The haft of the axe feels familiar in my hands as I look out through the darkness. The rain lashes against me, but I was soaked to the skin the moment I walked outside, and I don't imagine I can get much wetter. Lightning slithers across the sky, touching down somewhere to the east, somewhere in the valley, and for a moment all the land is bathed in a pale light. I can see the fence to the corral is broken. I'll have to see to that tomorrow. In the meantime the animals are too scared to run away. Part of me wishes I knew what that felt like.
I take one step, then another, wringing the axe handle in my fists, and then the thunder rolls across the plain, shaking my heart loose in my chest. I feel it through my feet, in my bones, before I hear it, louder than anything in years, rumbling up through the valley like a megaphone, the mouth of some demon cast down to this purgatory with the rest of us.
Another bolt of lightning arcs through the sky and that's when I see the tracks, an uneven stride betrayed by the footprints, unnatural deep, in the mud, filled with water, already half-drowned in the deluge. I tighten my grip and turn around slowly in the yard, eyes narrowed against the rain. Not that it matters. The land is bathed in darkness and me right along with it, the only light coming from my doorway, weak and tentative, casting shadows more than illuminating.
But then I see it, off to the east, below the horizon somewhere, somewhere in the valley where that lightning hit, there's a glow, faint and cold, but it's there, otherworldly and altogether unpleasant. It's not much of a light, on a clear night with the moon out you wouldn't see it at all, but in this black it's shining clear across the plain, through the rain and right into my soul. Then I see the figures moving with their damaged gaits exaggerated against the glow, casting shadows a mile long behind them. First one, then two. Then five. Moving towards the glow, moving down into the valley, and I am afraid.
I hear a heavy footstep on the threshold behind me and I stand stock-still, and suddenly I know that the axe I carry is as useless as the arms that hold it, dead and numb. I close my eyes tight, trying to will this fate away, but I know better. Nobody dies in their bed anymore.
It steps down from the porch and I can hear it breathing. My vision goes white and I think for a second about my end, but then the thunder crashes and, jarring every thought from my head and all there is is the rain and the fear and that thing beside me, slogging through the mud, breathing, breathing.
It moves past me, heading off into the storm towards the valley and that glow, and soon its sound is lost in the night.
Long after it's gone I'm still standing there, breathing slow and hard, and I turn back to my house and walk to it, never again turning my gaze to the valley and that terrible glow. I bar the door behind me and set the lamp on the table. I sit with my back to the wall, the axe across my knees, and I wait.
9 December 2013
December 9, 2013
November 25, 2013
Joe Cocker
I'm on my feet before Sly gets a word out. Jack's in trouble, he says, and I'm out the door with him in tow.
He tells me the rest on the way. What he knows of it anyway. Jack talked a lot about getting out, but Jack talked a lot about everything. Talk is cheap, but getting out is something else. We all know that. That's the price you pay. Or one of them, anyway.
Getting in's the easy part, but even that's not that easy. You typically need to have brains if you want to make it in this business, Sly being an exception, and if you have brains you tend to stay away from this business. There are other considerations, but a handful of brains and a willingness to turn them off when the time comes are what I would consider two prerequisites for employment in this field. After that, a capacity for violence, loyalty, ambition, these are all good things. But hardly necessary.
We're flying across town, headed to a brownstone on the west side by the tracks. Sly's telling me Jack's big plan blew up, his way out fell apart, and everything's going to pieces. The plan itself was an issue from the start, and I'm not surprised he never discussed it with me. If you want to get out in a method that leaves you breathing and breathing free air, then a plan is fundamental. Planning was always Jack's strong suit, so I'm surprised it went tits up until I hear the details.
That's the other thing: you typically feel the need to pull one last job, a big one, on your way out. You need to be sure you'll never have to work again, mostly because you'll never be able to. You won't be able to trade under your given name, so you have to figure something else out. If you want to throw some paperwork together and pump gas under the name of Scott Peterson or something to make ends meet, be my guest. As for me, when my time comes, I intend to disappear and whoop it up until the money runs out. Which, if I do it right, it shouldn't.
The other issue with leaving is you'll find that interested parties might have an issue with you pulling up stakes after making yourself a nice living under their protection, or at their expense, depending. Some of these parties might feel like you owe them something, whether that's a lifetime's worth of ill-gotten gains, or, say, all the blood in your body. It's easy to make enemies in this business, and hard to live with them. That's why you want to have friends, friends that'll fly out of a diner at a thousand miles an hour when they hear you're shot up on the west side after pulling some damn fool nonsense more likely to get you killed than get you a way out.
We pull up to the brownstone next to the tracks and jump out, engine running and doors open: I don't plan on being here any longer than it takes to drag Jack down here and throw him in the back seat, and Sly's wild-eyed, but I can tell he's on the same page. We're not going to have a lot of time to get this done, not in this neighborhood, not with lookouts calling us out as soon as we crossed Wentworth. But these are the things you do.
We take the stairs two, three at a time, calling out for Jackie Boy the whole time.Up on three the door's cracked and I crash through it, Sly right behind me. We tear through the place (dead man on terrible green shag, another halfway out of the bathroom) and I hear Jack call my name from one of the bedrooms.
I burst into the room and stop short. First thing I see is Jack, one foot on the windowsill, curtains blowing around him. Second thing is Bernie, Beautiful Bernie, in bed, not moving, the girl with him hanging halfway out, head on the floor, she's not moving either. More blood than I've seen in a while. This was not the plan. This is a death sentence. You don't get to walk away after something like this. I can't tell if there's a train coming or if it's the blood rushing in my ears, but I can hear the footsteps coming up the stairs, five, six, a hundred guys, here for vengeance.
Jack gives me a sad smile, blood on his teeth. Don't think less of me, he says, and he's out the window and gone.
Not a bad plan.
11 November 2013
He tells me the rest on the way. What he knows of it anyway. Jack talked a lot about getting out, but Jack talked a lot about everything. Talk is cheap, but getting out is something else. We all know that. That's the price you pay. Or one of them, anyway.
Getting in's the easy part, but even that's not that easy. You typically need to have brains if you want to make it in this business, Sly being an exception, and if you have brains you tend to stay away from this business. There are other considerations, but a handful of brains and a willingness to turn them off when the time comes are what I would consider two prerequisites for employment in this field. After that, a capacity for violence, loyalty, ambition, these are all good things. But hardly necessary.
We're flying across town, headed to a brownstone on the west side by the tracks. Sly's telling me Jack's big plan blew up, his way out fell apart, and everything's going to pieces. The plan itself was an issue from the start, and I'm not surprised he never discussed it with me. If you want to get out in a method that leaves you breathing and breathing free air, then a plan is fundamental. Planning was always Jack's strong suit, so I'm surprised it went tits up until I hear the details.
That's the other thing: you typically feel the need to pull one last job, a big one, on your way out. You need to be sure you'll never have to work again, mostly because you'll never be able to. You won't be able to trade under your given name, so you have to figure something else out. If you want to throw some paperwork together and pump gas under the name of Scott Peterson or something to make ends meet, be my guest. As for me, when my time comes, I intend to disappear and whoop it up until the money runs out. Which, if I do it right, it shouldn't.
The other issue with leaving is you'll find that interested parties might have an issue with you pulling up stakes after making yourself a nice living under their protection, or at their expense, depending. Some of these parties might feel like you owe them something, whether that's a lifetime's worth of ill-gotten gains, or, say, all the blood in your body. It's easy to make enemies in this business, and hard to live with them. That's why you want to have friends, friends that'll fly out of a diner at a thousand miles an hour when they hear you're shot up on the west side after pulling some damn fool nonsense more likely to get you killed than get you a way out.
We pull up to the brownstone next to the tracks and jump out, engine running and doors open: I don't plan on being here any longer than it takes to drag Jack down here and throw him in the back seat, and Sly's wild-eyed, but I can tell he's on the same page. We're not going to have a lot of time to get this done, not in this neighborhood, not with lookouts calling us out as soon as we crossed Wentworth. But these are the things you do.
We take the stairs two, three at a time, calling out for Jackie Boy the whole time.Up on three the door's cracked and I crash through it, Sly right behind me. We tear through the place (dead man on terrible green shag, another halfway out of the bathroom) and I hear Jack call my name from one of the bedrooms.
I burst into the room and stop short. First thing I see is Jack, one foot on the windowsill, curtains blowing around him. Second thing is Bernie, Beautiful Bernie, in bed, not moving, the girl with him hanging halfway out, head on the floor, she's not moving either. More blood than I've seen in a while. This was not the plan. This is a death sentence. You don't get to walk away after something like this. I can't tell if there's a train coming or if it's the blood rushing in my ears, but I can hear the footsteps coming up the stairs, five, six, a hundred guys, here for vengeance.
Jack gives me a sad smile, blood on his teeth. Don't think less of me, he says, and he's out the window and gone.
Not a bad plan.
11 November 2013
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