THE THIRD JOKER’S CARD
A war story on a sub-urban scale
By: Kyle Cannon
And of course:
This book is affectionately dedicated to:
Somebody
Table Of Content
Rebirth
The Night Run
Chapter One
Ascension
Chapter Two
Revolution
Chapter Four
Rebirth
He was different but he was still the Hawk. His hair, his clothing, his shoes- they were all wrong. But even in civilian attire he could not hide who he truly was. I recognized his walk, but I could only barely place it in the stock and store of my memory. Without his armour, without his weapons, I could not recognize a soldier. Without his aggression, without his intentions, I could not recognize a killer. But I can see the Hawk through a different light. He was something that could not be disguised; a true born warrior.
A life such as his exists not to serve, not to destroy, and not to kill. His is a life unlike ours; it is a life dedicated to battle. He embodies the relentless quintessence of war, never tiring of his eternal jihad.
The Hawk was a human predator: he nourished himself by consuming the weaker. He killed and consumed the lesser with tireless hunger. He unseated those who sat on a throne too high. God help them when they fall.
He arrived silently- as I knew he had done so many times before- feeling no need to announce his arrival nor any compulsion to Identify himself until he was questioned. He gave an earthly name, whatever it was that he was referred to by the obsolete society.
He asked for nothing, relying on whatever information his eyes could consume and our careless speech would betray. He knew about us by instinct, not our pretentious introductions. He had given up his weapons at the door and nothing in his demeanor betrayed his notorious identity to the eyes of my cohorts.
I knew him. He was either unaware or thoroughly apathetic about it. Until his arrival I was the most dangerous force in my world. This would cause a change. He didn’t challenge my supremity so I decided to test him.
He didn’t argue with me. Perhaps he feared me, and perhaps I wasn’t worth his time. Either way I was safe. The Hawk had no need for comrades so he must have wanted something from us. In return he would be the most lethal weapon at my disposal.
Ben and Ivan are unaware of my weapon for now, so the time to act is at hand. I don my jacket and lead my troops out of the late night deli. The Hawk followed.
My real name is Turtle. Not particularly menacing but extraordinarily appropriate, as I am the most protected person on this planet. Protected by a shell of men and my own will. A shell that is impregnable if I so desire it. My fortitude crossed boundaries from the real to the metaphysical making me impossible to harm in any concievable manner, and I need not fear anyoue who would presume to control me.
People know who I am, what I represent, and I don’t need to fear their intentions regardless of who they think they are.
My band consists of Ten, with myself as the head. Their loyalty to me is forever and unquestioning as I would accept no less. They each wear a red and gold cloth to symbolize their allegiance to my cause. They mimic me and aspire to one day hold the same earthly influence. My colours are far more visible than theirs, my red and gold coat is adorned with my badges of office and a leather clad turtle, clawing away at a mantis that will succumb and become his prey is embroidered on the back. No one other than me deserves to hold such a thing of beauty.
Ben and Ivan would not turn down a fight. My weapons would taste blood tonight. At the Time of our arrival their pathetic regiment was lounging at the school playground. This was something that they had taken from me. Standing on property that was rightly mine they expected me to lower my eyes, to remove my uniform, and to relieve my men of their respect- respect for me and in that their respect for themselves. I will not dishonor myself, for if I belittle myself I will dishonor my men. My men are better than theirs. I am better than them.
I pause for effect, and glare at Ben. I respect him for not bowing to the accepted. I appreciate his intention to avoid obsolete society. He believes that he can change the world and he believes that he can defeat me. He is wrong.
I respect strength. They are lacking in strength, and reality is defined by the slaughter of the weaker. Ben has two options: Surrender and join banality. (Become a statistic in irrelevance and merely survive) Or stand and face reality. (And become a statistic in death.)
I refuse to surrender. Life without living is not an option for me. Should they chose to surrender now, I will lose the token respect that I had for them to begin with, and they will be exterminated wholesale, for a coward is less than common vermin. His choice is made for him.
When I fall, it will be from my feet. To lie down for death removes the defining characteristic between the living and the dead. I will bow to nobody especially them.
I stand in defiance, an effrontery that they can not accept. Rather than meet my challenge passively, they launch into their first suicide assault. Standing at the head I can not constitute a line of scrimmage, so my men join my side and take my ground.
The battle is so joined.
The sound of human collision fills the entire world as our armies lock in battle. Our armies save one: the Hawk did not fight.
The battle droned on with neither side able to gain ground. I am familiar with this game; man against man will not last indefinitely as neither side can inflict a decisive wound. They are slow to up the ante. I won’t be. There is a flash as I draw my blade. My men follow suit.
The Hawk did not fight.
Ben is willing to commit, but not foolish enough to tip his hand to me. His men reply with equal force. I salute his display of intelligence, but his thought precludes courage. Courage wins battles. Courage makes men.
My blade bites. It is a taste that I approve of. Ivan breaks ranks and stands against me. Steel parts the air between myself and Ben’s second, shimmering in the incandescent light so kindly provided by the irrelevant civilization. Two types of soldier now remain on this battlefield: one holds a blade slick with blood, the other bleeds onto a blade.
Still the Hawk did not fight.
Ivan struck and I fell. Without me, my men could not hold their ground, and when I regained my feet I found my army losing.
I refuse defeat!
I draw my revolver and fire skywards. The sound stops the skirmish and the lesser forces part.
There is a pause: Ben must make the final decision as to whether he wishes to raise the stakes and call me out. The crack of a pistol indicates his willingness to stand against me and see the battle through. One of my men falls, unable to contain his pain he cries. His name was Mike. His wound is not fatal but he never deserved to die by the sword anyway. His whimpering will cease many hours later. His sacrifice signifies nothing.
I shoot one of them. A nobody that is stupid enough to show himself. He would limp home for his foolishness. Then experience takes over and the younger soldiers flee.
The Hawk still did not fight.
Ben seizes one of my retreating troops. A short girl too terrified to fight back. With the fanged muzzle of Ben’s .45 pressed against her scull, no intelligible sound dares escape her lips. She is unable to handle this situation. Ben shrieked for the battle to stop, and his few remaining men diligently obeyed.
I stepped up to meet him. This was a new game for both of us. Which one would have the strength to make the first move? Not our men, the rest of the soldiers disappeared beyond the boundaries of the playground light.
Courage wins battles Courage makes men.
Ivan, Turtle, Ben and the Hawk remained to see the victor. The girl no longer knew what was happening. Ivan drew a brutish blocky Sig& Saur pistol. Ben saw his advantage and his experience told him that it was time to press it. He ordered me to lay down my gun.
The Hawk did not fight.
Ivan advanced on me, all the time ready to fire. He knew that he could not finish me here; not over some pissant swatch of territory.
BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG! The sounds rolled in together as if they were one shot. Then there were four distinct reports of brass ringing off the asphalt. Ivan twisted subtly then fell to his knees.
Ivan was a behemoth: The air in his lungs took quite some time to rattle out the four holes cut in his chest. The look of surprise flashed across his face for a fractional second. Then he toppled onto his face and ceased moving, with no further retort to the attack.
The Hawk had swooped. Perched now at the edge of some children’s structure he knelt gripping his pistol in front of him. Through the thin trail of smoke the lamplight found only the muzzle of the matte finished Glock. He made no sound of threat but his intentions were obvious. Looking down the barrel Ben could all but see the fangs on the next hollow-pointed bullet.
Seeing his end upset Ben and he hesitated, leaving me to take the initiative. He still held onto his hostage so my assault would have to be unconventional.
“Ben, I’d like you to meet the Hawk.”
Ben froze. His weapon twitched, but remained trained on me. He obviously realized that his defeat was a foregone conclusion, but he wasn’t about to go to the ground without a fight. But Ben would lose his nerve, I knew it. If he became irrational, he was dead, because I would kill him. He tried to calm himself; he tried to calm me. He lowered the hammer of his pistol with his thumb.
The gesture indicated that he no longer had the nerve to kill her. I stooped and placed my revolver on the ground at my feet.
The roar went undetected to my ears, but the spout of flame cast a golden glow into the polished steel groves of my revolver’s cylinder. Red and gold glittered for an instant across every uneven surface of the gun. My gaze snapped up to see Ben in his last pretentious act.
The slug had hit him full in the face, and caused an invisible wave of force to spin him away from the girl. He twirled menacingly to the ground in front of me. His face landed facing my direction, and one cycloptic eye gazed contentedly at something a thousand miles behind me. Brass echoed of the pavement.
Ben would harass me no more.
The Hawk shoved past me and ambled away, leaving me to attend to my sobbing soldier. The playground was mine again. This was a small price to pay for my own property.
The Night Run
The noises of the world had run themselves silent, leaving behind only the hint of a slight breeze that played across my ears as I made the short trek out to my automobile. Outdoor lights that ring the solemn apartment building during the evening hours had been shut off in hopes that the morning (which seemed so far away now) would arrive and save a few measly cents on the electric bill of a real estate conglomerate.
In the distance, the street lamps needlessly wasted illumination on the empty roadway beneath them. Beyond the border of light lay the enormous black structure of the mall. During daylight hours, the structure was the sole reason for the existence of this decaying sub urban sprawl to exist. Now it was merely a shadow on the horizon that blocked out the faint faces of the stars.
My Imagination ran amok putting shapes to the shadows, and making concrete structures seem almost animate. Imps scurried about in the shadows playing their insane little games just out of the sight of earthly eyes.
As my body came to a sudden stop my mind came crashing back to reality. I had reached my car. Tugging at the handle I found the door open. This was not surprising at all as I have always left it that way, trusting that the world would favor me with fortune. It has always rewarded my faith. I started the engine and listened through the open window the rumbling so kindly provided for my enjoyment by the Ford Motor Company. The low stuttering tone resounded loudly in the dead air and pulsed through the atmosphere vibrating in my lungs and reflecting back at me from the surrounding structures.
Thirty-five years ago this car was contemporary, but in the eyes of modern society it was a noteworthy machine. Shuddering from the force of it’s enormous engine the vehicle rocked itself gently to and fro along with it’s baritone stutter, the chrome plated air scoop wavering back and forth above the hood shivering slightly faster than the body of the car itself.
I revved the engine twice, then twice more, before gently dropping the car into first gear and rolling slowly out of the lot, twisting right onto the empty road without signaling, and accelerated away from the solemn scene without turning back or even glancing in my rearview mirror. Rolling my foot down onto the gas pedal, I pushed the car up to an even fifty kilometers per hour before sliding the gearshift into third and letting the speedometer calmly rise to ninety.
It’s late and I want to go home.
The world outside the ribbon of street lamp illumination lay dormant and ignorant of the Thunderbird hurtling down the parkway. With not a single other car, or flicker of a bedroom light to attest to activity outside the gray line of roadway carved through civilization.
As I ran along through an endless array of green traffic lights, my mind began to wander again, trying to pick out the forms of the little hobgoblins that seemed to dart past windows just before my headlamps could illuminate them. They dove beneath bushes as I shrieked past rather than risk being spotted.
I shifted into fourth gear just to hear the brief change in the monotonous drone of the engine. Then I signaled a lane change to no one in particular, in order that the air around me not get confused as I parted the wind along a slightly different axis.
To my right, a lonely lit structure approached; an empty gas station with an attendant mindlessly dozing through the day’s receipts. It flashed across the passenger’s side window, then faded into a distant speck in my rear-view mirror.
My eyes lingered on that shrinking ball of light as it receded in my mirror and watched with curiosity as it began to flicker. White at first, then an intermittent red strobing evenly, began to overtake the shimmering star. Now the pulsating phantom began to drift to the left and increased in size, slowly but surely. With each glance in the mirror more of the road behind me was swallowed by the onrushing light, which had set itself so intently on pursuing me.
I let my foot float above the gas pedal momentarily and the engine’s howl relaxed. I cast out my line to reel in the predatory fish behind me. Out of the fuzzy veil of light emerged another car. The racks of roof lights pulsed red and white and the pair of high beams glinting off the front end winked bright and faint alternately.
I glanced down at my dashboard. To my despair the glowing crimson needle wavered slightly above one hundred and forty kilometers per hour.
“Damn!”
My mind raced, furiously splattering swatches of confusion on the inside of my scull, and simultaneously consciousness went void blank.
Absent thoughts fueled deafeningly silent words, which blended into the steaming blanket of white noise that had enveloped my head. Then, with a terrifying explosion of silence the noise of the world imploded, leaving behind an infinitely resounding audio void.
Two beats of my frozen heart must have passed before I realized that I held no control over the empty world that crawled past, lamp by lamp, far too slowly for me to still be cradled in my speeding automobile.
I found myself a child, aware of only one thing. I was not going to stop.
A single word twisted violently across every synapse in my brain before exiting with the resounding force of a monsoon, and filling every corner of the world with my voice:
“Go!”
With the sound returning to my ears, I pounded the gearshift back into third and stomped down on the gas pedal, causing the engine to shriek in protest, as the revolutions mounted. The scream of the tires on the road sent no mixed message to my pursuer.
As the revs peaked, I smashed the stick forward into fourth gear and continued standing on the accelerator. The world to either side of me began to blur and gravity lurched into the pit of my seat, wrenching each internal organ into my spine. The insanity of acceleration let up only slightly as I paused to drop the car into fifth gear.
My vision funneled on the receding form of the policeman straining to keep his cruiser in pursuit. I had to grant him tenacity, if not intelligence for he had to realize the futility of his chase.
Briefly I mused about what the scene must have looked like to whatever world stirred in its bed. Two enormous white rockets hurtling down the parkway, announcing themselves with a terrible roar, shrieking past in a tempest of colour and chrome, then shrinking into the horizon.
Ahead of me loomed a glowing red firefly. Perched above the roadway at the end of a long steel arm it looked down on the road, apathetically signaling me to stop. Under normal circumstances I would obey, but in this case the light, so many miles above the road, was powerless to impede my progress. The glowing red needle on my dashboard kept its head buried in the chrome trim that ran below the gage.
As the intersection screamed past my automobile in reverse I could have sworn that I heard the faint impression of a horn. Moaning past then behind my car. Then in my mirror I watched as the small form of a Honda Civic exploded skywards off the hood of the Caprice behind me. An event in mute, it landed in a cloud of sparks and summersaulted to a stop in the intersection.
The cruisers one remaining headlight faded rapidly but did not disappear from view. In my mind I commended my pursuer for his persistence and at the same time rebuked him for his obvious arrogance.
So long as this ignorant pest continued on his fool’s errand I would continue at speed. In the distance behind me one beam of light and two minute specks of red glitter, blinked and strobed, indicating to me his refusal to let go.
Up ahead a small form tread across the road. Cresting a small hill, the feline lingered silouetted against the glow of a street lamp and turned to watch the oncoming beast.
Anger flashed across my head. While the rest of the world had the decency to remain asleep this moronic animal felt the need to intrude onto the road, where it did not belong, and this trespasser tread stupidly into my path with no idea of why it was there or even where it was going.
My headlights reflected back in the creatures eyes as it took a dainty and dignified seat in front of two tones of onrushing steel, charging at it faster than anything that it’s tiny mind could even conceive of anything moving.
“I’ll tell you where it’s going.”
The car rocked violently forward and the tires screamed to deafen even the oldest of ears. I pounded my fist into the steering wheel, blaring my horn and my ankle felt as if it would snap straining to keep my brake pedal even with the steel floor. The car drifted slightly to the right and subtly fishtailed, while every ounce of my body sprang forward slamming against my seatbelt. The car came to a stop in a cloud of burnt tires and brake dust, and the oblivious kitten skipped playfully back to the grove of shrubs from which it had emerged.
“It’s going home.”
Now the cruiser’s advance became apparent. The mangled machine rumbled up the road toward me. Squealing the already boiling tires I peeled a few ounces of sticky black onto the road in a pair of steaming columns.
As I crested the hill I signaled left and roared onto a new and empty street. Accelerating like a drunken madman, and slamming my gearshift from slot to slot; I put road between myself and incarceration.
A single speck of light broke the pitch-dark horizon. Resting just south of the highway the redbrick doughnut house, which represented freedom. Even the most idealistic rookie officer knew enough not to tread there while the sun hid. There was sanctuary there. I could easily take refuge under the blanket of social decay that lay so thick over the structure.
But barring my path stood four more white cars, and sixteen flickering red strobes. Evidently this policeman was not alone.
Perhaps my message was not clear. I rolled the hammer down harder, speed climbing; one last charge for this beautiful old car would prove to be it’s deciding fate.
I dialed three digits on my phone, paused for the operator’s introduction, then spoke with great surety and authority.
“If you don’t move that roadblock out of my way, then nobody will be very happy about it.”
She may have replied something but I didn’t listen. It didn’t matter what she might implore me to do.
“ I’m moving at two hundred kilometers per hour. You have about three seconds or so before I hit them.”
Ahead I saw the drivers of the cruisers falter as the electric realization of my intent shocked their bodies.
“Three…”
One car inched forward in a panic darting to the side of the road.
“Two…”
I saw the terror splashed across the face of one fat cop who shivered violently behind the wheel finally deciding to move and save his own pitiful life. Slowly and hesitantly rolling aside.
“One…”
Chapter One
In the middle journey of my life
I found myself in a dark forest,
For I had lost the straight path.
Dante: The Divine Comedy
The sky had finally given up the pretence of blue that had lingered on its cloudless canopy for hours more than it should have. Now Under this blanket of darkness a hundred thousand insects decided to test their voices.
The vacant lot next door was awash with the loud creatures and the tall grass created the perfect bandstand allowing for their song to echo in every corner of the world. They sang tirelessly to the open night air; and to us.
I lay in the shorn grass on the forbidden side of the garden’s short iron gate, as the world began to cool, watching the few cars that were late for rush hour buzz past on the highway. Behind me Ryan and Kay conversed about the days events and the resulting crushed fender gifted to Ryan’s monstrous old Lincoln. Unconscious in the back seat, little Eric slept peacefully and silently. The heat trapped within the car made his wild curly brown hair damp with a light film of sweat.
Ryan broke the long lasting quiet by calling out to Gage, who lingered outside the doughnut store chatting up a pair of kilted catholic school girls who had stopped to use the payphone nearly twenty minutes ago. After replying with a begrudging look, Gage laboriously hauled himself up and ambled over to the back end of Ryan’s land-yacht, to discuss the upcoming evening activities.
After a short span of time Ryan slammed the trunk of the giant machine, causing it to rock gently front to back. The movement of his resting-place woke Eric, who stirred before nuzzling down into the filthy seat cushions and once again nodding off.
For a time the call of the insects faded and traffic vanished, and a nervous breeze took this opportunity to invade the empty parking lot. It was at this point that the overhead light snapped on and began to flood the atmosphere with a quiet hum. The buzz was louder than the last vestiges of evening wind but the words spoken by Ryan and Kay, served to punctuate the serenity inherent in the early hours of the night.
Ryan flopped down behind the wheel of the old Town Car and twisted his keys in the ignition. For a time the whine of the belabored starter pulsed out from under the hood, (causing me to sit up and pay attention) then the engine boomed to life. Kay vaulted onto and rolled over the roof of the car and swung his legs in through the passenger door window. He shouted to me, that the two of them would return, and requested that I made sure that Eric found his way around trouble.
I nodded agreement, and lay back down on the grass as Gage moped back over to his spot by the now empty payphone.
Ryan’s car rolled out of the lot, backfired, then rumbled away.
I lay back and began to count the rusted rungs on the gate. There was nine. There had always been nine and each time I had ever counted the rungs I had found nine. But I would continue to count the rungs every time I found myself in absence of something to do and I will likely continue to find nine rungs.
Eric sat down sleepily beside me and rubbed his eyes.
“It’s a nice place you’ve got here Nickels.”
I nodded not wishing the conversation to continue, and Eric understood. He lingered briefly then stood and approached Gage to ask for money so he could buy a Coke.
While they haggled over the final quarter that Eric desired, the twins arrived.
The unmistakable pair of identical blue Neons rolled down the highway and signaled a turn into the parking lot. I faltered. The twins were dangerous, and they were our rivals. If they had the audacity to come here then they would not do so without force to back their intentions.
Leaping to my feet, I squeezed between the iron rungs of the gate and sprinted toward the payphone. Ryan had to know of this intrusion and he and Kay had to return.
While I was dialing Gage and Eric returned from inside the all night doughnut house carrying food, and in doing so they walked right into the twins and their troop.
They chose to concentrate on Gage, as he was easily two of Eric. He was swarmed and attacked.
Once, as a child I was taken hunting by my father. Ryan and I were amazed at the spectacle of a grizzly bear attacked by hounds. It flung away the pit bulls that leaped at it from every conceivable angle, and swatted them to the ground despite the knowledge that it could not hope to win.
This was not unlike that time.
Gage had bought us time. But not much of it and Eric rushed in to his aid being flung to the ground and pounced on by some of the twins’ lackeys.
I warned Ryan in a hurried voice and was assured that help was on the way, before leaping headlong into the fray myself. I lost sight of the other two as the waves of bodies came down upon me. There were three of them for every one of us and fighting seemed an exercise in futility.
They began to tire of the slaughter as I could take no more. And several members of the group peeled off allowing me the satisfaction of seeing that Gage too was succumbing. I couldn’t see where Eric had gone.
Then, one of the twins let out a triumphant call and their platoon left us, fallen in the parking lot. Bloodied and bruised but strangely uninjured, as they sped away in their little blue cars.
Gage helped me to my feet as Ryan and Kay returned, carrying a passenger. The three of them stepped out of the still idling car and approached us. He was angered at the effrontery shown by the twins, but proud of his soldiers for their bravery.
It was Kay who found Eric. He lay at the foot of the wrought iron gate, grasping at the bars in a pathetic attempt to stand. He had been stabbed and let fall, but thankfully his beating had not been particularly severe.
One of the twins was responsible as none of their men would resort to such an attack if they were not ordered to do so.
Kay removed Eric’s shoes, his watch and his wallet and reassured him as Ryan dialed 911. At the hospital Eric would be a “John Doe.” It couldn’t be helped. At least this way he would see the sun rise in the morning.
Ryan introduced me to our new man as we hopped in the Lincoln and thundered away. I had heard the name spoken only in legend, and through a network of gossips and liars. Yet, here he sat beside me, in the very car I had known since childhood.
He called him “the Hawk.”
Ascension
In the past weeks there have been none to stand in my path. My ranks have swollen along with my territory, as I crush the remains or resistance put up by those who remember Ben and Ivan. My property and my nation will exist in notoriety for a time. It is unfortunate that the world of today carries no legends. (In the past it is said, we would gather around the campfire to sing of fallen comrades and the deeds of great men.) But the past is irrelevant, just as it’s morals and accomplishments are all to be overturned as reality rolls on and removes whatever fails to keep up.
This is why our society is so quick to be obsolete.
I am the instrument of reality. I destroy the obsolete, and I remove those who no longer have anything to offer. For doing so I am rewarded with power: wealth whose intangibility allows it to be traded forever.
Without Ben and Ivan m reach has grown, and the influence and strength of my army is now supreme, however I will not rest on my laurels. I will remain mobile and lock horns with one foe after another.
Tonight’s fray was truly pathetic: the atmosphere around the all-night doughnut house has forever reflected power- Power to its owner. It is the brightest jewel in the crown of my world’s Prime Minister. It can belong to no one for long and those who lay claim to the territory fall by the way side as the demand for the earthly structure overcomes the feeble hold that they have on it. The building just south of the highway is bait for the wolves. I intend to be the alpha male.
Four measly sentries were all that guarded the road between myself and my prize, soldiers so cowardly that they faltered and ran at the mere sight of my army.
One working street lamp cast illumination the asphalt wasteland strewn with leaves and windblown trash. One old Chevrolet stood abandoned against the wooden fence to the south. One headlight remained in service and cycloptic hole in the front grille revealed the rust and filth reserved only for ancient vehicles. The front bumper had snapped it’s pins and it hung low in the center giving the ingression of a twisted grin in the faint lamplight.
A rodent scrambled from a wheeled trash dumpster and slipped deftly into an invisible opening between the rotted wooden slats that made up the fence which cordoned off this place from the vacant railroad lot to the west. Redbrick structures, a public phone, cement steps, an unnecessary wheel-ramp, cobbled walkways and a wrought Iron fence that cordoned off an ailing garden.
To the obsolete society this place was an eyesore, a place where the city deserved an enema. To me, this is a perfect place to create something new for my empire. This is a place of potential, a thing of beauty.
Now it is mine.
The patrons of the establishment pay little attention to us. The shock of the power shift is taken in stride. These people are the remnants of society's decay: dirt from the boot heels of irrelevant civilization that has fallen into the lowest possible point of travel. Little faces them for long yet their lives remain stagnant for they have long given up their futile quest for conformity and status.
My men take their appointed places without incident. And I hang my jacket on the rungs of the wrought iron fence.
I am saddened by the lack of accomplishment. This was to be my great battle. To my kind there is no history; memory is finite and it stands to serve us very little. But I want something of my own, an earthly tasted symbolize my strength and supremity, the qualities that I rightly posses.
My weapons are my tools my men are my fodder and from this I will build property that will represent my greatness. I am the power and my possessions must reflect this.
While my supremity exists without it the mere holding of this structure guilds the statue of my strength. It stands to reason that my power should be recognized before I took it but my will was not supreme. I wanted a battle and none was supplied me.
This would not be an empty victory. I will accept no token prize but this would stay mine, for there would be challengers. The world would provide an endless supply of unworthy combatants to attempt to unseat me here. The world would provide an endless supply of glory, for I would make an example of all of those that came.
For the next hours the sky remained cemented in its position, and all light from below was swallowed by the thick fog of charcoal black smoke- in disguise of clouds- that blockaded out the stars. No traffic passed in or out for a lengthy stretch of wet boredom until the Hawk arrived.
As he had been in my memory, he arrived decked out I his battle regalia. He wore his tattered denim jacket and his mirror tinted eyes. He appeared, as I had, prepared for battle and with his best foot forward.
My men let out no call of alarm at his arrival and allowed him to pass onto my property. His fists were knit and the muscles that stretched across his back looked to be carved of solid oak. He strode in and stepped up on the raised concrete terrace. He approached me again, and stood stock still with his hands folded behind him.
There was a brief instant of friction between his gaze and that of my twin bodyguards. The inflammatory second rolled on to become a moment and for a brief time I could see the urge to action behind the eyes of the twins.
The hawk rested back on his heels with wings folded and talons exposed. Whatever transgression had occurred he knew full well that my men’s restraint was two-fold: They yielded out of fear towards him, and out of loyalty to me.
He turned and for a short eternity he regarded the highway from which he had come. I took the gesture to mean that he could once again be ruled.
My men were now all in attendance again.
Under the gaze of the Hawk they arrived: a pair of black sedans, laden with soldiers and weapons. They turned off the highway and rolled to a stop amongst my men. My soldiers shouted challenge, and the invaders were quick to reply. Thus came my first battle. Locked in battle my men could not stand at my side but the Hawk stood on the elevated terrace with me. While the night air rung with battle and the pathetic patrons stood back in audience the hawk turned his attention to one worthy of his talents.
With a flash of polished midnight, and the snap of denim cloth my stomach caved in. Skewered on the end of the Hawk’s boot I buckled.
A searing pain exploded across my temple and the world contorted insanely as it began to rotate freely on every axis of my vision. My awareness waned and contrast strobed in and out of existence as the carved stone terrace sprang up at my face, colliding noiselessly and mercilessly painlessly, with my forehead leaving behind a star patterned web of gore.
With all the strength I could muster I rolled my head onto its side to watch the battle. My army stood shattered in its moment of greatness. Those that were able retreated into the night. Sadness overtook me and I vowed vengeance before once again a blow struck me in the stomach.
Hot vomit splashed across the terrace covering my bloodied cheeks and staining the gold and crimson of my colours.
Turning painfully in the puddle of filth my failing eyes caught the final insult before the thick blanket of night ash buried my consciousness.
The kick had not come from my initial aggressor. Several of my men stood with the invaders. In mute tableau they gathered behind the Hawk…
Chapter Two
A man revenges himself because he sees justice
In it. Therefore he has found a primary cause,
That is justice.
And so he is at rest on all sides and consequently
He carries out his revenge calmly and successfully.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
With each passing car a spray of mist danced upward and swirled about in the air. The luckier droplets clung to the window behind us and slowly collected, forming miniature rivers snaking their way to the bridge below.
The air hung momentarily with a silence, which was broken again as another pair of headlights lit the wall leaving two lone pillars of darkness resting up against the wall where it couldn’t pass through our bodies.
Inside, Kay and Eric were waiting at a corner table. Eric was picking the final tidbits of chocolate from his doughnut’s crown, while Kay quietly observed the few remains of societies discarded element who slumped down in their chairs around him.
The only movement that they exhibited was the plume of smoke slithering upward from their cigarettes.
Ryan waited outside fuming. Eric had been wronged, yet Ryan felt the sting of transgression against one of his own. He sat white knuckled behind the wheel of the Lincoln silently howling for blood.
They arrived. Two small blue Neons slid quietly down the highway and signaled their turn.
No one bothered to speak, but both the Hawk and Ryan moved in unison. The engine of the Lincoln turned over as the Hawk stepped into the path of the two intruders.
They stopped. Despite their seeming weight advantage this was the Hawk, and the Twins dared not attempt to run him over for fear of retaliation.
My heart began to pound as it always does, and I drummed on the window, signaling Kay and Eric that the trap had been baited and that they were to join us outside.
As I stepped up beside that Hawk the Lincoln pulled in behind the Twins blocking them in. Ryan and Gage stepped out of the car and into the lane way of space between the two identical blue cars.
We all stood and waited, tension mounting, for Eric who would point the accusing finger.
Instead, Eric and Kay arrived, sliding out of the shadows, lamplight streaming off the polished steel slide of the Berretta in Kay’s hand. Without breaking stride Kay raked the weapon, charging the firing chamber ad cocking the weapon. He then flipped it over in his palm and handed it to Eric.
Eric received the gun gleefully. He balanced it with his hands sagging from the heft of the massive automatic. His hands were still not strong enough to work the slide.
Eric and Kay reached the end of the sidewalk and Eric challenged the twins. Discretion proved the better part of valor and The twins opted to remain inside their cars. The Darkness contained within the two cars was shield enough for them: for the time being.
Kay left Eric to his hunt and stepped back into the parking lot, while Eric stepped determinedly to the car on the left. He tapped on the smoke-tinted window with the barrel of Kay’s pistol. And demanded that the occupants show their faces.
Without warning the door of the car was flung open sending Eric spilling into the gutter, and revealing the twins. The internal light gleamed off the hair of the blonde girl sitting in the back. Then, as quickly as it had opened, the door was pulled shut and the car shrieked forward.
The Hawk was first to draw his pistol, but Ryan came up a quick second. Gage and myself followed and the air exploded with the sound of gunfire. Shots blended together to form a resounding roar and the car began to fly apart in a tempest of bullets and broken glass.
With the flaming wrath of four handguns spent into it the Car still did not stop and now only one thing stood between the beaten twins and the open road: Kay.
Kay held his hands up in front of him pleading for the car to stop. But fear tore the use of his legs from him and as the miniature juggernaught leapt forward the light from it’s glowing high beams blanked his vision.
Eric raised the shimmering Beretta, aiming it at the shattered driver’s window, and with a last ditch effort he squeezed the trigger, filling the skies with a sound of earsplitting impotence.
“Click!”
Kay hit the hood with a dull thud and then disappeared under the car with a mind-numbing crunch. Crushed to death under the wheels he didn’t let out a scream, but the sounds of the rear wheels colliding with the pavement on the other side of his still from made the entire spectacle that preceded it seem ironically complete.
Gage put his fist through the window of the other car and into the face of its weeping driver. But the prospect of further carnage didn’t excite him and he left the fates of the two unworthy transgressors up to Ryan and the Hawk.
I helped Eric up off the ground and took Kay’s gun from his shivering hand. Swinging it aside I pulled the trigger and the hand cannon sounded. The Bullet punched a hole in the front of the old abandoned car by the fence then whined off into the night air. Turning the weapon over in my head I realized that Eric’s hand hadn’t been big enough to properly flex the safety catch.
In Kay’s hands the gun would not have misfired.
The blood crusting on the pebbles of windscreen scattered about the lot testified that we had stung someone inside the fleeing car. We would later decide that it must have been the girl.
As the Hawk retreated onto the highway, we gathered around Kay, and stripped him of his battle garb.
Minus the Hawk, we gathered in the Lincoln and drove silently home.
Revolution
In the last days of every rulers regime there is betrayal as those who feel the end is near, turn away from their sovereign in a desperate attempt to save their own cowardly, pitiful hide. They feel that if they distance themselves from whom they perceive to be falling then they will be more likely to survive the mayhem that ensues when the power structure collapses. Those are the peasants that are willing to fade into obscurity, and become outright irrelevant. Those are the pathetic people that are doomed to live their lives distanced from the event horizon of the world.
Some times the turmoil that ensues will roll back on itself, Implode, and swirl down the drainpipe of memory, to come to rest in the sewage of thought that we throw away while we sleep. And some times the trouble dies, just as quickly as the loyalty that the leader is owed and with a sharp jarring note the symphony merely ends.
I intend to take a different route.
With mind numbing eruption I will defy the errant prophesies and take back what is mine. Destroying anything that cares to remain in my path. I will bury those that are ignorant enough to doubt my destructive resolve, forever entombing them in irrelevance or, if the mood suits me, death.
Distemperment thickens the air in my institute of lower learning. Disparity of values separates the preachers from their students. Frustration separates the virtuous from the flawed, and hollow elitism separates the charismatic from the ilk. The ignored rules do little to codify the wildly subjective ebb and flow of discipline. And the Appointed ruling class is powerless to stop those that are appointed to truly hold strength. I realize that I am one of the few. I hold true rank in the eyes of any whom would matter, and when I pass through those simple double doors each morning I receive coronation. Crowned emperor of justice; I sit on a throne of infamy. Respect makes me strong, but if respect comes at too high a price then terror will do. Forfeiting admiration for fear is not criminal in the real world and mankind would never make it so.
From class to class I walk. Mindlessly attentive statues surround me. Consciousness replaced by so much cranial bile that they can do nothing but vomit up the expected answers drooling away their energy until they graduate into obscurity.
Here is the place where I live my life. Drudging through bogs of academic stupidity and enforced study. I know not to make the futile attempt to salvage the arrogant zombies from their plight.
There are others like me. In this world there are two choices: obedience or destruction, fight or flight, victory or death. Within the minute drop of oil that rests atop the endless floodwaters of irrelevance lies my world; a gladiator’s arena that welcomes the constant insurgence of new warriors to replace the fallen. It contains the eternal jihad. A limitless test to find the last man standing.
Some of my men lost their loyalty and have turned against me. They have made a stupid decision, but they will live with the consequences. These rats follow another piper while still wearing my colours and flocking to my banner. They will stand before me, then lie at my feet.
The populace is given leave for lunch. I intend to meet my men instead. Down a long empty hallway surrounded by more banal advice and the trappings of irrelevant education they wait for me. I make my way to them. And engage in enough idle prattle to satisfy their humble needs before sending the majority away. Only the traitors remain.
I challenge them. Those who refuse know that they have been beaten and will submit to my rule, should I emerge the victor. Only one has the audacity to accept. He raises his fists and invites me to do my worst. I raise my revolver and gun him down. Four shots carve him a new pathway to thought and he realizes that I am willing to fight harder than he is. He struggles to prop himself up at my feet and begs for his life. I could grant him his desire but then there is the possibility that this disease could resurface or leave me with insufficient satisfaction that my vengeance is complete.
Besides, I am too strong to let this fool go unpunished. I let the barrel of my weapon drag across the throat of my prey and allow it to fire. Spilling the contents of his neck across the shattered tiles beneath. He choked and gasped away his chances for retribution and failed to fight the bullets in his chest.
He died.
I ran from the scene fearing retribution from the law or whatever governing body could lay claim to incarcerate me. The true enemy waited. I would need to remain free long enough to deal find the twins. For they are the only ones left that I trust, to deal with the Hawk.
Chapter Three
So lay on MacDuff, and damned be he
Who first cries hold enough.
Macbeth 5:7
Someone once told me that, “God makes men what they are, but damned if he can make them stay that way.” Once long ago I believed that this was true. Now I believe that God just sits back to watch, and it is we who make ourselves what we are.
I know that someone is watching me. And I know that someone no longer cares what it sees.
Tonight I challenge God to watch us. Tonight God watches us Kill him.
Aside from a lone fluttering moth we were all alone. Nine souls standing outside the unspoken borders of a single street lamp.
In the light they could not hide from us.
In the light we could not hide from them.
No one dares venture into the light.
There were four of us and five of them but at least the four of us would go down with some semblance of honor.
They were frightened, afraid of us. They knew that we would kill them.
We were frightened, afraid of them. We knew that they would kill us.
From their formation it seemed that they had proclaimed the dark-haired one, with the golden coat, their leader. He was the largest and most pompous of them. Of an impressive size with scab covered knuckles. He wore recent battle scars like badges of honor. He had a stare that burned the soul, and even the twins allowed him to lead.
We too followed the banner of a champion. On the street they called him, “the Hawk.” He swooped in, with razor sharp talons flashing in the artificial urban twilight, and attacked without malice. His life revolved around his war. His war that he fought with what seemed to be every living soul. Over my time with him I had come to know that the Hawk was invincible, and totally without fear.
He was the first to step into the light. He didn’t speak, but his challenge screamed louder than any words.
The dark haired one sent his minions into the light with the Hawk. The battle began.
They whispered- he was silent.
They spoke- he was silent.
They shouted- he was silent.
They attacked- and he killed them.
No knife could cut the Hawk and their fists would not land. In a flurry of denim and dust he fought with them, and he won.
Their bones were crushed- his hair was undisturbed.
They were bloody- he was clean
They lay dead- he stood in defiance.
Now the dark haired one came forward. He had a gun in his hand.- A revolver like Ryan’s.- I had drawn my pistol long ago.
I could have saved the Hawk, but my hands shook with fear. I could not pull the trigger myself for this was the devil himself in front of me and I was too afraid to fire.
The Hawk would fire. He would arm wrestle with the divine hand itself, while in the same thought he would never bring ill to anyone who didn’t hate him less than he hated them.
As of yet he has had no trouble in finding prey.
He pulled aside his jacket and raised his Glock from its warm vinyl seat on his hip. He raised the gun level.
Now we all had guns.
The two of them stood, for an eternity staring.
Then the Hawk broke the silence:
“I am going to shoot you now. Once in the right shoulder, once in the left, and once between your eyes.”
He said it as if he had said, “I think I’ll buy a hamburger.”
Then the guns roared! For the longest second ever recorded night became day. They were both standing, both hit, than they both fell down.
The Hawk’s single wound made a frightening sound. More frightening than the shooting itself. In my ears it resonated a hundred thousand times louder.
He was still calm. He didn’t seem to give an ounce of concern for the old .30 caliber slug that had stopped somewhere in his guts. All he said was “I’m hit.” He didn’t so much as shed a tear. He buttoned his jacket, and re-holstered his weapon. He wandered off toward his dead grandfather’s Thunderbird.
The dark haired one was dead when he fell; one bullet lodged in his right shoulder, one in his left, and one between his eyes.
As the Hawk strayed into the shadow of the apartment building the staleness of the air began to melt away and humanity returned to the survivors.
We had won. They were gone. Finally the twins were silent.
Vindicated now, I began to cry.
