Fool - Chapter 1.
November 9th 2006 01:35
Alright, here is the first instalment of a story I've been tinkering with for a while now. I'd like to make something clear from the outset: this story is not big or clever. If you're looking for religious symbolism, narrative metaphors, allegorical character development or somesuch, then go read Dostoevksy. This is pretty much a Western, inspired by Stephen King's Dark Tower series and films by Sergio Leone and Robert Rodriguez. It's about a drifter in the American south whose solitary life takes a turn for the weirder when he accidentally runs into the very unusual black market trade in some godforsaken small town. It's called The Fool, for reasons which will become clear in the next chapter or so. Diggety dig dig
The town looks the same as every other town he's seen in the last few years. The main street is the only street. Wooden buildings and peeling paint, batwing saloon doors and old folks in rocking chairs. Blowing tumbleweeds, running groups of dirty children, old dogs lazing in the shade, everything looking somehow dead and bleached in the brutal mid-afternoon sun.
As his truck rolls slowly along in a kind of bridal-train of roiling dust, he looks out his window and sees an old woman sitting on a porch with a blanket on her knees. She has one eye and her wiry grey hair stands on end like she's suffered an electric shock. Her one good eye rolls endleslly in its socket as she rocks back and forth. He sees she is gibbering rapidly to herself. Her eye suddenly stops and locks on his own. His car rolls on and the eye contact is broken, but he is unsettled nonetheless. The further South you go, he thinks to himself, the weirder the weirdoes get.
There is a sign that says General Store, nailed to a building that looks like every other one in the street. He stops beside it and turns the key in the ignition; the engine chokes out and a deadening curtain of silence falls. He climbs out and slams the door. The silence amplifies the sound to a small sonic boom. He feels the gaze of the few people in the street on him. His presence creates an ominous tension reflected in every furtive glance and whispered word.
His truck ticking and hissing as it cools down, he stretches languorously, his arms high above his head, his lanky body appearing to be made from bone, sinew and elastic. There is a staccato cacophony of cracking and popping from his joints.
He steps onto the porch of the store and sets an easy pace toward the door, long-fingered hands dangling by his sides like a gunslinger in an old Western. His mind is the road ahead. Already his blood itches to be leaving. His battered leather wallet carries no identification and little currency. He is dressed simply. He looks unremarkable. He has abandoned the name he was born with, cast it aside with all it entails like a dry, dead skin. For the time being, if anyone asks, he tells them his name is Vincent. But nobody ever does.
As he pushes the door open a little bell rings above it, and he squints at the sharp contrast between the baked glare of the street and the shady interior of the store. His tall body is framed in the doorway by the afternoon sun. He gazes around. Shelves of canned food, toiletries, newspapers, stationery, spices, vegetables, and liquor pack the little store; an old man behind the counter glances up from his magazine and quickly loses interest.
His boots beat a slow cadence on the floorboards as he works his way between the shelves, his hands periodically stealing out and snaring items that are on the little list in his head: beef jerky, bottled water, boot polish, Jack Daniel’s, gun oil, potatoes, canned spaghetti. Some he carries in his hands. Others are tucked into pockets and inside his shirt, whip-like movements too fast for an untrained eye to see. He never thinks of himself as a kleptomaniac, or a petty criminal. He just doesn't have any money. This, he would tell you, is straight economics.
His shopping list completed, he sidles to the counter. The clerk is an old yokel with a stained white singlet on, rheumy eyes behind coke-bottle glasses aimed straight down at a Hustler magazine which lies open on the counter. He ignores his customer until those long-fingered hands gently place the groceries atop the page he is perusing, so he blows out an exaggerated sigh – a stench of onions and gingivitis - and looks up, wearing an irritated expression, his nose twitching with its bristles of long white hair. He looks the stranger in the face, but finds the paleness of his eyes disquieting, so his eyes drop back to the counter.
“Prick,” the old man mutters, tallying up the price stickers attached to Vincent's purchases.
Vincent, the trace of a smile touching his mouth, says pleasantly: “I’d like a pack of smokes and some bullets, please.” His voice is a husky baritone, cracked by time and cigarettes and weariness.
The clerk sniffs, snorting phlegm in a sound like a wild boar's mating call. “What kind?” he asks, managing to make the question sound like a grunt of discomfort. He turns and his hands reach instinctively for the cigarette rack.
“Marlboro Reds – no, the 50’s – and a box of .357’s.”
The clerk turns around and tosses the cigarettes onto the counter. “We don’t have any .357s right now,” he says. He glances briefly into the ancient-looking grey eyes again but then find something particularly interesting about his own filthy fingernails, resting on the countertop. “I just sold the last box three hours ago to Lenny Parsons, from down the road.”
“You fuckin’ serious?” Vincent says, his tone surprised rather than angry.
“Yeah. Maybe we'll get some in,sometime next week. And maybe not.”
“I’m not staying in town,” Vincent says, scratching at this stubbly beard. “Is there anywhere else in town that sells ammunition?”
“Nope,” the clerk replies triumphantly. “Are y'daft? We're the only store in town.”
Vincent shrugs and ignores the open hostility emanating from the crabby old man. He pulls the beaten wallet from his back pocket. “Fine. How much do I owe you?”
The clerk mouths some figures to himself as he piles the groceries into a brown paper bag.
“Ehhhh….eleven-twenty should cover it.”
Vincent knows he has been drastically overcharged, but counting the items he has pilfered, eleven twenty is still cheap. He counts out two fives and two ones, hands them over. “Keep the change, partner,” he says, with a benevolent smile that irritates the clerk even more. He tucks the wallet back into his jeans, picks up his acquisitions and turns to leave.
“Hmph.”
Two strides and Vincent’s hand is on the rusty old doorknob. He pulls it open and the little bell over his head jingles merrily.
“Now that you mention it,” the old man says suddenly.
He turns patiently in the doorway, his eyebrows raised.
“There IS another place in town that sells ammo, but I dunno if I can remember where it is. Is it behind...the tavern?” The old man is tapping a finger on his chin, as if deep in thought. “Or was it out in that caravan place outside of town...? No, no, that was the thrift store...”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” Vincent asks, sounding vaguely amused.
The old man grins in a smug fashion, showing clearly diseased gums. “I'm getting old, mister, my mind ain't so sharp nowadays. Money talks, though, don't it?” He rubs his thumb and forefinger together in a universal gesture.
Vincent smiles back at him, unrattled. His grey eyes bore into the old man behind his coke-bottle glasses. “I don't really feel like parting with anymore of my hard-earned money. How's this: you tell me where I can buy some shells, and I won't pull your tongue out of your head.”
The old man's smile disappears and is replaced with that ugly, pissed-off perpetual sneer. Floorboards creak in a momentary silence, a diplomatic stalemate. Vincent notices the way the old man stands by the register, the way his body leans back at an incline and his hand dangles with awareness of a certain object just beneath the counter. He has a gun of some kind back there, and Vincent gazes unblinking into his eyes, a silent warning that drawing it would not be wise.
“Fine,” the old coot snaps suddenly. “Look behind the motel. There's a door that goes down to the cellar there. Get yer shells and I hope ye choke on 'em.”
Vincent smiles and shifts the bag of groceries to his other arm, propping the door open with his shoulder so he can pull a cigarette from the packet in the bag. He tucks it into the corner of his mouth. “What's a gun store doing in a cellar?”
“Hell if I know. Ask somebody else.” His quivering old chin comes up defiantly and he looks down his nose at Vincent.
Lighting his cigarette with a battered imitation zippo, Vincent chuckles. “Alright.” He snaps the lighter closed with a theatrical flourish and puts it back in his pocket. “Thanks for your help.” He drops a slow wink, then turns on his heel and disappears onto the street. The door-bell jingles and the screen door slams, and there's silence.
The old man stands staring bitterly after him, chewing his tongue and rubbing at the crotch of his pants. Then he picks up the phone and dials his brother Jeb, in the county sherrif department.
Vincent squints as his eyes re-adjust to the bright sunlight outside. Carrying the brown paper bags to his truck, he glances around and something catches his eye. He pauses in his tracks for a moment, his eyes locked on something across the street.
Down some alleyway between two buildings, there is a brick wall. Beneath it there is a door set in the ground, as of a cellar. Sitting beside it is a man. He is slumped against the wall on a little wooden stool, wearing a poncho which looks like a Hessian sack, an enormous sombrero covering his face. He’s completely motionless, and at first, Vincent attributes it to the big ceramic jug sitting next to his feet, three black X’s scrawled on its side. The moonshine craze began during Prohibition, and in some primitive regions, it’s become a part of the culture.
But deep in the shadow of that sombrero, he sees the glint of an eye watching him. He notices the way the man leans against the wall, his back straight as a flagpole. The boots look brand new under a thin layer of dust. And what’s more, when the man sees Vincent staring at him, his right hand, lying docile in his lap, starts to draw back slowly under the poncho. And in that second Vincent knows that man is guarding something, and that his enormous poncho more likely than not covers a weapon.
He turns away and resumes his relaxed pace toward his truck, mystified. Evidently, he thinks, it’s something important enough to be worth the deception. His first thought is that it must be something illegal, a drug lab or something in that vein.
His mind is accustomed to thinking quick, shallow thoughts, and by the time he opens the door of the old blue truck and places the groceries on the empty passenger seat, he has forgotten it.
The sun is making him thirsty. The tavern stands next door to the General Store, an old sun-weathered building that looks made out of driftwood. The darkness beyond its batwing doors looks cool and inviting. May as well stop for a beer, he thinks. Get some culture. I've got nowhere to be.
The peeling paint on the driftood sign over the doors says EL RAY.
The Fool
Chapter I
The town looks the same as every other town he's seen in the last few years. The main street is the only street. Wooden buildings and peeling paint, batwing saloon doors and old folks in rocking chairs. Blowing tumbleweeds, running groups of dirty children, old dogs lazing in the shade, everything looking somehow dead and bleached in the brutal mid-afternoon sun.
As his truck rolls slowly along in a kind of bridal-train of roiling dust, he looks out his window and sees an old woman sitting on a porch with a blanket on her knees. She has one eye and her wiry grey hair stands on end like she's suffered an electric shock. Her one good eye rolls endleslly in its socket as she rocks back and forth. He sees she is gibbering rapidly to herself. Her eye suddenly stops and locks on his own. His car rolls on and the eye contact is broken, but he is unsettled nonetheless. The further South you go, he thinks to himself, the weirder the weirdoes get.
There is a sign that says General Store, nailed to a building that looks like every other one in the street. He stops beside it and turns the key in the ignition; the engine chokes out and a deadening curtain of silence falls. He climbs out and slams the door. The silence amplifies the sound to a small sonic boom. He feels the gaze of the few people in the street on him. His presence creates an ominous tension reflected in every furtive glance and whispered word.
His truck ticking and hissing as it cools down, he stretches languorously, his arms high above his head, his lanky body appearing to be made from bone, sinew and elastic. There is a staccato cacophony of cracking and popping from his joints.
He steps onto the porch of the store and sets an easy pace toward the door, long-fingered hands dangling by his sides like a gunslinger in an old Western. His mind is the road ahead. Already his blood itches to be leaving. His battered leather wallet carries no identification and little currency. He is dressed simply. He looks unremarkable. He has abandoned the name he was born with, cast it aside with all it entails like a dry, dead skin. For the time being, if anyone asks, he tells them his name is Vincent. But nobody ever does.
As he pushes the door open a little bell rings above it, and he squints at the sharp contrast between the baked glare of the street and the shady interior of the store. His tall body is framed in the doorway by the afternoon sun. He gazes around. Shelves of canned food, toiletries, newspapers, stationery, spices, vegetables, and liquor pack the little store; an old man behind the counter glances up from his magazine and quickly loses interest.
His boots beat a slow cadence on the floorboards as he works his way between the shelves, his hands periodically stealing out and snaring items that are on the little list in his head: beef jerky, bottled water, boot polish, Jack Daniel’s, gun oil, potatoes, canned spaghetti. Some he carries in his hands. Others are tucked into pockets and inside his shirt, whip-like movements too fast for an untrained eye to see. He never thinks of himself as a kleptomaniac, or a petty criminal. He just doesn't have any money. This, he would tell you, is straight economics.
His shopping list completed, he sidles to the counter. The clerk is an old yokel with a stained white singlet on, rheumy eyes behind coke-bottle glasses aimed straight down at a Hustler magazine which lies open on the counter. He ignores his customer until those long-fingered hands gently place the groceries atop the page he is perusing, so he blows out an exaggerated sigh – a stench of onions and gingivitis - and looks up, wearing an irritated expression, his nose twitching with its bristles of long white hair. He looks the stranger in the face, but finds the paleness of his eyes disquieting, so his eyes drop back to the counter.
“Prick,” the old man mutters, tallying up the price stickers attached to Vincent's purchases.
Vincent, the trace of a smile touching his mouth, says pleasantly: “I’d like a pack of smokes and some bullets, please.” His voice is a husky baritone, cracked by time and cigarettes and weariness.
The clerk sniffs, snorting phlegm in a sound like a wild boar's mating call. “What kind?” he asks, managing to make the question sound like a grunt of discomfort. He turns and his hands reach instinctively for the cigarette rack.
“Marlboro Reds – no, the 50’s – and a box of .357’s.”
The clerk turns around and tosses the cigarettes onto the counter. “We don’t have any .357s right now,” he says. He glances briefly into the ancient-looking grey eyes again but then find something particularly interesting about his own filthy fingernails, resting on the countertop. “I just sold the last box three hours ago to Lenny Parsons, from down the road.”
“You fuckin’ serious?” Vincent says, his tone surprised rather than angry.
“Yeah. Maybe we'll get some in,sometime next week. And maybe not.”
“I’m not staying in town,” Vincent says, scratching at this stubbly beard. “Is there anywhere else in town that sells ammunition?”
“Nope,” the clerk replies triumphantly. “Are y'daft? We're the only store in town.”
Vincent shrugs and ignores the open hostility emanating from the crabby old man. He pulls the beaten wallet from his back pocket. “Fine. How much do I owe you?”
The clerk mouths some figures to himself as he piles the groceries into a brown paper bag.
“Ehhhh….eleven-twenty should cover it.”
Vincent knows he has been drastically overcharged, but counting the items he has pilfered, eleven twenty is still cheap. He counts out two fives and two ones, hands them over. “Keep the change, partner,” he says, with a benevolent smile that irritates the clerk even more. He tucks the wallet back into his jeans, picks up his acquisitions and turns to leave.
“Hmph.”
Two strides and Vincent’s hand is on the rusty old doorknob. He pulls it open and the little bell over his head jingles merrily.
“Now that you mention it,” the old man says suddenly.
He turns patiently in the doorway, his eyebrows raised.
“There IS another place in town that sells ammo, but I dunno if I can remember where it is. Is it behind...the tavern?” The old man is tapping a finger on his chin, as if deep in thought. “Or was it out in that caravan place outside of town...? No, no, that was the thrift store...”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” Vincent asks, sounding vaguely amused.
The old man grins in a smug fashion, showing clearly diseased gums. “I'm getting old, mister, my mind ain't so sharp nowadays. Money talks, though, don't it?” He rubs his thumb and forefinger together in a universal gesture.
Vincent smiles back at him, unrattled. His grey eyes bore into the old man behind his coke-bottle glasses. “I don't really feel like parting with anymore of my hard-earned money. How's this: you tell me where I can buy some shells, and I won't pull your tongue out of your head.”
The old man's smile disappears and is replaced with that ugly, pissed-off perpetual sneer. Floorboards creak in a momentary silence, a diplomatic stalemate. Vincent notices the way the old man stands by the register, the way his body leans back at an incline and his hand dangles with awareness of a certain object just beneath the counter. He has a gun of some kind back there, and Vincent gazes unblinking into his eyes, a silent warning that drawing it would not be wise.
“Fine,” the old coot snaps suddenly. “Look behind the motel. There's a door that goes down to the cellar there. Get yer shells and I hope ye choke on 'em.”
Vincent smiles and shifts the bag of groceries to his other arm, propping the door open with his shoulder so he can pull a cigarette from the packet in the bag. He tucks it into the corner of his mouth. “What's a gun store doing in a cellar?”
“Hell if I know. Ask somebody else.” His quivering old chin comes up defiantly and he looks down his nose at Vincent.
Lighting his cigarette with a battered imitation zippo, Vincent chuckles. “Alright.” He snaps the lighter closed with a theatrical flourish and puts it back in his pocket. “Thanks for your help.” He drops a slow wink, then turns on his heel and disappears onto the street. The door-bell jingles and the screen door slams, and there's silence.
The old man stands staring bitterly after him, chewing his tongue and rubbing at the crotch of his pants. Then he picks up the phone and dials his brother Jeb, in the county sherrif department.
Vincent squints as his eyes re-adjust to the bright sunlight outside. Carrying the brown paper bags to his truck, he glances around and something catches his eye. He pauses in his tracks for a moment, his eyes locked on something across the street.
Down some alleyway between two buildings, there is a brick wall. Beneath it there is a door set in the ground, as of a cellar. Sitting beside it is a man. He is slumped against the wall on a little wooden stool, wearing a poncho which looks like a Hessian sack, an enormous sombrero covering his face. He’s completely motionless, and at first, Vincent attributes it to the big ceramic jug sitting next to his feet, three black X’s scrawled on its side. The moonshine craze began during Prohibition, and in some primitive regions, it’s become a part of the culture.
But deep in the shadow of that sombrero, he sees the glint of an eye watching him. He notices the way the man leans against the wall, his back straight as a flagpole. The boots look brand new under a thin layer of dust. And what’s more, when the man sees Vincent staring at him, his right hand, lying docile in his lap, starts to draw back slowly under the poncho. And in that second Vincent knows that man is guarding something, and that his enormous poncho more likely than not covers a weapon.
He turns away and resumes his relaxed pace toward his truck, mystified. Evidently, he thinks, it’s something important enough to be worth the deception. His first thought is that it must be something illegal, a drug lab or something in that vein.
His mind is accustomed to thinking quick, shallow thoughts, and by the time he opens the door of the old blue truck and places the groceries on the empty passenger seat, he has forgotten it.
The sun is making him thirsty. The tavern stands next door to the General Store, an old sun-weathered building that looks made out of driftwood. The darkness beyond its batwing doors looks cool and inviting. May as well stop for a beer, he thinks. Get some culture. I've got nowhere to be.
The peeling paint on the driftood sign over the doors says EL RAY.
| 45 |
| Vote |
Subscribe to this blog
