Rider On the Storm

The coming storm gave away much of the man's character. His stout resolute stance in the crumbling snow 'round his boot, and the weary but strong posture that held the shoulder's of his thick australian leather jacket at a uniformed standard. His hands wrung together mitted in leather and fleece, brisk footsteps tracking their way from his pickup truck and it's rapidly cooling engine.

His wife, still at home, had told him to go. Not in such certain terms, though it had been suggested. Not that he wouldn't have otherwise had he known. In his mind there was little as important as the vital, though certiainly unasked, service he was on his way to preform. The home was in the distance, a hundred meters or so. It's few glowing lights piercing through the distressing cloak of snow that began to flow rapidly. His breath brushing back against him in the minus twenty air, clinging to his un-wrapped neck and two day stubble. There was little evidence with him and his case, and even less proof that this was any of his business. But this was who he was, the lone body beating his way through the storm for the lone reason of what he knew, unflinchingly, was right. As his steps beat into the ribbiting cushion of winter gorund he re traced what his wife had told him.

Diane had been to the quilting circle. She was never known to miss it for any reason. She had been there allright, her face swollen though cloaked in the best makeup that the avon services of the northern lights could bring. Her cheek puffing and holding tight like the hand of a child to it's mother, and her lip butting forward as if a crooked tooth leaned behind it. All the women had noticed and in fact all, save for Jo, had kept their lips tight shut. Dignitaries of the polite equity that policed the north with such ablomb that one wondered into which stone they had been written. Perhaps the most apalling to the Jo was that this was not the first, or even second time that Diane had appeared with her face straining outward from it's slender and otherwise beatiful skeleton. Jo was wrapped by dual bonds. By what she felt was an unshaking duty, and a cold and simple general opinion of the north. And with little conideration she brought comment to the swollen fatiuige of Diane's face as they both sipped their tea after the general assembly of the meeting. Diane shied away and brought forth some excuse that was at best laughable. This was in a day when domestic disturbance calls were about as common as a household telephone, which is to say not at all.


Home that night Jo prepared a pot roast, characteristically overdone, with green beans and potatoes. Fredrick was late, characteristically. He believed it was his duty to be the first man at work and the last to leave, the job sadly taking precident over so many things in his life including his wife and children. Yet, much like his wife he was filled with the same unshaking duty as he later stood in the snow, the blades of the winter clashing 'round him. At dinner the children stayed fairly quiet, perhaps sensing the trepidary way their mother plodded around the conversation, which was not her way. Fredrick devoured his meal and several beers, and then shifted himself down to his study to pour over the most recent enginneering periodicals and smoke the second half of his pack of cigarettes. He had sensed his wife's silence yet had chose to say nothing about it, calously accepting the calm reprise from conversation for once.

After the children had been put to bed and Jo had finished the dinner dishes she padded her way gently down the steps peeking her head in on her husband, a plume of smoke overhead and a rough aura cloaking his broad shoulders and aching back.

"Fred"

"Mmm", he grunted without turning 'round.

"Fred, this...I don't really know what to-", she stumbled around her words which was typical even when they carried less meaning than they now bore.

"Christ, Jo spit it out!", He bellowed.

Before going any further it should be made clear. Fredrick was by no means a perfect man, as it has already been alluded. It was not beyond him to get drunk and yell at his wife or children with mishapen scorn or even, perhaps worse, ignore them entirely. Lost in his job and his own trigonomirtal thoughts. He was an opinionated man. A stubborn man. An emotionally lost man. And, for all his successes, an insecure man. Yet for all his failings, he was a indeed a man. A good man. A man who lived in black and white.

"It's about Diane"

He didn't say anything, or still yet turn around.

"Diane Pherson?"

"I know, what is it Jo?"

"Well, it's...about today at quilting. She was...Well her. Her face was...bruised and her eye was swollen shut", Despite being an english teacher in the past and a self proclaimed human dictionary Jo was running through the pages in her mind searching for the words to project what she meant.

She needn't search hard though. Fred pricked up in his seat and turned to his wife his stern brow folding over his eyes. It was as if his typically serious expression had descended three levels into an even more somber depiction of human emotion.

"She was, well...she didn't say much about it...and the thing is. It's not the first time", Her voice trailed off into a mumble, which would have normally aggrivated Fred, though this time he needn't hear the words to understand his wife's meaning. He stood up and made his way briskly past Jo, and up the stairs.

"Fred? Fred?"

He had already made it to the main floor skipping several steps as he went. Jo followed in toe and went to the door to see her husband pulling on his boots.

"Where are you going?"

"Pherson's", he muttered as he stood and pulled on his jacket and hat.

"This late?"

"This late", he pulled on his gloves and was out the door.

The Chevy rumbled to life and his breath pushed out in front of him, and without giving the engine adequate time to heat he was out the dirveway and down the road.

And there he was steps from the house, the storm beggining to cover him, the truck and the house just above. There was no sound from inside, though he didn't expect there to be. But there were lights though, most of the lights were on and the smoke, dreading the cold, pushed its way from the chimeny. Despite being a man of enourmous stature Fred ascended the front steps with a stealth that he usually reserved for hunting in the fall. Though some might say he was hunting now. Next to the door he now heard sounds. The gutteral ramblings of a man with too much drink in him. He raised his heavy mitted hand and thumped the door, the sound echoing back behind him. The sound stopped for a moment and then there was a loud clumsy resonance of accusation behind the lumber. Footsteps made their way to the door and pulled it open.

"Fred..."

"Charlie"

His voice was bathed in rye and the look in the man's eye's oozed forward as did his off kilter shoulders.

"Can I help you Fred?"

Fred didn't respond, his face remaining resolute and unfettered by Charlie Pherson's accusatory though slurred tone. Instead he peered inside the door. Diane leaned against the kitchen counter in the back of the room. She was crying. No harm in crying. No harm in just crying. But she wasn't just crying. Thin trickle of blood ran from her lip and as she saw Fred peer in she made a quick movement with the sleeve of her blouse in attempt to wipe it away, but simply smeared the crimson 'cross her chin.

"Can I help you?", Charlie repeated himself.

Fred's face shifted from it's methodist stern calm into a curling snarl that over the years few had born witness to, and even fewer had forgotten. He grabbed Charlie by his front and pushed him backwards through the door, his legs losing the ground and stumbling as Fred verily carried him. Charlie being the smaller, and certainly drunker of the two men was left with no recourse other than to remain transfixed by the rage in Fred's eyes as he was slammed onto the kitchen table sending his bottle of rye to the floor where it hit with a thud but did not smash.

"You son of a bitch", snarled Fred leaning his weight and height onto Charlie's chest.

"Fred...f-Fred....this is none, none of your goddamn business", sputtered Charlie.

Still wearing his mits Fred hauled back his right arm and hammered Charlie squarely in the soft flesh of his side sending the air from his lungs and the flecks of whiskey from his lips.

"Charlie, I swear to god"

He hit him again.

"Hitting that woman", He used his left, which still held Charlie down, to rifle his head up and over towards his wife, "is none of your goddamn business".

Charlie made a vain struggle to get up but his legs just flailed. Fred dropped the hammer and hit him square in the face this time. Charlie now sported a bloody lip, and Fred's gloved hand came back sporting a little red. Charlie groaned and sputtered again.

"Charlie, I know you work for me. But right now? I'm not here as your boss. You were never really my friend either so right now I'm certainly not here as that either. Right now I'm the guy who will kick your ass square through the street, even if I have to throw you in the back of my truck and drive fifty miles to find a real street, if I even so much as hear a rumour that Diane's got a sore throat", He pulled Charlie's bleeding face closer to his as he spoke and then slammed him on the table as he finished.

Charlie had god limp, his eyes closed and lips quivering in a dull whimper. Fred shoved him against the table again and then let him go, making his way across the room and picking up the bottle of rye that had fallen to the floor. He unscrewed the cap on the bottle which sat at only a quarter full. He proceeded to empty the bottle onto Charlie's face, then tossed he to the floor behind him.

"And the next time you want to drink? You remember right now. You remember just what happened right now when you feel like a drink"

Fred stood up from his crouch over the table, and looked over at Diane. She stood in horror, her hands still up by her face weeping and cringing so delicately that it was barley audible. Fred's expression had reverted to its formuliac stern.

"Diane"

She couldin't take her eyes away from her husband rything in pain and liqour.

"Diane", Fred spoke louder and her eyes darted towards him, wide and trembling.

"Are you allright?"

She shakily nodded and Fred turned completely towards the door and, now free from the fetters of sneaking, thumped his way down the steps. As he left Diane rushed from her post at the kitchen counter to her husband, sprawled 'cross the kitchen table bleeding and shuddering as the storm's cold hit him through the front door which Fred did not close.

The storm was now in full swing. The spittle of god's sneeze descending upon the top of the world. Fred pulled up the collar of his jacket and climbed into the truck, this time giving it plenty of time to heat up. As he put the pickup into gear he let out a crumbling breath and lit a smoke.

At home he pulled of his boots and gloves, rinsing the blood off the mits, before descending the stairs to his and Jo's bedroom. The lights were off and she appeared to be asleep until she spoke.

"Fred?"

"Go back to sleep Jo"

"..wha-"

"Go back to sleep.", His stern tone was not to be ignored.

Fred pulled himself into bed and rested his head on his pillow. The storm outside raged in parallel to that released that evening by the man now in bed, and much like anything this storm was soon to be weathered before it passed.

Accept.

But that's all anyone wants. Acceptance. From parents from friends, and perhaps even from enemies. I think that's what it comes down to with a lot of people. You spend long enough looking hard in the mirror at yourself and the only thing you can see are your imperfections, but that's because you're the only one that spends that long looking at yourself. Even our parents the people who have been there for us since day one don't tend to look that hard or deep. And even if and when they do It's been in my experience and belief that rarely is it with the same malicious loathing scrutiny that we place on ourselves.

These people don't understand you, and 'course how could they they aren't really you. And it's because they don't understand you. Because they don't fully understand us they can't really cater to our feelings and needs. Sure it be can communicated it all we want but that doesn't mean that they understand it anymore and that's the point. People accept each other, that's something I've learned as time goes by. They don't have to like each other, but in most cases somewhere down the line, specially when they don't understand, they accept each other. Their lives so deeply entwined that there isn't much left to do other than let a person be themselves and let their choices shape their own life. Doesn't mean you or anyone else has to like it in the long run, in fact it's usually the opposite, but again this is what goes hand in hand with the acceptance.

It was a day much like any other a week before thanksgiving. I had gone home for a week to put away my parents food and spend time among the countryside that had sired me. It's always a shocking coming home, the small vestigial differences between the town and country. For me it's always the smell, the hard lined sweet odors of my youth. Sawdust, chainsaw gas, fresh churned dirt, hundreds of poplar trees dying together and the winking chirp of sour the leaves make while they rot. I was sitting in an old battered lawn chair on the back deck smoking a joint, the older of my families two dogs curled up beside me. I was wearing a sweater and jacket, the crisp scrape of British Columbia's Autumn reaching for the small of my back. I took another drag and rolled onto my side peering down what my siblings and I still referred to as the toboggan hill and further on into the swamp. My mother had never approved of me calling it a swamp. "It's a pond", she'd say. Clearly it wasn't. Sticks, mud, slime and algae everywhere. Frogs, toads, newts, salamanders and ever other type of fauna one would expect to find in the green pool of sludge that rested just at the edge of my family's property. Arguments with my mother over such pointless subject matter was a regular occurrence my family's household. Whether I was the one doing the bulk of the arguing, or my father, or even siblings, there was always an argument to be won by my mother. 'Course that's just the nature of a family with such will, no one is ever going to admit their wrong, but that doesn't mean that anyone is right.

I was home. It always felt strange to say, even think it. The home i had grown up in. The home that despite it's new foundation and strong architecture had still been strained by the years of resentment and malignant feelings that my family was constantly party to. Sitting in the same spot outside I had sat for years when the cusp of winter was about to roll in. It had been six years since I left home, and so far was the only child home for the holidays, and the only one at the house other than the dogs. That changed though, as my dad came rolling up the driveway in his '94 dodge. What he called "the last year of a real man's truck before they went all pussy and started being rounder than your aunt Doris". He had just finished another day on the site, the log home site where he had worked for the past sixteen years, being paid considerably less than he was worth but still toughing it out. He got out of the cab of the truck and dropped his chainsaws on the back porch, I could hear him, and then strolled around the front to where I was the dog pressuring him for attention and getting covered in the sawdust that always coated him from head to toe.

My father and I's relationship growing up was what I would call, straining. At absolute best. I wasn't much for following rules, and he wasn't much for cutting me any slack after I'd broken the clearly laid out rules. The cycle continued and there were days when I vowed my hatred for him eternal. Those days were past though. As they are with so many families. The distance in years and and geography had proven to be the remedy needed to heal our deeply sick relationship. We had bonded in the years past over an eternal source of frustration. My mother. Her belligerence and blind faith in her own actions directly countered what he believed was the greater good of the family. In any event they were both wrong most of the time, searching out new ways to spite each other. Their relationship endured through a strange need for confrontation that I had never really understood.

"How was work?", I asked as he pulled up a seat on one of the chairs next to me attempting to dust himself off, giving up and then stretching out on the chair anyway.

"merh", He grunted. The question was loaded of course. Too many years of hard labour and not enough recognition had left him indifferent to his employment.

He reached out of the joint which I held in my fingertips, and I passed it over.

"That good huh?", I asked.

"Lets not talk about it", He said before taking a few quick hoots on the now roaching joint, and held the smoke in his lungs.

I lay still and kept looking down the hill towards the pond the ducks of fall paddling around, the way they always do for a week or two before making the next leg of their journey towards warmer climates.

"So Dad, what...are your plans now that the house is finished?", I threw it out there.

My parents had been waiting for the house to be finished. They had bought the property when I was five years old and had since then been constructing what they felt, at least at the time, was their dream home. Time had passed, I had left, then my siblings then there was no one left in the home 'cept my parents and their odd symbiosis of conflict. It was a day that we felt would come, my siblings and I, but we never really had a line on just when it might happen. A divorce i mean, of course.

" I don't really know. I was thinking, 'bout going to the island be closer to your grandparents, your aunt too"

"What would you do there? I mean there's not much log home stuff on the island is there?", I asked reaching back across for the joint.

"Y'now, believe it or not. I didn't always make log homes. I used to do a lot of stuff. I'm sure I musta told the stories a few times", He made what for him was a sarcastic face but still rested to steadily on the lines of serious. Aside from family it was always hard for people to tell when he was joking.

"Yea dad I know, the tug boats, and the fishing and all that but is that what you want to do?"

"....y'now to tell you the truth, I haven't had a serious thought much about what I really want in a long time. It's always, it's always been about responsibility. To the family, to you kids and to your mother and the house and hell. I haven't really had anything I've wanted for a good long time".

The words were heavy like they'd been waiting for years just to have him finally find the strength to push them out. There was a look of relief on his face, and he shifted his glance from me to the dirt and then focused on the dog whom he began petting.

"Coulda shoulda woulda right?", he mumbled and continued to avoid eye contact.

I had known this probably for a long time. I knew what my dad had sacrificed to be there for the family, the life he hadn't led because he was a man of principle and responsibility no matter how flawed he was in any other way. It were these principles that had indirectly taught me how to be a man. My father never taught me how to shave, or drive or anything about girls. But he did teach me how to be strong. That's what all those years were about. Being grounded. Being yelled at. Told to get my head out of the clouds, or even more appropriate out of my ass. Long ago I had accepted him for all his flaws, and the trials we had ran with each other in my youth, but I had never found a time to face him with himself. Just because I came to accept it all, in my twenty four years of living. It didn't mean that he had reached that juncture with himself. The choices he'd made and the life he'd so willingly put on hold in the name of love, he was now wrought with facing it's worth near the end of the family's journey.

What was I to say? There was nothing. The man before me was not doubled over in anguish. He was not angry. He wasn't even really scared. He was just a man once more, his life back in his hands. The reigns foreign and weathered but cold and cracking from years without being held, or maintained.

"Dad?"

He looked up, and I sat up.

"You can have whatever you want. Now, I mean. Anything".

He didn't really smile and he didn't really frown or anything, but he just got up and put his hand on my shoulder for a moment before going inside the house stomping his heavy dusty boots on the deck as he went.

Acceptance. In those forty five seconds, that's what he had finally felt. That nagging reel of line, was finally drawing itself back into place after all those years. Parents. Children. Family. Friends. Enemies. Strangers. Whether they accept, it hardly matters. The life worth living is the one that is lived, despite it's failings, , it's traps, it's successes, it's dead ends and especially it's rebirths. Accept life. Live.

The Man of Tomorrow

"So you saw him"

"That's not what I said"

"Yea it is, you said you saw a blue and red blur and then the cops went past, that's what you said, i just heard you say that Brian"

Brian rolled his eyes and readjusted in his seat avoiding eye contact by looking around for the waitress.

"Yea, that's what I said Mark, but that doesn't mean it was him"

"Are you kidding me? What else would it be?"

"Shit, I don't know. Coulda been a new one? That happens right? Or don't you know?"

Mark stuffed a couple of french fries into his mouth, ketchup sticking to his stumpy soul patch. He looked confused.

"Don't I know what?"

"That one shows up they all start showing up", said Brian crossing his arms.

"Oh right, yea...sure that makes total fucking sense Brian. This guy is so amazing that we don't stop to be stunned by him for thirty seconds, we just move on and expect there to be more....what, what do we even call him?"

"Superhero"

"Don't say that. We don't know he's a hero, christ how do we even know how super he really is? He might be a robot, or an alien or something"

"Doesn't make him not Super, even if he is a robot or alien...you've got a little...", Brian motioned to the ketchup clinging, lifting his own chin.

Mark pulled a couple napkins and made a gratuitous display of cleaning his face before turning back to Brian with indignation.

"You're such a nerd man, seriously."

"Where the hell's that waitress, my coffee's not gonna refill itself. Nerd? Just because I know about shit that is now a total reality? I might as well have PHD now dude. All us comic book nerds, we're totally exonerated now Mark. Guy like this shows up, and who the fuck are they going to look for for answers? Us that's who".

Mark made a sharp exhale through his nose, and waved down the waitress who was standing behind Brian.

"Bullshit man, they've got physicists and shit out there to study this shit. They're not coming down to Oregon to see Brian and ask him why the fuck there's a guy out there flying around in tights"

"Hi, yea, can I get some more coffee? That's great thanks", he smiled sweetly at the waitress until she turned her back and then checked his watch with a grimace, "bout time. I'm not saying me, I'm just saying us goes that know about this stuff. Yea sure physicists are gonna study the how, but we know about the why and the where and the what....I don't give to shits about the how man. And, just so you don't make an asshole out of yourself when you're talking 'bout this later, he doesn't wear tights or didn't you see that picture in the paper?", Brian spoke matter of factly as he added sugar to the steaming fresh cup of coffee.

"Oh thank you, you're so right. I wouldn't want to look like an asshole when I'm talking about a guy who can fly and punch a hole in a Buick....'cause it's so goddamn strange, no out of the realm of possibility that this guy you're calling a superhero would wear tights and a cape. And no I didn't see the picture. Dick."

"And I guess you don't watch TV at all either then huh? He's wearing a black leather jacket with all these red and blue sections on it, and these black pants, they're....I don't know can't really tell what they're made of...but they're just covering the top of what look like combat boots, this guy is on bad mo fo Mark. He doesn't even have a logo on his...costume? I don't know uniform sounds better. The picture and footage are really blurry anyway."

"No mask? I thought superhero's wore masks", Mark leaned across the table eyebrow arched and pointing at Brian.

"Superman doesn't wear a mask"

"So this guy's superman?"

"Again not what I said. Clean the shit out of your ears. Superman doesn't wear a mask, and from what I've seen this guy's a superman archetype."

Mark made an indignant and puzzled face.

"Archetype? What the fuck does that mean man?"

Brian raised his palms upward and rolled his haughtily in continued angst at his friend's ignorance concerning superhero lore. lore

"Seriously, did you never read a comic growing up? Archetype the model, the concept, idea. There are lots of superheros that follow the superman archetype but that doesn't mean they're superman. Flying, super strength, completely morally black and white. He's the god hero concept, then there's anti hero's like Batman who are darker, and villans which are the morally black end of the spectrum"

"We don't know he's morally black and white man. Shit we don't even know what or who he is. Do you think he's working for someone? Like the government?"

"I don't think so?"

"Why not?"

"If he was working for the government, why would they waste him on all this domestic shit? Like, we've got a war going on overseas and this guy could potentially, I mean I don't really know the extent of his powers or anything, but he could put an end to the war in like a week or something? And the government wouldn't just have him waltzing around in the open like that, they always keep the coolest shit secret"

"Whatever Mulder. But if that's the case, and he is an independent, then why isn't he overseas doing all that stuff of his own accord? I mean Just end the Iraq war and bring in all those terrorists and shit?"

"....I don't know. The war or terror and all that Iraq stuffs a total load anyway, but that's just me. I don't know maybe he doesn't think he knows the whole situation? I mean who does? Maybe he's staying out of politics, and things like that? That makes sense doesn't it?"

"Yea but at the same time, it's pretty selfish. I mean if he wants to be a public servant and all that why doesn't he run for president, specially if things are so black and white for him."

"Christ man, that's against the whole concept of a superhero, there has to be someone that stays above all the bureaucratic bull, otherwise Batman coulda been president fo sho by now."

Mark crossed his arms not sold on Brian's reasoning's for this superhuman shouldn't be president. He opened his mouth to speak but Brian interrupted him.

"Besides, would you rather have him stuck behind a desk or out there on the street kicking ass?"

".....ok point taken"


They went back to their meals for a few minutes.

Mark was the first to speak while they chewed.

"Maybe he's god, or a god."

"Christ...no pun intended, that's a whole fucking can of worms I just don't even know how to start into"

"What? Why?"

"'Cause to call him a god, we'd have to define god, and prove an existence of a higher power and there's charts and pie charts and all that shit"

"Bullshit, you just don't know. I bet he's a god"

"Does that mean you think he should usurp the Pope instead of running for office now?"

"Hell yes, that guy's a supervillan if I ever saw one"

"Amen to that"

"Wait, so you said that there was gonna be more of them? Like hero's, if that's what we're gonna call them...but what about villains I mean I see the movies and shit. There's always some crazy ass villain."

"I don't know. I mean the law of superhero logic goes that there's an equal and opposite villain for every hero, a yin and yang thing, Batman and the Joker, Lex Luthor and Superman, Flash and Zoom, Sinestro and Green Lantern. But shit, I don't know Its pretty amazing we've got this guy doing all this good. I don't really think in the real world there needs to be a villain."

"Well duh, there never needs to be a villain, unless you're telling a story or something, but I don't know the way you're talking about it, it sounds like it's a law of nature...that there has to be a villain to balance the equation."

"Finally you're talking some fucking sense dude."

"Ok, so he's not getting involved in political stuff but does that mean he's not doing international stuff? Like I don't know massive disaster type shit? For that matter where the fuck was he when nine eleven or Katrina happened?"

"I don't know man, maybe his powers didn't develop until then, maybe he's not even from earth and didn't get here until then. Shit. I wonder how long until we've got other powers popping up, like to get me some of the speed force"

"What?"

"Y'now, speed force...it's like an energy stream that the Flash taps into to go really fast....?"

"Uh yea, how 'bout you tap into the growth force. I don't know many five foot nothing superheros"

"Screw you man. Don't think you're gonna be getting any powers, degenerates are automatically off the list"

"Whatever. So is he here to stay?"

"Who knows. I'm not sure we know if he can be killed by traditional means yet...well we don't know...government might, might not"

"Bet he gets laid like a motherfucker"

"Well..."

"Well what?"

"That means secret identity kinda goes out the window"

"Why? I never got that, why wouldn't Superman go around slammin' broads as Superman? Who could say no to that?"

"Well I mean, 'cause he's Superman he doesn't just go 'round bumpin' Ho's....and this guy? who says he even has a secret identity, he could just be a superhero twenty four seven? I don't know maybe he's addicted to prostitutes and if no one knows what he looks like 'cause he moves so fast then he doesn't really need to worry at all? Shit what if he's like a serial murder but he does all this other good shit so people would never suspect him"

"Dude, that's screwed up, like what? He's the Antichrist in some screwed up disguise as our saviour?"

"I don't know for sure, I just-"

There was a large screech and a thundering of metal scraping metal from out in the street and both men leapt to their feet, Brian knocking over his plate as he suddenly jilted to the side.

"What the fuck was that?", said Mark looking side to side.

"Man, out in the street what the fuck is that?"

Both ran from their seats and charged out into the street where they bore witness to something truly amazing. A Escalade had plowed into the side of a smaller economy car, or at least that was what had appeared to have happened. Grating sounds of metal on metal was heard and then the raw Detroit steel of the caddy being bent backwards and snapped like a aluminium pie plate. The front end of the SUV was torn in half by what appeared to be a pair of large arms and hands. There was already the sound of sirens in the background as a large humanoid shape pulled itself from the wreckage of the two motor vehicles and began to dust himself off. He was tall and broad with a black crew cut. He was dressed as Brian had described him 'cept for the part about there being no logo. On his back there was a now tattered but none the less still visible embroidered red lightening bolt. With speed but dexterity he turned first to the smaller car and after examining the door for a moment tore it off it's now irreparably bent hinges, pulling out the crumpled body of an older black woman who was curled in a ball. He set her down gently on the sidewalk and beckoned for some people to come and help her before turning back to the steaming Escalade. He made his way to the driver's seat where he punched through the still intact window and dragged out a young man dressed in a baggy baller's kit. He then tore the Escalade's door off it's hinges as well but didn't cast it aside so easily. He tore it in half a couple of times as easily as if it had been made of construction paper before twisting it into long metal coils and wrapping the young man in them. He dropped the body to the street with a thud before miraculously flipping the car on its side and tearing out the gas tank. After digging inside the innards of the vehicle for a moment he withdrew a large package wrapped in brown paper and masking tape. Shoving it into the hands of the Escalade's pilot he turned to face the now sizable crowd which had formed. His expression changed from that of stern and scolding anger to a calm and open eyed smile.

"Everything's going to be ok now", he said in a charming baritone waving to the crowd.

Then in an instant after a quick and gentle hop he took off into the sky with a quick thunderclap following in his wake. The sirens approached and the calamity on the street continued, but all those that had been there could not see anything worth paying any attention to save for the now vanishing speck far off in the distance of the sky.

"Don't care what you say man, that dude deserves to get laid", said Mark in awe.

"Word man, fuckin' word".

Bound

The ring was never a permanent fixture. It was meant to be outgrown and passed much like the nomer that went with it.

She turned it over in the palm of her hand. The smooth gold garnered scars much like the marriage that it had been party to. She drifted it back and forth on the ring finger of her left hand. It felt heavier than it had since the day she had first accepted it and it's responsibilities. That new noticeable weight that comes with any glittering adornment, it's burden fading over time as one becomes accustomed.

Despite the fact that the divorce papers had fully gone through over a month ago she had not removed it from her finger until now. Sliding it off as she sat in the bath, her hands wrapping her face wet with the steaming bathwater and a perhaps a little of her tears. Without fail for years she had taken a bath nearly every night at nine pm. Back when the kids would have been in bed by now or, as they grew on, capable of caring for themselves. One of her few indulgences, in a world overcome with duties and chores that naught but mothers truly understand. Now even even in her waters of escape she found little solitude or balance to the deft backhand that had been dealt to her some hours before.

Her sons would be home soon, having heard the news and returning from the city immediately. Her younger daughter had been there for the entire event, it still being summer and her having not left for university yet. Her oldest son had sounded profoundly calm when she had repeated the news over the phone, though that was to be expected. He had always carried himself with as little discernible emotion as possible, choosing instead to internalize his pains and lash out later when he found it more appropriate. She had not spoken to the younger of the two brothers. They lived together and she trusted the eldest to competently relay the news. Her daughter had not been so calm, falling back on instincts she had inherited from her father, the precenium of her eyes welling quickly and then dousing her face with a quick stream of tears. As far as she knew had not stopped even then. She'd stayed with her daughter for an hour before she had asked her to leave.

She'd eaten a modest dinner of salad and drank three bottled apple cider's before running the bath and crawling into it's embrace, the only she'd had for years. Now she sat balled at the head of the old claw footed tub. Fetal and rocking gently creating small waves that rode back and forth around her. Her face rested on her knee as she watched the ring turn over slowly time and time again in her hands. She was truly alone in union with a partner now, though now it was not by her own choosing. Beginning to wonder if this is how he had felt when she'd asked for the divorce. Frightened at the prospect of a separation from a coalition that, while certainly holding no more intimacy, carried a symbiosis of sorts. They had survived for so long with each other that near the end she had even considered not divorcing him. That their lives would be as a common-law partnership, even though the holy matrimony was gone. In the end that had not been her choice. Her will to move on a live a new life separate from him and his ways was too strong. Had she not, her conscience could not be clean as she began new relationships still vowed to him. But how clean was her conscience now? Blotted with a toppled bottle of India ink was the vision that came to her mind as she rocked back and forth in the bath. No matter how much hot water and soap washed over her, there was no removing the stain. Whether she had provided the catalyst for this result she couldn't and would truly never know, but forever she would be muddied with that taintful thought of it. The unconscious pock mark on her soul that for years to come would drain all love from her eyes leaving only the limpest signs of humanity.

Her boys made it there that night. Three in the morning, but they made it. The younger had driven, her eldest always afraid of cars, much less the open highway. She often reflected that perhaps this had to do with his choice to live in the city, despite having no real pitons to hold him there. The younger had followed the older their friendship and brotherhood so strong. They hugged and kissed her, the grim clinging on their still young faces. She put on a pot of tea and they brought their bags to their rooms, long deserted for their new city digs. Sitting around the constantly cluttered kitchen table, the neon bars above the kitchen island buzzing erratically, clutching their chipped teacups of the every day varietal. Arrowroot cookies on a plate slowly devoured by the boys as words slowly bubbled to the surface none of them sure how to tip-toe 'cross the still barley realized truth. After the cookies were gone and the tea nearly finished, the younger of the two boys spoke. He had always been the quiet one, speaking rarely in public, but always with meaning and direction when he did. He was the first to say it completely out loud in such bold matter of fact that only a typewriter could have placed the words any clearer or more tangible. His father was dead. His father had killed himself. There was no outburst of emotion. No tears. No hugs. No anger. No denial. It was plain as the daylight sun which now peaked it's nose over the eastern wood adjacent to the house. Though no one said it, and never would, there was a crutch of relief that they all clung to. Had it not been like this. Had it not been now. When? They, at least they at this table, knew that his sanity had been wrought to it's thinness by the marriage itself. The eldest brother had often wondered at night just what would become of his father if his parents ever did finally decide to untie the knot. It saddened him that his earliest suspicions were in fact what had come to fruition. He simply had never been able to believe that his father was still strong enough to continue all on his own. His will had long ago been withered to support only the concept of his family, even if the family was itself a facade. They hadn't been a family for years, not since the daughter was still breast feeding, the boys were scraping their knees and sword fighting in the yard with baby poplar tree's cut before maturity.

She told the boys she had to work the next day. They protested, agreeing that an event like this surely made her exempt for her chores of financial toil. She waved this off telling them that if anything it was the best for her to focus on something that was still within her realm of control. The body had not truly been identified yet, though in a small town there was little doubt, specially when a body is found in it's home with all pieces of identification there neatly for display. The youngest volunteered to go to the morgue to see what he felt his mother could not. The eldest saying he would stay home with the sister and attempt to help her make sense of her father's fate while also making the necessary arrangements for his funeral. After this they wordlessly climbed into bed. Her children all under the same roof and in their bed's of growing for the first time in years.

She worked at the hospital. Providing care to the elderly and incapacitated. The thought did cross her mind that somewhere down in the basement below them her ex husband's body lay cool in the steel cooler. Word had not fully leaked 'cross the community so there was little chatter among her co-workers yet. No platitudes of sympathy and support that were sure to come in the weeks that followed. She held it to herself until her last round of the afternoon. She was a friendly woman to be sure, never an unkind work to be said of her from those that knew her. And even those that spoke any criticisms were those closest to her, and as such had seen the worst that went 'long with her best. As said, on her last round at work she finally spoke the words to someone that was not her family.

The elderly lady was bed ridden and trembled she she attempted to move. But there were still reminders the experience and beauty that her life had been witness to before being struck to a wheeled bed at the service of women generations younger. When She told the aged women of what had happened, the elder of the two women had reached out her hard slender knuckles bumping the hand of the much younger woman before they took a firm grasp of her grieving junior. She spoke of things past, and loves that forget that they are even love. A lifetime of emotion placed on top the past twenty four hours. It was a warm blanket, fresh out of the dryer on a cold winter's night. For the first time since hearing of the death she allowed herself to cry without holding back. Held in the rail thin but, at this time, such strong arms of someone who was there for her as she finally allowed herself to descend into remorse. She did not have to be strong for this woman. This woman who had been strong for such a long life that now she once again felt s'though she was needed. Holding the still young woman who had cared for her as she let the small yet still powerful torrent of tears streamline her angular face.

It had never been the family's way to put someone in the dirt. So when the eldest called the funeral home he arranged for his father to be cremated and placed in one of the lower end casks. While it had never been the family's way to be frugal either they had certainly not believed in extravagance for the dead. The daughter remained in bed most of the day, leaving her room only to sip some tea with the brother and eat lunch with him. The younger boy had indeed identified the body as his father and then gone to lunch with some friends who thought his visit as nothing more than a whim. Things moved quickly after that first day, the funeral placed the weekend after the death. Family began to congregate around the household like wayward drifters looking for a place to stay. There's little rest when a death occurs, as if to suggest that there is no peace 'cept that in the great beyond where the loved one has found permanent recess.

The funeral itself was modest in presentation, though broad in scope of those that came to pay their respects. Never a religious family it was up to those present to provide the sermon, each speaker with a eulogy tailored to the deceased's memory. Words of admiration were placed unto the dead. Not all of which were true, but certainly all were accepted out of politeness if nothing more. It was held on the dock of his favourite lake to fish at during both winter and summer. The ashes were not spread in front of company, that was left to the family themselves who clambered into his old bumble bee yellow boat. The eldest cranked the outboard motor to a start and the three children and mother made their way to the centre of the lake. There was silence. No other boats dared near or even start their engines out on the open water. She drew into the pocket of her black sweater and withdrew the ring.

Cold and familiar she held it out in her hand palm up. The children stared knowing full well what it was. They sat staring at it. It represented more than the dust that sat within the simple brass cask in the hands of the daughter. The gleaming symbol of the union that had brought them into existence as a family. She briefly thought of offering it up to either of her sons, but knew that they would not withdraw it from her hand even if she did present it as a token of the family's continuity. Instead She took the cask from her daughter and unscrewed the top. After looking with doe eyes into the remains for a few moments she dropped in the glorified gold washer and re-fastened the lid. She looked from the children to the cask and then leaned over the bow and let go. It sank quickly and within moments was gone from their sight. No words were exchanged only a brief embrace before the outboard was once more fired up and they retreated to the shore.

She knew she had made the right decision. The ring was never a permanent fixture. It bound. And It bound well. Doing it's job as well as any person could have expected. In the end, it was mean to be outgrown, as all bonds are. And those bond's that don't expand around that which they secure tend to break. But this is natural. And with the puttering of the outboard She choked on her new freedom before tightly swallowing it. She knew that the only bond of her marriage that she need ever carry farther were her children, and their love. A ring that cannot be broken.

The Sirens of the Downtown East Side

Their flirtation is such a sub structure of their personality that one could not help but wonder if it was  instinct or merely a conscious and completely maligned aloof action.

The scene of these women is set within the dark auburn of aged and gnarled mahogany bars and pillars, who have seen many blood, sweat and tears over the years. So much so that one can often wonder of the fables they could recount of only they spoke. Schools of the ageless many flounder about, sticking to those of a similar scale, straying only when their environment permits. The clack of the pool table's spheres and the primal reverb of hip barroom disco is their soundtrack as they shift throughout the crowd conversing and drawing attention like the sirens of the Iliad.  All sipping their vodka waters through long slender straws, and a look of distinct malcontent within their tasty glances.  Like an electromagnet of military grade, their curving and elegant figures draw the glances of men. Their attention is not tempted to those simply interested in the realm of hetero, females distinctly giving them elevator eyes wondering what they carry beneath their thinning clothes and loud features that they themselves do not posses. Through the thick plume of conversation muddled by the liquor drenched breathes of adults to be, they carry the room upon their shoulders though the weight is not nearly enough to make them feign.

The chairwoman of the principle trio has all the charm of a circus ringleader. Knowing the thoughts and desires of all without ever having met them, though she does know many. Her brisk quick gate with legs of buttermilk smoothness is accented by a pair of run down cowboy boots that give an  edge, with  an echoing clip clop, to her walk. Gentle paws clench her drink tightly to her face as if to add mystique and uncertainty to her friendly warm features. From suitor to suitor she passes with kind words and eager eyes entrenching the men of the room with her passing atmosphere until she has made them drunk beyond their booze on her aura. In giggle and and transit, a small gaggle of men follow her to the front of bar where she makes a brief exit. Four lighters lifted to her deliberately held cigarette. No expectation on her face though she knows an eager cadre will surely appear to ignite her tobacco much the same way she's lit up their libidos. Always with a pick though. She, as a hunter inside, has her pick long before the night has even reached it's median. Knowing that, at a whim, she can turn her attention to this one particular boy and swivel his head without even lifting a finger. His fate sealed within a gentle smile and easy going conversation that spreads like warm butter across a hot piece of toast. Perfection until it is devoured, leaving only wantings. Almost unaware of her distilled beauty and tactics she goes along leading without dictating, simply having a following in toe.

Her second in command a delicately understated pixie who holds a resilient confidence much like the dandelions of spring. Continual and persistent without trying, though none the less beautiful for it. Unconsciously, without the fetters of bosom supports, she is comfortable within defying the societal norm and taking her style and highlights to the street with a deft and indifferent confidence. Her wardrobe is that with method, though without compromising the comforts she has known so well. Despite the fact that her feminist and ,frankly, lazy nature leaves her legs feathered with hairs, she still lures independent males into her personal bubble. Trapped within, these men succumb to her brilliance in both body and mind. Like an opiate of sorts her conversation carries inspiration and unbolted thoughts that leave the fellows with starry eyed wonder. Heels beyond her persona clickty clack with each step she takes. The rapping of heels could easily be mistaken for the popping vertebra of the necks firm affixed to the heads she turns unceremoniously. Her attentions are not such that she is capable of intense multitasking, picking a single Joe early in the evening. Fixated much like an artist sculpting a masterpiece of emotions she plys away at the layers of character and thought digging to the glowing and fragile core 'till satisfied. Nary is a gentleman capable on entrapping her within his charms, 'fore he hits every single snagline and pitfall she's already laid for him. With men set in their respective traps she retreats to solitary black her heels firmly snickering as she retreats. She is off the market, as it were, though she still enjoys shopping.

The third, though certainly in no way the least is a delicate fairie who carries herself as sophisticated dilettante beneath the light brim of a hat long lost in the annuls of ladyhood. Loose and flowing garments, one is left wondering what delicate intricacies lie beneath the crisp bundles of her clothes. Her ignorant modesty perhaps is her most attractive trait, refusing any and all compliments as they were a flagrant display of failing voodoo . Would be woo'ers tremble in lineups as they approach but are shrugged of by the affluent hand of the girl. Her eye without specific preference always wondering just who is at the back of the que. Glowing dark amber globes of vision sit on the precipice of her face conveying all the energy of a coiled feline. Surveying the room for herself and drawing the glances of those within her perimeter without endeavouring to do so. She is plainly only looking at the art 'cross the room, though the stomach's of those in her eyeline are now hugging their throats after a compelling leap. Simple flats allow her a ballerina's stroll through the crowds. Her sway and candour, the enablers of guys with the ambition and balls to approach her fragile gorgeous ambience. How they fail though. Her tastes undefined though certainly broad are the same keys to her perpetual solitary visage. No man may be an island, but among the crowd she floats lost at sea, ignoring those that would find her.

Their layers of character and fortitude spread thin, they wind them into strands of comfort and retreat into the night, partnered or no. The last song played and the bane of conversation at a reeling end, the grit of the street beneath the feet of many they turn their wandering steps off into the night. Temptress, vixen and tease. Names laid to all, though none land on mark, as few know them true enough to unerringly make any shot  coming close to accuracy. They are the darling spirits of female entrapment their features and fluttering words the double edged blade of alluring bliss and banal heartbreak. As they go, no traces left save for the firm and indelible footprints left in the minds of the men who have met them. Long till they fade away and even longer before these men are to be again graced with audience. As shadows in the night they fade to black.

Thursday Part Three-

“Okay, so do you just want me to wait here?”, I asked

"Well, yea? I don't exactly have any other way of getting home do I?”, he was halfway out the door looking at me kinda surprised.

"Okay, yea that's find. What if I need to leave for some reason?”

"What? you're gonna go get a drink? Another pack of smokes?”, his exasperation floweth over.

"Nah, fuck it. Go i'll steal some off one of these little shits if I need some.”

He shook his head at me and headed off towards the front entrance to the school. It being LA and Glen having the money his kids went to a middle ground private school. No uniforms or any shit like that, but a decent education. I rolled up the windows and cranked the air conditioning.

xXxXxXxXxXxX

Iisac may be a prick but he's  right. At least in this instance. My son is inside that school and until i actually go in and talk to whoever it is that's holding on to him I 'm going to know what the damages are. Once I reach the front doors I turn around and looked back at Iisac's Beamer sitting calmly in the visitor parking lot. There's a thing trail of smoke streaming from the driver's side window. Fingers reached out and shake at me. Asshole. I turn and made my way into the school.

I pay this much for tuition and they can't even afford air conditioning? This is LA, what successful anything doesn't have air conditioning? Fuck this my kid's can go somewhere with uniforms for all I care, as long as it doesn't cook their brains. I make my way to the visitor information desk, where a pudgey black receptionist greets me with a gleaming crooked smile.

"Hi there I'm Glen Reuben? I'm Demetri's father?”, I ask my face less than confident. I realize this is my first trip to my son's school.

"Yes Mr. Reuben, I was informed that you'd be here sometime this afternoon you're going to want to follow this hallway down and then make two lefts. There will, well there should be at least, a door that read's “Neil Proctor-Principal”, just knock and go right on in.”, She was friendly enough pointing me in the direction I need to go before smiling and returning to her paperwork.

"Neil Proctor? What the hell kind of name is that? Was this guy born a principal? Sounds like it's got sharp edges. Remember that, you can use it in the script. Need an asshole name use Neil Proctor. Wonder if he really is an asshole? I keep going down the hallway. Funny how high school hallways seem so small after you've long outgrown them. The pale blue lockers lining the walls and the smell of teenager and photocopying assaulting my senses. The first day of school always smelled different, until everyone had a chance to get used to it. I start to daze off remembering my years in high school but am snapped back to attention after almost running into a shitheel looking teenager. He sneers and i barley pay attention. I make it to the door of Neil Proctor, his name spelled in black on the thin frosted glass. I knock.

"Yes come in”. A narrow but deep voice answers me.

I go in.

Apparently the budget of the school extends to the administrative faculty's offices.

"Hi Mr. Proctor?”, I extend my hand as I cross the room, only just taking notice of Demitri sitting in one of the two chairs across from.

"Mr. Reuben, nice to meet you. I only wish it was under better circumstances”

"I agree, oh...excuse me, pardon me I'm terribly sorry about this”

My phone had begun to ring playing the theme from Magnum PI. I looked down and checked the caller ID. Rachel. I held my hand up as if to say just one moment, and turned around flipping it open. Goddamn I love Magnum PI.

"Hello?”

"Dad, hey”

"Hi sweetie, what's going on?”

"I uh, I kinda need some help?”

"Did you get a flat? If you got a flat you know you can call triple A right?”

"Ya, i know that dad. I didn't get a flat.”

"Well, what's goin' on...I'm kinda busy right now?”

"shit....Um...Dad, I'm...don't get mad Ok? I'm at this guy's house and stuff is happening and my...the car is blocked in and they won't move their cars, and I can't get out and I just need someone to come get me. I'm freaking out”, Her voice is nervous and scattered. I'm not sure if I need to be mad or worried or both.

"Ok. I can't...fuck”, I look over my shoulder. Proctor has his arms crossed and looking at me suddenly impatiently, “I can't come but I'm going to get someone over there as soon as possible...ok? What's the address?”

I fish out a pen from my pocket and quickly scratch the address into the palm of my hand.

"Ok, you hold tight, just wait by the car”. 

"I hang up the phone, and then immediately hit the first number on my speed dial.

"Hey what's goin' on?”

"Iisac, I need a favor”

"...am i going to hate you?”

"Probably. I just need you to do this and I need you to do this now”

"Fuck, ok tell me”, I hear him rustling with his pack of smokes and firing another up as he rolls down the window.

"I need you to go to...977....Granito drive”

"That's way the fuck out on West Hollywood!”

"God dammit Iisac, it's Rachel ok? I need you to go get my daughter. Just do it ok?”

"Oh, shit. Ok yea I'm going right now”

"Thank you”

I hang up the phone and put it in my pocket turning back to my Son and his principal. Demitri is barley concerned with my presence. He's either scared and doesn't show it at all, or he doesn't really give a shit and is wondering how I'm going to react to this. Either of these options puts him in the same boat as me.

"So what seems to be the problem Mr. Proctor?”, I ask.

xXxXxXxXxXxX

"That's way the fuck out on West hollywood!.....oh,shit. Ok yea I'm going right now”.

I hung up the phone and fumbled with the smoke in my hands for a few seconds before starting up the car and backing up out of my parking spot making my way out navigating the quickest route to West Hollywood.

People cite LA as being an urban wasteland. A morally ambiguous sheet of crumpled paper with different currents of ink flowing through all the cracks. It certainly is. I can't think of any other place that I've been where the rich and poor run such separate lives which still being parallels. Everyone wants to get high, everyone wants to get fucked and everyone wants to get rich. And quick. 

I drove the car up and down the back streets cutting my way across the city in the most timely fashion avoiding the dense ripe traffic.  Car jackings aren't the big deal that everyone makes them out to be and in fact rarely happen in the poorest neighbourhoods. Still this being said I didn't  feel bad about locking my doors as I passed a couple of young hispanic guys wearing black bandanas.  Pulling back out onto a main street I put foot to floor and carted off to the address that Glen had given me.

It was a goddamn pornstar mansion. Big empty villas in the thick of high class suburban sprawl  that the adult film industry bought for the sole purpose of filming. On the outside they looked completely normal, but on the inside you've got several big cocks and a variety of fake titties conglomerating for the sake of en masse nut busting. The residents near by these dens of sin  were either usually completely oblivious to the goings of of their neighbours, to self obsessed. God bless America. There were three large SUV's parked in the driveway as well as a Catering truck, all of which were blocking in Glen's Audi sedan. The second chorus of “sympathy for the devil” died as i cut the engine in my car and opened the door, muttering something about how I wished I'd had another drink.

Does one simply walk up and ring the doorbell of a porn mansion and request the freedom of a sixteen year old girl? Fucked if I knew, bu it was really the only thing I had in mind. I approached the house taking a good look around, wondering what the resale value of the place was after they used it for something like this. The high vaulted ceilings and bay windows, which were covered, were pristine and free of typical Californian sun bleaching. The place was probably brand new, maybe even constructed for it's purpose. I walked up the front steps and ran the small pearl doorbell. After about a minute someone answered it. He was a tall but severely thin bald black man with a silk shit halfway unbuttoned. He spoke in a marked gay accent.

"Hello?”

"Uh, hi there? I'm looking for someone?”

"Yes? Who's that?”

"Rachel? Is there a Rachel in there?”

"Sweetheart I don't know, today if feels like everybody's in here”

"Um...can I come in?”, I had turned my head sideways completely unsure as to whether or not this was an appropriate question.

"Suit yourself”

I entered the house and made my way past the empty foyer, following the slighted and unnerving groans  which appeared to be coming from the living room which was open and adjacent to the kitchen.  The catering crew was cleaning up the remains of the lunches, mostly salads and a little bit of Sushi from the looks of it. They gave me looks of despondance, just another day on the job for them I supposed. Something didn't feel quite right. This was not the menacing hard edged porno production I had assumed it would be. No coked out whores lying spread eagle on the floor, no abusive looking guido director, or even a single mullet. This unexpected peace and prosperity still didn't sway my weary feelings and nearly parental fear for Rachel. Any second I might find some muscular hammer cocked jag off defiling her for the gratification of the camera. I turned the corner on the living room and was treated to the sight of a pair of spread ass cheeks being delved into with the lapping tongue of a burly hombre. It took me a second for the initial surprise of this to pass before I realized that the asscheeks in question was that of another male. I suppose it was the pristine baldness of the O ring that threw me from determining this in the first place that or the fact that it was bleached. There was significant groaning from both men. The ass licker being jerked off by the lickee, and complete silence among the rest of the crew who massed around manning lights and mics. The guy getting his ass  spackled was considerably younger than the other guy, eighteen at a stretch. Rachel was sitting in a folding directors chair a few feet away from the camera man, arms crossed looking sullen. All my nerves and fear washed away by her petulant glare of disgust at the two men's activities. I started laughing. All eyes in the room turned to me, including Rachel's which increased in size by about triplefold.

"CUT! What the fuck? Who the fuck are you?”

A normal looking white guy wearing a baseball cap and faded blue jeans stood up from his place next to the camera and turned toward me, indignance across his face. The two guys in the scene had stopped and leaned on their sides. The ass licker was taking a drink of water handed to him by a PA.

"I'm, Hey I'm sorry. I'm just here to pick her up?, I jutted my thumb towards Rachel who was now covering her face.

"Ok, but who the fuck are you?”, his hands were on his hips and he jutted his chin forward at me.

"I'm, I'm a friend of her dad's, it's a long story, really I'm just gonna get her and then we can get the fuck out of the way, oh and I kinda need someone to move one of their cars outside? It's blocking in that Audi, which is actually her dad's”, I stumbled along not sure if there was any proper etiquette I should be presenting myself to this guy with.

He just stared at me dumbfounded not entirely sure what to make of this strange guy who had seemingly wandered onto his set in search of a teenage girl that wasn't supposed to be there anyway. 

"Ok...fuck...ok everyone take five I'll deal with this!”, he had turned back to the cast and crew throwing his arms up in the air.

I spotted a boom mic man lighting a smoke after removing his headphones and lit up my own smoke. Rachel stood up and walked over to us sheepishly for a second. But the director still wasn't done with me.

"Ok, I'm glad you're here to pick her up but seriously man, did you have to interrupt my shot like that? You know how fucking hard it is to eat an ass and get jerked off at the same time? It's like playing fucking Tetris while reading War and Peace! Can I have a smoke?”, rising up and down like a seismograph's etchings, his voice had settled at a low level complacency as I handed and lit him a smoke.

"Listen I'm really sorry, I work in the movies too and it was totally unprofessional of me, it's just she said she was in some kind of trouble so I had to rush over here, and I walk in here expecting it to be like some scene from Blow and instead I walk in on that guy chin deep in a chocolate starfish...it shook me a little”, I shrugged and made a meshugeh expression.

He straightened up from his hunched over stance of beratement and looked at me slightly taken aback.

"Oh you work in the industry too?”

"Yea, well...not the industry industry...like not porn, but movies yea”

"Me too! Well, that's the dream...but you know fresh out of film school and I realize that my certificate doesn't mean dick and I'll still be running coffee for three years, so I decided to make some money...y'now? Pay off the student loans?”

"Uh yea, that...that makes sense”, I said shifting my glance back towards Rachel, raising my eyebrows trying to get her to move, “She's not high or anything is she?”

"Her? Shit no. Despite what you'd think the people that work in porno aren't really coke pigs anymore...I mean we've still got it around, a little hit every now and then is fine, fires you up but for the most part nah”, He spoke in a way that suggested Rachel being high was laughable.

"Oh really? I mean that's one of those bad myths?”, I asked gesturing with my hand beside me for Rachel to get going. This guy was going to pop the question any second now and then I would be trapped forever.

"Yea, I mean Porno's too lucrative these days. You can't shoot a movie in one day if you're all burnt out and shit. So what movies have you worked on?”

Fuck.

"Uh, not really anything that big. I mean I'm a writer and stuff so-”, I had only dug myself a bigger hole by bringing up my status as a writer.

"Oh really?! What have you written?”

"Rachel had stood up and was now making her way towards me, her head slumped down as if she was embarassed. She stood waiting next to me while the director waited for my answer.

"Uh...just some stuff, you've probabl-”

"C'mon don't be so modest just tell me”

"You see Hammer Down?”

"You're fucking kidding me! I love that movie! That part where Dom shoots the crocodile?! AWESOME!”, His eyes had gaped and his hand was half extended as if he might try to shake mine.

"Yea, well. Glad you liked it. Um listen who do I talk to about getting those car's moved out front? It's just blocking in the Audi and that's actually her car and it'd be nice if we didn't have to leave it here”, I pointed out to the front.

"Oh shit, yea she was saying something about that, Lenny was just in the scene and y'now can't really break the actor's method, but yea sure I'll send him out there right now. LENNY! Where the fuck are you?”,  Forget just moving the cars the guy probably would have sucked my dick if I asked. He shouted into the air making a makeshift megaphone with his hands before turning back to me.

"So what are you working on right now? Is it another horror? your horror was tight holmes!”

"Uh yea thanks, where do I?”, I akwardly held up my hand with my smoke butt unsure of where to ditch it in the house.

"Here! yea I'll take that”, He snagged the sad stubbing filter from my fingers and momentarily held it aloft the way one might examine a diamond to the light. 

This creeped me out a little and I stared at the oblivious guy, eyebrow raised. 

The young pornstar who had been getting his salad so rigorously tossed approached us a towel around his neck and a scraggy pair of boxers around his waist.

"Hey Rachel are you leaving?”, he spoke towards Rachel his voice sounding like that of any other teenage male, his smile that of a set in the mold douchebag.

"I turned my head eyebrow still raised from the increasingly fanboyish director to Rachel who now had re-crossed her arms releasing a “harumph”.

"Yes Dennis. I'm leaving. Like I would have left an... hour ago if.... that guy...Lenny! If Lenny would have moved his damn car!”, The youthful inexperienced candour in her voice would have normally produced a laugh from me but the situation was just getting entirely too weird. She knew that guy. What the fuck.

"Woah, why are you so pissed off?” the guy was defensive holding the towel out between his hands still wrapped around his neck.

“Whatever forget it, Iisac can we go?”, Rolling her eyes she turned back to me.

"Yea that's probably a good idea, is Lenny moving that car?”, I turned back to the director.

"He will be. LENNY!”, He walked off yelling and I watched him pocketing my the butt . I sure hoped that it didn't end up on Ebay.

Rachel, what? what's so-”

"Back off Junior”, I said turning Rachel towards the door with my arm.

"Hey fuck you man! She came here with me!”, I turned back to see him indignantly puff out his chest.

"Sit down, your ass probably needs drying off more than your neck”

Rachel sniggered.

"What the fuck Rachel!? This is bullshit”, His hands were now in the air above his head.

"Don't bother calling me”, she said not bothering to turn around.

"What?”, his voice cracked.

I sniggered.

Outside Lenny wearing his own pair of boxer shorts moved his Lincoln SUV as Rachel pulled out from behind it and I attempted to ward of the director's further attempts to get into my good graces.

"And that's my card, but I don't really use the Fax, it's probably just best to e-mail me, ok? Can you do that?”, He shoved the thin and poorly made business card into my hand as I made my way down the front steps.

"Yea that's cool man...”

He grabbed my hand and brought his face right up next to mine and whispered intensely.

"No seriously. If I have to do this much longer I'm going to hang myself in my closet”, his frantic tone caused me me to involuntarily turn and look at him with a uncontrolled expression of disgust. I took a few more steps and had to yank my hand away from his.

I walked up to the car where Rachel sat in the driver's seat tensely gripping the steering wheel.

"I'm not going to tell your dad about any of this, but for me...for how goddamn weird that was...you have to tell me what the fuck just happened”, I lit a smoke.

"Iisac, really?”

"Really”

"I don't...grrrrmmm...shit, ok like....Dennis, he was all like hey you want to go hang out after school, I've got this really cool thing we could do. I was like sure, I mean I thought he was cute, and we might just end up-”

"Yea Ok, yea I get the picture there”, I raised my hands to stop her.

"But then we got here, and there's all these people doing fucked up shit, and then Dennis starts going off about how if you do gay for a while, what...what did he say...if you pay your dues? If you pay your dues you get to do strait shit? Like he'd get to have sex with girls?”, She stumbled through her memories of the past hour looking more and more confused every second.

"Ok. That's fucked up”

"Where's my dad?”

"Probably having more fun than us.”

Green Dust

Jeremy turned the coin over in his hand. Flipping it over the underside of his knuckles. It was a large coin. Certainly at least the size of an american silver dollar, with perhaps a slightly larger breadth and far more detail. Perhaps details weren't the most appropriate way to describe the extremities of the small golden disc, but none the less I cannot find a better word.

The edges were smooth as if finely polished with first an expensive file and then made to gleam with a metal brush. It was the central body of the coin, however, that was the most curious. At the quarter marks surrounding the edge there appeared to be fine thin lined valves inlaid into the metal. These were barley discernible to a keen sense of touch and only visible to the sharpest of naked eyes. In the centre there was a mounted sliding cylinder, like the piston and cranks of a train engine. Unlike the valves these stood out and were keenly visible. Directly above the central shaft two letters were inlaid into the gold in flowery curvaceous lettering that suggested Victorian sensibilities. They were simply “FG”. The flip-side of the medallion bore no markings save for a faint outline of a hand-print that bevelled out from the surface.

It was, overall, a very puzzling trinket. Jeremy had found it dangling atop a sewer grate on his way to work and, after rescuing it from the bowels of the city, had pocketed it only to forget about it until arriving home. Now, slumped in his favourite brown armchair, tie loosened and sleeves rolled he turned the coin in his hand wondering what the origin of such a peculiar object could be. He had certainly never heard of any nation which employed such a drastically strange design of currency. Valves and hand prints? How peculiar, he thought.

Coin still in hand he made his way to the fridge reasoning that it could not be a nation's form of currency. Responsible country's tended to label such things as legal tender, and whatnot. Returning to the armchair a bottle of beer firmly in his left mitt he flopped down and let out a great sigh.

Despite the fact that it was winter in London, Jeremy felt oddly warm for not having adjusted the thermostat in his flat. In the chair ,while thinking about women that might have been, the larger TV he wanted to own and other such things he would do with money he didn't have, he absent mindedly began to flip the coin. They were slow lolling flips, with only one or two tumbles per flip, the way one might flip a dollar of salami before popping it into one's mouth. He did this for several minutes before the coin landed back in his hand, noticeably warmer than any coin should be after any length of time in a person's palm. It actually hurt a little.

Jeremy muttered a curse and looked down astonished and slightly disbelieving at what he saw.  Firstly the coin was no longer it's rich golden hue but a white silvery matte. Secondly the handy print symbol had descended into the body of the coin so far that one could be sure it was no mere trick of the light. Thirdly, and perhaps most surprising of all, the piston shaft was slowly ocelating back and forth while the valves intermittently released small spurts of what at first glance looked like steam but were actually jets of emerald dust.

Jeremy, from all accounts took this rather strange, and frankly unbelievable site rather well. After pinching himself twice to ensure that he had not been drinking skunked beer, he chose to accept that he was indeed holding a hot, colour changing coin with a piston which emitted tiny spurts of twinkling green dust. Stranger things, he was sure, had happened.

While he studied the coin in his hand it slowly began to cool down and revert to it's original colour, emitting its last coughs of dust seconds later. He became annoyed. If something is doing something extraordinary it has no right to simply stop doing, was his feeling. After several more minutes of studying the now inanimate object Jeremy took another swig of his beer and once more went back to considering why it had done what it had done i, and if it would ever do it again. After he did this for five minutes he left it on the coffee table and promptly and unreasonably forgot about it.

A couple of hours later after checking his email, showering and eating a large bowl of spaghetti he strolled back to his large brown armchair and once more picked up the golden disc. Holding it in his hand he turned towards his bedroom, and wishing that he were in that pretty girl's bed, from the disco he went to a week prior, he flipped the coin hard and fast. There was a loud pop and Jeremy found that he was no longer standing in his sitting room but atop the douve of a king sized mattress in a bedroom he did not recognize.

Now, having accepted the fact that he was indeed in possession of an unruly dust spouting steam engine coin a mere hour ago, it is understandable that Jeremy's attitude to his sudden appearance in a foreign place rather lax. Although, this was not to say he was not surprised.

Eye's agape he shifted his feet back and forth on the bed which, even though he was merely standing on it, he could tell was much more comfortable than his own. The walls were lined with hand drawn charcoal pictures, but the rest of the room was completely barren save for a dresser that sat at the wall opposite the bed's headboard. The blue carpeted floor he thought bare until turning his attention to a row of shoes that lined up just next to the dresser. Among these Jeremy recognized something. A pair of delightfully saucy red pumps, of the variety that often makes women feel competent, sexy and full of mysterious cheek.  Jeremy didn't know this about the shoes, he only recognized them. They were the shoes of the young woman he had lavished attention on at the disco the week prior.

Now Jeremy for all his other traits was no genius but he had certainly seen and read enough science fiction to understand what had just happened to him. And in understanding he knew that he should probably be leaving fairly soon 'lest he be discovered gawking awkwardly barefoot in the bedroom of a woman he really didn't know.  As previously established Jeremy was no genius. It didn't take a genius to figure out that by simply concentrating on this woman and flipping on his flattened golden bauble  he had transported himself to her home. While he understood that it had happened, and the basic principle of it's happening Jeremy possessed no knowledge as to why it happened.

To those wondering about these particular how's and why's I suggest you don't think about it to hard and accept that it has to do with neuromotive links and matter transference particles which is more information that poor Jeremy was privy to.

While just barley scraping the surface of understanding, Jeremy heard the front door unlock and click open. After his eyes nervously darted around the room for a moment they focused on the coin which which was still in the palm of his hand. His gaze quickly shifted from the coin to the bedroom door, and back. He let out a quick sharp exhale and turned so he was facing the way he had when he became tangible in the room. Focusing on his armchair back home he once more launched the coin from the nook created by his thumb and forefinger. The thin cylinder thrummed through the air. However as the coin landed back in Jeremy's outstretched palm, hot and buzzing with activity, but there had not been the expected pop and sudden change of location. The coin hissed and whirred in his hand as he stood looking rather stupid on the strange woman's bed. The valves and piston face up at him. More noises from the adjacent room, and Jeremy began to sweat. He licked his lips and prepared another attempt. This time he closed his eyes again and concentrated even harder on his wonderful easy chair. The coin floated through the air again and landed with a very gratifying pop in Jeremy's hand. He slowly opened his eye's, still not entirely sure the coin had worked but was relieved to find that he was once more in his room, and was indeed standing on his brown armchair.

He opened his hand to look down at the coin to see that the “hand” side of the coin was now facing up at him. The hand, sunken into the coin now carried one word in the same floury cursive as the “FG” on the opposite side. Home. Jeremy at once began to question why the coin had worked this time, and after several minutes of puzzling decided that it was possible that the coin could transport him provided the “hand” side of the coin landed face up in his palm.

Eager to prove this theory Jeremy began focusing on another place to teleport but stopped after he came to a quick realization. He had to make sure he focused very hard on where he was about to go. Making sure  to have no fleeting thoughts of a place like the middle of the sun or somewhere else equally unsavoury. He felt he had been lucky not to end up inside a wall on his two previous jumps. After this Jeremy poured all possible concentration into the image of his kitchen, flipping the coin hard and fast once more. It landed in the palm of his outstretched hand the piston side facing up. There had not been a pop, and Jeremy was still standing in the sitting room. He felt a pang of pride at his hypothesis being accurate, thusfar. Again he flipped the coin and as it landed he heard the familiar snapping in the air and he stood suddenly in his kitchen. The hand-print in the coin now had the word “kitchen” embossed into the silvery glowing face.

Elated at uncovering the mechanics of the coin in under a half hour Jeremy decided that it would be prudent of him to attempt a teleportation of distance, preferably to somewhere nice. Go on a little vacation, you know...for the weekend.

He packed a bag, and after first making sure he could teleport with the bag, thought of the places he would most like to go. He quickly realized that, rationally, he would only be able to go places he had already been otherwise he could imagine and focus on the locals to which he wished to travel. He began to remember a wonderful hotel he had stayed in in Paris the previous year. Feeling quite assured that there would be a vacant room at this time of night in the middle of October he set forth imagining the hotel lobby as best he could. When he was sure that it was securely locked in his mind's eye he gave the coin yet another flick and watched it tumble through the air for the last time.

As the coin began it's descent the telephone rang and, on instinct , Jeremy turned his head towards the noise losing his concentration on catching the coin. It bumped against his fingertips and fell to the ground disappearing in a puff of green dust coupled with the now all to familiar pop. The phone still ringing Jeremy instantly realized what happened and stood perfectly still almost too stunned to be completely furious with himself, not to mention the phone which now re-directed to the answering machine. The caller left no message and promptly hung up.

Still stunned and furious Jeremy put down his suitcase in the middle of the living room and crawled into bed where he didn't fall asleep until four hours had passed, so overcome by grief, disappointment and his own stupidity.

It was around the time Jeremy fell asleep that Raoule trod on a strange looking coin in the middle of his hotel's lobby. He picked it up and deposited it in his right hand jacket pocket where it was quickly forgotten about until he withdrew it a week later back home in Spain.