180 THE END

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If you drove by and saw an enemy lying on the ground with a heart attack, would you call 911? --- Jon M.







Huh.




How much do you value life?

















“The hearse will carry their bodies away from the moon.”




Katheena was freaking Joey the fuck out. Poor Little Lion Man. The hostibal was not close enough for him, but it never really is when you need their Emergency Entrance, is it?




Sean charged at me and I dodged to the right. He had been mostly dead all day. He slid on the fiery black bear rug, and he fell to the floor as the front door shook. Someone was shooting at it.




I ran to the window on the opposite wall away from the door. I panicked. I looked around for something to smash the window. There was nothing.




Except for one thing. There was a silk smoking jacket hanging on the wall near the window. Glinty had dug out his smoking wares from it.




I lifted it up off the nail upon which it hung, and wrapped my hand in it.



I went back to the tiny window, and I smashed that fucker open.




I squeezed through it, cutting my arms all up, and felt someone grab my left boot before I could slice all the way out.





I kicked my other boot around and hit him in the chest. Then I was free. I fell to the dust and rolled. Black smoke that smelled like burnt hair billowed out of the window as I crawled along the rear of the moon cabin, and I reached the gable end.




A large, black horse was backing up from the blaze against the carriage hearse behind him. Even the blue flame of his mane was trying to escape the fire. It looked like wind.



Sean screamed from inside the moon cabin.



I had left them angry bastards to duke it out.



I was yellow.



I was a bastard, too, but in the worst way..



I had bailed on Sean. He couldn’t fit through that window.




I had kicked him away in my panic.




I would never find out from him who had grabbed my boot.






I




I




I




Me




Me




Me






All about me.






Fuck.





+ + + + + + +




Tellesco was covered in desert mud. He felt invisible. He felt invincible. He felt rage.




He stood, facing that long, black vehicle as it wandered in reverse, backing towards them lights coming closer.




The rain washed him clean, and he was baptized in the desert.




He gritted his teeth.




He charged at that long, black hearse.




+ + + + + + +







“He burning in the fire.” Katheena coughed and her eyes opened. She sat up, and she screamed.



Joey stomped on the brakes and the car slid along the old, crumbly tar in the black hole of the desert night.



He about wet his pants.



















Inside the moon cabin, things were being smashed apart. Two assholes, angry at each everything, were fighting. One was my friend, and one had been my savior, twice.





I didn’t know which one I would choose to win that fight on the moon.





Is it the debt that you owe to one that matters more, or is it the bond that you share with the other, no matter how shitty you treat each other?




I snuck across the surface of the moon and reached the back side of the black carriage.




The horse in front of it was pushing the carriage back in the dust, even though the wheel brakes were locked.




Mayhem feared fire. I didn’t know it at the time, but he had perished in a stable fire long ago.




I crept up beside the trembly beast and just before I wrapped the silk smoking jacket over his head, over his eyes, I saw that they were wide open, and they were rolling wildly.




I tied the smoking jacket in a knot under his neck as I shushed him and stroked his side. He calmed down like a hunting falcon does when you place a hood over his eyes.




He recognized my scent, even though I had the stench of fear and smoke all over me.




And that was when Sean came running out of the moon cabin inferno with his head on fire.





+ + + + + + +






Tellesco charged at the creeping hearse in the downpour, waving his arms over his head. As Richard Pryor once said, “Angry, naked, white men will clear a room.” Or something like that.




No One ran to the driver’s side door and saw the spray-painted circle A on the side of it. He stopped.




What The Fuck?




He stepped closer, ready to fight the angry clown baby he expected to come charging out of that fucking hearse, but there was nothing.





He wrenched the door open and put his dukes up.





The front seat was empty.





The fat punk rocker with the purple spikes on his head had flown the coop.


He climbed in and pressed the brake petal down along with the clutch, and he stopped that huge black bitch.



He heard someone moan behind the front seat, and he got the willies.



A dead body in the rear of a hearse that might be waking up?



His naked skin crawled.


He looked over his shoulder even though he was afraid of what he might see.


He might meet his doom from a zombie?




There were two bodies back there.



One was mine, and one was Sean, his beloved.



He didn’t know whether to cry, scream, or pray, so he laughed instead.



When you are at your wits’ end, you may laugh at the horror of it all.



Sometimes, that is simply what your brain does to cope. No harsh on you when you laugh at atrocity. It’s human nature. That’s all.





= = = = = = =
















“Sean! Over here!”



He stumbled and fell, and he clawed at his fiery scalp, and he pulled them burning bandages off. He rolled around in his panic, and I yelled at him again.


I couldn’t take my hands off the reigns to the giant black horse. I could not let Mayhem go run off.


“Sean! Over here! Let’s get the fuck out of here!”



He checked himself, and he stopped panicking.


He did it all himself. He could turn on a dime, if you recall.



He walked over to where I was holding them reigns, and he was crying. “I almost died!”





Yeah, who hadn't?





But something about him had changed...





From inside the burning moon cabin, someone shrieked.




"NO! You done it all wrong! Why did you do thith?! You done took the hard way!"






No One saw Glinty ever again.






Poor bastard.












We would drive this black hearse with the mighty black steed to them moon caves (I wondered what was inside of them?) because I had an idea.





Maybe they were portals.







The caves of the moon above us are portals?






Entrance and exits; find yourself in a new place.










One day soon, I would offer that silk smoking jacket to Joey as appreciation for saving Katheena’s life,




and the Little Lion Man would dance while he wore it.





He would dance like he was on the surface of the moon.




He would get them ladies wet as he always had with his dancing, on them picnic tables in the crisp, bright sunlight shining down from overhead on the interior quad of the lovely MacLane High School, in Fresno, California.









I've said it before, and I'll say it again.





I wish I could dance like that.





Someday, perhaps I will.









Huh.






If I try,




well,




God Help You.


God Help Us All.






---willies out.






























THE END.














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