..the one thing that will never fail...

                                                ***

 

 

“Pecker! Pecker!”

 

“Damnit Pat, move!!!”

 

“Guys wait up!!!”

 

“Allan, hush. We need to infiltrate thee premises first. Here follow DeJuan and Von Behren. They know thee plan.”

 

“Patrick, comeon. This was your idea. You need to be ready to blow in two seconds when I trim the power to this fucking excuse for a Christmas tree.”

 

“Allan, go over by DeJuan.”

 

“But he told me…”

 

“Then go near Lynnford, we just have to do this as nondescript as is humanly possible so no one will know that we’re blood brothers from the same clan, if you know what I mean.”

 

“But Patrick, I promised Crazy Hoof that I’d help you get a scalp.” Allan says earnestly.

 

Coach M is uttering something into the microphone. Beads are being carelessly splattered everywhere. There is loud music an uproarious laughter as reverend Morningwood splashes Water from the Baptismal fount on Lillian Wiltz. In between rounds the Coaches Widow is seen exiting the gymnasium, clubbing her feet down heavily in the trophied hallway, grousing, muttering David Hale’s name out loud, wondering where a good courier is when you need one, her sallow, chewed edge coffee-cup in tow.

 

“Patrick, I just…”

 

“Allan,” Pat pushes Allan to the side, reminds his brother that he doesn’t play with his friends all the fucking time. The lights blank out into darkness and there is commotion.

 

“What the fuck happen to the mother fucking power Looney. Ain’t like Marcellus gonna ever go nowhere playing in this looney lighting shit.”

 

“What the…”

 

“Karen!!!!”

 

“Oh, honey keep you corn dog in your pants big boy. “

 

“Patrick, you. Brother this is your cue. Patrick. Yo…”

 

“Damnit Looney let’s get some motherfucking power in this joint it ain’t light Marcellus aunt can see worth two shits anyoldway.”

 

“Oh my god, ladies and gentlemen, coach M is trying to give me a gonad massage with his tongue. Help!!!”

 

“Karen...Eric, is that you? Ahhhh…Eric, don’t stop. Ahhh.”

 

“Pecker, Pecker.”

 

“Move people,”

 

“Hale?” 

 

“Chet’s nuts roasting on an open…”

 

“Help. Oh help me. Coach M is placing his tongue inside my San Andreas Fault. Oh help me!!!”

 

“Patrick, now, move.”

 

Patrick bro, wait.”

 

Allan stumbles, his ears register the cheers of two final peckers as Hale pushes head in the darkness. Allan stumbles. He can feel Bev pine grunting, looking like she is trying to get it on with somebody. Bodies move, somebody is yelling out something about the emergency lights going up. He can see his brother on the podium, swinging the weapon like a little leaguer with turrets. The screen has been lit and Allan can feel people’s limbs trammeling over him. To hi lift VonBehren stammers out the side door followed by Lyford and DeJuan who is firing up caps and shouting Geronimo. Hale is closer to the podium tossing individuals, yelling at Patrick to get the fuck out of there. Yelling at Allan’s older sibling to move. Calling him People. There is a ruffle and a cheer and more legs pounce over Allan’s vision, it’s almost as if nobody takes an eight year old boy’s ambitions seriously these days anymore. He can hear Coach M mutter something about Pontius Pilate and motions towards the guillotine. Everyone in the crowd is cheering. Yelling. Hale is one the other side of the gymnasium, slapping two of the varsity elites head together, trying in vein to reach Patrick. If only Allan could help. Coach M is telling this Injun to die, asking him why doesn’t he become a two little three little good little red-smut head and get his ass back to the Reservation.  Just as Coach M is talking to someone named Squanto, telling him to eat his Euro-American shit bricks the right hand side of the stage explodes. Coach M topples over, tennis shoes seem to be sprinkling the air everywhere, along with hard fluffs of power Coach M seems to be  frantic that both the sneakers and the white stuff are flying everywhere, telling his patrons that the tennis shoes were clearly a tax refund and the White stuff was merely for recreational-slash-medicinal purposes.

 

Pirate Hale clambers to the top of the stage, loosing his parrot in the crowd, scooping up Patrick from the bottom of the guillotine. As Allan runs near another explosion presses up from the bottom lip of the stage, sending more white powder and more sneakers dripping from the ceiling. Shots are fired and Coach M tells Javon Worthington that terrorism attacks are no reason to fondle guns.

 

“Hale, bro, wait up.” He sees Hale marching, scuffling, to the side door, kicking it open. He wants to yell out to Hale as he sees Coach M  in a look of concentration, with one eye peeled back into his skull as he focuses Javon’s weapon in the direction of Hale. Allan quickly picks up a half-burnt Icarus, and, with all the velocity his eight year old limbs can muster, hurtles the fireball into Coach M’s face. The gun off just as Hale has officially exited the door, the same moment that the stage, once again, seems to reach up and expand into a million different directions all at once.

 

Coach M is frantic. For reason’s no one can figure out, Coach M is telling people not to contact the authorities. Hard sprinkles of white dust are drizzling in every direction more people are fleeing out the side door, the place where Allan is supposed to be, the place where his friends are meeting his mother. He hopes that his mom doesn’t becomes so infatuated with DeJuan’s presence that she forgets all about hi going home as well.

 

As he heads towards the door he can make out, down the street, Helen’s washed-streaked cherry Honda making a you turn. Shit. He decides to suck it up and run as fast as his limbs will allow him. Run down Logan field, maybe hide out inside the convenient store with the shattered windows.

 

“There he is, look!!” Allan turns behind him, he sees the crowd of addled potluck teacher league parents, coughing heartily into their armpits. Someone is pointing at Allan, contaminating him to the caliber of Red Skin munchkin. More shouts are fired. He can hear Coach M telling Allan not so fast and then shushing trying to tell the oncoming fire trucks that it is really no big deal. More fire smoke and burned coco leaves forms a bush over CLS school and as Allan looks back, he sees Coach M’s arms reaching out for him, grasping his face, the way a person grabs the camera on television. Allan’s face becomes clouded in a shadow of Darkness and the last thing Allan can remember before momentarily blanking out is the sinister look of retribution glued to Coach M’s forehead, telling Allan that he will pay, that him and his clan will suffer, and that everything Allan and his clan never endeavor to do on this planet will now fail because he destroyed the one thing Coach M created.

 

The one thing that will never fail.