going to take him apart.'

'Go ahead, I'll watch you from here,' the other says.

'Always were a pussy weren't you Frankie.'

'Don't get smart with me dumb ass, I mean it. Run for the cover of that tree and I'll keep him busy while you go.'

'Right on, ready,' he says.

An overweight man runs out from the car into the open weaving with a shotgun looking the wrong way. Treble rounds in a quick sustained volley leaves the chamber clean out of my Krinkov's barrel and mows him down.

'Shit, hot damn,' I shout out.

A bullet whizzed past and the latter hit the mound in front of me. He knew exactly where I was hiding now.

'I'll get you. I'll make you pay for what you've done, you will see, you'll see.' he says, as I hear him reload his weapon.

At a guess the last man standing is a hundred and fifty yards out submerged in a furrow now and if he is carrying a pistol like I suspect he is then he's well trained being able to aim a shot that close to hitting me. I hear him moving and trade a few more shots with him unsure where he went to after my finger left the trigger. We both shift for an opportunity and being this far out from civilization I only had myself to count on.

Without looking I ducked when a rapid crack from his gun sounded off and sat face down expecting the worst. An alkaline taste at the ceasefire I listened with my chin raised now. Alive, both of us. It was then made revealing, that uncanny sound of him snagged on the weeds that I decided to crawl over to see him out in the open running back to grab the shotgun his fallen wingman dropped. His anatomy is more refined and he deviates from the first approach far quicker than that of what I had witnessed prior. Taking it in his run the comprehension of me measuring him in my sight causes him to stumble and activates an urgent hormone rush. Positive that I had him I fired the rifle until the trigger clicked empty while he sought shelter back behind the car. All my shots missed. Never fired at a running man in all my life and with no notion of backing down now this is how I guess, where it went wrong.

'You want this, you want this?'

'Anytime. Your looking pretty lonely down there.'

'You got lucky, come see me. I'll give you a tryout,' he shout out across the glade.

'What for, so I can shove that gun up your ass,' I say, watching, ready.

'Really think that's what's going to happen pal.'

'Ask your friends,' I say.

'We've been watching you. Had you figured out for a while now. Saw you put a body in that trunk of yours.'

'Oh yeah, and what does that matter.'

'Me and my friends killed that slut. You should have heard her die, like a whore.'

Wiped the sweat from my brow and fired a single round his way. It made short work of the double layer as it ripped through the outer panel of the Dodges reverse wing mirror but it missed its target because I can hear him laughing.

'Please, please mister don't kill me,' he says, with a stupid snivelling voice. 'That girl bit the dust too fast for me, I wanted to fuck her so bad.'

Flicked the dial above the trigger to the centre position and spun my eyeballs back and ran out firing wild into the Dodge Aspen. I cross the ground while the stickum plants come for me laying seeds upon my socks and it's a struggle being this entangled at my ankles to keep him pinned. Having nothing with which to return I get across there and throw myself up against the body of the driver hanging out the open car. Ducking beneath the undercarriage I see him cowering at the back wheel and I open up on him. He screams when it penetrates his legs causing him to fall on himself and expose an easy target. Injured he goes to shoot with what energy is left and I stop that. I stop it with a jacketed tungsten core to the face and see his tonsils ripped asunder at the back of a dying mouth. As the fully automatic rounds drilled him his face crumpled and bone fragments blasted to powder tear through flesh. The final few rounds shatter his resemblance of a man taking the tire with his face as it blows out.

I'm gripping her so tight lying on my side but how tight I really don't know. Taking the last of my bakelite's out for inspection a jammed round is left at the very top of its grooves. I put the safety catch on and ousted a stray from the chamber. All these men, they were all dead. Have a sad bewilderment on their faces. Almost like they didn't see it coming. Neither did I.

We have a Frank T. Lennon, the portly one is Clifford, Benny here's a donor and the driver an unverifiable who's covered in so much pomegranate that he's off limits. I wreathe what's left of him with a wash cloth and drag him away. His brains unloaded into a soufflé purée. I gag a little at the pinky bits and left him slurry down on the ground, using a cloth to stretch his pocket open, inverted it to take out his licence. The name on it was Mike, a generic name. He was forty two and a skinhead in his DMV snap and what a sourpuss. Why did he feel the need to pull such a face at all times? He looks better off dead. It hits me right there and then, that this is my justification and I'm glad he's gone.

With the handbrake off I went around and pushed my Camaro out of the ditch I had left it in and wipe at the hairline fracture in the main windscreen. Shook loose various offshoots of sweetgum stuck in the grille. I lean on the side of the car and look up to the view the men I killed must have had on me.

Stayed clear of the patch of sticky cleavers and walked to the mound where discharged casings lay spent in a pile. I took the gun and shoved it back inside the suitcase. The tip of her muzzle was hot and sizzled the plastic framework. A burnt stink followed me as I delivered my haul, the thing that saved my life today.

Sitting in the sill of my car door I hold my hand to keep it from shaking. Can still feel the jolt of the butt vibrating against my forearm. Out of the cup holder I take a lukewarm coke bottle refilled with tap water and wash it all away. Empting the whole of its contents across my head makes me feel better and I let the moisture settle upon me. I don't remember if I ever blinked. Wiping my face dry, tape on my nose loses its gumption and falls to the ground. The cut it protected has healed well and I don't mind the lease of new sensations the air brings.

Looking up at the space between the trees, caws of night-time creatures ease my weary trepidations. At this hour the close by branch tops are as dark as the sky itself until you notice ubiquitous stars swimming in a silken vestibule so very far away and out of touch. My eyes focus but they can't reach far enough. To grasp at the limits just once would mean I've become an abiding serf of the other side. The great suspended trapezoid in the sky. I close my view on it in the dark.
23

Moving the dead men wasn't easy with two cars and a host of trouble laying down in the dirt. All of my attention was on them. This was far too incriminating to bluff and would come to more violence if an evening drifter or good Samaritan came wandering past and so I do what first comes to mind. An obsessive-compulsive review of the surrounding area is transformed into a fine tuned mnemonic. It works for me as I kick the soil over sodden gristle and highly oxygenated spatters, churning it into a molasses. Hiding the tracks they made and, died in also.

The driver goes in limp, passenger side with relative ease and same for the other two who are pushed into the back seat of the Dodge, tangentially sitting upright as hard pressed mannequins against one another. Furthest away is the fat one who made it some twenty paces or so before he fell. Pulling on him won't work, he needs the aid of something manoeuvrable. A collection of logs from the elderly cultivation region of Black Mountain are used alongside a seat cover stripped from the dead men's car. It carries him aboard his new retreat amongst the pine needles and rolling crunches of edgewise plates of bark underneath. Can feel the sweat on my back. Every heave brings him a fraction closer.

The shower proof polyester wraps tight around his head as I pull on it highlighting the dome and nose and sunken sockets, his mouth opens. He moans gibberish through the suffocating cover sucking it deeper down. I hit him, square in the face with a straight jab completely involuntarily. Alive after all this time, how? Regardless, I carried on pulling him along but he grew stronger and more lucid. The fabric was still over his face and he writhed around complacent as a pupating silkworm in its cocoon. Softened the burden. Took the stretched ends of it to hand and brought it together in my squeeze. I pull on it tighter. He sits up to break himself free from the elastic mesh. His middle fingernail breaks off trying. I won't let him. He fights it and his bowels release. Doesn't kick for long and I hold on for more than I should have just to make sure.

In moderate temper I dropped the prostrated body to rearrange my Adams apple several times and swallowed. Logs from the back are replaced at the front and I begin to move him again. I alternated from pulling to pushing from his back and watched as his gelatinous thighs wobbled as he moved. When we came to the Dodge I needed to clear room for him and slue a one by his shank into the far seat awaiting the next with an eager hand to compact him. He went in slow, the big fellow as a constant force of a knee or an elbow had to be applied while lifting him.

Collected their pistols and the shotgun they used and throw all inside. The cover went over them beginning their synthesis. It was a different kind of stretch. With my shoulder to the door it took some shunting with his frog legs pressed up against it before it would close. Backing away it felt as though bramble had been shoved in my throat as I await my own turn at the grave. A last surveyance of the area itself was too dark to comprehend and from the outside the cumbersome placement of that cover added a greater chance of discovery by the public. Whatever could he be hiding, they'd say? Yet to leave them exposed was worse.

Started the car purring and with a friendly tug at Mike's neck reset his clean shaven chin on the dash, reversed into a back slope and drove. This leads onto a smaller bike trial, which out of ramps and dunes also had an oasis. Stopped off there to admire it. Spun the evergreen tree air freshener into a tangled mess with a stiff prod.

On the spot I turned and risked an excursion to a moor not readily available on any maps to a knoll and rode it to the flats. Tall vegetation stalks disrupted my line of sight. They fell committed. Ploughed wheels went over plenty beaten turf of smaller tread and I parked before my ride sunk any further into the heath. The car door cranked wide disturbing shoots of cattail, projecting fluff into neighbouring plants.

A tied up row boat rests next to the wharf. I check the stern compartment and take anything of worth with me. Its congested on the bank with rival matter that thrives to survive. A supple wind beats a clarification on the coagulant. It barely rains, but here exists a permanent water source. It feeds them well. Serves the semi-aquatic rodents too judging by the breakwaters on the surface.

The flecks of spatter brought an intrusion to my ephemeral concentration and a floundered plunk into a clay rich crater made me try to pinpoint the closest available laundromat who's services were low-cost and asked no questions, saw the street it was on, the trio of drums spinning a load of old biddies bloomers, sitting on benches who were collaborating under an off-white light, through which the public could see them all through the oblong glazed front.

Pushing through the reeds I took a red gasoline can from the trunk and settled it on a dry patch by the dams lower cross-section. I went back and dragged the men and piled them high. Doused them good and proper.

'Hell of a night to go on a botany field trip isn't it Ralph.'

'Who's there,' I say, pulling out the browning and aimed it true.

'Over here, warm, cold, colder, very cold, better, yes, warmer, warmer, red hot.'

Sitting on a rough wall is a man kicking out his legs, showing his brown herringbone socks, wearing a bowler hat and suit, an impeccable boom time dress code. Given my view it's enough to see he's pleased, hands shrunk down into his lap.

'Raymond is that you? What are you doing here,' I say, regulating each of my formulations.

'Moral support.'

'Pragmatism is a no-no?'

'Indeed,' he says.

'Are you an accountant or a spook.'

'Sometimes.'

'Wait, I don't even care.'

'Come on buddy don't be like that.'

'I'm talking with my shadow,' I say.

'The worth of a man is the sum of his affairs, try not to forget it,' he says, reprimanding me with an authoritative tone of voice.

'I'll start over then, why are you here.'

'Ralph I'm dying.'

I start laughing. 'Is this for real?'

'I'm too old for this game. A part of me said "this is how it goes". "If" crept in and I knew if – you were to agree on certain do-gooders becoming a problem then we could really become valid partners,' Raymond says.

I notice his hair has greyed and his face is wrinkling, dropping dandruff onto his navy blue suit. 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend, is that what you're on about.'

'Sort of like that,' he says.

'At least your honest. What is it this time,' I say, in an ironic verve.

'Just hear me out and let's be clear . . .'

'Go right ahead.' I continue to pour a few residual drops out the gas can.

'It's a tragedy how unmotivated you are,' he squints, shy of provocative whim. 'I've come to dictate your fate and here it is,' Raymond says, while he holds up his downward pointing thumb. 'Now if you listen to what I have to say, the odds on it are no longer important.'

'Looking forward to it,' I say, straight faced and cocky.

Backtracking in my own muddy footprints I reach the outskirts of the swelling body of water. He follows after me from afar and runs to keep up holding onto his bowler hat. I look up to that hill and wait for him. He bushwhacks through the mantraps to save time and has the spirit of a weaker orator than he did before. I just look at him and nod. To the top of the hill I go and crossing the dirt track to pick up a bundle of loose sticks by now Raymond has caught up and facilitated to gather a few more for me. In my hands he carefully merges the collective branches and termite infested stumps that was found and I tie it together with some leftover fishing line I brought. At the main track I leave it aside for later and continued on walking back to the spot I had left the Camaro in. Raymond comes along with me.

'Can I ask you one question if I may,' he says, giving me a depraved stare.

'On top of the others you're begging for.'

'What is it like to stare at oblivion.'

'Oblivion,' I repeated.

'The things that you've done.'

I hear him badly misstep in his workplace shoes. 'It's the same emotion you would get if you were to look on at paradise,' I say, indirectly at him.

'Riveting,' he says, searching tentatively within.

'A surprise is the same connotation whether it's a positive or negative experience. It's in the partaking where you can gather any real substance, in spite of the beholden,' I say.

'This could really motivate a person.'

'Which way though?'

'And therein is the trouble,' Raymond gives a sigh. 'Where to begin.'

'I've decided for myself.'

'For how long do you plan on being out of control like this?'

'As long as it takes me. If only I could live a thousand life's in one sitting to prove it to you to be certain. But I can't.'

'It'll leave you bankrupt. Your health is at stake.'

'I've never felt better.'

'You're sick in the head, and need it vetted,' he says, matching my stride.

'I'll take that test.'

'Only to fail.'

'I beg to differ on what is and is not a normal mind. Even go as far as to say there is no difference between a healthy and a sick one,' I say, belligerently focused.

'Ralph you're making excuses for your faults. There is a clear distinction between the two.'

'A sick mind is sick that's a fact, sure. With a healthy one you have a gap that needs satisfying and at some point in time its fulfilled with a caffeinated beverage, alcohol or hardcore ice in your arm. Afterwards you're just as bat shit insane as the insane.'

'This is a disappointing outcome.'

'It's my choice.'

'I respect that. An exodus after all must begin with a catalyst to get things going,' he says.

We come to the last clearing on the left where my car is at. I climb in and so does he, I buckle up and he does the same and we head off using the way we came from twice now in total toward the dam.

'What do you really want Raymond?'

He confronts me with a taunt and rebuts my questioning with a question of his own. 'Do you know what they say about Maude?'

'There are a lot of rumours.'

'They say she's a clairvoyant.'

'Maybe that's what makes her so insufferable,' I say, again making sure that he was in fact real and beside me.

'Wouldn't you be peeved if you could predict that future. Me, I'd use it.'

'How so?'

'You know very well about the ongoing war, yes,' he says.

'I do.'

'I come to you as an ambassador in neutrality. I only want you to be well. To do that its – bloody murder.'

'Do what?'

'Why I've chosen to adopt it, this mantra and I'd rather like to assume control.'

'Under what guise,' I ask, compulsively driven.

'Dunno hadn't thought it through clearly. Peace and love?'

'Get out of here with that.'

I stop the car for the bundles of wood, open the door and pull on the makeshift bowknot handle placing it into the back seat. We set off again and I let the car roll down the hill without any need for throttle.

'Order and harmony then,' he says.

'Same thing dipshit,' I say, quick off the scrabbled retrofit.

When I step out the car he keeps on talking. 'After the lady Abacadia was exiled she left in her departure a vacuum that needs to be filled by someone. Anyone! Who that person is is dependent on those with the closest skill set that matches to the available position. That person is me.'

'Are you going around telling any Joe this information.'

'This is as much of my deck of cards I'd allow them to see. My true auspices will be, a work in progress.'

'So you don't know or haven't decided what it is yet.'

'And what doctrine do you live your life by perchance?' Raymond says, annoyed, but he kept it to himself, his only tell, scrunched crow's feet.

'It could be any of them. If you're talking about those that govern a way of life for a nation then who cares. A moral compass can be inaccurate like any tool. As soon as you create the greatest of principles to follow on paper you immediately wish to introduce it into the wild. To get a feeling for how it works. At this point it becomes clear that upon factoring in that extra dash of humanity into your grand theory it breaks down and corruption becomes rife, the wicked win, poor folk suffer, people lose hope and blame each other,' I say, snapping sticks in half.

'We are not dealing with your kind.'

'Yet getting to know you all its indicative you have the same problems we do.'

'Unity in a single cause is the key,' he says, poetically poised.

'In this case?'

'A spark of an idea that a better life can exist.'

'In your scheming, what will that achieve. Aren't you afraid when they find out its lies.'

'It will bring about unrest for sure among the lesser caste. An almighty hubbub brings them closer to want a reform, it won't fail to encourage them to rebel. Strike discord into the hearts of the grumbling fence sitters.'

'Outright toppling them,' I say, unsure.

'That's it, that's my plan,' Raymond says.

'Who in their right mind would buy that and how is it that any of this would not be quashed from the onset.'

'Ousting a dictator isn't easy. Although a coup d'etat doesn't have to be unpleasant, if it can be helped. Some input from you would be all it would take.'

'Only if you can manage to get away with it?'

'Subterfuge is an important part of any conflict.'

'You're just a financier, aren't you. What do you know about hard truths.'

'Plenty kid.'

'Thought about as much. You're all the same.'

'No that's not true.' He unpins a multi-cabochon brooch from his suit, 'Take this as a measure of my true intentions.'

I take hold of it. 'What is it.'

'It'll unravel that blindfold you have been wearing for what feels like an eternity and open a new arena for you to explore.' Raymond smiles and takes the brooch back and fastens it to my plaid shirt. 'Auxiliary stones have an enchantment, the waxen bridge, the folding spring, the spike. It all comes together.'

'Thanks – I guess.'

'Don't mention it, just keep it close and don't worry, nobody knows about its importance except you and me,' he says, and dusts me off.

'I have to burn these leftovers now,' I say.

Raymond coughs like he had a bad flu and undergoes a transformation. He suddenly lacks any facial features and instead has what looks like white plaster of Paris mould slopped onto his face. This extends only to the far abandoned reaches of him, intertwining with his hairline. Amounts of the white substance have dried stiff and a globule of pliable syrup burst as he tried to say something. Embarrassed his posture sank low and hands raise to catch his face. A dough mixture falls from him and he juggles the falling pieces, gluing them back onto himself where he can. Raymond goes to talk and the clay goo stymies entering his gaping mouth, like blowing a chewing gum bubble then inhaling its contents. He turns away and sculpts secretly then back again and his usual features have returned.

'What happened.'

'I don't have long left,' he says, out of breath, sweeping back an unruly parting.

'Is this an act,' I say, still sceptical.

'I told you I'm dying. It's a process I'm going through and you have to be the first of your kind to encounter what it looks like for an immortal to die.'

'Are you a part of the losing side.'

'As it stands, yes, yes I am.'

'Nothing can be done of it,' I ask him.

'Die here in this place, right now, never . . .'

'How will it end.'

'I have some choice in the matter, I decide where I will perish. Ride out the last of my days where I want to be,' Raymond says, and his eyes flutter to the sky.

'Be strong.'

'Courage alone is of no use,' he says, hand on his chest.

I choke up while watching him fade. 'Why would I side with the loser?'

'In the future it's a decision you will need to prepare to undertake. By then you will have matured.'

'I'm accountable for any of my wrongdoings,' I say.

'That's what it is to be a man,' Raymond says.

'So my father said.'

'Aha, valuable life lesson he taught you.'

'Don't you realize I know that already.'

'A friendly reminder.'

When I dangled the gasoline can by its opening and surrender it to gravity I turned to him expectant of a discouraging word or two but he was already gone. The blockade had lifted and so I went back to collect a rag that was stuffed in the compartment of the dodge where the antifreeze is kept. Bound to the end of a sheaf of sticks its absorbent enough when dipped into the can and revolved around the container sides. Flint sparks crackle at the ductile rasp and ignites at once. I hold it at an angle while it catches alight and ease off until it's done. A tower of stiffs awaited.

'Rest in it and all that its worth,' I say, throwing the torch onto them.

It ignites a great fireball into the sky and they're clothes burn away. Under the emerging heat it sears skin a purple-red. A black emission balloons into the air and is skewed by the rising net front. The open air fuels the pyre. No more tinder or kindling needed and it spits while the fatty deposits cook. I'm blinded when looking directly into its embers and yet seeing through, its large enough to bring with it a glow, heat, truth and an ardent rumination of the close by ant nest in one tidy package.
24

Left them to burn. They're trapped in there like moths to the lamp that ventured inside its canopy and never sought to bother squeeze out again. It was where they were meant to be.

At the water's edge I climbed aboard the rowing boat and sat on the centre thwart taking dyspeptic breaths that almost come to a stop completely. Cut off the supply of blood at my thumbs in a razor edged figure of eight until it hurt and then threw it down in a ball into a corner. I picked it back up again when I saw what was next to it and combined the last of the fishing line with a bit of broken rod that was alongside one of the short oars. A snapper tackle is threaded to its end and a floating piece of fauna is used as bait. Everywhere I went it followed me, this time as a reflection in the thermocline itself.

Pushed out the boat, into the deep to be able to paddle seamlessly. Found a silt strand of the dam's middle part and ran aground there. Not clear enough to spot the fishes here but I decide to drop the line in anyway. It splashes close to the hull. After a matter of minutes I wonder if the crisping sear from the bonfire could be driving off the sport. I don't know for sure if fish can even smell. Are there any in this place to begin with? It's too dark to tell for certain with what light the fire gives.

I squint out over the landscape and see rising out of the hills, terracotta condos and there numerous windows. Looking around skittish I was surrounded by them. This small observation unsettled me and the boat that rocks about on a sandy bank. Holding the gunwale rails steady far over I can see another inferno burning, twinned with my own, a big one, maybe an agricultural clearing at first sight and a patchwork of comfort prospers on my face.

A sudden tug from the line almost snaps the rod in half and I hurry to pull whatever it is through the bottom of the depths. I hoist it up and let the thing hang in the air, it takes a while for me to deduce what it is. Caught myself a beautifully dredged handbag that was tossed in here at least a year ago. An acclimation has taken hold of its nylon strap. I pop the single button closure. Inside as the water drains it has become host to something new alongside some womanly possessions that have faded to a sludge over time. I throw it back with the line still attached and wade with the boat pushing off an embankment.

On the heath again I find the car and turn on it a half rotation. Both front doors of the Camaro are opened up as I had left them. The lights of the car are cast into an empty strip of land where the mud is soft. To the rear I place my hand onto the lid of the trunk, open it and look down into the compartment. I reach inside to pull her out of there. What I see I don't want to like. She still looks alive and beautiful when I pull back a bag attached on her flossy locks. Double buttons on a daisy pleat dress shine in the moonlight. I seal the tape over to make it airtight. My head feels heavy as I lift her from the car and I lunge to keep her in my arms, struggled to keep myself up alone.

An anaerobic fallout cut into my nose like hungover breath. Out on the lake on the same spot where I raked in that ladies handbag expels a saline discolouration on its fresh water topping. Dead sturgeon float in it. A loud blaring disparaged me once more. This time white noise played from the car's interior. Tuning into FM to AM going on and off contested frequency bands. It stops on a station and gains closer to an intelligible language. On the radio a song I've never heard before plays at the chorus. Someone else is singing over the top of the true words, all crooked and out of sync.

Through the gap in the trunks ark I search into the interior and put Elise down when I can't see anyone. Walking to the side a head emerges bobbing to the equalising piano and boom. He sits in the driver seat with a grin. 'Say Hello, Wave Goodbye.' I pistol whip him into thin air impacting at the back rest with Brutus exploding into a vapour mist that coalesces and rebinds into an albatross in the chair. When this happens I lock him inside. The tight space acts as a suppressor to its movements and it bumbles around with tapered wings as hastily adapted climbing appendages. Fluttering onto the door trim the bird pecks with its powerful bill. It seeks my attention.

A swoop and peck, swoop and peck. The albatross checks I'm following along and continues with a peck, to a swoop and a peck. Followed by three more bowed swoops in a row. Ending with three short pecks twice over – turns itself and blinks those alien eyelids in reverse. He finds the open window and flies out nearly hitting me with its great spanning wings, crying as it makes a way in the dark scanning the marsh for a new retreat.

Waited for him to be gone. An uprising presented itself at his dismissal and the restless retch stirred at the able cult I had exposed provision for. I can hear them gathering in confidence. No time for such toxic puritans and I throw a lump of slate into the darkness hoping to hit one of those stalking me. I have no such luck and equally lack the shame in taking her properly once again only to lose her by the ankle with a scurry to drop her by the shallow we were once so fond of before. With the shovel I'd brought along I dig vigorously. Easy going here. Its wet. Set down first contact at a place where the tidal rising won't reach. By my account the hole I had dug suggested it'd be fit to cover her but still it lied by the swelling of the levees filtration. In the passing hours it would likely settle and dry solid when the receding began.

Another spadeful and the act is complete at another foot deeper than before. To let Elise side-slip amongst the grooves I'd made. Laying her down wrecks my heart and more so upon seeing the first few mounds of soil and sand heap on top of her. Yet when I become stuck on how it could have been for us I only feel clumsily neglectful of what deposits lay strewn on the shores crust, swept in and out with time and tide and move as much of its accretion away from the ditch as is humanly possible. I say my first and last goodbye, fill in the hole and watch her body disappear.

At the broken wall I uproot a measuring pole with alternating bands of orange, a high visibility tag that sways on top and erect it as a marker for the grave I'd dug. Taking it together in my prod its steel is forced into the ground. In turning away the path becomes unsteady. A shoe print I had left is crumbling and soil falls into its depression. A cavity opens up at my feet and engrosses me in its sink-hole prison. An expanse of land fell down further as I stood up to reach the sides and now I can't get out. Rising out of the collapsed grave comes a scorched hand, the unknown one himself. Reaching for me, he has me by the leg before I can turn and run and down he goes, me with him slowly in a drag ploughing at rubble with my descent into the abyss meant only for Elise.

The great sepulchre has a buoyancy all of its own. An exothermic orb that shimmers with energy brings me to a rest in the mausoleum. He who brought me here is also there enamoured in chains. As I get closer he steps onto a spot below me and chokes me by the neck, lifting me to a new place. It's a cage built into his wall next to, more of them, bounties claimed.

'I will not escape, there is no need for me to fight you,' I say.

'Stop talking,' he says.

'You're a part of me?'

'I am the Relic, I transcend the soul.'

Relic is heavily toned and has large muscles a man of valour would have acquired, biceps and calf's being more prominent. His skin colour is blanched a ripened red as one would be to the necrotic skin of a tomato. Third degree burns cover his entire anatomy. Its coarse and curls in certain places with the roughness of an armadillos scutellum. Facial features are deformed. I avert my eyes from his as sockets that held them are gone, burned to the bone. Shaped by the fire that surrounds him and blind to it in his realm, which has an atmosphere that mimics fuel when mixed in equal parts with creosote.

Inward he came, close to inspect his quarry and I can see right into the inner core of his skull through a cavity at its centre where the nose cartilage went missing and only a stump is remaining. Lips are semi-visible with heavy scaring making the remainder of what is left stand out against charcoal teeth with glints of yellow where heat stress has occurred. Nearly all head hair left is of fair colour, few and far between strands that can be counted individually. Chains and clasps are situated around the torso, waist and wrists. Relic is as wide as he is tall and towers over the others I've seen so far by a full foot or more.

Into a crucible he pours a molten slag and withdraws a poker from the heat and pushes it inside the cage. It is intentionally pressed away from me into the back wall and another is slid in through the iron bars.

'It doesn't hurt me.'

'Then why do you squirm so,' Relic says, smiting me for the first time since I was taken.

One by one he carried on pulling white hot pokers out of the forge and into my cage until it became cramped with fused metal. 'You will stop this nonsense, stop, stop it.'

'The mundane life is worth dying for,' he says, enraged at the moment of my anguish. 'A soul is at its happiest when it's screaming.' Another poker is slid into place and burns all semblance of an earache, increasing intensity but pulled away short by him. 'Great things do come about from great strife its intrinsically apparent. That fact itself gives credibility to evil deeds. Does it not? Am I mistaken. For without evil great things cannot exist.'

'I agree with everything you say.'

'Don't be a wilting rose,' Relic says, pushing back the poker from before and adds a new one either side of my neck and I start screaming. 'What are we but puppets in a play,' he jokes.

'No more.'

'Watch me, watch you as I administer your favourite truth serum into an arm rejuvenating your synapses. After it kicks you into shape I'll amputate both your arms and you'll be agreeable to it. Flat out spur me on to do a credible number to your body.'

'Stop,' I say.

'Your pain it won't let me go.'

'I want it to . . .'

'A ruinous demise,' he says, placing another between my thighs.

The oxide taste has engulfed me and taken away my speech and so I watch him through the tears take the metal to himself in an act of scarification. Rejoicing at my state he takes a vial and places it to my face, capturing the tear-drops that fell.

'Your regrets fill up into this vial. Then fall out one at a time. Like the grains of sand you have wasted. Unleash the beast. Confess to me.'

'My deepest secrets I'll give to you.'

'And they are mine to keep.'

'Now they are yours to keep,' I say, downtrodden, defeated.

'That will do. You are free once more to run amok or if you choose, make amends.'

He presents the vial (corked plug pressed firm at its top) onto its very own place on his wall next to other red-light fancies and takes out each of them torture devices searing into me from different locations in my cage and opens the gate. I fall out onto the floor and rise in rags.

'I know you suppose you know me but you don't.'

'Do you know who the real me is,' I say, barely conscious.

'Better than anyone.'

'Explain it for yourself.'

'A thousand eyes looking in watch you with an established opinion, some have productive intentions others wish you harm yet they are as far from knowing you as am I to them.'

Relic shows me the wall and helps me stand straight. Affixed to it are his trophies, some in pieces and the unlucky alive. A head, spinal cord, embalmed stuffed beings, an enormous beetle carcass, to the carrion of something or another, putrefied and encased in moth-eaten wrap. More I look at them, more I become desensitised to it.

'Wall of the slain,' Relic says, proud of it.

'Why does such a thing exist.'

'You could ask that of anything. "Why" is not the question you should be asking in this case.'

'They're kept to be tortured and part of them are taken while under duress,' I say.

'That would assume they are guilty of some wrong doing. Blame them fervently until proven innocent is a bizarre kind of conditioning. These that you see before you are captured vassals of mine.'

'Do the others do this.'

'I've heard the stories. Everyone has their own style and how you fashion your burdens is testament to the order of its defeated patrons.'

'I fit into this how.'

'You still have people to kill.'

'If that's why I'm here then I've done enough of that.'

'Would you not like them to get their just desserts,' he says.

'They already have.'

'No not all of them.'

'Who.'

'See the empty space on my wall.'

'Yes.'

'Three slots.'

'What does all this mean,' I say.

'Those deviants will render unto me.'

'I mean to say me. How is it that I bear witness to the very strange things that I do.'

'You mean you don't know?'

'That's right.'

'A locomotive has derailed, its ploughed off track and down the hill into the bridge supports where it rests. All the passengers that survived the crash get out and try to rebuild the broken remains. Very different people of creed, class and background all spirited unto themselves. Of them only the skilled may help assemble it back together into working order in their own image of how a train should function. Freighter or transport, for profit or not, civilian or military? Are we even at a standstill? To some it appears that the journey itself has stopped but it has just begun. In diaspora.'

'I've dreamed that very thing,' I say.

'It is what you want it to be in a dream, albeit controlled subconsciously. The conscious itself is different; it allows you to observe the world around us and interact within it. How much so I don't imagine you really appreciate. Mortal minds are connected as such and its feasible to tap into that potential. The nectar of the realms. It flows as a flux in an unknown place. All you have to do is gain access to it and it is yours; this is how dimensions conjoin and how humans are able to feel, why there is war. Many want its power under their control and will commit so much evil for that's what is needed of them to gain its wisdom. Be wary of the eclectic too as they can harbour their own distinct voices and what you get is unforeseeable,' he says.

'Hence the position you're in right now. Hunted.'

'They come in waves. Above your head right now in fact.'

'I see them,' I say.

'Cowards.'

'Bargain with them it's the best course of action you can do with such, traits.'

'I ask what prosperity can be made of wishes so seldom thought of as wholesome. Where the opportunity to summon a life worth living isn't frowned upon by torch bearers who's unilateral delusions hasn't quite caught up with them yet. They cannot see the damage they reek on us. For liberty and union in togetherness we perish. These powder puffed libertines are viewed as fashionable, to claim such policies as progressive yet its only misquoted in discourse, but still fashionable. Action is what carries out a goal not idol talk. At each instance in our saga, when our paths crossed I spoke and acted on behalf of more than myself. Not some knee jerk reaction but a calling for grace to see a conflict out to an end. Brings it into a reality; I toil and they grovel to be saved once they're engulfed in differing needs of the many and they did not like me opposing them, giving the oppressed an alternative. Challenges of the past have become known as an unshakable, morbid constitution, that stop gap dampener of change. They rule unattested. I say they are not my masters and counter to this foolish ideology I never, never in my life in my wildest dreams have I felt so convinced of turning the polls. The horde above this chamber have me besieged and yet here I stand, accounted for,' Relic says.

'Have you tried telling them you want to be left alone.'

He hands me a scroll. 'Give this to the other side. It states my terms.'

'Isolationism. Why choose anyone at all,' I say, looking upward.

'Because that conceited, apologetic notion is for the likes of the underground banshee and does not belong here with us. If you stay stationary long enough you'll become one of them. Entrusted as a peacekeeper in times of war will be your crown. What do they do for you apart from clog up the law of the entrusted with litigious zeal. Allow acrimonious enemies into our ranks to disrupt our culture our very being and soul. These belligerents have so much shame on their hands, not those ones who committed the crimes, they are only doing what comes natural to them. I speak of those who allowed them to coexist with us. Guilty on all accounts and death is the only penalty.'

'Can they not be shunned instead.'

'If it had been intercepted at an earlier date,' Relic says.

'It's too late for saving them because of who they are.'

'Individualism and estrangement are tied at the feet and where it goes the other does too. Now is not the time for delving into the looking glass for hope. We are where we are and let us remedy that while we're capable. All I want is victory, something to hang on my wall. Then we can talk about things my face to her askew head. Order our subjugation matters once and for all. I don't seek much.'

'Twist,' I say, knowingly.

'The bitch empress herself. One by one they came knocking and on her bloodlet throne she tied them down and asked for forgiveness. Many couldn't find it in them to do so. After she ate their hearts. Consumed what they were as part of herself.'

'Don't you have tricks of your own.'

'All you need to do is plant a seed of how a person should act in society and then all the paranoia of the foreign entity falls on them. Like a wildfire it spreads. Self consciousness unbound,' Relic says, pointing to a specific part on his wall and with a relaxed face had cause to briefly wane into a period of civility. 'That's why there cannot be peace on earth or within any of the realms. Because the self-proclaimed patrician have a veto on it,' he adds.
25

'What are the fruits of your labour worth if you can't enjoy them because, ironically of what you are,' I say, rubbing my superficial sore.

'No deacon has ever dared challenge me on my perennial status. If you wish to reform then stay, if not then leave it to me. I'll use your name as a byword for saboteur and all those that are left will know it, meanwhile you'll go back in your box!' Relic says, his voice rumbling to the outer boundaries.

'For the sake of it I want to make the correct choice.' I blew out my cheeks. 'In solving which sphere of influence calls the shots. A dialectic approach.' Relic hurries me to the point, flogs his tumbling links until they stress both fasteners durability, rinse and repeats this curious practice of his the other way too. 'How would you do it and be specific,' I press him.

He brings the chains to a dividing halt. 'Overthrow the leaders of the three houses and kill them all.'

'Heathens and what to do with them.'

'Cut their heads off and bleed them out, if one lives then they will come back steadfast at some point, it's inexorable,' he says, feasibly nonchalant.

'Trifle with the wrong people and expect to end up in pieces,' I say.

'Whatever could you mean.'

'I don't mess around with these things. So if you are a despicable person, then expect the despicable to happen to you.'

'There can be but one way and it begins at the induction of my rule. Once I ascend a need to be consolidating is hyperbole. To disembowel a slippery regnant takes a lot of hate and only a few are ready to go ahead with it.'

'People can decide for themselves,' I say.

'Give a crowd power, civilization itself will fold,' Relic says.

'The more input the worse off we'll be, I don't get it?'

'Hypothetically speaking, I'd like you to imagine a foreign tribunal has been deemed capable of presiding over those shipwrecked on an island far away in the perils of famine. In the final stages of deliberation they have a choice to feed an orphaned newborn and a cutesy kitten, which do you expect they'll chose.'

'That is the perfect case for a variety of opinion, contrary to that its feudal.'

'Before you answer, I can already hear you make an illusionary argument to do your utmost to save them both,' he says.

'Can bread not be split in half?'

'You sicken me. An indoctrination has taken your reason. All one has to do is imply the necessity of disposable amenities to sway such thought. What value does that piece of bread hold? We are not all born equal and don't let anyone else tell you different. It might be a tough fact to swallow but this reality should not be left unchecked and unopposed, it will try to consume you.'

'Yet you talk rhetoric to me, aren't you breaking your own rules.'

'Let us not harbour any unwarranted vendetta. Not all is so black and white as you wish it to be.'

'Who said that I wouldn't feed the kitten to dine upon the fat cat it becomes later on,' I say.

'Now you are thinking with some guile.'

'So what's the problem.'

'All revere the individual, let us hail them,' Relic says, worshipping the chains that encumber him. 'Make it a dominant overlord in charge of your everyday needs who knows what each of his subjects wants and you have yourself, utopia.'

'It's a subjective conundrum,' I say, being purposely faint.

'In this realm what's yours is also reciprocally mine. Each member finds a place in the hierarchy and is made use of, to the ultimate of his or her ability. We carry each other.'

'And if they fall out of line?'

'Then they are disciplined appropriately,' he says.

'That's not freedom. Its Relic deciding for Ralph what's right.'

'A camaraderie amongst strangers is savage?'

'It is when it's deluded enough,' I say.

'When you make a call to someone on the opposite side of a door how do you know they will answer. Are they your brother, your sister? Are they to be trusted and would they even let you in if they did hear you? Could you respond to them in a positive way after a rejection like that,' Relic says, with a reptile smile. 'This is a problem I do not have and soon it will be for those not yet under my wing, once this conflict is won, so begins the abolishment of infantile virtues.'

'Make the grounds for each other's welfare on there own merits. Not by the shoddy fables you can tell.'

'We all walk our own paths, literally. Do you pave it with concrete or treat the cracks with tiny coloured pebbles on a nice leisurely evening or even add a decorative trim around the outskirts so that you may enjoy it further as you go. Or do you end up falling over its stupid design and get pushed off the metronomical track.'

'Preach and poach it, there you go again,' I say, getting acquainted to his pitch, loose season of the renegade.

'What you seek is what you get. Try it sometime.'

'This, what I see around me it's not my wish.'

'If you will what serves you well, watch it propagate before you,' he says.

'Tired, I'm so tired of it.'

'It's worth it when that day comes and you know what it is you need. To function, grow and to nurture your own fulfilment for the very first time. After that you'll fight to sustain it for others to enjoy,' Relic says.

'Let me know when it's happening. I just don't see it.'

'All beings should be able to carve out their own fertile land. Mine looks like this and you don't approve, does that give you credibility to see it besmirched?'

'No it's not that I . . . I'd rather drop this entire subject,' I say, with my head in my hands, pressing psychedelic colours into my optic nerve.

'Curl up into a ball and die,' he says, in gall and falls silent.

'How can you say that when it's the same scenario as what you've gone and done here.'

'To become so agreeable with what the enemy wants is laughable,' and once more he pauses.

'What is it?' I say.

'Where is what was promised to me, for your salvation.'

'My deepest secret.'

'Yes, give it to me.'

I come close to stretch into his ear and whisper words I cannot bear to say aloud. He bends from the hips and listens to my confession. Hearing what I had to say he holds his intake and kneels to exhume an alchemy set and unscrews the lid of a jar. He releases upon its volume an 'ahhh,' which fills the container with his brimstone breath spill over. Relic screws it shut and puts it next to my tears.

'You will never cry again or be embarrassed about "that" any longer.'

'Are we done.'

'Almost. I want you to take something away with you, see this debacle from my point of view,' he says, wilfully sombre.

'I can try to.'

'What if I were to take away your ability to think, would you do it, in fairness allow that?'

'I'd be an animal without it,' I say.

'Exactly and it doesn't let them from upon high to do the same to me. Those who aren't privy to the act of sterilization. To judge from afar, without being a patron to my policy. I take away nothing from mine unless its paramount, my brood set aside only the weaker parts to make them function strong. Do you see why I must continue the fight. You needn't come to my aid or wear my partisan colours. Simply listen to what I've said and make your own mind on who you back,' Relic says, reversing the flow of electrolytes from the orb.

'Rush to embrace the opposition in reflection. This will make you ever more richer as a person,' I say.

'I cannot allow myself to be so taken by cheap inane lies.'

'Then I'll leave you too it.'

'If you want my advice I'll give it to you. Kill them before they can kill you. Now go away.'

Entering the warp in the oscillator it takes me upward and when I break the surface I'm floating on my back amongst the dead fish in a drowning pool on the dam's waterway. The reeds at the bottom entangle with my leg and cause me second to awake from a deep slumber. I get a dirty chlorine mouthful and spit it out. On the bank I can see the pole I had stuck in the mud is still intact and swim back to shore.

The ground is flat there and undisturbed except the carefully covered hole that contains Elise and I knew it would be like that before I'd even stopped to look at it. All the nightmares came for me today and I take this turning point to change into a fresh set of clothes from the travel bag in the back of the car.

I sit in the driver seat and close the door when from out of the sun visor something tucked in there falls into my lap. Taking my time to read it, I study it over and over.

'Next target, please advise. AJ,' it says.

Hurrying to find a pen I gather my sodden clothes and unravel them to take it – and write onto the back of the note – on the dash interior. "He is a bird for now, hurry. RT".

I toss the note out the window and speed off back to Oceanside. When I get there I notice something is off. An irregular font drained a trickle down the street and noises come from the parking lot. Dawn hadn't quite arrived yet and its loom was the eerie oddity that sin city didn't need right now, its streets contracted the bad touch years before. Steadily they reveal themselves to me and I'm not sure what to make of it. A chugging engine letting off steam, a shout of commands I don't follow, the telescopic clatter of a set of ladders, an active surge of focused pressure, its dissonance was powerful. Coming around the bend I see it's a familiar sight of flashing lights that splash the scene in Noel time festivities that should ward off hangers-on, not attract them.

Organized workers are dousing the tempest fires that engulf the eastern wing of Sovereign's rooftop. Roles which involve a cooperative effort to diminish this advancing spread of damage to the other floors. The gush of water was having an effect. However it was too late gone, it had already won. With his back to me I can see the fire chief in his shield crested white helmet talking with Stanley.

'What the hell happened?'

'Are you the owner?' the fire chief shouts.

I want to deny it but I can't, not while Stanley is right there spellbound on the first support collapse that came. 'Yeah,' I say.

'We're trying our best to save what we can.'

Stanley has soot covering most of him. Now and again he'll stop to snort out the inhalation that almost cost him his life. I thought about being that man who'd go down with his ship in a fatal iceberg collision but that title was Stanley's to keep. This titanic on dry land was not mine. He commandeered the helm all along and I watched him sink through a telescope. I thought he would be a hysterical mess but he kept it together and I stood to the sidelines and touched his shoulder.

'You made it out.'

'No thanks to you,' he says.

'Why what did I do?'

'I heard a rumour you did some very twisted things,' Stanley says.

'Don't believe I know what you mean.'

'You've got a lot of nerve.'

'What did they say.'

'Now you help me figure this out Ralph because, look at me.'

'Make-believe,' I say.

'I hadn't said what it is yet, nervous are we?'

'Well, whatever it is don't believe it.'

'I hope so. You didn't happen to kill a guy then rape a whore and finish her too.'

I cast back to the man on the mountain range who said what he'd done to Elise earlier that same day. My thoughts go back even further than that to different fragmented points of a time frame I can no longer order competently and I see Brutus standing in the desert holding a brass watch. Maude in the pouring rain walking on a trail of broken glass. Twist by the thorns and weeds eating an apple. Relic aside a burning tower of men. Then I think of Raymond and I see nothing at all. The song of the wind sung on bye through the puncture in Sovereigns crumbling edifice and the reins hit my coat.

'Who said this,' I say.

'They didn't stop to leave their names while they were pouring gas all over the club floor swearing payback for certain, "unpunished crimes".'

'If your memory serves you well we owed them money.'

'Then why'd they feel the need to shoot up the place too.'

'I didn't know.'

'Harry's dead. They interrogated him to find out where you were. You! they wanted you!'

He pushed me hard and I move backwards a few paces but it was Stanley who fell instead, 'Stop, Stan, we can fix this.'

'This place was something more than just a dumb club it was our livelihood and now it's gone forever. We were tight-knit. Have you ever seen something destroyed, so beautiful and sat back to watch it die in front of you. The majesty of such a sight.'

'Come on we can get coffee by the bay. Talk about this.'

'Take your hands off me,' Stanley says, standing again.

'Let's get out of here. Nothing we can do now.'

'This coffee place where is it at.'

'The Roast forum, it'll be open in a half an hour.'

'Okay let's say I'll meet you, are you telling me the truth.'

'Yes, I'm going there now,' I say.

'Give me twenty minutes,' he says.

'All right.'

'And Ralph don't you cheat me, you won't lie.'

'Look around. I've got nothing left to hide.'

This early in the morning there is nobody around and the seagulls have barely woken to another mid-autumn change in solstice to whoop while they forage, disappearing behind a seedy strip club.

I cut through an empty fenced off square of land. A single occupancy flophouse has been condemned and the public notices that outline this cause for attention are at every entry, exit point. They have been at work scraping the innards, room by room and now its shell is in a process of being torn down and the transients that once filled them have moved on. Scarcely prepared for such an undertaking, where do they go and how they will fit into their new ghetto is uncertain. The gentrification of this community had displaced them and its composition would never be the same.

I go for a stroll among the little beach side residences painted in aqua's, brilliant whites and greens and observe the steady change of their dimensions from minor sized huts to those I'd seen only five minutes ago reappear on the skyline.

Closer to the ocean, at the steep slope it has coerced me into a first step, then a trot set forth by the given placement of it and its structures that corralled a current and a unique isoperimetrical view. Palm is swaying on the boulevard and at the bottom of its hill is a mini roundabout with a chevron pointing in both directions. I stop on the pavement by a three tiered apartment and spot senior citizens waiting to bake on their balcony roosts. A look right and I see nothing much, on the left I see the pier and go there making my way toward the central plaza.

Contained within me is the aroma of two distinct fires and I sniff it out on a sleeve. Even though I'd changed clothes the car held the thick, arid choke as I drove home and nestled itself to me, a bond not even the wind could blow out but much fainter a scent than that of Sovereigns end. At a newspaper stand I read the front page headline through the perspex and pay for it and pick it out. The pages sprout open so I seek a calm area and find the resort enclosure to be more accommodating.

'Hurricane Iniki is a miss.' I continue reading above the fold, 'Current estimates from the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC) agree with leading experts that for the majority of people on the island of Hawaii this storm poses no risks other than high tides and have issued no further warning regarding the matter. After careful analysis of the latest meteorological data received it is projected that Iniki's path will remain far south from the island of Kauai. Unlike most hurricane names, "Iniki" was not a given birth name at its inception. It's a Hawaiian word in origin meaning – "sharp and piercing wind".'

A tattooed beachgoer is sitting on a bench waiting for the clouds to move and when they do, made sure to keep his gaze on it. He is starring directly at the sun and I search for myself what else is out there. On the horizon its clear and normal waves go about their journey as they invariably would do. The hybrid breeze coming in off the bay stood arm hairs on end. I sought comfort in the ivory furnace for too long and saw its dark centre. It left an iconic graphic in my vision. The afterimage it brought forth continued even though I had shut my eyes and with every second that passed the seraph that had formed faded. So I memorize it and jotted down what I saw onto the nearby newspaper. I held the thin paper up to the light when it was done and waited for another sign to come – it never came.

Raymond's brooch I wear on my front is shaped like a crescent moon with two dots at its oblique points and an ever narrowing spike at its bottom half. Same thing as what I had drawn. I readily blink and wipe my mind's eye and reassign my ill-fated considerations.
26

Friday trading had officially sprung. Behind me I can hear the door to the Roast forum being unlocked and see the waitress turn over the open sign so it faces outward. She shied off and sometime later the rest of the set of relay lights flicker on. Walking across Pacific street I get closer to the hub of fast food outlets and get a whiff of the oil and fat waste they must have dumped in the disposal area. It makes me hurry inside for relief.

When I enter the bourgeoisies favourite café I find that even though the room is lit up its achieved with a slumber-time level of brightness that makes it hard to see. A song has been chosen on the mini jukebox and the 45 record is already spinning. I walk over to check it out on the display and find out that its "My Happiness" with Connie Francis doing the singing.

A couple in the back room are slow dancing and I feel as though I've barged in uninvited. Instead I go to the front counter and wait while the hot treacle on the freshly baked sweets cool in the noisy chill cabinet. Though I'm past the means money wise to purchase one or two delights it's the worry of a resident thought police that puts me off. Too early, too fattening, too expensive for you.

Doughnuts, bagels and shortcakes sit in a plastic tray, suspended upon a cast iron trivet. Hundreds of pearls of sugar decorate the gingerbread and other baked goods. Near the end of the line is the dairy section and most of the space is taken by a chocolate mousse with a mint leaf garnish.

When the waitress pushed the tray into place out from the oven, it looks like an overabundance of nutmeg was used as its all over the sliding glass. It covers it in a fine dusting all the way down to the laminate flooring. At first when I ask myself, I envisage an honest mistake – gone awry and then I know how for sure and I feel nothing.

'We never did have our dance did we Ralph,' the out of sight woman says.

I turn around unsurprised. 'It never was meant to be.'

'It's no secret I'm that girl inside who likes to keep giving.'

'Only thing I ever got from you is misery,' I say.

'I stand corrected.'

'I'd like nothing better than to never see you again.'

'Faker. You're just a big silly goose aren't you.'

'I must be.'

'What's with the dicey frown baby, come over here and see us,' both say, taking turns to finish each other's lines, straight out of a sycophantic cabaret.

'I can't focus right now.'

'Shame that is.'

'I'm not your babe and right now I just can't stop seeing red,' I say.

'Tell me about that.'

'I don't owe you an explanation.'

'Oh fine, moody,' she says.

They hug each other in a dovetail match as they swoon. A sparkle of diamond dust and tulle came from her sequinned gown when the total absence of light ended and the two of them lay eclipsed on the others shoulder, inching closer into view. The stray bulb blinkered into subordinate existence and an insular partition opened up at the back wall pushing a bias on the shape of the room.

'I do so love it when you sing this song for me,' Artie says, in a traditional ballroom outfit.

'My heartfelt wishes always reach you when you need them and you are always so responsive to my angelic vocals,' Twist says, and kisses him hard upon the mouth.

'Now we have an audience to watch the greater grace with which you flock in my unwashed desires.'

'Honey whatsoever is wrong?'

'It's nothing,' he says.

'Really now, do tell.'

'It's Ralph, we remember him. We really ought to be more inclusive of him. Who I may say is overdressed for a place like this, a quaint but humble residence.'

'I'm going to tear out your testicles Artie if you don't say a mean thing about our earnest boy child here. Full on castration if don't find his worst inner quality that you do not find to your liking, I swear to do my tiptop adieu,' she says, with a high range vocalization.

'Please my love I cannot find a fault with him or you. The craftsmanship that went into his beautiful brooch he wears, Ralph could easily be one of us,' he says, rather taken by it.

'It's ugly.'

'I'll go on the record and say a pecking order in fact must exist but it does not stop those at the very bottom from finding, accidentally on purpose a set of the finest wares to wear like we do.'

'Say something disparaging or its off,' Twist says, making a slit throat gesture.

'Rank and file! rank and file! There is no better match than we,' Artie says, deranged.

'Fetch for me a pair of the bluntest scissors you can find and deliver them to me immediately,' she says, to a high-strung guard.

'By the brows of the behemoth let me cast myself into the Tigal causeway rather than fall victim to such a forfeit I beg of you.'

'Ha, ha, playing games with your head,' Twist says, derisively.

'Oh thank the mana born it's not true.'

'So gullible, you reckoned I'd snip, snip them off for what telling him porkies. I would never jeopardize your privates under such frugal circumstances. Can you imagine the blood,' she says, like an advanced toddler.

'All encompassing with your imagery and this is why I'm your devoted my imperatrix,' he says, worn out at her feet.

An elbow pokes him in the ribs. 'Here they come get up from there,' Twist says, curtly.

A portion of the room we dwell in turns a silvery transparent and a turbulent earth shake sent chorded lights pendulum swinging. Out came the bleachers jumbled into a stacked reality, one-time artistry already situated in this half of the meeting of worlds. Either side of them they came through the portal manoeuvre point. Representatives streamed in and took their seats or occupied the front of shop as guard. The open for business sign was nullified and the punched roller brought down to be locked into place.

'Is it so terrifying to you that our world is in everyday acquaintance with yours in the most likely of places you need not discern. Only thing putting the brakes on its growth is that the sinful might help covert it, so its unseen to all who are not in your limited case attuned to,' she says, leaning in to speak directly to me.

I study the transmogrification from side to side. 'It was hard to begin with . . .'

'Your hiding something.'

'Right now I'm in some trouble so if you wouldn't mind I'd like you to call this meeting off,' I say back.

'Quite the ferocious lion today, aren't we feisty, I'm in command and all that.'

'If that's the way you see it. What do you say then?'

Twist blanked me to face the gathered members and chose to stare into another void, 'Let the consulate know that this meeting is now in process. We have gathered at this place to christen our gains made throughout the last major orbits and to state our future endeavours for the upcoming trimester.'

'Pardon my interception my imperatrix but why must it be held here of all the places. Of what little charm this biomass landscape has it is also known for bad smells and iffy security constraints.'

'I'll indulge you tenet marshal. Convenience, simple convenience is why, not just for you but for us all.'

'Understood,' says the marshal.

'I need all the time I can get so if there are any more questions let's hear them,' Twist says.

I approach the makeshift podium that Twist has chosen to utilize and she pours over her paperwork, barely interested in anything else but that. 'There is something worthwhile I have that you should see,' I say, holding Relics scroll.

'Give it here then.' she breaks the sealing wax and begins to read to herself. 'He wants our immediate abdication, the moron. I'll quote what it says: "lay her head in a wicker basket and give it to the messenger who will deliver it to me. Once this task is completed then I will give all those elites and former bureaucrats an exemption and declare them freemen".' Twist rattles at invisible cuffs and makes her best attempt at an impression of Relic. 'It is not about what we can give to you but what we can take from you,' she says, with an iconoclastic prowess.

She has the whole room in hysterics and it takes several minutes until there is leniencies from the freaks in a tightly packed coffee shop. Looking at the scroll for myself, to find a block of text inked by quill that she disregarded to read aloud, I take it in for my own pleasure:

Oh ye tiny marionettes your feet don't touch the ground.

Let thy noose tighten in on your phonyism.

Watch the world become spoilt at your play of treason.

But wish not to express wanton from the heart for thee have non capable bones.

Joints bend for others thought and trap alas in prissiness undone.

A cost exuberant for those of servilities caste of men.

Breaketh twine that binds and see how trapped thou are.

Fallen on false concern and tiding not so clean.

Yay, the new age has dawned be it known.

Of hurt feelings.

A being with a long, long beard stood up, nuzzled at it and addressed the crowd, 'The deadly "isms" as we are so affectionately known by the lesser ranked all have more than one noteworthy dislike than the Relic, that we can agree on.'

'I count six, seven or more, only truly one other, give them the fate they deserve,' the consulmen all say at once.

'And it is who's head – Vinosa's or the Greys – is that which should be deservingly resting underneath a guillotine,' says another.

'Cynicism has its own scar tissue. We must combat it. It outlasts and can stay the course of several generations. You can give it away and it can be adopted. Is there a cure?' A measly humanoid says.

'We have been over this before. Vinosa has never showed his face since the binding riots and for all we know could be dead. Relic is below in his pit making mild threats and we know where he is, lets crush him first, worry about non affiliates later,' touted a shawled conjurer.

'Our pledge was to bring as many of the lost into our protection, that is what this consulate was founded upon, or do we forget it,' says a matronly being from the back row.

'If a rogue comet is the breaker of mountains then the breaker of people is segregation,' called out a flighty member walking out in protest to the opposition.

Then came the jeering.

'Pipe down you doomsday bigot!'

'Hatch a plan elsewhere you're not welcome.'

'I want none of it!' Twist shouted, bringing the room to order. 'So many achievements have transpired and yet we aren't going to share them because of deplorable, narcissistic traits. Instead we wrangle over what pickings more we can have, at a cost of our snowballing community which has increased nominally,' she tidied her out of sorts papers and falters, snared by the interim catatonia. 'This is as perfect a time as is any to do this.' A mild murmur propagated the bleachers and jolted some unexpectedly. 'I'd like to introduce the two newest members of our collective, from the main-belt houses of Yema and Strophe. Stand, please – so the room may see you.'

Sitting uncomfortably next to one another the two late consular's rise. One with a hiss, the younger figure with a gigantic guffaw and they perform their own unique greeting to the lenient onlookers. It was a captured but compliant Maude and Brutus who now fell under direct leadership of a group I knew little about. Let alone did I understand the principles they longed to instil into each crossing wanderer they came into contact with.

'Bless the kingdom,' Brutus says.

'It's not a kingdom but a collection of provinces we call a republic,' Twist says.

'Primacy for our kings and queens,' Maude says, sting in her tail like old times, readily nauseous when, here comes the wave of strife from a combined paradigm attack.

They barked at them, some fraught with disappointment and a few even took pity with a welcoming clap. The reaction at best was lukewarm and it delivered a hefty payload for Twist to contend with. A miscommunication on the pairs duties was whispering around the room and caused concern for existing members immediate drop in status, ultimately there was division among the consular's.

'Let me be clear and say the strategic consolidation of our groups does not affect the power elected representatives here within our consulship have,' Twist says.

'What Maude says is true and of much worry to me. We were made up of one house in the beginning then three and now five. That's five figureheads too many,' a consul says, to rip-roaring applause.

'Me, Artie, Phineas, Brutus and Maude are still restrained in our actions by the decisions made here, by you all.'

'Then if that were to be the case then something will be done about this outrage. It is an acquisition of power that is unacceptable to the majority of us. I call for a referendum,' an unscrupulous fellow says.

'Well there was another round of announcements I would like to have made.' Twist says, and kinked her scalloped dress into a more comfortable position over her stomach. 'Yet it seems as though a more pressing issue exists. All members in favour of a referendum make yourself known.'

Almost all the room stands to attention in receipt to the claim. Only a handful chose not to exert their wishes that could lead to a maxim change in authority.

'At the next rotation we will hold this voting procedure as the faithful have indicated. You are dismissed,' Twist says, and being so near to her I gather an almost intelligible utterance of; 'goodbye and good riddance,' from her while the many members return to their home worlds.

When they leave the portal rushes in to consume the room and it does so in that we are transferred to Twists all too memorable realm. Steam floats above the pools and is sucked out by the opening of the massive rock structure. In runs disciples in white who surround Phineas as his trustworthy entourage.

'My imperatrix,' he says.

'News?'

'Abacadia is dead. Apart from that all is quiet for now.'

'Is that it. A marvel, the day I've had,' Twist says, looking sickly.

'The meeting didn't go over so well then.'

'You could say that.'

'Don't give them any time, they'll never turn,' Phineas says, resolute.

'They pick at my equalities.'

He takes hold of her, 'I know you will make a decision for us. Now I must go, I have urgent business.'

'Your doubtful ways guide me,' she says.

'Ah yes, our champion. How are you Ralph. You look, different,' he says, drifting his eyes across me.

'I'm, okay I think,' I say, and he catches me looking out to whence they just came in from.

'Have you heard of the Yohav hoard from Yohavrium, Uletilans as they are infrequently known are renown for their epic battle horses painted a ceremonial white but their tunics are even whiter. All the better to spill your enemies blood onto. The mounted guard posted outside is one of them. They allied with the rest of the houses after years of war, many of whom they are now fighting alongside as brothers. Their once enemies the Klens who suffered in the purge conflict are now in a change of roles as the most feared of all the houses and the Uletilans the most honourably docile. Quite why this reversal took place is not unique among a single faction. It's happened before within the clans, tribes and houses. To this day it continues. There must always be a loser. Fate has shifted again to subject a side to the most appalling barbarism and watch how they'll become monsters themselves. The Relic does this. It's an indictment no faction wants but to get shot of its curse the afflicted have to give it to another. The repetitive nature of war is unending. What's harder to shake is bringing all them together to eradicate that menace and more. Stop it once and for all. This is what our imperatrix strives for and its why her methods are often seen as so cruel my dear boy. We wish to achieve the impossible,' he says.

'They foam at the mouth and gnash their teeth Phineas,' I say.

'Consul often will do, farewell.'

Phineas and his group walk to the glyph wall made of a free flowing liquid and enter it disappearing into an empty space. For the first time I become aware of how uncharismatic Twist is being left alone with me, bare vulnerabilities on show. Her guard filter back into the room to re-assume their duties and she puts on a brave face.

Twist gave a longing gaze, stimulated her crackled lips, counted her molars with her tartly tipped tongue. 'You mediated in my time of peril, giving me the locations of those two on the run and that is something I'll never forget. You have my gratitude, I'm so close you see to having it all under my control. All of it. I think of you as someone very valuable to me.'

'I've let it all get away from me, lost too much,' I say.

'There, there come tell me what happened to you.'

'Everything I loved is gone.'

'Dance with me, I'll be yours to cry on,' she says.

I flinch when she takes hold of me and lays me on her shoulder. Her fragrance is so perfect its distracting. Twist strokes my hair and remarks; 'You can cry if you want,' and I do try this but nothing came loose, another thing I could no longer do.

Through the open crevice I see the outside, an envelope to the rest of the cosmos. An armoured white cataphract stands valiant at the entrance and watches from the east with the paladins power of lightning bolts at the riders disposal, saddled on top of his steed. Amongst the sandblasted rock a tree of souls can be seen in the distance. Around it swirls a glowing life-force, committed on a magnetic attraction to the nimble bark. The slaves push and that obstructive rolling rock stops in my path.

'What is that,' I say.

'The Poria tree, it gives its life so you can live. Any tree covered in white rot, to its core attracts the souls of the dead and all plain walkers return here to live again.'

'Isn't that something.'

'Never did claim your prize, why so,' she says, drinking up my visage and gently presses onto my face.

'My prize?'

'At your disposal is a wish and I still can offer it. Only if you know what it is,' Twist says.

'What do I need, I've got nothing to say.'

'You lost someone, well, get a new one,' she says.

'It doesn't work like that,' I say.

'Can if you let go.'

'How happy she was, all the time, it ignited an empty world.'

'I'll bet it's something I can never understand.'

'It's not easy for me either.'

'Those that smile the widest hurt the most,' she says, doing that very same thing.

'No that's not right at all.'

'What has gone is gone, let it be,' Twist says.

'If you hadn't made me do the things that I did maybe I'd not have lost Elise. I blame you for that.'

Twist steps back when she sees how unhinged I have gotten myself. 'Take care of yourself and find the thing that makes you spin and keep winding it until it breaks,' she says, blowing me a kiss.

The portal closes and I'm disembarked sitting alone at a table in the sunlit café. I hear a crash of utensils from the other side of the room. She's now turned barista, grinding coffee, brewing and steams some milk in an all-in-one machine. A tantalizing pitter-patter of canvas shoes comes nearer, squeaking to a stop.

'I didn't see you come in, what can I get you,' the waitress says.

'I'll have a piece of that cake and a latte to go,' I say.
27

Precipitation is in the air. I could see the gathering storm was turning many miles away. Far out to sea it becomes overcast and the cloud that worked its way to the mainland covers over the sun. Its dark again before long and the already sparse beach is further evacuated by the sudden drop in comfort levels.

The collar of my coat went up and I walked faster along the sprawl in the drizzling rain. At the corner I bump into Stanley. He's now wearing a fur lined trench coat and had himself a wash. While he was there also must've had some thought about him too and picked up some saved things for us that was kept in a box from the club.

'Glad I ran into you like this,' I say.

'It is.'

'Yeah,' I say, storming off into the opposite direction he had envisaged.

'Where are you going to now, I thought we were,' Stanley says, but to no avail.

'No, no not there.'

'It's as suitable a place as any.'

'Not here.'

'Ralph,' he says.

'Everything is okay, down this esplanade is a motel, come on,' I say.

By the marina is the Nine daughters motel and I take a room right away hardly bothering responding to the giddy-up's small talk at the front desk. I left it for Stanley to fill in the gaps and the receptionist sort of gave a cringing smile in compensation.

I got my number and trailed the rows for it to come and stand out. Each one was the same, in colour, scale, layout, a uniform collection of upstairs and downstairs prefabs. When I opened door number 6 on the balcony he settled most his things in the box and I crashed on the couch.

He was full of beans and bravado today. Heroics of what or how, who overpowered who didn't interest me one bit. I daubed a switch to turn him off and while he was on hold like that a thought crept in about the girl I'd put in the ground last night. It kept coming back to me and instead of haunting my thoughts at rest did so while I was fully awake. I would need to fall asleep for much longer than a few minutes for it to subvert my insomniac tendencies.

'I brung ya a little something,' Stanley says, eating words. 'Ralph you listening to me.'

'I've got a lot on my mind.'

'Well I've got a lot to get off mine.'

'I killed some people Stanley,' I say, taking a large gulp of the latte after I did so.

'Out of self defence,' he says.

'I had to!'

'Why?'

'They were gunning for me. Found me at my apartment and came after me. They gave me no other choice,' I say.

'Are the rumours true?'

'Definitely not. It's been turned against me what they did to Elise.'

'What did they do?'

'What do you think.'

'No, they killed her,' Stanley says.

'And that's when they jumped me. I panicked. I think they even may have raped her.'

'Sick fucks.'

'This is the kind of people we are dealing with.'

'I know, I saw it by first-hand account what they were capable of and well – that's it, that's all done now and if I can't cry then I'll laugh about it.'

'Same way as how I've seen it too but I don't know any jokes,' I say.

'If you did I'd probably be laughing at you.'

'Probably.'

'Why does it happen to us Ralph, did we do something to piss off the wrong gods and have them drop almighty dumps on us from above.'

'I don't know any more.'

'They must be working up a healthy appetite after dropping those bombs on us. Assholes have flipped the "do not disturb" sign because they've been going at it so hard and are spraying away with the air freshener while spinning around in their own mess.'

'Careful there might be an encore,' I say, unable to escape the lousy tableaux outside.

'That's a tickler.'

He put down next to me a bottle of Jack Daniel's and holds out a drink already made up for me. 'Here, one last taste of the sour mash before I throw in the towel,' Stanley says.

'You're leaving me.'

'What you going to pay me in bottle caps.'

'I still have, my other, I've gotten a few cases of, or the . . .' I say, and trail off when I know there's absolutely nothing.

'It'll be okay. Technically I'm still on shift, by the books of course. Haven't left your sorry ass yet and your still my friend, because without that I wouldn't be here.'

'I don't know what I'm going to do about the club.'

'Start over.'

'What with.'

'There is still a chunk of change owed and its coming your way soon enough. That will lead to something. Got to let it filtrate through like sparkling water cus that's how the authorities like it done,' Stanley says.

'Didn't bother to renew our insurance policy for this year so that one's out the question,' I say.

'You might not have but I certainly did.'

'You did. That's a plus.'

'Well don't act so happy about it all at once now,' he says.

'I'm sorry, I do owe a lot to you, for being there when everyone else moseyed.'

'It's nice to hear you say that, get some praise every once in a while. Lets you know you're doing right,' Stanley says, running his finger across the dusty hospitality certifications.

'I don't really know how I can ever repay you.'

'How about – that cake you gonna eat that or what.'

'No its yours,' I say.

'Fair trade,' he says, squinting at the small print.

'I don't know about that Stan.'

'No, no that's what it says on here, on the packaging.'

'Oh I see.'

'"Comercio justo," the fuck is this.'

'So there's no crossed wires with the natives and the neighbours I'm guessing? There are worse things than that.'

'Like what.'

I close the Bermuda shutters. 'Have you ever wondered why people need to phrase something in another language?'

'Those across the border sorts.'

'Further away from us than that. When I was over at Torrey Pines I overheard someone saying he was going "en plein air" on the state reserve sometime next week. Only by process of elimination and due to the long wait did I ever make sense of what it meant.'

'What were you doing over there,' Stanley asks.

'Talking to Havon,' I say.

'You mean to tell me you was debating with the devil in his lair.'

'He was haggling for a resolution to end this aggravation of ours but it was a lie. Anyway do you want to know what "en plein air" means or not.'

'What does it, then?'

'It's painting while outdoors. Why can't people say that in plain English. Is the need to overcomplicate things inherent in us.'

'Fairies. The kind with the wings and the funny walk,' he says.

'They want to be seen as something they are not. Acuminous, important types.'

'Child fuckers is what they are, I've seen them before and don't deny it. Exactly how do you measure the tightness in their pants, they pop a boner they'll explode and who perms their hair in this day and age, its 1992, I get it if it still was when you were just a tot, the era of flares and fags. I ain't got no time for that,' Stanley says, and folds his arms in the same place he's been seated at since we arrived.

'I know you don't.'

'Golf breeds these types, a filthy degenerate with every stroke, the board of executives was always clearly involved in it somehow. I saw what nobody else did. Makes me worry about you actually with how much you love it. You hit a ball from here to here and someone wins after hours of this sack of shit. Fuck that!'

I get up off my seat. 'Stan you wield subtlety with a box cutter and its nice of you to shoehorn golf in a conversation about paedos Stan. What I'm saying here is that people don't appreciate the simple life no more.'

'I'm worried about you that's all,' he says.

I cave in against the wall overhanging from the new chair I've moved to but with an illusionary candour about me. 'I've gone and done it haven't I. Withdrawn myself from caring any longer and it's too late for me to turn back.'

'Everyone makes a big mistake at least once kid and they can get away with it, doesn't mean it can't be rectified.'

'Been a while since I've had a smoke and it's made me all jumpy and light headed. Funny because I kind of like how it makes me feel. See my nerves, I can't keep it together. I'll have to slowly cut myself off the drink, and the pills I can do right now. It's about time I quit.'

'I'm taking you home, you're on a path of self-destruction,' Stanley says.

'No I'm not. Doing it cold turkey style, the best way.'

'Can you not see that its spiralling. An ugly case of the DTs will put you in an early grave.'

'I'm learning how to cope,' I say.

'That's the deal? Removing all those things from your life at once. Its sadomasochistic.'

'Might be the case from over there, where you sit. Is it comfy?'

'Can't feel my ass in this thing,' he says, moving for the first time.

'But you still accept to sit in that chair don't you.'

'You know you've got some fucking attitude. I came over to talk things through you lippy son of a bitch.'

'Do you see where I'm coming from though?'

'I can't, I still think its bull.'

'Call it what you will but I'm letting go Stan of all the downtimes after tonight and it's the right choice. With it goes my dependencies too, flushed away. Until there is nothing left to hurt me and then . . .'

'Then you check out, is that what you do!'

'Suicide – no I couldn't do that.'

'What, what's next then when there is nothing of you left.'

'A fresh start. That's the exciting part of it, and it's what I can see now ahead of me, is a worthwhile trip unlike before. In lieu of starting over again from the beginning I'm going to forget about it. For once I don't know what tomorrow holds. I can be free to choose what I'd like to do.'

'Well I'm shocked.'

'I've never been out of the states, did you know that about me.'

'Where did this upbeat and reasonable you come from anyway,' he says.

'I dunno.'

'Well can you make him stay, I think I kinda like him.'

'Picture it. St Andrews for a day. Rather than exist according to how the schedule tick says it should be. The only thing separating that new brand of me is those people who took away Elise, they've got to go,' I say, biting at the disk on top of the coffee carton.

'Well that didn't take long did it.'

'I'm trying my best,' I say.

'It's a crazy halfway house to recovery if we're talking about yourself kicking it and coming clean here. I don't want to be the bringer of bad omens but, way I see it is – you fix one problem – to then add an even worse one to your repertoire. There is no way I can be around you if you go ahead with that last one. Killing a person in cold blood ain't right,' Stanley says, shaking his head.

'Neither is selling drugs to teenagers or making families destitute and he does that all the same with no care to who he fucks or dominates, and worse moreover by way of what he stands for, most people can't make a dent in him. I can make a difference.'

'Let the cops handle such a thing it's not on your shoulders.'

'It is on me and it's too much to bear. Spineless is what I'd be if I didn't try. I'm personally involved in this. Kept it inside me for a long while, until it bottled up. Fed my state of mind. I can't move on until he goes there is no getting away from it.'

'I've been holding off from saying this because it's hard to say,' he says.

'I know.'

'That's the thing, you don't.'

'Tell me then.'

'There looking for you right? and it's gone to shit but it could get much worse. I think you should turn yourself in.'

'Not until I've done what needs to be done.'

'Then I walk away Ralph, I have to.'

'I understand,' I say.

The door slams shut behind his heels and from the box he left I take out a piece of beef jerky, ripping a chunky mouthful, chew. Using my nails to pick at my teeth a segment of it gets stuck between them. I tear a motel business card in half to get at it but it just bends. Can feel it with my tongue making my entire mouth feel quite peculiar.

Suckling at it won't work, two fingers are pushed inside to prise the teeth apart but I botch it and scrape at myself instead. It drives me crazy. I try to forget it and move on, get back to where I was before and it won't bother me so bad.

Moved my tongue away from the wedged into place irritant and harken back to that of home-home. The picture above the motel bed is somebody's horrible pastiche, a crude landscape scene on the Alps of two women floating on their hair, snagged on the roots, a carbon copy of another's hard work, without any enthusiasm its devoid of worth, I hate it. At the bottom of its headboard I remove the bed sheets and search for an end. I find a tiny thread come loose on the reverse and snag it pulling it to me. It snaps and I wrap it around my fingers and floss.

I try to scoop its delightful sting out of me and then the thread shears off in my pinch. In my travel bag I gather my toothbrush and take it with me into the modest quadrant of the Nine daughters unit for let, its bathroom. Squirted an olive dollop on its bristles and brushed. I did it so hard and fast that it begun to feel good, a borderline pain threshold I wanted to cross.

The paste itself never really dispersed anywhere and clogged up into a froth at the singular place I had chosen to assault. For how hard I did it I was taken aback by the fact that there was no blood. Carried on with doing the once over on the whole of my mouth and spat white spearmint onto a clean enamelled basin.

Looked up in the mirror and saw the gap I had created. I'd make it wider and grind the brush ever harsher than before. Another minute or so I can touch the bottom of the plastic in my stroke and the swell I love comes back to me. It lifts me higher and my movement slows right down while I shudder to a stop. It shoots a tingle all over and it becomes my drug. I see my raw gums in the mirror and pat at them softly. A familiar scent drifts in through the open window, that of salt and soy sauce so I pull it inward by the handle and turn it shut.

Confronted with the test of a long road to Springs I settled into the systematic surroundings contempt that after a while it will have my mark on it, that and I'd be spending a larger slice of my days here, the turmoil at the club gave credence to that. As I siphoned the shirts onto hooks I caught a glimpse of myself in the dresser mirror, fresh and whole. When I took a double take I was made aware that wasn't me and what I was looking at a forgery crafted by my imagination. When it passes I laid out the embroidered shawl that had belonged to Elise at the head of the bed and lay upon it. I watched TV and tuned into CBS News 8 to see another reporter talking total nonsense, although apathetic about what they were calling the; "Seal Rock two." Described the suspect as a – in their own words; "walkway killer," asking anyone in the area at that time for help with further inquiries and provided a hotline number for witnesses to call up on.

Dipping into the contents of the travel bag by the side of the bed I took out some sleeping pills and fondled them. I re-read the label and made a weak attempt to click the child lock catch. Caught as much air as I could in me and felt my nostrils contract, wiped my face, arms then brought them behind my neck. Stood up and threw the pills into the bag encouraged in my own assurances of the true nature of any of the deceased profiles they dragged on-screen and falsified a sob story for the viewers to get behind. Over at the only table in the room Stanley turned it into a mobile bar and I used it to pour out another drink. Knocked it back straight then had another, more and less drank a quart, and fell ass down on the couch shit faced.

The big leafed philodendron in the motel is dying so I feed the plant a jack and coke. Its rubberised and when I found that out for myself started to swing it about and ejected the base which for whatever reason held real soil in it onto the bed spread. Pour myself a drink but spend most the hour looking at it.

I'm on my back on the couch – after sliding to a lounge on one side, breathing drunk and sit up when a multicoloured call sign emits from the brooch resting by the spirits and shines through them forcing a dance of gin and whiskey bottle contours onto any hard surface. A phase of red – to green – yellow and blue come out of this thing and cast radiant circles on the wall like a dance floor disco globe.

The bathroom's balsa frame is on fire and instead of spreading – the majority of it stays put – locked behind the wooden door. A white vapour originates from the nearby lampshade. It completely melts and bursts into autoignition. Rocked by a whiplash flashover it hits me from across the room and a lick of flame comes from under its gap. I get up, walk to the front of the bathroom that's ablaze, afraid the knob will be so hot I use a dish cloth to open it and head inside.
28

Its remarkably different on this half of the spectra and taking a few more investigatory steps the portal seals leaving me trapped. The sunken sarcophagus I had crossed paths with before had been remoulded into another ideal. Ripe fruit for an eager mercurial agent.

A neutral skylight shone down on the centre of the bare bones orb chamber. It was still preserved but without that monopolized assortment of torture devices and lures – when I uncovered its vestigial throne "he" was sitting upon it.

The tall grey advocate pledged an oath, 'A new leader, a new way forward.'

'It was you who sent for me.'

'Do you like what I've done with the place.'

'I thought you died,' I say.

'Don't tell me your surprised?'

'Where is he.'

'Relic, he's gone.'

'And me?'

'You're safe as long as you stick with me.'

'Now.'

'Now?' he crossed his legs disturbing the pressed hem and for a partial verdict toyed with the possibilities. 'We're on the straight and narrow me and you so forward is where we're headed.'

'You did all this, all on your own.'

'Sacrificial lambs. Things don't really change, and that's enough of a deliverance for me to cash in on,' Raymond says, wagging his resting leg.

'You invest in the disturbed and set them loose. It's hardly breaking new territory.'

He raises a brow. 'Do you profit from my struggle, has your corrosion not met its match.'

'Doesn't mean what's versatile for someone else is versatile for me.'

'I am your liberator.'

'What have I been freed from?'

'Of you,' he says.

'Me?'

'To crawl out from inside one's own and to be set free from it.' Raymond clamps onto his temples while he to-and-fros across the deck. 'Are you the same after a thing such as that?' and peers closer to check me out. 'A vegetable or worse, better even.'

'I don't know but I'm guessing we'll find out?' I say, glad when he gives me some breathing room.

'That's right and we've got so much to discover.'

'Hang on . . .'

'I command a lot of thing's now. Respect being among them, and you.'

'Shall I get down on one knee,' I say.

'Punch above the belt, you're better than that and I'm going to show you how.'

'So we're clear I'd never bow, I just want you to know that.'

'Damn straight, now listen here – pretty soon we're going to go take a business meeting to a special place I've got lined up – it's going to be great, thing is we need to attend to a few niggling things before we go,' Raymond says, fidgeting with instruments on a panel.

'Oka – y.'

'Fire her up! Yeeess.'

Whatever he did has started the mechanics of this contraption whirring and begun the propulsion of the very structure we stand in. Relics orb raises out the diapir crater taking some shale deposit to the outer limits and the further we travel the brighter numerous faint realms begin to shine on through transparent shielding (a polarized outreach to the framework of the universe) although outmatched by the brilliance of the closely aligned major nebular systems, concentrations of helium, oxygen and krypton across forbidden lines.

The two other jewels in the sky went out when they were partially assimilated into the stellar glow days ago by the largest gas formation under a combined rule of a multiple binary system. A bow shock ripples through the greater mass as they collided together forming a torus. Its molecular pillar appendage and the two remnants are being consumed, soon enough nothing will be left of them.

'Is that where we are going?'

'You'll see.'

'What's going to happen when we get there,' I say, and he smiles.

'Come, come can you not wait a fraction longer.'

A reunion of the main belt realms is undertaken as we speed toward the conglomerate giants floating together as heavenly clouds. Travellers to a distant zone, marooning in the free flow protocluster, we gain closer to them – the orb begins its own display bringing its shell to a brighter hue; thanks to unknown forces – and even though it dances across a star-streak space, like a wildcard exocomet spewing an ion back burner tail – stretching across a wide span – is nevertheless dwarfed by the interstellar prairie lights. We are an almost infinitesimal planetoid hurtling, ever brighter in their dayglow skies.

Easily mistaken, and ignored the orb slips into the main belt accretion disk undetected. In the midst of it a planetary system comes alive via Rayleigh's scattering of a gas giant at its northern pole; the antipode waits in the netherworld. A de-acceleration has been in effect since our dilated view on our prized cluster became innocuous, a total endeavour taking a mere matter of minutes and gradually we come to a rest beside a rocky bodied world.

There never was – never will be a more beautiful sight than the one I had just witnessed – so I had thought, until the descent into the foray of what seems to be a water rich second genesis. Breaking through the tear-drop planet, cloud tops oh so soft and at the equator edge, in darkness we crept. Trailblazing a familiar path, a one he had done many a time before; though his skills as pilot were questionable, today felt more like a pilgrimage than a homecoming for Raymond who was still playing to his strengths, of code and demure.

We come to rest in the jungle outskirts and the buffered landing spread mangroves thin enough that some of them collapsed. Searching through the orb with the distillate spray coming from below the craft, acting as kinetic conservator in a continuous feed with one another, wets this entire sphere and drains back down to be reused. By way of its roll-overs I can just about see some plains ahead of us and a gamut of overlapping poles flying house banners that are hidden in the overgrowth. The shielding on our craft turns a pure liquid and Raymond went outside and I follow him.

We can see clearer what they are in the backwash and stretching out as far as the estuary, I see the glints of metal caught in barrier mud, fighting against the longshore currents is where an old battleground raged, fell tacit and now used solely as a dumping ground for bodies, for the zhihgury birds circling overhead. Bladed weaponry, breastplates, helms and greaves have been swept together into a series of inlets by the virulent flooding that followed through into a canal of widespread genocide that is on show during the dry season and forms the major arteries connecting uncharted fiefdoms.

Across a field we can see the cupola of a nearby colossal habitat fit for housing royalty. I find a book and dagger in the thorn steeped in an effigy of death as Raymond goes on ahead. Stopping to check his spacing is correct, waltzing heel to toe a few paces from a tree he turns and reflects the brooch on his person into the distant parapet. A moment later a smoke signalling comes from the atrium within the inner walls.

'Put it down and go,' Raymond says.

'For what reason.'

'Just move it, and don't you touch nothing else. This place is cursed.'

'What happened to them,' I say.

'That's where those who disagree go to. When her cronies first came here in the collision of worlds, along came the water with them. This place was as dry as a moon in orbit around Aspis.'

'Where is Aspis?'

'The realm Brutus commands, or did so.'

'And what of this realm we are in,' I ask.

'It has many names to many people and sentinel tales locked under key. Early on in its continuum the mantle of Efficax was mostly comprised in a state of polymorphism. Then things changed to a homogeneous ecosystem after the culverts broke. In the build up to war the fighting men used common roads as they travelled and its where they died.'

'Were you here to see it fall?'

'No but it brought on events that effected me far away from here. For those close to it, was so much more terror than just methane bogs. Hurry we may not have much time,' he says, running off.

We stick to the dense cover and loop around, denying our enemy whoever they may be any chance of seeing us first this in touch with walls of the mighty palace we were yet to scale. When we dash for cover I was once again proven wrong in my assumptions and find the side gate to be unbarred. When Raymond pushes on it, it swings open.

'Quick there is no time at all, put these on.'

He passes over to me a new identity to wear. 'Who are we to be,' I say.

'Friendlies, simply passing the halls to the rectory. It's what the seance clerics choose to do with their time, so if anyone asks just look lost and nod yer ead,' he says, pumped out of character.

Peeking the corner Raymond wears his hooded disguise and has gone a pallid colour when he presses flat against the wall in expectation.

'That one right there is not a part of our party,' he says.

'And?'

'I think he saw me.'

'You there, come out,' the Yohav paladin says.

'Distract him Ralph. Give me time he'll be ambushed soon and you can never be harmed here in this place. Just think of a story to say.'

'Me? Why me,' I say.

'My turncoat needs time to work his magic, now do your part.'

Taking out the book "Histiarca imperitus" I'd found alongside the dagger I open it to a specific page depicting a specific account. 'What if I told him the reality of his situation?'

'I think you invented those mechanics to make it seem more cerebral.'

'Why do you delay,' he says, turning his horse our way.

I'm pushed out by Raymond and with no choice left start walking toward the hostile guard who is zeroed in on my complacence.

'Do you dawdle all day like this,' he says, and with some sort of perverse power clenches his fist which levitates me to him, directly at the fetlocks of his horse. 'Answers I seek or are you a mute!'

I open my mouth and hold it there.

'You do not have permission to be here. Who is your authority?'

'An ambush is coming your way, I wanted to warn you,' I say, partially overwhelmed by the force of his words.

'To give me a warning? A sage showed me my destiny when I looked into the Tasicus Weaver and what awaits for me in this very spot many years ago,' he says, with contentment in his thousand yard stare.

A shimmer of colour flutters in the polish of his basinet visor as he slats it down across his face and I get the courage to ask him a final question while he charges a growing double edged bolt in his clawed fingertips, 'What did you see?'

'The black rot comes to put an end of me and I wait for that day.'

Around from the corner Raymond reveals himself. 'And hear it comes,' he says.

His horse becomes unsteady and he calms it with a pat on the scruff of its mane when a rumble comes and the marching feet of a million, million raiders swamps the horizon dipping the luminosity of the nebular rise. The Poria fireflies far out are trampled through by the many fighters who challenge the sole defender of the realm. With his bolt charged he throws it into the sky and it pierces a cloud unleashing a fork of lightning upon the quickening feet of the black army. It strikes down in many more places than the first as the current it travels along divides until it explodes knocking out at each spot in the ground where it lands a platoon of beings in a sizzling crushed white. The sky opens and the toxic rains fall while those in the line disperse into the gaps assuming a still powerful contingent. The paladin may, points to the above to reclaim his bolt, kicks at the back of his horse and it gallops into the fray.

'Relic had stockpiled quite the imposing force wouldn't you say. Enough to keep them busy. I don't know if everything will go off without a hitch, place your bets,' Raymond says, watching the battle about to unfold.

'Odds are on white going by reputation.'

'But look at how many of them there are to take on,' he says.

'I knew he had something but not this army of slaughterhouse zephyrs,' I say, as they march and swarm armed with stolen weaponry a disordered accompaniment of mercenaries would do, consisting of double axes, crossbows, broadswords and things.

'Ah, timing. Better than nothing.'

We both watch and wait as the rock to the inner sanctum is drawn back and enter once it's come to a stop. A royal guardsman greets us. Less are on duty protecting the halls than usual. He takes us to the centre of her steamy chambers and several of them who stand in our way break rank and attack there opposite. A full scale battle takes place between the lofty guard and the infighting has servants running scared out the room. The final fatal blow was stuck into a hapless loyalist just above the defensive stance he took with his shield by an arbiter who finishes him for sure on the ground.

Raymond's collaborators form up into a new column at the middle set of steps below her bath and beat hard to their chest hauberk, with descending cadence they chant 'seek her'.

Dishonourably taking it upon himself Raymond leapt the flight while I wait behind at the bottom. 'Well, well, well what do we have here then. My informant said he'd provide me access to you when you were at your most vulnerable but this was not what I expected.'

'Grey is that you,' Twist says, freely bobbing in her throne pool.

'Poor bastard child, who's is it,' Raymond says, bringing a pruned myrtle's petals to his nose.

Twist points in my direction. 'His'.

'Sorry to hear about that, I really am because you ought not have done that.'

'Mine? how is that possible, and so fast,' I say.

'Two orbits, two! have passed since we first encountered one another you idiot and why are you with him.' she says, shivering and shaken, panting ready to give birth. Goosebumps cover the soft fatty parts of her body including her giant pregnant bump. She squats afraid and cries.

Raymond felt the back of twist's pear shape as she has a contraction. He grabs at her pony tail and pins it to the coping rim with his foot. 'You do the bitch Ralph,' he says.

'But my baby, let me birth,' Twist says, while it kicks and pulsates inside her.

'Who cares it's a monster, god knows what it'll come out looking like,' Raymond says.

'Can you see me Ralph. Look at me! Inside my womb we have created another house to hang on our banners. It creates symmetry not only visually but by the numbers order will return. This is what you've always wanted Ralph, what you have strived for.'

'I don't know –'

'Have your way with me all you like but let my baby live, Grey please,' she begs him.

'– I don't know, if this is the right thing,' I say.

'Killing her, it's what will set everyone free from tyranny, how can you argue with that fact.'

I take a pike from a dead royal guard and pull it up the steps to spear her like a hog in a trap and she thrashes around, plunge it deeper into her heart with a short exchange and she gives a push with childbearing hips at the assault, spilling placenta and birth fluid out her vagina. Twist's stomach flattens rapidly. The bath water turns red as she gasps her last breaths and cries out for that of 'Abacadia, Abacadia'.

I crook the pole until she is gone. Raymond lets her head fall back against the ceramic, sliding further under and bubbles filter to the top as the water turns a deeper red.

'It was her mother she called for,' he says, looking at the underlying antithesis of her fair character, now a shallow wreck. 'The same mother she had exiled and who perished of exposure in the Uiast range; a kind woman who raised her knowing only love and that little girl went sour.'

'So she turned out nothing like her,' I say.

'This lineage has come to an end.' He steps into the shallow to where the newborn has floated to and plucks it from out of the water by the scruff of its neck. Its cries echo into the empty halls. 'I'll take care of this one,' Raymond says, shambling away with it held at a distance.

Isolated from the rest of us and alone with her newborn – our rejected child's crying is smothered and when Raymond comes out with blood on ambidextrous hands he has turned from an elder sentry to callow prime. Wrinkles, the grey, crow's feet and receding hairline all retreated to his former youth and the new statesman tested his new ligaments.

Slowly the rest of the realm was made aware of Twist's demise and crowded around the main throne to see her. Each reaction was different but it signified they needed to see it for themselves instead of receiving the trickle down of third party information. Servants and consul, guard and comfort boys looked on.

One of them who came to me was Froda. After all this time she had survived the bullying to see this day and I could tell she was pleased for it. Emblazoned with heraldry ensigns, off it came.

'Should have done something about Twist, it got out of hand and I stood by and did nothing, I go about things the wrong way and thought to serve was all that mattered,' she says.

'What could you have done,' I ask her.

'Lost my pride. I haven't held this sword in years, I was too afraid.'

Froda takes off the rest of her armour and unbuckles a scabbard and sword. 'Will you give this to whoever is my successor,' Froda says, looking out at the ongoing battle outside against the hoard.

'You want to try your luck being reborn at the Poria tree or do you crave leadership with a sense of purpose,' Raymond says.

'I want the chance to do my duty,' she says.

'Can use someone with your talents,' he points with a boyish finger and the gait of an old man.

'Don't know the first thing about you sir.'

'Have you any objections to me taking over?'

'Depends. Are you a genocidal megalomaniac.'

'Not my style. To rebuild this place as it once was is what I'm about. I don't know my dear what Twist used you for but I could certainly respect your input,' he says.

But Froda had nothing more to say.

'That bad huh, then at least think on it.'

'You're a clever swine, charming everyone else so easily shaken but I won't be convinced with words alone, no not any more, I'll find my own way,' Froda says, letting her hair dampen in the rain.

She left her battle gear behind and took only a plain sword with her when she walked outside to survey the land and hurries to support her rampaging ally in the swarm of a black calamity.

'No matter. It's the nature of unpredictable things to be, well, troubling. Yes I like it and can work with it, feel it,' Raymond says.

Hurling along the sanctum floor he flings open a double set of doors that lead us to the rectory and that leads to the observatory chambers up a flight of stairs. A number of clerics have hidden here at the ornate pulpit and cower when we pass.

Amassed alongside the dome were celestial coordinates that could be controlled by the central machine and Raymond ascended inside the cartographers sextant as pilot to the sky. Blades of the dome retract like a landing wasp pivoting its wings for storage and the sky floods in its gamma ray allocation that sensors automatically recognizes illuminating readouts with technical data in a symbiotical relationship that Raymond interprets with each gyroscopic movement of the machine he sits inside.

He targets the binary stars at maximum zenith which themselves were newcomers to this patch of cloud. Both of them are pushed out of the galactic plane reversing there absorption by denser objects. Without anything to feed on the swirling centre ate what little gas it had left and faded to the surrounding substratum.

The reunification of the realm brought about by Raymond starts with raising Relics orb to the surface so it is aligned with the other realms. Clastic rock falls free leaving a sabre relict stuck to its base while it begins its ascent. As the final shape all but falls into place it became obvious to me that it's about to take a form of the complete brooch. The first and second stone, the crescent bridge, the folding spring, the spike. Brutus and Maude the offering for a chance of apotheosis, Twist the uniter of beings, Relic was a resistant force, and Raymond the rock that holds it all in place. It was of ordinal design.

New stars are born in the sky. A rapidly evolved stellar nursery emerges. Rearrangement of the cosmos is under way, stars and dust settle to their new form and Raymond ejects himself out from the machine leaving the device on autopilot pointing its prism at an empty space in the sky.

'Are you coming?' he says.

'I want to find Froda.'

'She needs to find herself before she'll get aboard and join us willingly.'

'Then it's worth the try,' I say.

'Go on but don't take so long about it,' Raymond says, passing between worlds through a rift he opens up at a glyph wall.

Retracing my way through the labyrinthine floors of the palace I come to the open rock entrance, anxious at the scent of death and charged particles free roaming from the battlefield.

When I came to lay sight on the massacre that had taken place all around me I could see the grotesque nature of the hodgepodge force Raymond had summoned. Moving among them they were still twitching and with more haste I searched for her among the tar pools, limbs and pecking birds. I take out the dagger I kept secret when a torso comes crawling my way wailing its vocal box and it ignores me completely to continue going regardless of its disability and low hanging entrails.

Out there a walker comes, this one with an exalted fist looks to be Froda. Speeding up to meet with her a ring of bodies slows me down and makes me walk around them.

Just like a freak wave rolling the hull a thermal expansion hits the ozone above our heads and blinded I turn away from the undulation. A moon sized ball of plasma incoming, plummets from high, folding the atmosphere over and boils it away after touching. Here I stand on my own and she looks over to behold the crashing of the two. It rips into the methane ocean far out and cascades a wave so high it meets the edge of the stratosphere, mushrooming down and uplifts the ground carrying it our way. Froda still stood as powerful winds emitted from the hypocenter force themselves upon the rest of us and swept everything but her away.
29

Coming around in the bathtub was a surprise and the seahorse shower curtain that covered my naked body had been pulled down off individual rings on the rail. I was not so wet but it certainly wasn't long done for me to freak out and undergo terminal burrowing.

Overhanging the rim I dangle and sit straight to relieve the blood flow allowing a normalised sensitivity to return below the kneecaps. When I gain a more comfortable arrangement in the parabola I warm up and see all the re-purposed items motel staff have scraped together off the sea bed. The set of urchin husks was now a tealight holder and its perverse tubercles radiated on all sides giving them a distinct bilateral symmetry. Soap rested on a pearl oyster half shell and the sponge was real. The conch in the depression of the corner it sat in was decoration.

Getting out the tub I noticed my shins were covered in bruises that must have happened while hallucinatory visions came to me. I get dressed again and pack some things, taking my suitcase with me out the door.

The storm dragging in was a more violent affair than ever and I ran through it while all the dogs in Oceanside are at it, barking. I make it to the parking area of ex-Sovereign as a group of pigeons sit on a pavilion. A cacophony of flapping wings sprawls across the cityscape when they are disturbed by the stuck door that I eventually force open. It seemed late in the afternoon as I drive and tag along with others in the east highway drudgery. Saturday again, can it be?

Hunger pangs came at me and I held back the urge for a taste so soon broken on my promise I'd made to myself. Am I real about this or dough of all the expectations others also fail to keep. Found a substitute to the tickle between my fingers; a regurgitated breath or two and when put into practice started heavily coughing.

Waves in my cochlea swelled and it magnified them as they broke, crunching like light snow layers upon the foot of the child. I heard it loud and clear – it was distinct enough to be caught on a nautical spindle by a hard of hearing fisherman recording today's log and in it he writes of the illusive minuscule lapse rate, crowded out by stray signals from antennas, satellites in extended arrays, probes trading packets of need to know information in the borderless super junction, viruses talking to zombie botnet hypervisors, crypomen in plain clothes with one-time pads solve encrypted puzzles, collision avoidance countermeasures that were predicting, superconductor code materialising, qubit functions crunched in a matter of nano, deceptive radar clicking and infrared decoys and floating buoys had bombarded me into overload capacity.

One such guide from out of the chaos kept me on track, pointing to my destination the whole time and it penetrated my very being as it spun its magnetic coils on a pulsar axis. I followed its magma lines and moved into oncoming traffic to get there quicker.

Today I wore cotton pants and I'll wear them tomorrow again because they fit just right around the waist. Had no problem stretching across to the other pedals and wonder why I had jeans, corduroys and workplace pants but a single pair of sweats, why, why? who'd make it so difficult to restrict yourself in such a way I don't care for. The hassle of burdened movement I had become so domesticated with was no more a problem than the act of breathing as it stood, the cornerstone of discovery and I solicit more of that simplistic independence.

Spotted the flag waving at o'clock high and pulled up beside next doors place and got out. I saw the television crew had camped outside seeking an audience with their current spotlight serpentine of the small screen. The reporter I had recognised as that of channel 8's Josie Laing scouting in the locked down automatic gate for a scoop. The rest of the crew were setting up for today and used an umbrella to keep cosmetics dry and plastic tarpaulin for the equipment. She had her faithful low keynote about her when she was rehearsing her lines off-screen.

Inverse to what they say, Josie was bigger in real life and I watched their entire routine with a small crowd that had gathered. The bright lights of the camera hit her mature face and sent her into a spouting mouth mode that was prefaced by her editors words but managed to sound so sincere. I was impressed enough that I almost started to clap.

The crowd dispersed – and I watched them feet up in comfort of the car and its heater blasting in my face to see through the drips – that the crew could be likened to sloth's who took their sweet time preparing the van for travel.

When they leave I meet the bottom of the fence running along Blackgold road, push through my suitcase, scale it and drop to the other side on a tender cultivated garden. Across a striped lawn bent into contrasting direction by mowing rollers I trigger a security light closer to the compound and carry on walking to the front door. I ring the bell.

'What are you thinking you're doing turning up like this.'

'Is he home?'

'Yeah he's home,' the man behind the door says, and pulls me into the hallway with a gun pressed up against my head. 'What you got on you,' he says, searching me.

Didn't find anything in particular that interested him during the frisk and takes away the suitcase I had brought along with me. Not sure what to do next he nervously calls out to another person in the kitchen. 'Can I get some help in here, is anyone back there?' and down the stairs in an open fronted bathrobe comes a bedraggled Austin Havon.

'What is all this racket about.'

'I'm sorry sir I didn't know what else to do with him.'

'What's he doing here,' Austin says.

'It's what I'm trying to figure out sir.'

'This is a well crafted wet dream.'

'Sir?'

'Does he have anything to say for himself.'

'Had nothing on him except for this,' the man says, and hands over the suitcase to Austin.

'Don't worry about it son you did splendid.'

'In just a moment I can have this taken care of,' he says, and starts dialling 911 on the cordless phone.

'Now hold on there, you don't need to do that right away.'

'This man's not all there, I can see it.'

'I don't agree with you, and herein is why, see I think he's here for something. Wouldn't you like to know why because I sure as hell would,' Austin says, tying the silken belt at his waist tighter.

'I've come here for a reason that's right,' I say.

'It speaks.'

'Can we talk-talk or what?' I say, turning to the wise guy holding onto the overly big hand cannon.

'So we're on the same page here, you try any funny shit with me or my friend here just know I'm aiming this at your back got-it.'

'You got that,' Austin says.

'Yeah I've got that,' I say.

Havon started to laugh and prances his sweeping hand toward the office, 'It's all got a bit Greek in here hasn't it. Shall we.'

We go to his office and on the desk there he put down my suitcase and leans on it. The door closes and in front of it waits Austin's man. An expected but laid back tension filled the room as he kicked his feet or the other fiddled with braces over his shoulder and I soaked it in.

'I'm still fond of you Ralph,' were Austin's first words. 'What I want to do to you when I think about it and start seeing my boy in the morgue, it would make Pol Pot blush.'

'I'm sorry about what happened to him.'

'Oh, you seem very upset about it.'

'I know what you're thinking,' I say.

'You do.'

'I have an idea.'

'Ask me!' he says, with buried pain on his face.

I switch my view I have on the desk he sits on at the centre of the room perchance to look across it from where the two of us were only a few days ago under very different circumstances and saw that there are a few new additions one of which was a silver crucifix. It was mothers and it hung on his wall. I felt my complex change as the intent focus I'd adopted slowly crept back onto him. Somehow I managed to force it below and continue with the conversation.

'His head was ruptured like a melon when they peeled back the body bag. I've never cried like I did then in years.'

'Jack was a shy man but a respectable one,' I say, feeling the force of his fist.

He gets downright emotional after he sucker punches me in the stomach. 'Keep that, it's for free,' Austin says.

'Stand here,' the other man in the room with us says, and pulls me back to where I was.

'You have it I killed him and that's not true,' I say, and keel over.

'I have it on a very trustworthy account it was you.' he says, looking right at me. 'We did some enquiring, were clever like that and the last person Jack was seen with was you at that piece of shit club of yours. Explain that for me.'

'It was a disgruntled guy called Dusa who had a minor crisis of trust with the Czech after he shot him, almost killing him. So he hired some people to take care of things.'

'And one of them was you.'

'No, but I was there to see it happen.'

'What the fuck happened, why did my son die!'

'I don't know.'

'Think, quick.'

'Some people that the Czech knew stopped us while we were delivering some product to people Downtown and there was a fight.'

'And what you got in this then?' he says, bringing straps into his leverage to extenuate frustrations and opens the suitcase. 'Nothing in here but useless junk, like you.'

'I've told you everything I know.'

'Barry who is this Dusa guy,' Austin asks, squinting without his spectacles on.

'His story checks out. Dusa was an old soldier of the Czech who ended up in hospital when things got heated,' Barry says.

'Is he still alive?'

'I think so,' I say.

'Sevastian always was a hot head, he didn't know when to lay off and bury a head in the sand, no that crazy shit would actually bury heads in the sand if you told him that proverb, the stupid Slavs, we need to ditch them.'

'There is only two eastern crews left that operate with us.'

'Fuck them all Barry,' Austin says.

'I got out of there as soon as when I saw they started going ape,' I say, believing it.

'Why didn't you come to me I could have helped.'

'Waited, waited until it got less crazy and laid low a while. Just coming here I had to dodge reporters on your doorstep.'

'I know it's not what any of us want, believe me,' Barry says, nodding his head at Austin.

'Hose me down, I thought we was preparing for a lynching when you walked in here full of spunk,' he says.

'I'm glad to see you reconsidered it,' I say.

'I think there is some poor sap receptive to fill those boots for you.'

Austin clicks his fingers. 'Right, let's make that happen.'

'Will do.'

'Sorry about that kid, you never know who you're dealing with. Get him a drink of water while you're out there Barry,' Austin says, bringing me to my feet. 'Shake it off kid you're okay.'

Barry walks out the room to check who's buzzing on an intercom and Austin was already looking out the window at the gate trying to see for himself who it was. He makes his way around to his desk chair and showed me one of the bronze star medals he kept in an oak box.

'My grandfathers,' he says.

'For valour or heroic service.'

'That's right,' Austin says, and nods.

'Must've been a hell of a tearjerker,' I say.

'Oh it was. My father would put me on his knee and he'd tell me the tale of his pop's and the many Jap's he killed in the Pacific. Our family weren't prudes about this sort of stuff, our history was not about to be brushed over like it was nothing, we was proud of it.'

'I can get behind that.'

'What about yours, did he see any action?'

'Purple heart. He never came home, I never met him either.'

'That's true dedication for you,' he says, closing the lid on his sentimental military awards.

'I wish I knew him,' I say.

'My Jack didn't turn out exactly the way I wanted him to be but what he was, was enough.'

'A good father knows.'

'My grandfather built this place with his own initiative and I was always worried that I'd never be enough to warrant its ownership and I couldn't carry on what they started. Our side came from nothing to be a somebody. I wanted to give that to Jack,' he says.

A scamper of feet come from upstairs. Austin looks up.

I see his attention drift so I start talking. 'Mine was the epitome of flawed but an example for us all. Every weekend without failure my father got drunk at next doors house. One time I turned up in a frenzy of tears and had a scrape on my hand. I was only a toddler but the babysitter had left me for a date who drove her around in his muscle car. Can't blame her for that, thing was a beaut. Left alone as you can guess I grew restless and broke some things. You should have seen the way he looked at me when he found me. It's one of my earliest memories. For one entire hour my father cared even though he was full of drink. He put aside his debauchery for me even if it was for a second. To tell me everything will be all right in the end. When our fathers die, we only have ourselves and how often we will walk in the path that's been oh so trodden before us,' I say.

Down the stairs came two half naked rental girls with Mardi Gras beads around their neck and they spy on us through the open door.

'Come to bed Austin,' they say.

'Go on without me I'll be up soon,' he says.

'We're lonely.'

'I know, I know I won't be long,' Austin says, looking over at the banister until they leave.

'Some fine looking ladies you have there,' I say.

'Voilà, that point when you know you've made it. When you wake up between two pair of mammaries with the smell of lavender sheets and whisky on your breath.'

'Did you wake one morning and decide that's how it should be from now on?' I ask.

'Almost. Living as that of a bachelor is fun but there is more to it than that. Masculinity is a sordid role I take serious. Realized it when I was watching birds out the window one fine afternoon who were pretty excited about something. Probably because it was mating season. Anyway after sometime I figured out that momma and papa bird had built a grand bird home for their beloved chicks who they were waiting on hatching. So when push came to shove and those birds hatched you should have seen them work. Constantly going out to face the world and scavenge. Sadly only one of them survived but they carried on getting worms and bread stolen from duck ponds all the same, man these things were manic. Then there came a time when the father, at least I think it was the father just got bored and let the mother do all the work. I looked at that papa bird sitting on top his house, shitting through the branches onto his only son and I thought that's fucking genius. So I got me a lifestyle, a car, wife and son. I do also have three daughters but the first was a charm sonny. Now though things have changed. Our family don't have an heir any more and I am real sad because of it. This is more than just an inconvenience it allows me to torture the living daylights out of the man who killed my boy.'

There was a knock from outside on the front door and a porch side window. Barry was uncertain to answer it while I went behind Austin's desk to pick up the cross off the wall. Holding it like an axe I hone in on his bare scalp. Holes where the new follicles refused to grow, wrinkles, liver spots, aged skin, hair bleached from the inside. Empire.

I threw the cross into the suitcase without a care as he watches me do so. Out of my many compartments in the case an accounts book materialized and I dumped it on his desk. He opens it at a few pages and doesn't understand.

'What is this?'

'It's what got your son killed.'

'It's nothing,' he says.

'I know.'

'Are you being funny with me?'

'I'd never tell a lie.'

'How does this mean anything,' Austin says, losing it.

Put my hands onto his desk and I bend to his level. 'I just wanted to be left alone. You dragged me into this when I didn't ask for it and he got in the way of me dropping that big boulder on Sevastian's head.'

'Muthafucker you're dead,' he says.

'Your dead son and that mutt Czech got my Elise killed. It was most likely you who gave the orders wasn't it. We both understand what it's like to lose something. Question is can you live with it and put to rest that murderous craving?' I say, and walk out with the case as he rummages about in his top draw. 'I doubt it.'

'Hey, where you going,' I hear him say, as I scoot myself out of there and close the door.

Talking with the two SDPD cops at the front door Barry has a shit eating smile about the place his philtrum should rest. The adrenaline hit my pores and squeezed the life out of me when I'd understood there was no chance of turning around what I have done and it put me in a state where everything grew a notch brighter and words slurred. They directed orders to me and I kept walking into the cop and darted past him. At six-five the guy brought me down quick in a tackle that crushed my wrist, the one on the suitcase handle.

He went to cuff me.

'Its broken,' I say, squirming with his knee in my back.

A sting on my nose let me know he'd opened up the wound again and a run-off bled a tickle on my face. And that was called off when out the doorway came Austin with a snub nosed six shooter and fired straight into the cop in front of me. The other reacted quick enough to break loose a shot off with his glock striking the chest of Austin. He fell and only then did Barry join in the firefight tasked with sending that other cop who'd took a one in his body armour to the reaper but still managed to pull off a frantic finger that brought them both to an end in a combined duck shoot.

They ended him right on his own doorstep. The autocrats daughter came running in to the fray and sought contact with her slowly vanishing father. A cop jumps all over that and shouts for her to obey but she didn't listen and was then approached in an attempt to be pulled away by the able of the two cops who only suffered a minor shock and nothing more. The other one next to me had taken a few rounds in his plates and had undone Velcro straps exposing them, held in place by a protective vest which had saved him it seemed and the relief on his face; I'd seen that happen and knew what it meant. I too had come out of the bulletstorm unscathed.

'Daddy!' was the last thing she outburst and when everyone had come around I was pushed to the floor and the cuffs were secured. I scrunch my eyes and bite down as they go on. Isabel clung in desperate hope to her father's peppered corpse as she herself was dragged away by a stranger into the same squad car as me. My unwilling passenger.

We wait for backup to arrive to take care of the crime scene and then they leave us with new recruits who switch with the first responders and get treatment for the shakes, or carted off on a stretcher into an ambulance that turned up late. The sirens wauled. An ear piercing revelry that only grew worse when I sat through her uncontrollable crying all the way to the station.
30

Isabel was booked in at the northern precinct next to the hospital they hadn't finished building, due for its completion ceremony next year and was moved into a cell while I sat watching in handcuffs awaiting my transfer to Hillcrest to get my broken arm looked at.

The nurse who treated me there was nice – a vitriolic dumpling but one with a compatibility I could relate to; be it a distinguishing integrity or not – her face matches how she felt it. I got my x-rays back and a new cast set, a bed and jello pot with safety spoon in accordance with there no sharps policy.

'Mr Tullman, I'm detective Foster, this is my partner detective Henley, I'd like to ask you some questions,' a flatfoot says, astride the door, strolling in and taking over from hospital staff.

Foster shuts up while Henley chimes in. 'Ralph Tullman we've been looking for you after we received a very disturbing call from your friend who was worried you were going to do something you'd regret.'

'That's ridiculous,' I say.

'His words not mine.' He brung the shutters down. 'What he had to say was very troubling to us. You see, he had it that you were about to kill a man.'

'Told our friends in dispatch that you were "highly erratic the last we'd spoke" he said.'

'I wouldn't call it that,' I say.

'What would you call it,' Foster says.

'Freedom of speech.'

'So you a man of conviction and decency, is that right?' Henley says.

'It seems you've gone all quiet on us,' Foster says.

'I'm the best I can be with what I've got.'

'Great, ain't that great. You can start by telling us why you somehow ended up at the Texans place and have a suitcase with a silver cross inside it, are you a door to door preacher?'

'No,' I say.

'What were you planning to do with it? Or was it stolen.'

'Can I phone for a lawyer.'

'We're just making chit-chat here,' he makes a point to chin wag his dimpled jaw. 'So who's the catholic? Can you take me to the catholic,' Henley says, and laughs like a phoney.

'It isn't mine,' I say, graven. 'It's my mothers.'

'Getting somewhere, I like that. What about a Jack Havon, Clemens Foch, Elise Monroe?'

Having none of it Foster interjects and sits on a corner at the foot of my bed and opens a file. 'Borrowed this from a nurse, penned by a Dr Metcalf who has been a long time medical practitioner you've been seeing a lot of.' His eyes protuberate while glossing over its contents. 'Alludes to his emotions coming together in a fantasy, high levels of neurosis, wishes for effigy's to come to life to reclaim him, ignorance and indifference exist in very different substrates that act as a protective barrier,' he closes the file and blows a "phew" out his mouth. 'This is some tantalising reading.'

'It sure is,' Henley agrees.

'Is there anything you'd like to tell us Ralph?'

'Not until I've spoken to my lawyer.'

'We've already rang for a public defender. He's on his way from Milwaukee, could be a while,' Foster says, with hoot.

'What he's trying to say is we'll get you some call time soon, okay.'

'Those fancy lawyers cost plenty.' Foster stops to look around at his partner. 'Makes no difference though if you don't have a case and right now we have a warrant to check the contents of your home, what do you think we'll find there?' he says.

'Now is the time to tell us if you wish to clear your name. Come clean and we can promise to do our best for you,' Henley says.

'Could be placed in a secure ward with your history if you take this all the way and if convicted or still if he pleads insanity,' Foster spouts off a back and forth.

'It keeps getting worse.'

'It's bad and uglier,' I say.

'A knockout dose of medication he should be taking is served as his second meal in hospital,' he says.

'No one wants that,' Henley says.

'Forget about real jello,' he says, lifting up the empty pot.

'For the next thirty years.'

'All you will be doing is wearing stripes and eating bread,' Foster says.

'Too bad.'

'Nobody visits Ralph,' he says. 'But that guy next to him has had plenty people who love him come over.'

'Must be hard hearing that your friend got all teary when he snitches you out?' Henley says.

'What's going to happen now, you expect me to go home and cry alone?' I say, fed up with it.

'There is no home Ralph. Who's paying your bail? Nobody that's who. Your someone else's bitch.'

With a swift knock at the door a nurse comes in with a weekly pill organizer full of meds. 'Sorry gentlemen I need you to vacate while I see to this man,' she says, and they both walk out. 'Thanking you.'

She lays them out like skittles on my food tray at the back of the room in little white pouches and outside I see Foster making bottoms up gestures through the glass at me. I hear Henley telling him to 'knock it off' but the damage was done. I stick my tongue in the gap in my teeth and draw nearer the lining of my upper lip when I apply some suction on it. A nervous subtlety that the nurse had picked up on and said a few words to try and calm my nerves. She drew back the blinds even though it was still heavy with rain.

'Much better, I can see you fully without shambling to find your best side the light likes to fall on?' she says, lifting an eyelid and shining a torch in both.

'Are those all mine?'

'They are for later,' she says, and tends to the other beds in the communal wing.

'What did you say?'

The nurse goes all blurry. 'I'm going to bite off toes and feed them to you,' she says, already decoupling and phasing into a non-Newtonian fluid that falls within a darkly cone of vision.

'What?' I say.

'I'm taking some bloooood. Only here for a biopsy but I'm taking a spleen with me and something more precious,' the nurse says, while fluffing a pillow.

'What?'

And I fell asleep.

'Mr Tullman, Mr Tullman, can you hear me, you've been under a few hours in surgery for an intra-articular fracture correction and we've placed screws and a plate to your wrist. Try not to move it around too much.'

'How did I?'

'It's just the way the solution is working, I'll see you when you wake up.'

I drift away.

Only to reawaken to the light drops of rain on a hollow corrugated shelter and granulated bitumen roofing. I see plastic offcuts exiting a heat wave from an exchanger and hum of countless commercial manifolds next to spinning extraction fans.

There is an IV line in my arm and a bandage further down wrapped around my swollen wrist. Some orderly looking men in white types come into my room and push the bed and free-standing drip pole on five castors out through the hallway. They don't talk much or acknowledge me. He whistles a tune as we go, ushered on his bemoans unto you and thus oblivious to squeaking wheels that gives him physical trouble; adamant on it swinging both ways at the same time. We pass the intensive care unit and I can hear the beeping of life support machines and automated ventilators working.

There was no fanfare when I arrived and no hint to the zone of zero transgression I was entering into. I'm wheeled to a secure area with resistant glass and protective mesh, egress coated in wire guard too. That would be my private holding pen in a secluded wing hospital extremes had to offer. It was sterile like a research lab but also basic with not an out of place element in its bare essential detailing and had an easily accessible en-suite restroom adorned with a large disability sticker but that's all there was to see. Not accounting the disturbing case of clamps bolted to the floor but I largely ignored them.

To be strapped into a recumbent position and left alone was unusual. Not in that it was infringing on my liberties, more in – I was snug as a bedbug and caught. No more need to be concerned with the chorus of pick and choose, that intumescent sickness of being indecisive, or by taking what I thought was mine only to find it wasn't earned, the cowardice of running away and doing it badly, murder. They all added up to a pitiful integrity. Now it had changed for me and everything was on-rails from here out.

In came a doctor. 'Evening, Dr Shloten, I hope everything is okay?'

'I'm just dandy doc,' I say, moving the only thing I could, my head.

'Apologies about your accommodation but it is temporary.'

'Am I to be incarcerated?'

'I'd have to leave that in the hands of the police.'

'How long do I have to be in here?'

'We'd like to observe that the bone sets correctly in place and when we feel with certainty that you are healthy then you can leave,' Dr Shloten says.

'Straight into the slammer.'

'While you are with us I can re-prescribe the correct medicine for you.'

'I was given the wrong medication?'

'Once we get you on the new course of treatment things may improve dramatically.'

'I stopped taking those altogether,' I say.

'Side effects of Fluvoxamine can include a dry mouth so you may have been put off by this bad taste. The new stuff we have is much more palatable,' he says, taking a pen out and writing on my bedside clipboard.

'Well I think I'd like that.'

'Fantastic, well a nurse will come and help administer them for you shortly,' Dr Sloten says, while skimming through the medical charts and places it back in its holder. 'As for the wrist it's looking A-ok,' and even makes the identifying sign.

He goes away and above him as he walks out I notice the lazy strokes in the paint when the brush feathered its square trim while finishing and expose the slight imbalance in colour consistency across the wall. My eyes open wider.

I dreamt a dream of the hole in the wall – and Elise standing in front of it. Unlike my own cell there was more going on at the scene – I'd see it like I was back there – including a window with bars, dampness, table with lamp, a book, doily, alarm clock and concrete. The scratching of tin can on can, a segue to something else, my muscles relax as I pass to a new realm transfixed on a voyage – I'd envision taking off into orbit – a sequence passing over my head then lifting off up to the black vacuum of the stars. Transitioning through a paper ceiling into view beholds the city limits. Then the clouds, air pressure drops, no difference my mind set on the outer limit – non-stop into the unknown to pursue on that impetus which is adrift.

The next morning I was informed by the nurse retrieving the emesis basin filled with cotton that it was Sunday today and it had turned just after seven. On this my first day under watch I was delighted to have something of urgent concern on my timetable. I had been informed that I should expect to see a visitor and wished so much for the ability to toss my hair about to pat down the frizz. I couldn't do anything about it and let it stand on end as he walked in.

Let in by an orderly the door shut again and my visitor followed the breadth of our bland environment. With some resolve he continued onto my place of rest and saw me and my hallmark hair poking above two layers of hospital linen. For a short while contours of his face turned a sultry, softened while he stood envious of my new-found infamy and disclosed an effeminate nature but in him I saw another.

'The detectives thought it would be helpful to the cause if I were to talk with you in private.'

'Oh, you're not one of them?' I say.

'I've been specially sent for.'

My head comes off the pillow to look at the two-way. 'Alone.'

'Why not,' he says.

'Who are you.'

'Mr Fenblosse. I'm your defence.'

'Names Ralph, pleased to meet you,' I nod.

'Likewise. A Mr Henley told me you were vaguely uncooperative with their investigation, that's smart, it would have been mighty advantageous if you had said nothing to begin with to these men. What's done is exactly our current starting-off point, however I do hope you will be more favourable to an open conversation with me.'

'Yes sir, whatever needs to be done to exonerate me in the eyes of the law.'

'The prosecution has indicated they will pursue the maximum sentence available to them and we'll fight it.' He pulls up a stool and sits next to the door. 'I'll need to hear it all and then from there we can determine where to go next, if we seek the best outcome I need a commitment from you that everything you say will be the truth,' Mr Fenblosse says.

'I will make that promise.'

'And I will hold you accountable to it. Now from the beginning, did you kill Mr Havon's son at the beach?' he asks, without a hesitation.

'Yes.'

'Also Mr Foch I take it?'

'Who?' I say.

'The second victim at the beach.'

'I don't know him by this name.'

He folds over his pad of information. 'Clemens Foch.'

'I knew him as Sevastian or the Czech.'

'Immigration have him listed as Austrian,' Mr Fenblosse says.

'He was a ghost,' I say.

'Is that to be taken literally.'

'Come again?'

'Did you murder the man you call Sevastian too?'

'I did and it was in self-defence.'

'Only the jury will decide if it was the right course of action or not. They'll make shortbread out of sawdust. My job is to see to it that you have the best chance of swaying a courtroom,' he says.

'They were pure evil.'

'Did they deserve to die the way in which they did though? You took their fate into your own hands.'

'Some folk just need to be dead,' I say.

'Don't ever say anything like that in a cross-examination while at court.'

'Should I lie?'

'I could always ask to skip a deposition during our written motion, I would be so lucky.'

'I get it if I want a favourable outcome I don't got to be a fool.'

'The girl is she dead too, there was no clue as to her whereabouts,' he asks.

'What girl?'

'Don't get shrewd, a missing persons report was filled by her mother after she called to speak of the bad news that her father had a triple bypass and was alive and well but very poorly. Still is in hospital in-fact and she never returned their call. An unclaimed voice message sits on her answering machine and all calls to her phone ring and ring until they go to the machine.'

'I don't know who you're banging on about,' I say.

'Her name is Elise Monroe, your neighbour.'

I don't have anything to say and let him talk instead.

'Were you lovers? Is she alive?' He looks to the baseboard and glowers. 'How am I expected to help if you don't work with me.'

'How do you know about the message on her machine?'

'The police report details all the relevant information,' he says.

'They don't give out that sort of information to the public, let alone an attorney building up a case for a murder trial. Just who are you?'

He looks at me blankly and freezes in horror. Not saying anything more to me but to look my way. I start to cry an almighty uproar; 'nurse, nurse,' while pressing the panic alarm taped to my wrist.

This rouses him to stand, 'Shut that loudmouth,' he says, and deadens my cries for help. 'Let me say this, if you ever want to see the outside again you'll listen to what I've got to say and impel that nurse who's coming to go away, or get used to the inside of this room,' and he cautiously lets go of me back peddling to sit back down on his chair to compose himself.

The nurse enters the room. 'What is it,' she says.

I look to him and can still feel the pins and needles meandering through nerve endings on my face where he laid hands upon me. 'It's nothing, I thought I was about to be sick, I'm okay now.'

'I'll get you a basin just in case you feel the sudden urge,' and walks out into the adjacent room. There is an awkward pause by us both as the nurse retrieves a kidney shaped basin and fetches it in for me. Straps on my arms are undone giving me new mobility and the belt across my chest slips back to cede a more manageable independence. 'It'll be easier for you to move should you need to. If you want any more help I'm next door,' the nurse says, smiles at me and at him then leaves us alone.

'I'm sorry for doing that but I had to,' he says, looking rather lost.

'How does any of this benefit you.'

'I'd like to have an understanding as to how it happened.'

'You're going to need to be more specific,' I say.

'Did you murder Elise Monroe,' he says.

'No.'

'I'm going to ask you once more. Did you hurt my sister?'

'Your sister.'

'Do you remember me, I remember you.'

'Irwin? is that who you are?'

'Very well recalled Mr Tullman.'

'Elise told me you were married and had . . .'

'Cut the shit, Ralph. I knew you were trouble, the instant I saw who you were really about. Elise certainly was no angel. Girl was imbued with her own strain of kleptomania, but she didn't deserve this kind of wastrel life, with the likes of you!'

'We were only together a short while.'

'Look what happened to her in that time frame,' Irwin says.

'Me and Elise had something.'

'Speak for yourself.'

'It's funny, the more I hear a summary drawn about her behaviours, more I come to see how similar we were, even if you don't buy it,' I say.

'I tried to protect her as best that I could. She wouldn't have any of it,' he says.

'As did I.'

'I'll raise the ante if you didn't,' he says, counting disposable points in a unopened pack.

'What are you after? Are you a public defender?'

'I've been practising for years longer than you've had hot meals. This ward you're in is because of me,' Irwin says, gracing his deflected gaze across to the hallway. 'Released under my care as I see fit to keep you interred here until I get what I want.'

'Thinking of sliding that hypodermic needle into my vein aren't you,' I show him my arm and intravascular cannulae. 'Push a gas bubble into me and it will seem like that anomalous occurrence of a fatal cardiac arrest that the clerk will all too happily sign on my death certificate.'

Irwin briefly looks between the openings. 'Is she definitely dead?'

'Yes,' I say. 'A man they called Sevastian, known as the Czech or Clemens Foch as you know him, did it. May have been another person I summarily met who was following the orders of Havon, I really don't know who to be sure.'

'Is that want you want, for me to off-you. Are you like the rest of them in the cell block back there who are on suicide watch?'

'Never. I could never consider suicide because I'm neither melancholic or depressed, only deeply sceptical about your intentions.'

'Shouldn't be. All I want, is for to bring Elise home,' he says.
31

'How were you able to get me committed in this place?'

'Probable cause. Chronic alcoholism effectively will meet the 5150 criteria, and for your own protection, aren't you insane?' Irwin says.

'No I am not.'

'I know your pre-trial service officer, he's a friend of mine. We agreed that you might be a danger to the public and so here you stay. Under the conditions of your bail it's not an extraordinary circumstance, barely even a monetary one at that and allows me to house you where I please. As your supervisor you break too many rules the judge will be notified and things work rapidly these days.'

'No matter what I do I'm still a prisoner. Just give me my number and crossbones epaulettes and leave me alone,' I say.

'Have something I'd like to try. Only for the willing! You know what I want, I want to know where she is. There's a deal to be made in this. Us two coming together through our differences. I'll ask you this; is there anything you would like to see happen?'

'Like what?'

'Even better is there such a thing you don't want to happen, hmm?'

'For instance,' I say, leaning my half-face on the pillow case.

'Not bothering to file habeas corpus after the fact for collateral review,' Irwin says, smug. 'Proficient in the law lingo aren't you.'

'You must be when it's to do with the death penalty.'

'Is there anything doable you can give me?'

'Whatever I can make happen within my limited means,' he says, lowering his tone but also raising it at the same recurrent interval time.

'I'd like my mother's cross back.'

'It was classed as evidence,' Irwin says.

'And I'd like a trip to the ICU ward.'

'That I can make happen.'

'In that order. If there is no cross then there is no bargain I'll play ball,' I say.

'I'll see if they are willing to release it. If I do this for you I need a guarantee you will take me to her.'

'You have my word.'

My name is scrawled in imperfect ink across an insurance claim and I total the thought of why the whitespace between Mr and myself are at such a doubled distance. Rubbishing the notion that it's because of Irwin I congratulate him on our truce with a fresh pill delivered by my caretakers mitt and have it wholly from my undertongue.

'It's swallowed,' he enquired, to then demand an oral examination.

I open my mouth for him and show the rest. After he accepts it the straps are undone then I'm lead away with Irwin as my chaperone and for the first time I'm walking these halls with some dignity. Partially, because of the backless gown and drug infused happy plane it takes me to isn't so closeted. I make out the madmen in their dwellings of such similar shaped rooms to mine but in differing by the posters on the wall, luxury items and folded or hung habiliments to objects of interest left scuttled when their hobbyist fantasies become overbearingly loathsome. Not one of them bothered to check me out as I had done with them. Preoccupied with drawing, exercise, sleep or eating – one at the near end especially made no attempt to be so social, faced away from me at an immediate corner table waxing his alopecic wreath with Play-Doh. We exit the coo-coo and press into personal storage (unauthorized) while the claims assistant is being lazy.

'Is this a prank?' I say, unwaveringly staunch.

'Just keep it down.'

'This is me quiet.'

'Which one is it?' Irwin says, his voice low.

'It's Jesus on a cross.'

'No, the case you came in with,' he says.

I rethink it – to fetch what I think is my own case – its actually discovered to be an old persons trolley when pulled out. Poking fingers into the circular holes in a cage I see at the back next to a huge rack of overcoats is three suitcases stowed in a remote shelf. 'It's this one,' I say, and open it taking only the cross.

'You'd want to get changed first.'

'These are my clothes,' I say, picking them off the hook.

He watches while I get dressed and waits for me to be done. 'Let's get out of here.'

Filtering back through the stockyards a coat hung there causes a scruple in my return when I see its blackened inner fleece and reinforced patches around the elbows. An elasticated fit where its adjusted for hotspots of movement, an uncanny texture to the naked eye of a mottled brown sheepskin hide were all traits that led me to a conclusion that it unmistakably belonged to him. It's been hung up sometime like this at the very beginning of the initial shift of clothing. Many others had come and gone in rotations but this lonely coat sat in first place affording it had an indefinite space reserved.

Wrapped in clear plastic to keep the dust at bay I felt under this to find a tag informing me it had been dry cleaned prior to its enfold by staff for hygienic practices using on-site facilities. Hot wash, cycle and chlorine – detergent, extra extra additive to remove all trace of microbial contamination due to his traumatic entry to hospital awash in his own bodily fluids, not a single pathogen would escape.

'Relax its just personal storage,' Irwin says, at which I can feel the nausea building an acetone blockage in my cheek ducts. 'You got it? Come out then,' he goes on.

We exit the room and head back through the hospital to find its main hall and followed a coded branch of lines which directed a toiler, scooting in wayfinder bands of colour that lead us to take an elevator to the fifth floor. Also going two stops with us is a therapist of the hospital who does her utmost not to look at me holding onto the cross buried to my sternum and adopts a straight ahead stare, waiting on the crack in the automatic doors to appear. At the end of the blue demarcator we stop at the ward entrance.

'I'll wait here, you go on in ahead,' Irwin says, pushing the door open for me.

Twelve beds and twelve patients slept for the ravens to come while St. Elijah waited on them. Made of wood, fleshy faced with a rounded chin, of straight nosed, fully lipped and almond eyes. This unavoidable anachronism welcomed the visitors. At the far end of the aisle, on a hexagonal pedestal he convenes with the angel over all and it blends into a place of healing about same as bulky life support machines keeping the people alive do taking valuable real estate space to fit into each individual nook. I squirt a dollop of the alcoholic hand sanitizer from a fixed dispenser and scour. I walk among them and search for Dom. At his bedside I sit.

'I'm sorry I never came sooner. I don't know if you can hear me.' He's completely motionless while I'm speaking to him. 'It's Ralph, meant to come by a while ago but I was dealt some unexpected things, ultimately it came in the way. Got in trouble with the law, you know. People died it was . . .'

Scratched the underside of my eyebrow and wipe out sleep from a skin fold. On his table there were cards from friends that I took the time to read.

'Get well soon, Ron and Linda.'

'God bless, Mike the roadie.'

'In all of our thoughts,' signed by multiple members of staff from Sovereign.

'To papa, love Jim and Sonja.'

I stop reading any more of the cards and make sure to line each one at a time, overlapping the other precisely like I found them. 'The girls at the club were asking me how you're doing. Never knew what to tell them truth be told. We all miss you and want you back with us Dominick.' I look at the strength of signals on the display that monitors his blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate then see the attached bioreceptors stuck onto him and try to make sense of it all. A tube for breathing and intubation for feeding is down his gullet.

'Rest assured I came this day. To see how you were doing for myself and on behalf of others who couldn't make it in. I hope you can forgive them.' I miscount the numerous events I've felt liable to add into the ultimatum. 'The club is gone, it burned down. Stanley handled the payments so we're covered and should be able to start over if we can. It's not like it was abandoned in place or anything, just that we went to the wrong people for help and ended up in more trouble. Dominick you there?'

A visitor who has sat in a dark place at bed number seven has by my acme judgement been keeping a close vigil overnight. The figure nods off then reawakens so I talk quiet and more direct.

'I'm going to see to it that you are taken care of. I'll do what I can to get you out of here I promise, I promise that.'

Picking the closest of the windows during my stroll over, either side of the statue an ongoing miscarriage of El Niño was coming down all around and looking sombrely below at the ants on the byroad, scrambling to not drown I see it leaving streaks on the cabin aft of a yacht being towed on trailers that had almost jackknifed into a 4x4 due to increasing crosswinds. They dare not get out to fight or by rights be drenched for it and so they swap angry blasts of a horn. The cyclone has transformed and was heading over mainland in a final phase of self destruction.

'It's wild out there,' I say, touching the leakage from the excluder.

'Sure is,' a man says, instantly reminding me I'm not alone.

I turn to see who was there. 'I've not seen heavy rain like this in years,' I say to him, sitting bedside to his loved one.

'They got it wrong you know,' he continues.

'Who did?'

'Oh don't you know. Have you not read it.'

'Not today's,' I say.

'Folk who predict the weather. Said the storm would miss the big island, and what it go and do, crashed right into it.'

'Hawaii is getting hit hard huh?'

'Don't worry its almost over,' he says, and goes back to reading his newspaper.

I return to my seat. Dominick's pulse oximeter looks to be painful – clipped onto a chiefly sallowest finger and I think of taking it away but I'm hesitant knowing I'll be deluged with the silent and not so silent alarms that would trigger if I were to remove it.

Closed in on the rail to whisper in his ear. 'I get it now. What you said about me running the wrong way with the bulls and to think it all started when you complained I don't know how to shave. Well it was actually crappy blades responsible for the nicks in my neck. I'll admit that a bit of direction going with the grain would have helped. Being in poverty is a complacency? Are you going to make me use the Groucho,' I stop to let him finish when I see his face muscles twitch.

'Beards are for the poor and you might as well be bobbing for piranhas.' I blandish to ad-lib the line for him and remeasure my tone when I know its futile. 'What I'm saying is you were someone I should have listened to but I didn't. Typical me. You nailed it when you were here and you says to me "Ralph, you've things to treasure and in time you'll lose them so make the most of it" and then you listed them all and they came true. Dom you were like an adoptive father to me and I know Stanley does, only more like a brother, he just finds it hard to communicate his feelings.'

I wince a little at the bright lights when the power drain switches its workload to a standby generator.

'Set me straight about the rat race we're in too. That time I found you buying shares of that upstart manufacturing company who made scented sharpies and I thought you had went senile. Said something like "Everybody can use their nose" in the end I laughed when it became a boon and made decent money. There is also the time I've had to spend dreaming on renovation blueprints for the club and it's a sweet deal. I don't know what we'd call it. All ideas at the moment but I caught sight on the most crazy looking floor plan you'd ever seen,' slowed it for sake of sanity when it's clear I'm rambling.

'You would tell me to pipe down right about now if you could, I'm talking about this like you can say yes or no to it, getting ahead of myself I know. Maybe just excited is all it is. I'm pretty sure I managed to jump out the holding pen, if you know what I mean, figuratively speaking. When you said it all those years ago I didn't follow but I'm living proof it went as planned. Outside the corral people look at you differently and they want to be on that side with you, roaming the pasture in the freezone. For the most part I tried to stay with them all the time, close to the metal fence dividing us and it didn't work out. They were in an ass to faced getup on the sweeping curves waiting on the bolt and the going nowhere hotfoot jig. Its sick when I think about it and now I know why it's the surly people left behind that do the trying, to help them out. Near the end of the crowd gate you've not only done – but also seen all you can stomach and what's left to do is the preserving quest. It's a cliché I know it is but the trials and tribulations will undoubtedly take their toll on you. Leave with a wave, farewell, in their mindset that'll be how they see it, a farewell, it's safe down there don't you know it to be true. Really what I was doing was waving them forward to keep it calm for the harvest. Don't want to upset the Grinch now do I? There's only so long you can hang by that gate, moving on it's the only option. So I think I'm ready to move, be it a club in Hawaii once the storm has cleared. Perfect time to boot and scoot if you ask me because those foreclosure prices will plummet. I guess this is it.'

In the many preceding years of service the silver I rub with rinse-free antiseptic that still stings my blotting epidermis has been passed about at the hour of seven sacraments with a few knocks to its name, I can sense a spirit within giving its iconic vibrancy reverence in its institutionalized namesake.

'I want you to have this. From me to you. Don't need it any more, you might,' I say, a tear taken before it cumulates and snowballs any further.

Using a handy pre-cemented nail for his gifted cross I slip its inlay onto the flathead above his bed and let him be alone, to rest. I am tired and drowsy, aware the medication was about to kick in. Going back through to the wards reception I move over to the set of visitor seats and Irwin joins me, standing to go and march ahead again.

'How is the man?' he says, looking behind, walking, talking.

'He's fighting for it and has been declared clinically dead.'

Irwin boggles to denote an air of wonder, ironically. 'You're not guilty then are you?'

'I should be the one in his place,' I say.

'That torpor he'll be lying in forever was diddled because of you and the people you seem to attract. Trust you see yourself as the victim, that's fair game. Blame is a hard one to keep down. No sweat. If it ain't all up in your face, to hell with it.'

'Then put me away.'

'Take that onus and to do something useful with it. For once.'

'We made an agreement that I intend to, fulfil. You came through and it's much obliged. I needed to say a few words.'

'Now I don't know this man, this . . .'

'Dominick's his name,' I fill him in.

'This is no must but let me chime in and say; what if he don't forgive you. He exists immobile on his sickbed, inconsolable. Like, nobody will take your commiserations at face value. It's for magnanimous enlightenment,' Irwin says.

'Club to club I could have drown it away, that was my thing but I stopped. Faced it late, too late for some. But I did it how I should have done in the beginning. Can't say I didn't try to make amends. Or am I destined to be forever chasing acceptance.'

'Time will tell, but you're not a young man any more,' he says.

'If I can make an established change then things might reconcile.'

'And what do I do Ralph? Our mother doesn't even know her daughters gone. Right now I could be looking at her killer and what am I to do about it? Its dawning on me that I may have to cut that ugly tree down, count the rings once its dead and I don't like it.'

'Again with this. I did not kill her!' I say, frustrated.

'You've said that before, now it's my turn to talk.'

'Let your mother know for god's sake.'

'I dodge the question each time its brought into a conversation. She cries for her not knowing. As a consequence I held out thinking positive things might come of it and I backed off until after the investigation was complete. Put it off so long even after they found blood pools in your place which matched to that of Elise,' Irwin says.

'Foster said they had a search warrant but never said if they had acted on it.'

'Used it as leverage. It's already been done,' he says.

'Not much left to do then is there, only to go with the flow, and you?'

'Now I'm thinking it's better to not let her know the outcome and that's evil. To deny the truth, is it for sake of me or my mother's bereft?'

'Sometimes you have to lie. Be cruel to be kind. I did it to myself, too long and too hard and became my own worst. It's a delicate balance that you can't often influence. Its effects are rampant and cannot be undone, I can't resurrect her. We don't have the powers to rectify but when we try to do so with piousness there are strong forces at work that can hurt the ones we love, a silent by-product of hypocrisy. You've seen what it did to us so heed the warning and don't be like me,' I say.

'Come, let's go,' Irwin says, and takes me by the scruff of my neck.

Ahead the exit sign is tall and vibrant enough to see from other side of the long and sinuous hallway, splashed in abstract colour with a stray paint bucket on the gradual curve. Galoshes squirm along in out the rain. Scrubs caught the dew, a bouffant surgical cap held contours of a chignon bun and the strangest gust brought aghast to nearby sinuses, of dampened Marlboro Lights.

Tracks made on the shiny floor are kicked about into a sticky contrast and further an entrapment for the janitor to add onto his overtime stint. A sickly once proud patient comes in through the sliding doors and transiting wheels mark a vicinity of the walkway that was untouched all day. Now its steamrolled parallax lines are drawn for me to walk down when I squeeze past the oncoming inpatient.

Near the waiting room four obscure figures at the end of the hall caused me to absently stop in place. An old woman nearest to the elevator made a request and presses for the sub-basement level. The arrow head of the hall lantern was highlighted but its call button was contentiously pressed to exhaustion even though it was heard to be travelling in the hoistway where the hydraulics were.

A man in an anabolic rage leans against the static of the close by wall. Smuggled across international borders the cool down fix he begs for is here. In the meantime he flexes his biceps and is permanently hoodwinked by the blown vessels in his stroke. He looks up a degree while the nurse presents herself to them.

The nosey woman's long-winded, egalitarian name that's called for bores me and innocent bystanders too with its butchered delivery by a morose nurse who recalled it verbatim. As its hashed out it became clear this darling is a one who seems to lure a desperate plea. Not to be mistaken as being duped so low, sought after status as an upstanding first class citizen but a click of the fingers away from peasantry. I'll treat you like a pearl necklace and a skirt it is then, said nursey's reaction I read when I passed, and it warmed the cockles of my heart.

In a corner a maundering autistic boy makes paper planes out of pamphlets much to the dismay of his taxed mother. His flightiness was a phenomenon she was well versed to cope with at times like this when in the same breath she could be seen chatting with another witting patient needing treatment with deft social courtesies.

I couldn't wait to get out of Hillcrest. Saw the look of repugnance visitors wore wishing they were me about to "free bird", and I got off on it knowing how long I waited for this while they stayed on. It was a concept that some staff may have retrospectively shared, especially those frequently soaked in the emergency parking bays, they may as well have been pushing shopping carts back to their designated area.

For once I was getting what I wanted, to be out in it and the rain itself was warm when we made our way over to Irwin's Plymouth Acclaim.

'You'll show me the way?' he asks.
32

The North Pacific break waters surmount shoaling defences of the beach and spat at a desert monsoon that rolled in. From the east it came and had not yet unleashed the majority of its clout as it met Iniki. A spark of energetic sheet lighting delayed its thunderclap as it sent out an ionized leader searching for any migratory electrostatic charges to reclaim.

A picture of Elise torn at the corner was stuck in the sun visor, it burns a hole so deep that I look away from it and twice see myself in the mirror. He had started long before me and makes a mockery of my pointless attempts to hide forever the secrets I'd accumulated over the past week. It was a younger version of her from the summer of "73" but it was still her. I drained the downpour out of my hair and heard it trickle down the backrest.

'Are you listening?' he says.

'This is the right road.'

'I get that. It's just that out here we're going to get blown off it in this gale.'

'What else should we do,' I say, tracking the vacillation of squeaking window wipers.

'We'll find a place.'

What Irwin meant by that was the first diner he laid his eyes upon, which lay across the other side of Clairemont we'd go to. He made a U-turn and entered the Denny's and circled around to the closest spot available directly facing the exit in an almost empty lot.

'Now you're going to be nice while we are eating our pancakes aren't you. Don't freak out or fake anything, no funny business, yes.'

'Let me out. I know the drill,' I say.

'I mean it, try to be weird with me and we part ways, you in a psych ward,' Irwin says.

This stopover of ours has some kindly mannered folk who seem to be indulged in mild conversation. Service is quick as a gent with licks of platinum in his brown tousled undercoat meets us in festive loggerheads.

'What can I get you fellows,' he asks us.

'I'll take a stack of blueberry pancakes,' Irwin says, and said it so fast that he expects for me to order the same.

I read his clip-on name tag next to the badge, big as a besagew, "have you tried our grand slamwich yet?" it says. 'Belgian waffle, Stu,' in tow with his snappy standards.

'The pancakes were on special,' he says.

'I like what I ordered.'

'Okay, it shouldn't be long,' the server says, and goes back to fulfil our order.

'Are you aware of how much fat is in a one of those waffles your putting inside your body? I can put away my food, I'm a tad overweight,' stroking at his pot belly. 'It all started with a comfort food and it grew exponentially. Chilli burritos. Now I'm on statins and my cholesterol is through the roof,' Irwin says.

'I take all sorts of drugs. I've enough on my plate to worry about without needing to bisect the contents of what comes out my colon.'

'My treat then for cooperating,' he winks.

'Well it would be, you took away everything I own,' I say.

'That's it, you leave it to me.'

Across from us a family unit perform their duties to perfection, looking like a freeze frame from a Long Island enrolment commercial, or orchestrated in nimiety a rehearsal for spectators to believe it true that there pantomime became the norm, spurred on by a lack of stimuli from an otherwise empty net cast out and reaped no rewards that they had resorted to ideas pulled straight from the pages of a picnicking catalogue.

They are served by a boy with rhubarb hair and freckles, I cringe at the sight, everybody working in this dead-end job wants to smash the system and at the same time take from it. With a minor latency I can see him as Harry waving over his gypsy palmed hello while delivering a drink, serving Elise. Then I'd quite like to get up and speak to them both and seek their companionship only for me to fall upon the gaze of Irwin, an invisible petrification keeping me in place and then the boy himself looks over sickened at my hoboish appearance.

The mischievous pretender was over before it even began and the pain of my own ignorance at full force carried on after I had saw his correct name flash a "H" – and – "ank" followed thereafter, inescapably confirming their true identity. One of those episodes was an apparition I had voluntarily deemed to be real, but which was a fabrication or not I couldn't tell.

Irwin started to pour a tub of warm syrup on his food when it arrived. 'Do you think there is something sinister in what we are doing?' he asks.

'In sitting down to eat and catch up, no. There's no collusion between us.'

'Well I do,' he says, so confident, like he thought this through all day.

'Roll with it, remember, arbitrarily it'll just tear at your insides,' I say.

'There is no telling when the storm will clear.'

'Could be only minutes away from now, could be hours or days, who knows.'

'We can brave it, so eat that waffle and let's get this done with,' Irwin says, picking up his fork and readying his delightful spread.

Huge mouthfuls are wolfed down and make a sticky mush sound as it goes into Irwin, clumping together it's an endeavour that is evermore difficult to swallow. He neglects the time to breathe and cuts through the six layers so it fits into a single bite.

I take my time and enjoy the one large waffle I have. By time I have ate it all – Irwin has just got over half the way through them – and spent most of the time chewing it for digestion, hardly leaving it alone long enough to care of its blueberry taste.

When he sees that I'm finished his wallet is opened and that and a few extra for a tip is left as he stands leaving its sugary batter without concealing what he thinks of it soon enough to be lying at the bottom of Denny's general trash. We prepared ourselves and ran to the car.

It's difficult for me, finding the words to say – that I would like to use and persuade him the reason why I'm here too – is for the same thing he wants. It wouldn't be believed so I throw it out and notice that the storm proper had touched down on land. Overhead it goes unopposed toward the overlapping warm front and merges into a greater airmass at the eastern most peak that can be seen from our low elevation.

'Black Mountain?' Irwin says.

'That's where we're going.'

'I trust your not chasing me up this hill for no reason. I wouldn't like that,' he says.

'Now why would I do that,' I say.

'Isn't that why you baited that Austin Havon fellow into a corner. Suicide by way of the cop at his front door. He's the reason Elise isn't here after all, haven't you asked yourself the same question?'

'Of course but I knew the answer straight away.'

'Your mind isn't all that solid though is it.'

'I guess not always.'

'Then you'll have to forgive me for doing this,' he says, throwing over at me a set of steel cuffs. 'Here's the part where you go ahead and put these on, I'm waiting for the click in case you're wondering,' Irwin smiles. 'And the other.'

I bring the clasp around into place and hear it click and so does he.

'It's just a precaution. Look I'm alone out here and who knows where any of this craziness I've been taking part in these last few days will lead to.'

'But do I need to be cuffed like this,' I say.

'Done it from the front too so you can use your hands and are free to still dig.'

'I don't, I don't understand.'

'Don't be so worried. If you told me the truth about her being here then you'll be fine. See your explanation has some inconsistencies and I need to be up to speed with your case.'

'My case. What case are you talking about.'

'Oh for sure I'm definitely judging you on my own accord, with a traditional axiom of law upheld. Fair is fair, there's just no other parties arguing for you. Only you can do that. Self-representation is a virtue. Who can speak for the dead, that's where I come in.'

'I told you what happened. What's stopping you from believing me.'

'We'll get to that, all the evidence you need is in these foothills. This is the same park we used to play in as kids. I remember. Strange how time flies.'

'How did you first find out about Elise going missing.'

'You're a messy pup Ralph, anybody ever tell you that? Left a trail of crumbs for me to work with and I just followed them. The murder weapon that killed Jack also killed Elise and when the cops got forensics to examine it they pulled multiple prints from it, one of them was yours.'

'That same gun was used to kill Elise and Jack?'

He holds up a polythene bag with the Czech's CZ 52 inside. 'This gun you mean,' Irwin says.

'Well that makes sense to me now. It was first fired to injure Dusa at my club and later I got hold of it at Seal Rock. It was again taken by those who had been following me throughout the day from the scene I had left, in-between that time they intercepted before the cops had time to find it, Austin's men then killed Elise out of revenge with that very same weapon and set me up. All along I had been on there radar a while it seemed. So you see I didn't kill her!'

'Wait, wait, slow down.'

'I told you it's like that.'

'So you're telling me this evidence has been tampered with twice now, not including me relieving it from evidence, temporarily.'

'Can you see why that story may be hard to believe?'

'It certainly has an undiscovered chronicle to keep me busy. It had your prints, this man with the alias "the Czech" and another unidentified man.'

'Austin had connections in the police who would have helped him retrieve items from a crime scene for a price. He liked to keep mementos.'

'Why would he do that. Risk contaminating a case documenting his own sons death?'

'Is it so incredible to claim that desperate people do untimely things? He didn't have all the information in front of him but he still acted upon it and that cost Austin more than his alimony and gambling combined. Here you are with stolen evidence and a fugitive you've claimed bail on even though you think I'm guilty.'

'I never said that you were guilty.'

'Just a man doing his job?'

'I'm holding firm onto my principles as an advocate for judicial parity. I've seen this kind of case be thrown out and mostly there will be a plea bargain conviction but the body is never found. I wanted my sister back.'

'You need closure. You'll find it just over there.'

Hard rain was coming down as we pulled to a position at the end of the hike line. Chains at my wrists rolled over my thigh and the contact of the seatbelt warning sensor engaged and dinged as he opened the door to step outside.

'Well now is your chance. Where should we start first?' Irwin says, bending back inside to speak to me.

'I marked it,' I say, getting out too.

'With what.'

'A pole. You can't miss it sticking out the earth.'

He searches from where he stands. 'There's nothing here.'

'Wind might have uplifted it.'

'Then dig for it.'

'Are you expecting me to leave holes just about anywhere. Let me search for it Irwin.'

He knows what I mean to do, blasé of the topic at hand it may bestir, psyching up for the voices of death to ring at first contact. It's not worthwhile for me guessing a location to stake unless he desperately wanted me to suffer.

I'm justified in my opinion of Irwin's lack of degradation while he takes shelter under a rosewood and lets me go on ahead to postulate any hint of guidance on where the pole that blew away could be. On the bank of the dam I see the small boat I left and traced a route from it to whence it originally came. I follow the invisible line I conceptualized and find the pole sunken horizontal. I stand it by the strap and wave to him with a soaked through sleeve.

'Over here, it's here,' I say.

He stumbles to me, a hood sought above his head in windy circumstances we are vastly unprepared for. 'Go ahead and do it,' Irwin says, handing me a spade.

Nodding, drips of acidic rain fall from my chin and get in my way of seeing straight. I swing at the mire and reach to take a quarter of what I was expecting, wayward into a puddle that had formed from a depression.

I had made a hole that could be called progress once I had got to grips with the rhythm of how to handle the plenty moist bog waters. Slowly I uncovered more and Irwin would from time to time eagerly check on the status of the depth I had unearthed. There came a point when I knew I was close to her and I try to locate the body by feeling my way in the now mostly liquid pit.

It was to be from Irwin and his obsessive curiosity that would prevail; as he shout out to garner my direction as a black sack floated from the bottom to contort around slender flatness of my spade. Plying into its ballooning riddle of folds I decide to attempt to exhume Elise and use the cutting edge to lift. Only a single sack comes out that both me and Irwin look to in the grave.

Irwin steps into the waist high water and submerges himself to return with Elise wrapped in plastic liner apart from the face.

'Why would you leave her here?' he says, with agony in his strenuous lift.

'Let me help you out,' I say, to sink my ankles into the nostoc entrenched topside and pull them upward. He leaves her to lie on her back, a feast for the drizzle coming down, pierced clouds that unfold on the mountain ridge had a backlog to burst between gaps that drifted upon offspring of the Four Corners anticyclone. I cover her leaking face with the remaining piece of plastic.

'The men who were following you are they here too?' Irwin asks.

I point to an occupied spot covered in wild raspberry shrub. 'I burned them.'

'But you buried Elise,' he says, with a tight grip on the polythene bag, babysitting his finger on the hair trigger. 'On your knees. Stay put while I go have a look.'

As he goes to investigate, the uptake of the mud had ideas of swallowing me into the hole I knelt in front. 'There's my evidence.' I say, assisting him when he makes it over to the bonfire's ashes. 'The type you have been searching for.'

'Yeah but it's all gone up in smoke,' Irwin says, picking through the remains.

'But these are the people who came after me.'

'I'm sorry Ralph. These piles of soot could be anybody.'

'Their ID cards I have them.'

'Whereabouts?'

'They were left in the glovebox of the Aspen I hid too. Its further back afield, out the way of this dirt road,' I say, and point it out to him with a head bow and I raise my chains too.

I can hear him find the car door that belongs to the incinerated men. He came back over shuffling a collection of cards. 'You're now a free man, but go do it in some other city.'

'What does that mean?'

Irwin throws the evidence bag into the water pit and it sinks to the fissure below. 'No murder weapon no sentence.'

'But what will you do now, won't they know you are responsible for what's missing?'

'You needn't worry. Just this once I'll allow myself to bend the rules like this. Frankly they won't ever know about it.'

'Then you're really letting me go free?' I say, and watch in amazement as he unlocks the cuffs and they fall to the ground.

'Next time I see you whether I like it or not I'm coming after you with the law at my back, whatever it is you have to do to not end in that position you best keep it to yourself. Maybe I won't be so nice as I have been.'

'I have things to do.'

'Hoped and prayed you did,' Irwin says.

'It's a big country I'll find a place.'

The Aspen is pulled free of the thorn and karma itself strikes into my fatty tissue as I pull it away from the chassis. I head out past Irwin standing with Elise in his arms and I continue onto Black Mountain's periodical road. I follow it along to the familiar junction that connects me to the highway, homeward bound. Seal Rock at my back the temper of the coastal aquatic microorganisms was low today in this chaotic weather. Most of its red tide influence had been spewed on shore staining sand for at least a further week more with aquatic throwback.

One last farewell before the bulldozers come and reclaim it, to my beloved Sovereign, a detour to Oceanside to strafe its pavement and ogle the charred embers that were left. A straight unloved road. Temecula to Riverside. Bye-bye to the gouges of the San Jacinto before the pearl of Idyllwild-Pine Cove sets me free, a humble signpost points the way, and I arrive at Hot Springs, stoker to the literal forklift of change that had succumb upon me and mine alike. We were here together. Soothingly lost.

Darken the apartment entrance, in the communal hallway and proceed to check the contents of my personal locker. There inside waits the grey parcel I left unopened. I take it with me upstairs. The locksmith had not been called for yet and I rip the "do not cross" police tape from my doorway. Sitting on the bed I can't fully see the wall that divide mine and Elise's old rooms and slip to ones side to look at it through the adjoining door.

I look up. An outline of a camouflaged sardonyx pattern supplanted in place of the damp stain on the ceiling can be spontaneously cultivated at the correct angle while squinting. The view outside was still the same as ever. Feet were sissified at the cold and insulated well enough in the room but a concrete slab held no heat like a carpet would.

I take the parcel away from my lap, choosing to open it at a later date instead and lay it next to me. The hole in the wall had not changed since I'd left it. Moving around I can hear them also do the creep with me from upstairs and let them know I'm here by telling them to 'shut up!'

A half smoked end was in the ashtray at rest on my tabletop and I relight it and take a drag on it. With it between my teeth the sledgehammer against the wall is taken up in my stride and the face of the brickwork is pounded into rubble. A jamb is destroyed and I sent pieces of it flying into a corner of the bedroom.

With each bang I'm more closer to how I want it to be. An overhead strike subjects the hood to come apart and reveal its flue. In tilting my head to lay upon my coffee table at one side I see the slip of tender indifference into a pitfall but as soon as it comes to reclaim me it reverses the other way, and I resume my duty. A thermocouple that fell out went cyclical and more of the innards came forth as I swung at the thing.

Following a collapse of the main structure it almost felled the largest section of wall and another hit knocked through a remainder which brought both proportions of the room together. The pipes that stand in my way shake at the continuing blow I give it, rallying to the rafters, such a sulphurous odour, natural gas leaking out the corrosion and there was a lengthy build-up to its crescendo.
