TFW CH 7 Diamonds and Gold

Thank you for following all this time, my friend.  Three books. Damn.  I should tell the ending, that is only fair to you.  Almost there, baby.

Ok. Let’s go.

 

I’m Not Through   by OK GO 

The rider atop this hearse had a preacher’s hat atop his head, and he wore a pair of eyeglasses, with one lens shot out.  He’d lost that eye from a bullet that killed him a hundred years ago.

He pulled the reins up in one hand and swung the other behind him as he reached for something.

And then he whipped up a double-barreled shot gun and swung forward.

The blast from both barrels erupted the dark desertscape with an explosion of bright blue light that cast shadows and blinded us like the death of a star, a supernova.

Bryan fell back in horror and I turned back for them books.  They were our only hope.

But I couldn’t see anything.

The Glinty shouted something to his huge horse and probably held the reins back, but I couldn’t tell.  I had my face buried in the sand.

The sound of a carriage hearse skidding with the wheel brakes fully engaged thundered  from behind my turned-heels and the beast came to a stop right behind us.

I heard a voice that spoke from a hundred years ago, from thousands of miles above, desiccated like the surface of the moon.

The Glinty said, “I done told you boys you did it the hard way!”

The ghost preacher dropped his spent double-barreled shotgun upon his perch atop the hearse.  He hopped down and ran beyond the car named “Phoenix” with his side arm held straight out. 

He swung the pistol about and muttered, “Ambush.  Rest in peace, you bastards.”  He walked back past Phoenix towards us and then knelt in the desert dust and grabbed something up.

He examined it and said, “Hard gotten, easily lost.”

He stalked over to us with his huge pistol in one hand and the book in the other.

He said, “Drop all that other crap.  This is all you need,” and he flung the book at me. 

I dropped everything and caught the book.  It was the one that had been glowing.

I’d dropped it in my panic.

The others on the white utility truck shouted out.  Joey said, “I got a cannon back here, and I’ll fucking blast you if you hurt them men!”

Tellesco shouted, “Where’s Sean!”

I looked up at the creepy dude as he took his broken spectacles off.  I said, “Umm, Bryan, I’d like to introduce you to Glinty Mc Flintlock.  Mr. McFlintlock, this here is my compatriot Bryan.”

Bryan stood up, wiping dust from his face and spanking his hand across his jeans.  He adjusted his tie, so to speak.  None of us wore ties, you know.  Just a figure of speech.

Bryan said, “Hello and welcome to Earth, Mr. McFlintlock.”

Well, I don’t know about you, but when a ghost laughs his ass off, it creeps the hell out of me.

Ole Glinty said, “Well met!  You can call me Minister McFlintlock, if you prefer.  I’m a preacher, son.  And a preacher’s son.  But my friends call me Glinty.”

Bryan said, “I would like to be your friend now.”  I guess he had the willies.

I looked over his shoulder, past the buried golden car.  I said, “Who were you shooting at?”

Glinty said, “You boys almost got bushwhacked.  Ambush.  Them Purple Robes over there been hiding in wait. They take turns, you know, I been watching them.  I been protecting this place.” 

Diamonds   by The Boxer Rebellion 

Glinty swung his pistol up and aimed it behind us.

Tellesco came running up first.  Gawd dayam, I wondered why he didn’t get shot by the ghost dude.  He shouted, “I don’t know who you are mister, but I figure you know about Sean!  Where’s Sean and what did you do to him!”

Glinty pointed the pistol down and I heard the soft release of the trigger click from it.  He said, “I am no one of consequence to you right now.  You need to get yourself together and stand up tall.  Your friend is in a sad state.  He needs your help.  He needs the help of all of you.”  He looked about at us.

Tellesco began to weep, and that was when Joey came sneaking up.  Glinty nodded over our shoulders at him and said, “Call your friend off.  Only one of us, him and me, will get hurt here and now.”

I turned around and shouted.  “Joseph!  Easy, bud!  We cool!"

The little Lion Man eased up next to me.  He was carrying a fire extinguisher from the truck.  I looked down at it and said, “What were you hoping to do with that?”

Joey dropped it in the dirt and shrugged.  “Ain’t no guns on that big truck.  But you think I’d come empty handed to save your ass?”

Glinty laughed again, and it didn’t sound any prettier.  It echoed across the sand dunes like a death rattle.  He said, "No need to go check on them bastards.  They gone now.  Kinda ugly over there.  Who's these boys?"

I said, “Glinty, this is my friend Joseph.  This other one here is my friend Tellesco.  These two and Bryan over there are my best friends, along with that lost dude Sean we looking for.”

Well, mister, they shook hands all about, well met and all that, and I was thankful that I didn’t have to shake hands with  skeletal remains, skin hanging on by the tendon.

Glinty said, “You young men got a powerful bond here, I can see that.  Must be said, this might be why you all are still alive.  Ya got that loyalty thing going on here.”

No, it wasn’t all “aww shucks” and shit like that.

Them boys spoke about what they had been going through.  It was like respite, rest, escape.

Loyalty was true.  No one had let anyone else down.  Except…

In that moment, I turned to look back to the car buried there, drowned in the desert that awful night. It was Phoenix.  Katheena named him that.

Now, I wasn’t one who allowed himself any emotion at all, except fear. And panic.  (Do Not Panic).

She had given her life. 

Katheena was my star. 

She had the presence of mind,back at the mansion, before it got drowned, to steal some books.

Just when she was supposed to make her escape and wait for us in that car, our get-away ride, she had gone back inside that fucked place.

How, why?  For what?

We should have all gotten away, you know.

She might be with me now. 



She should have been there with me.


We could be laughing about that crazy shit, and telling the tale of how in the hell we had gotten away.

If only our path could be better written, maybe she and I would have a better ending.

Escape.

Huh.

There is no escape, no exit, I guess.

There is only Entrance to the next thing. 

You can never step in the same river twice, you know.

Perhaps it wasn’t supposed to happen in such a way, happy endings and all.  No Hollywood there in that ugly, dry desert.

I wiped the mud out of my eyes and then turned back to this group of sad bastards who were laughing in the way folks do after adrenaline has been spent and there was a friggin ghost standing there and everything…

Loyalty.  Did we really have it?

Well, that is, when you came right down to it, and after first appearances might have said otherwise… 

This is what Glinty was talking about, this being at the lowest point and still holding together and true.

It was what might save us.  We might have a hope to get Sean back.

As for the city of Fuckno?

No, we weren’t superhuman.  We weren’t superheroes.  Hell, we weren’t even heroes at all.

We were just a bunch of scraggly losers out for a joy ride in the desert, come upon a mess of a pile-up.

There was no hope for Fuckno, and that was for the best.  It had fucked itself.

But do you know, there was hope for Sean after all.

It simply meant that we would have to get our hands dirty, my friend.

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---willies out

Denial Twist    by White Stripes 

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