A. Hicks Hope

Creativity, Expression, & Entertainment Sought

March 06, 2011                                ISSUE: AHH-11-2 

Bigfoot:

Digital Evidence Revealed in 3D

            Mamut checked his digital reconstruction again.  It was the twelfth time he did it, always obtaining the same, if not higher resolution image results.  The high definition triangulated three dimensional reconstruction of the forest was his thesis advisor’s tenure obtaining ambition.  There was a start-up company in it, too.  The advanced software package was meant as a platform technology to revolutionize observational field science.  It finally worked the way it was supposed to.  It worked great.  Just pick the area of interest in forest or plain or grass land, place as many digital high definition video cameras around the perimeter as you could afford, an internal camera or two also helped, and then just record away, day or night.  The image reconstruction program then took all the information and rebuilt a three dimensional, actually four dimensional, image of the area and the events occurring there. 

            The greatest thing about the program was background subtraction.  Any non-moving object; a rock, a tree, even a leaf, with a fixed position, could be removed from the image reconstruction of the area.  Thus any animal that moved through the area could be tracked and visualized without rocks, trees or leaves there to obscure the animal of interest.  The forest just disappeared and there was the animal, totally unaware that it was being observed.  Cool, great, but Mamut wasn’t excited about the computer science, he was a large animal biologist.  He wanted to observe natural animal behavior and this being Oregon, there were a great many large animals out there in the protected and protective Oregon forest to observe.  What he was so excited about was this specific animal image being reconstructed.  It was real evidence, finally.  It was right there in front of him.  The large animal he had dreamed about.  The large animal that had brought him here all the way from Northern India. 

            Mamut checked and tweaked the reconstruction for a thirteenth time.  There it was no question, no mistaken identity here, there he was, Bigfoot!  The Yeti! The Snowman!  The Oregon Golem!  Gigantopithecus! Whatever its name?  There it was.  Well, he was.  The image reconstruction was that good.  This Bigfoot was definitely a male, a substantial male.  Walking right through the observation area.  Totally unaware that he was being observed.

            “Bigfoot!  Bigfoot!  Bigfoot!”  Mamut hopped up and down on his desk chair so enthusiastically that the aged hydraulic mechanism gave out and dropped Mamut down six inches with a bang!  It happened so abruptly that Mamut screamed like a girl.  Mamut hated when he did that.  The men in his village used to make him scream like that and then make fun of him for weeks afterwards.  This vicious taunting did have its positives though; the girls would feel pity for Mamut and give him sympathy and sometimes physical comfort.  Girls Mamut never would dared speak to himself would pat his shoulder or ruffle his hair in support.  The men continued with their taunting, though as he got older, Mamut got better at not screaming until Mamut realized he could use the girl’s resulting sympathy to his sexual advantage.  He screamed more often after that. 

As his uncle used to advise him.  “Mamut, boy, you get what you can take.”  Mamut’s uncle was dead now.  Someone hadn’t liked Mamut’s uncle’s taking and had taken his uncle’s life in repayment.  Being taken can be a painful if not final thing.  Mamut was careful after that, taking only what he could get away with.  So, Mamut had been cautious not to tell anyone about his Bigfoot ambitions.  Now it didn’t matter.  “Bigfoot!  Bigfoot!  Bigfoot!”  Avoiding unreliable mechanisms Mamut hopped up and down on his feet.

            Mamut’s thesis advisor was Chandor Subramanian, Ph.D.  Chandor wasn’t from India like Mamut.  He had been born in New Jersey.  He was a third generation American but kept it to himself.  Indian computer programmers were respected, almost feared, like Chinese Kung Fu artist.  People always cleared a path for them, so Chandor let everyone assume he was a recent immigrant.  He even put on an artificial, albeit slight English accent to help people’s assuming be fulfilled.  With his students though, he didn’t care.  They were only students and worked for him.  “Don’t fuck with me, Mamut.”   Chandor ran the image reconstruction over and over in quick time.  “You fuck with me and I’ll have you back on that boat before your crazy little Hindu head can come back to reality. You’ll be lucky to get a job as Sherpa after I’m finish.”  

            Mamut didn’t understand the Sherpa reference but he was a Muslim.  “No! Sir! No sir!  It’s true!  It is true.  Crunch the raw data for yourself.  I’ve had Ruthy do it again also.  She expanded the time frame to see more of the beast.  Her reconstruction is ready.  She didn’t know what I found.  I have intentionally not looked at it.  The third person control is pure and uncorrupted.”

            Chandor frowned and then sighed.  “Better, but if this is some sort of prank, I’ll have her butt on that boat with yours back to India, too.”   Chandor clicked play on Ruthy’s reconstruction.

            “Ruthy is not from India.”  Mamut was confused.  “She’s from Iowa or Ohio, I think.” 

            Chandor waved his hand impatiently in the air.  The reconstruction did start earlier and it made less sense.  It started with a naked man; a naked walking man in the Oregon forest at night.  The video cameras were equipped with night vision capabilities, of course.  As the naked man walked, he turned into the Bigfoot!  Medium sized white male with a slight spare tire, slight pattern baldness, simply grew into a Bigfoot in the reconstruction.

            “Ruthy!”  Both Chandor and Mamut yelled at the same time.

            A chunky short woman with pulled-back curly hair and a cotton sweat suit walked into Chandor’s office.  “Yeah, Mamut, very funny.  Good morphing animation.  It gave me a good chuckle.  I didn’t know you had a sense of humor.”  Ruthy flopped down on the office couch.  It was already filled with papers of all kinds, even a book or two were wedged in there.  Ruthy just sat on top of it all.

            “I don’t.  I didn’t.”  Mamut looked from Ruthy to Chandor.  Chandor glanced back at Mamut.  “No, no, I am not funny at all or attempting to be.”  He looked back at Ruthy.  “You used the raw feed data?”

            Ruthy nodded frowning.  “Yeah, like ya said.  I wondered how you screwed with that.”

            “You can’t.”  Chandor looked back at the screen.  “It’s designed to show the slightest manipulation.  That’s a product specification.  Scientific verification of the authenticity of the data.  Proof of integrity.  Uhmm.”  Chandor flecked his little finger against his ring finger.  It produced a weak but annoying popping sound.  “Some sort of holographic trick, a prank.”

            “Not from me.  I don’t know physics.  I’m just a biologist that can work a computer.”  Mamut pleaded.

            “And have no sense of humor to speak of.”  Ruthy helped.

            Mamut glared at Ruthy but nodded weakly.  He felt like screaming right now, but he restrained himself.

            “This is fucking nuts.”  Chandor said to the image of the man changing nonchalantly into Bigfoot.  “No doubt about it.”

            “Is that your academic opinion?”  Ruthy giggled.  “Because it’s mine as a J.G.S.  Just a graduate student.”

            “I’ll have to send this to other researchers.”  Chandor mumbled thought out loud.  “Verification before publication.”

            “It’ll get out on the web.”  Ruthy stood up.  Two pages of something stuck in the folds of her sweats.  She pulled them off in disgust.  “No one will be able to keep their mouths shut on this type of thing.”

            “I’ll demand it.”  Chandor barked.  “I’ll just send out the first time range though, not including the morphing aspect.”

            His demands went unheeded just as Ruthy predicted.  Three days later headlines shouted:

“Bigfoot caught in the Oregon woods

Digitally enhanced.”

“Bigfoot!

As well endowed as we knew he would be!

He’s not just Bigfoot any longer!”

“Bigfoot in 3D HD!”

            And the media was calling for interviews.  Interviews with anybody involved with the project.  Chandor, of course, was the only one that could speak.  A press conference was hastily organized.

            “It is a sophisticated software image analysis and reconstruction package that will be on the market within the next six months.”  Chandor said to the audience of noisy reporters.  “Researchers, of course, will have first access.”

            “Who gives a shit!” came from the back.

            “What about Bigfoot?” came from the side.

            “You can see the lines at the corner of his eyes.  Bigfoot has big crow’s feet.”  Came from the other side.

            “This is just a great SGI product and the Bigfoot is your marketing ploy to get attention, isn’t it?”  Came from the center.

            “It worked.”  Came from the back.

            “No!  No!”  Chandor insisted.  “The raw data cannot be tampered with.  It processes what the camera outputs, only.”  Chandor shook his head until he felt dizzy.

            “You’re just pulling our collective leg.  To get funding for the University?”  Came from the back.

            “No!  It’s real!”  Chandor banged his hand down on the table.  The glasses of water hopped into the air with surprise.

            “Sure it is.”  Came from somewhere.

            “Got one for the Easter Bunny?”  Came from somewhere else.  General laughter from all around.

            “No, it is real.  Very real.”  Chandor insisted again but without the bang.

            “If they are out there, why do we never find Bigfoot corpses then?  At least a Big skull.  Don’t tell me they are immortal, too.”  More laughter.

            “Actually, I know the answer to that but you wouldn’t believe me.”  Chandor stood up with disgust.

            “Hell, we don’t believe you now.” Came from the back with subsequent general laughter.

            Mamut had never gotten a letter from a lawyer that was good news.  Lawyers only dealt with the annoying and petty squabbles of the world, so it was never anything good that they had to say.  They only prolonged and exacerbated the squabbles in Mamut’s experience.  Thus Mamut couldn’t open this letter from the downtown Portland Law office.  He took it to Ruthy still sealed.

            “Oh that.”  Ruthy was eating a yogurt popsicle.  “I got one too.  Cease and Desist order.”

            “For what?”  Mamut avoided government authority too whenever he could.  This was a piece of his uncle’s advice that he followed still.  “I did nothing to desist on.”

            “The Bigfoot footage, you can’t show it to anyone.”  Ruthy sucked loudly.

            “I didn’t.  I won’t.”  Mamut almost cried.

            “Well, there ya go.  Compliance already.”  Ruthy licked.  “Not to worry then.”

            “Oh, Lawyers are trouble.”  Mamut knew that from his uncle and his own experience.

            Chandor said.  “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”  and slammed the phone down.  The receiver protested loudly about the repeated abuse.  There were major cracks visible in its plastic shell.  “This is some sort of industrial sabotage.  I know it.”  Chandor pulled up Ruthy’s reconstruction.  “I’m going to find you Mister Prankster.”  Chandor pulled off multiple images of the Pre-Bigfoot’s human face.  He digitally enhanced the fellow’s entire head.  He increased the image resolution enough to see the individual strands of hair.  “Now, I’ll find you, you bastard.”  Chandor had developed his own image and facial matching program years back.  He used it to meet women by picking some candidate woman’s image in a crowd or on the street.  He always carried a pocket digital camera with him.  He could usually find their image on the net.  He had hacked most DMV databases images files and other organizations.  He had an eighty percent success rate in getting the recent contact info.  The success rate was much less for getting them to go out with him.  Still, he would find Mister Bigfoot, here.  He clicked the search button.  “Bastard,  I’ll get you.”

            It took less than ten minutes to match the face.  The top candidates should be local Oregonian’s was Chandor’s assumption.  He was right as he was about seventy percent of the time with his assumptions.  The number one match was a partner in a Portland Law firm.  Chandor pulled up their web site.  Maddox, Tendel and Favor, L.L.P.  Maxwell Maddox was his name.

            “Too much alliteration.”  Chandor criticized.  “Bastard!  What is this about?  You must work for the competition, that bastard Ralph Bann or that prick Stedman Reddy.  They’d fuck with my business for sure.”  Chandor clicked over to the Firm’s client list.  No one there he recognized.  “May not want to be listed.”  Chandor always talked to himself, as he said.  “I am always the smartest person in the room whether I’m alone or not.”  Chandor meant it.

            “Wait a minute!  Maddox, Tendel and Favor LLP?”  Chandor picked up his copy of the Cease and Desist order.  “Shit!  I knew it.”  The letterhead stated:

Maddox, Tendel and Favour, L.L.P.

            They must have had a misprinting.  There was a U in Favor which wasn’t on the website name.  “No, coincidence here I am certain.”  And Chandor punched in the Law firm’s phone number.  The phone registered its distress from the continual constant abuse.

            Chandor always counted on stereotypes.  He liked to play on both sides of them.  One that people would stereotype him by his Indian appearance and make wrong assumptions about him.  Two that while playing into their stereotypes, Chandor could take advantage of his adversaries by predicting their stereotypical actions.  The partners of Maddox, Tendel and Favour with a U, it turned out all fit within their expected stereotypes, as stuffy pompous corporate lawyers.  Chandor inherently hated every aspect of them even their stereotypic choice of clothes.  Black corporate business suits, even for the woman Tendel, Edith Tendel.  A few details didn’t fit though, like all three of them coming to the University for the negotiation of the Bigfoot reconstruction. 

            All three now sat in the department conference room chatting in a friendly manner with Ruthy and Mamut.  Chandor demanded that they go in first to evaluate the lay of the land.  Chandor wanted to come in late.  Act the absent minded professor, play the buffoon for a little while to throw the Lawyers off their game.  He would show the metamorphosis reconstruction instead of the straight Bigfoot images to surprise Maddox.  Show him and them that he knew more than they thought.  Get the upper hand.  So, Chandor abruptly walked into the conference room.

            “Dr. Subramanian, I am so glad you could find the time for us.”  Edith Tendel was gracious.  She was very attractive too, even in the business suit.  Black showed her figure well.

            “I, ah . . . I. . . .”  Chandor was trying to act his part but he was never good at acting.  “Slipped my mind . . . Apologies.”

            Edith held out her slim and also attractive right hand to shake Chandor’s hand.  The contact with her flesh startled Chandor.  It was like she was absorbing his essence, his heat from him.  Her skin seemed to suck at him in a very pleasant manner.  It was so enjoyable that Chandor kept the shake going longer than was appropriate.  She smiled him to a stop and extracted her hand.

            Chandor cleared his throat.  “Warm in here.  Must be the University facilities management.  There is always something about them that needs apologizing for.”  Chandor gave an uncharacteristic odd nervous laugh that even startled him.  It made Ruthy look up from her chat with Arnold Favour.  Ruthy always liked a real British accent she said, not Chandor’s fake one.  Mamut glanced over too, but didn’t stop his conversation with Max Maddox.  Mamut could see Max’s face in the Bigfoot face.  Mamut didn’t know what was happening but this was what he came to America for.  Mamut was ecstatic with excitement.  He was talking to Bigfoot!

            Edith smiled as she surveyed the table.  “I, we, the firm apologies for the legal formalities and their required document demands.  Cease and desist.  Legal mumbo jumbo, jargon.  Every profession has it.  So sorry, sorry, sorry for any discomfort caused, but despite that we feel this to be an important, serious topic.”

            “We surely do, too.”  Chandor couldn’t remember what he had planned to say.  He did remember about playing the Ruthy reconstruction.  “But so we’re all on the same page, I wanted you all to see everything from beginning to end.”

            Max took a very deep and audible breath.  “Yes, let’s do that right off and we can negotiate afterwards.”

            “Yes, let’s do.”  Edith patted the back of Chandor’s hand.  Each touch some of his body heat away.

As heat waves pulsed through him Chandor pointed at the wall screen.  “Okay, look at the screen.”  Chandor clicked Play.

There was silence through the entire video reconstruction.  There was silence for a few minutes after it ended.

“Yes, this was exactly what we were concerned about.”  Arnold Favour’s voice was too charming for it to be just his British accent.  “Max’s little pranks have always caused us concern.”  Favour frowned at Maddox.  Max shrugged with apology.  “And now we are here.”

“I knew it was a hoax.”  Chandor slapped the table with his hand causing Mamut to scream like a girl.  Ruthy laughed.

“Sorry, I . . . . “  Mamut blushed.

“Just a set up by my competitors.  The bastards.”  Chandor felt relieved.  It was just rough business.  He could give them some stock in the company.  All would be well.

“No, unfortunately not.”  Edith sucked in her breath in an attractive manner.  “It’s not that kind of prank.”  Edith frowned at Max.  This time he looked down and away from the frowns.  “It’s Max’s very odd sense of humor.”

Chandor was confused.  “So, it’s not simply business?”

Edith and Favour shook their heads.  Max still kept his head down.

“What then?”  Chandor looked over at Mamut.  He had his head down too.  “Is this just fun and games, at my expense?”

“Fun and games yes.”  Max looked up.  “Well, games at least, but you’re not the object of the game, but collateral damage caused by my foolishness.”  Max sighed deeply and audibly again.

“Collateral?”  Chandor questioned.

“Damage?”  Mamut squeaked.

“I don’t understand.”  Ruthy was still smiling.

“So, as not to prolong this unnecessarily.”  Edith said.  “I’ll get to the unfortunate point.”  Edith pointed at the now, blank screen.  “Everything you have there is completely and surprisingly accurate.”

“Yeah, I usually can tell when there are recording devices around.”  Max said.

“They’re very far away from that spot.”  Mamut added.  “There are just a lot of them so it adds to the data exponentially.”  Talking shop relaxed Mamut.

“We’ll all have to be more careful.”  Favour said.

“Wait, but you’re saying Mr. Maddox can change into a Bigfoot?”  Chandor had a genuine feeling of perplexity.  “That’s impossible.”

“We’re vampires.”  Edith said, almost apologetically.

“Of course you’re blood suckers, you’re lawyers.”  Ruthy laughed.  “Too cliché.”

“No.  Real vampires.”  Favour grasped Ruthy’s hand gently but firmly.

“There are no real human vampires.”  Ruthy held Favour’s hand tightly.  “That’s definitely mumbo jumbo, supernatural mumbo jumbo.”

Edith shook her head.  “But you were willing to believe in Bigfoot.  Why not vampires?”

“Bigfoot’s an animal.”  Mamut said. 

Max shook his head.  “No.  It’s not.  I just change into one every once and a while for the fun of it.  It’s like exercise for a shape shifter.  Vampires are shape shifters you know.  I also like to scare the campers, too.  Give the tourists something to talk about.”  Max blushed.

“Well, this is bullshit.”  Chandor suddenly got angry.  “What the hell game are you playing?  How much money do you want?”

Edith frowned at Max.  “See what you’re silliness has caused?”

“You’re really vampires?”  Ruthy gazed into Favour’s face.  “Cool.”

Mamut then screamed like a very frightened little girl.

“Ah.”  Edith nodded.  “At last, you comprehend this very unfortunate turn of events.”  And Edith grasped both of Chandor’s hands tightly.  His strength drained out with her touch.

Ruthy and Favour embraced.  Ruthy giggled.

Mamut just shook in his seat.  “No Bigfoot?”  He whined.

Max patted him on his weak back.  “No, no sorry.  No Bigfoot just silly assed me.”  And Max bit Mamut in the throat.  Mamut emitted one last girl scream and then was silent.

Ruthy died with a moan of ecstasy.  She loved all things truly British.

Chandor watched all of these happenings as if in a dream, an erotic dream.  He felt nothing but pleasure.  Edith seemed to be absorbing him from hands inward.  He could only see her eyes coming closer, ever closer.  When he saw her fangs he thought.  “Maybe she really is a vampire.”  But that was the last thought he had before she drained his blood supply.

The partners of Maddox, Tendel and Favour LLP sat quietly for a moment of remembrance. 

“They were nice people.”  Favour stroked Ruthy’s, now, pale cheek once.  “Too bad, really.”

“He was a bit of a prig but nice enough.”  Edith patted Chandor’s white hand again.  “See, what your screwing around has done.”

“Yes, perfectly useful people cut down just to keep our secret that would have remained our secret without Bigfoot.”  Favour sighed this time.  “A waste, most assuredly.” 

“Jesus, I’m sorry.  I didn’t know about the high tech gadgets.”   Max stood up.  “No more Bigfoot impersonations for me.  Cross my heart.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”  Edith stood up and started to unbutton her blouse. 

Favour looked at the three dead academics around the conference table.  “Should we eat them now or do we do take away for later?”

Edith peeled off the rest of her clothes.  “We should be extra careful from now on.  Here!”  And she changed into a wolf.

Favour unbuttoned his shirt.  “Bon appetite.”  And he changed.

Max shrugged and pulled off his clothes with a practiced flare.  “One bad habit leads to another.”  Then he was a wolf too.

THE END

 &&&&&&&&&&&

Bimbo Jimbo

Itinerant Surgeon

                The surgeon was confident of his cutting stroke as it traced a blood red line across the back of the face down, naked man on the table.  The scalpel cut the biodegradable surgical adhesive skin reinforcement and the man’s epidermis with equal proficiency.  The incision was exactly where it should be just anterior to the right kidney.  The well placed incision demonstrated the surgeon’s extensive experience by its efficiency in avoiding both major and minor veins and arteries.  Leonard Jimbu, M.D., prided himself in bloodless procedures, well not bloodless, but minimal blood letting.  He separated the lower back muscles carefully, opened the peritoneum and exposed the kidney.  The organ was young, healthy and pink just like its owner.  Even in the limited light of the small, improvised operating theater, blood could be seen coursing through the renal artery. 

            “Holy Mather. Oh Shit!  Dis guys alive!”  Blurted the dreadlocked, surgically masked assistant.  The only other person in the small theater. 

            “What did you think we were doing, an autopsy?”  Dr. Jimbu began his precise block ligating of the functioning arteries, veins and ureter leading to and from the kidney with sterile biodegradable ligatures.

            “I thought we was stealing dis guys kidneys.”  The dreadlocks were long and fell across the light blue mask.  He looked like he was a guest at a costume party.  You could see his smile through the mask.

            “That is exactly what we’re doing.”  Dr. Jimbu flooded the area with antibiotic laden sterile saline.  “The fresher the organ the better it transplants.  Get me the ice chest.  You have got ice in it?”

            Dreadlocks giggled.  “Ya know I almost forgot dat.  Ha! Ha!  But I didn’”  He put the small plastic ice chest on the donor’s bare behind.  The ice chest had a bright red handle.

            “Comedians are not necessary, here.”  Dr. Jimbu quickly cut the vessels between all of the ligatures and extracted the still, weakly pulsing, kidney.  He carefully inserted the kidney into a sterile ziplock bag, poured in some antibiotic laden saline, sealed the bag and placed it gently onto the bed of ice in the red handled ice chest.  “Cover it with ice.  Use a new pair of gloves.  I’ll get the other kidney, now.”

            “Won’t dat kill da gentleman?”  Dreadlocks giggled, again.  “I sorry.  No place for da humor, I know.”  Dreadlocks poured in ice but looked at Dr. Jimbu’s face.  “Say ya Doc, not ta be personal an’ all, but are you a fellow traveler?  I think you are.  I can always tell.”

            “What the hell are you saying.”  Dr Jimbu cut into the man’s back to extract the left kidney.  “Communism is dead as this guy will be in a moment and I am not gay.  If that’s what you are implying.  You’re not my type, anyway.”

            “No,  no, yar one of us, me, dark skinned, but ya is passin’ for white.  Yez, you’z a light African race or partly one.”  Dreadlocks bobbed an affirmative and giggled.

            “Race doesn’t matter.”  Dr. Jimbu worked quicker then before.  The left kidney was in the ice chest before the donor breathed his last unconscious breath.

            “It does to us that it shows on.”  Dreadlocks dumped in the remaining ice, snapped the ice chest shut and lifted it off of the corpse’s butt.

            “All that matters is the color and height of your piles of cash.”  Dr. Jimbu pulled the sheet up around the body.  Not much blood had escaped at all.  Dr. Jimbu smiled.  “Wish we could have used the heart, too.  What a waste.”  He pulled off his unspotted surgical gown, mask and gloves and threw them into the folds of the sheet.  Dr. Jimbu had a suit and tie on underneath.  “Get the rope, loop it around his feet like I showed you.  I’ll open the hatch.”  Dr. Jimbu pulled on a fresh pair of heavy duty latex gloves.  He had bypassed the alarm system on this emergency hatch two days ago in preparation for this moment, still he checked to see if the bypass was intact.  It was.  He cranked open the hatch.  Dark ocean night air rushed into the small, blood scented chamber.  The hatch was only ten feet from the water line.  The ocean’s surface raced by loud, strong and disinterested.  “Rope on?”  Dr. Jimbu grabbed up the sheet and pulled it tightly around the body.  He lifted everything easily over to the open hatchway.

            “Ya sire!”  Dreadlocks grunted.  “It’s ‘round his feet da way ya showed.”

            Dr. Jimbu dropped the body over the edge of the hatchway.  “Keep the rope taut.”

            “What?”

            “Keep the rope tight.  Now, lower it down slowly.”  Dr. Jimbu guided the body as it hung down.  “Rope tight but give slack gradually.”

            Dreadlocks grunted with the dead weight as the body dangled, inching toward the rushing water. 

            “Ease it into the water.  No splash.”  Dr. Jimbu held onto the rope reading its tautness.  “Feed it slowly.  We want the body to get caught in the current feeding the propeller assembly.  Yeah, feel it jump there and the extra drag.  Yeah, now let it go.”

            Dreadlocks let go willingly, the rope jumped out of his hands and out of the hatchway like a frightened snake.  There was a faint thump in the back of the Cruise Ship or maybe it was wishful thinking. 

“Hear that?”  Dr. Jimbu asked Dreadlocks. 

Dreadlocks shook his head and hair with negativity.  “Nada, hear.”

“Oh well.  The body will have been chopped a couple of time by the ships propellers.  So much for evidence.”  Dr. Jimbu threw the scalpel and other surgical items into the passing dark waters and then secured the hatch and removed his bypass equipment.  “Now, you need to get that ice chest off this ship immediately after we dock.”  Dr. Jimbu looked at his watch.  It appeared to be a Rolex.  “Four thirty-seven AM; docking in approximately three hours.”  Dr. Jimbu pointed at Dreadlocks.  “You get that chest to the courier service waiting for you at the end of the main dock.  If you don’t, you know how often people disappear on these islands.”  Dr. Jimbu indicated the hatch with a sharp.

“No, no, no, no, no!   Youz been very lucrative for me.”  Dreadlocks shook his head and hair.  “Not the type to shit on a banquette, me.  I do understand.  I will get it there.”  Dreadlocks hugged the red handled ice chest to his own chest.  “It’ll be my baby.  Delivered into the courier’s hands.”  Dreadlocks petted the ice chest.

“Good!  Now I have to go screw this guys wife back into unconsciousness, again. So she won’t notice him being gone until after we leave the next port.”  Dr. Jimbu checked to see that her door key was still in his pant pocket.  It was.  The way it should be.

“Poor doctor you with all da shitty jobs.”  Dreadlocks laughed and opened the door to the small storage compartment.  He looked out cautiously.  “No one dere.”  He giggled.

“Good, then go!”  Dr. Jimbu pushed him out.

She woke up as he slipped in beside her.  He was naked as she was.  She mumbled.  “That you Franky?”  She kissed him on the mouth.  Her breath was hangover bad.

Dr. Jimbu kissed her back despite the breath.  “Franky lost you to me in that card game last night.  This is Paul Tanner, remember?”  He peeled off the old dermal patch from the back of her neck.  He replaced it with a new one.

She giggled and squeezed his already condom sheathed erection.  “Oh, yeah, you’re not Franky.  Franky was never so big.”  She giggled hungrily.  “Franky still okay ‘bout this?”

“He was the one that lost his new wife at poker.  What’s he got to say about it?”  Dr. Jimbu inserted himself into her.  She wasn’t bad looking.  He could make her more attractive, almost pretty.  Just even out the breast size; make them fuller and more spherical.  Flatten the nose a little.  A little off the butt and she could be near to a beauty.  Not quite there but near enough that people would turn their heads.  He could do it in an afternoon, he was that good.  Dr. Jimbu liked to get all the pain over at once, if possible.

“Oh!”  She moaned as he entered her.  “Oh, oh, oh.”  She added as he came fully within her.  The drugs from the new patch take affect quickly.  His own version of a designer party drug.  He called them Party Patches.  Everyone loved to party!  He used an over the counter anti-smoking dermal pad.  The nicotine gave a bit of an extra buzz but it also masked his other additions to this useful drug delivery system.  Happiness stimulators and time distorting agents were applied to the pad in one hundred percent DMSO for maximum and immediate skin penetration.  Dr. Jimbu found that almost anyone would give the patch a try just for the fun of it.  Everyone said it was fun, if they remembered anything at all.

It made women giddy, pliant, receptive and forgetful.  Just the way Dr. Jimbu liked them.  “He fucks them and they forget him.”  He had an extreme version of the patch, a knock-out patch, which could drop even the biggest man into unconsciousness within seconds.  He used it only when he needed it.

She pushed her self against him aggressively until she had a quick orgasm.  Women’s orgasms always made Dr. Jimbu come too.  It wasn’t mutual orgasms or anything romantic like that.  The woman’s orgasmic quiver just excited Dr. Jimbu and he came.  Nothing more than that, just a physical response.  This woman would have been a good subject for his cosmetic surgical touch, nothing more.  No emotional attachment.  She was just part of the job; part of the thrill, he had to admit.  Although, Dr. Jimbu did like to make beauty for beauty’s sake.  Making beauty made Dr. Jimbu feel that godliness was possible.  The godliness an artist was said to experience when he creates.  Beauty with as few scars as possible, well, visible scars.  There were always scars in this world, like there was always pain.

He put another patch on her ankle, kissed her flat stomach; nothing need be done there, and then got out of the small bed.  He pulled off the condom and put it in a plastic ziplock bag that he put in his jacket pocket.  She would sleep for another twenty-four hours or so and have very happy dreams.  Her right breast was the best; just a little tweaking need be done there. 

Dr. Jimbu sat in the usual Sunset Boulevard traffic jam, as always, his patients wanted to meet at the latest and most with-it restaurant, which was almost always on Sunset, somewhere.  Dr. Jimbu had given up on a traditional medical office years ago.  It was worthless yet expensive overhead, anyhow.  He could rent operating theaters in any of the local hospitals cheaper than maintaining a facility of his own.  Not that his patients cared about the price.  They cared about the results.  Dr. Jimbu did care about the money, more for him.  His Blackest Razor rang a traditional telephone ring.  It was that prick Steven Majors, a necessary but evil evil.

“What!”  Dr. Jimbu snapped into the thin mobile phone.  It wasn’t a question, it was a demand.

“No, self aggrandizing intro?”  The male voice guffawed.  “No? ‘This is Dr. Leonard Jimbu itinerate plastic surgeon.’  No?  “Bimbo Jimbo the tit-master.’  No? ‘Have scalpel will travel.’  No marketing at all?  Just a bland, What?”

“Again.  What!”  Dr. Jimbu hated most people but he hated Majors with an extra degree of disgust.

“Well, you were the one that called about the delayed payment.”

“I did.  I delivered as I always do.  You didn’t though.”  Dr. Jimbu turned into the restaurant’s valet parking. 

“Well, the patient died.”  Majors didn’t sound sad at all.

“They do that sometimes.”  Dr. Jimbu stepped out of his black BMW convertible.  It wasn’t as black as his phone or as useful.  “What’s that to me?  I did my part.”

“The FAMILY refused to pay.”

“Always get the money up front when there is risk.  Transplants have major risks.”  Dr. Jimbu walked in the hot afternoon sun of Sunset Boulevard.  Dr. Jimbu didn’t sweat.  It worried him.  Human’s needed to sweat to regulate body temperature.  Dr. Jimbu also had a very low heart rate.  It took a lot to get Dr. Jimbu excited.  He often thought maybe the two were related, low heart beat and no sweat.  Dr. Jimbu could never figure out how, though.  “You or your organization still has to pay me for my recent services or there will never again be any.”

“Is that a threat?”  Majors’ voice sounded unconcerned, disconnected like he was reading from a script.  A telemarketing black marketeer, it was a new age.

“None what so ever.  ‘No pay, no play!’ was always understood.  No ‘oops, sorry, no money this time, but of course we’re all friends here’ clause.  You pay and I play.  Simple as simple can be.”  Dr. Jimbu walked into the restaurant.  It was dark and cool compared to the outside sun’s hot and bright.  It was filled with the young and attractive.  Many had been done by Dr. Jimbu.  They all waved and said “Hello.”  Dr. Jimbu didn’t need to do any marketing, word of mouth was so much more effective, especially if you have improved that mouth.  ‘Life was not perfect but let Dr. Jimbu fix that.’ Was the word on the streets of the young moneyed L.A.

“But we have an urgent need.”  Majors’ tone finally changed to concern.  For himself not for Bimbo Jimbo.

“Then you had better make a funds transfer quickly or the urgency will pass.”  Dr. Jimbu flipped his Blackest Razor shut as he saw his past and future work of art sitting at the best table in the place.  Celebrity and beauty had its benefits.

Robbery – Homicide Detective Jack Purettes was Parker Center’s Liaison with Interpol.  If liaison meant getting massive numbers of e-mails with enormous attached documents that plugged up his e-mail was a liaison then that was Jack.  He had to get a separate e-mail address just to do his daily work.  Every week or so, after complaints from L.A.P.D.’s computer Sys Admin, he would go in and delete most of those files unread.  While fulfilling such a request, he saw in the subject line a man’s name that was repeated in successive e-mails.  The name sounded familiar but Jack couldn’t place it.  So he went to his universal primary source for information.  He shouted out to the room of twenty-seven or so L.A.P.D. detectives, “Who’s Richard Stanly?”

The quiet produced in the room was profound and short.  Laughter broke the silence.

“Some detective you are.”  Came a female voice.

“Jeezzz Purettes, don’t you read the newspaper?”  He didn’t

“Or scan the Internet?”  He didn’t do that either.  He just did specific searches.

“God!  It’s all over the cable news stations.  Shit!”

“So, who, the fuck, is he?”  Jack didn’t appreciate criticism, but who did?

“He’s that newlywed that fell off that cruise ship.”  Came another female voice.

“Well, disappeared from the cruise ship.”  Came a male voice.

“The wife was blond and hot as a fire cracker.”  Came another male voice.

“Sexual harassment, I’m hearing.”  Came the female voice.

“No!  Guilt by being a hottie is what I’m saying.  Wifey didn’t like Ricky’s possessiveness and eliminated her problem with a push.  It could be a version of sexual harassment, maybe?”

“Yeah, being killed is an extreme form of harassment.”  Everyone laughed but Jack.

“Ohhhh, that Richard Stanly.”  Jack said and opened one of the multiple e-mails from what appeared to be Interpol but wasn’t.  The e-mail had an Interpol sender address, but it turned out that no one at Interpol had that address.  Jack had gotten an anonymous crime tip, many in fact, all saying the same thing. 

            ‘Leonard Jimbu, M.D. of Bellaire, CA killed Richard Stanly.’

That was it, repeated in eleven different e-mails.  All of these had been sent over the last three days.  “Insistent squealer you are.”  Jack said to the anonymous sender.  Jack forwarded all eleven missives to the computer guys in forensics asking for any data on the origin of these e-mails and that he was pretty certain it wasn’t Interpol.  Someone had just hijacked their e-mail address to get through the department’s computer’s spam filters.

Jack did his search for Leonard Jimbu, M.D. on the web.  An unusual name and not much out there: Bachelors and M.D. from Stanford.  Northern California boy moved to Hollywood, a plastic surgeon.  No website or office address.  Plenty on the blogs though, all praise and gush.  Jack remembered one comment specifically,

He makes the best breasts in town.

            “Sorta like a sushi chef, a master with a knife and raw flesh.”  Jack thought he was funny, no one else did generally, so Jack always said these things to himself.  “Why would he kill some dope on a cruise ship?”  That last question Jack would ask to a lot of people in the next few days, even Leonard Jimbu if he could find him.  No address or phone number on the web.  Jack always tried to do the obvious thing first, just to get it out of the way, so he hit reply and typed into the return e-mails, “WHY?”  He capitalized all the letters to make it more imperative.  As an elementary school student, Jack had always liked the word imperative.  He still liked it. 

            He waited a few minutes for the auto-reply of Undelivered Mail to pop into his e-mail list.  He just sat there and waited.  As a cop, he waited a lot and was used to it.  His desk was stacked with papers.  The only picture he had on his desk was an autographed picture of B.B. King.  B.B. must have been in a bad mood or drunk when he signed the picture for Jack, it said:

                        To Jack P.

                                    If it weren’t for bad luck

                                    You’d have no luck at all!

                                                            BB

            That comment had become Jack’s motto.  Jack had wanted to be a Blues guitarist, that’s why he came to L.A. two decades ago, but he ended up a cop without a guitar.

He really wanted to have a picture of his daughter on his desk too, well, actually his step-daughter, but in the separation agreement it specified that Jack couldn’t own or display any images of her.  He was not her biological father.  She was the result of a previous marriage of his ex-wife’s and no true relation to him.  He had taken care of her for three years while his wife, her mother, was continually on the road singing.  Jack felt like she was his family, his only family, but Jack hadn’t wanted to argue with the Lawyers.  Jack didn’t like to argue about most things.  Jack seldom got what he wanted.  B.B. had been right.  B.B. was a very perceptive man.

No Undeliverable Mail message appeared after a ten minute wait.  “Maybe it was delivered, somehow?”  Jack talked to himself regularly.  He didn’t have a regular partner, so he was generally the only one around to listen to his comments, so he did it without hesitation.  Most people thought he was talking on his mobile phone and didn’t give his mumblings any thought at all.

“Dr. Jimbu, celebrity surgeon to the stars, you probably get harassed all of the time with one accusation or another.  In this world there is nothing worse than someone else’s success.  I won’t bother you until I’ve run a bunch of this stuff down.”  Jack said to the one picture he had found on the net of Leonard Jimbu, M.D.  It was a candid phone – pic one of his clients had posted.  It was low rez but Dr. Jimbu was still seen as an attractive Mediterranean looking fellow.

“Successful, rich and good looking.”  Jack shook his head.  “If it weren’t for good luck, you’d have no luck at all.”

Jack’s e-mailed reply ‘WHY?’ had come back eventually containing the odd words, ORGAN HARVESTING! 

When Jack showed the replies to his perpetually distracted Lieutenant, the Lieutenant said.  “Jealous Musician?”     

Jack immediately thought the Lieutenant was somehow insulting him and his failed marriage and said.  “Not jealous anymore.  Time dulls the pain.”

The distracted Lieutenant blinked his eyes repeatedly as if focusing them better would help focus his thoughts.  “What?  The supposed killer, an angry musician, killing the competition; taking back an instrument?”

“Oh, ah, no!”  Jack shook his head to re-focus his thoughts.  “Not that kind of organ.  Well, I think it means internal organs like the heart or lungs.  Body stuff like that.”

“Oh, body parts.”  The Lieutenant waved his hand in dismissal.  “Why didn’t they say so?”

“No idea.”  Jack always went with the most obvious answers too.

“While you track down this Dr. Jimbu, find a real Interpol e-mail address and see if they have any interest in the supposed victim – celebrity, Stanly.  He’s white, a mystery and in the news, they likely do.  Run down all the angles.  This is likely nothing but we have to cover our backsides, just in case.”

Jack nodded.  He knew the Lieutenant would say that.  ‘Cover your own backside’ was the Lieutenant’s motto.  He had some variation of it for almost all situations.  The detectives, though, had their own interpretation of the Lieutenant’s motto, it was ‘Don’t count on me’ and they never did count on the Lieutenant for anything.

“Asrun Rasenmueller.”  Jack said to the other detective.  They were both looking into ‘Don’t count on me’s’ glass walled office. 

“Asram?”  The other detective said.  “Hippie type?  Doesn’t look it.”

“No!  Asrun.  Asrun, I think it’s pronounced and hippies have been extinct since the Seventies.  No, it’s the Interpol Agent.”  Jack frowned at B.B.’s photo.

“Man or woman?  Can’t tell from here.”  The other detective was a male thirty something with multiple pictures of wife and children on his desk.  He scratched his groin, conspicuously.

“Don’t know from the name or the bio.”  Jack shrugged.  “Never talked to him / her, just e-mails.  Short hair, no make-up though.”

“Medium height, slight build, light complexion, almost Aryan.  Could be a chick.”  The other detective pondered.

“Hey!”  Came a female voice accompanied by a paper wad.  “Watch the language.”  Then she laughed.  They all laughed.

“Could be a guy.  The hands look rough even from here.”  Jack’s eye sight was always good even though he was aging, as his ex-wife put it.

“Wait for the shoes.”  The female detective added.  “The shoes’ll give it away for sure.”

“Now, who’s being sexist?”  The male detective retorted with a return of the paper wad by an exaggerated sky hook arm movement.  She batted it back to him with practiced efficiency. 

“Here they come.”  Jack stood up.  The Interpol agent was wearing black running shoes, so no help there.  The stride was strong, well balanced and equally unrevealing.  “Some detective I am?”

The Lieutenant waved the Interpol Agent at Jack.  “Special Agent Rasenmueller, the department Liaison, Detective Jack Purettes.  You’ve corresponded.”

Special Agent Rasenmueller shook Jack’s hand with a firm gripe, one pump and a grunt.  The Agent’s palm was callused and the skin rough and cracked.  No help there either.

“Nice to finally meet you.”  Jack said.  “Ah, face to face.”

“It is a pleasure for me.”  It was almost certainly a woman’s voice.  “I have not been before in Los Angeles.”  Yeah, it was a woman’s smile.  “You are a lover of the Blues, I see.”

Jack blinked.  “How did you?”  Jack muttered as she pointed at the only photo on his desk.  The obvious was so obvious.  “Yeah, well, fan only now.”

“Previously a musician?”  She was obviously trying to build a working relationship with Jack, but with the Lieutenant standing right there it was embarrassing.  It remained so until the Lieutenant turned around and walked back to his office without a word.

The female detective rolled over a chair for the Special Agent.  “Here’s a place to sit.  They’re men and need all the help they can get.”

Special Agent Rasenmueller gave an upward nod.  “Yes, thank you muchly.”

Jack mouthed ‘Thank you’ to the departing female detective.  She rolled her eyes in return.  “Yeah, well, I used to play guitar, but that was a long time ago.  So here’s what I’ve got so far.”  Jack sat back down.

“So, thank you for meeting with us Dr. Jimbu.  You’re a hard man to track down.”  Jack stood up as Dr. Jimbu sat down.  Dr. Jimbu didn’t extend his hand for a shake, so Jack retracted his.

“No problem.  I meet many of my clients here.  It’s a nice place.  I like the openness of it.”  Dr. Jimbu kept his stare fixed on Special Agent Rasenmueller.  “What’s this about.”

“This is a nice little restaurant, expensive though, so not a place I’ve been before.”  Jack liked the Rich that he interviewed to feel superior to him.  It made they talk more freely.  “This coffee alone will take up most of my expense per diem.”  Jack sat back down with a laugh.  Jack was extra cordial with these rich arrogant types because he just hated them so much.  “Just some routine inquiries.  Department has to protect and serve.  Some things, well, information has surfaced relating to you.  Well, we don’t know that actually, but your name was, well, it popped up with another investigation and we need to run down all connections.  You understand.”

“Terrorists?”  Dr. Jimbu said to Jack but continued his stare at the Special Agent.  It was more a detailed examination than a stare.

“Not everything bad in the world has to do with terrorists.”  The Special Agent finally broke her conspicuous silence.  “You Americans are so simple, ah, single minded.”

For the first time Dr. Jimbu looked over at Jack.  Jack smiled.  “Who is this?”  Dr. Jimbu’s voice was intense but oddly unemotional.

“Oh, sorry, what a guy I am.”  Jack shook his head.  “This is Special Agent Asrun Rasenmueller with Interpol.”  No one extended a hand to shake.

“I thought Interpol was a movie construct only.  Something in spy fiction, to move the story along, a literary device.”  Dr. Jimbu looked back at the Special Agent with the same intense unemotional stare.

“That really doesn’t matter.  It has no baring on what we are here to discuss.”  The Special Agent returned the emotionless gaze.

“You know I could make you almost beautiful.”  Dr. Jimbu smiled.  The smile too, was somehow emotionless.  “You have a good base to work off of, just increase some volume here.”  He pointed at her chest with an open right hand.  “More definition to the lips, increase the cheek bone, soften the nose and that scowl.  I have some Botox in the car.  I could clear that away in a minute.”  Dr. Jimbu snapped his fingers for both emphasis and finality.

“You Americans and your fantasy fixation on beauty.  It is simply a sexual fetish, an adolescent sexual cowardliness.”  The Special Agent said dismissively.

“Oh, no!”  Dr. Jimbu shook his head strongly.  “Beauty.  Beauty is what makes the world go round.”

“If you mean the rich elite society of movies and resorts, beauty is actually a marketing device to sell unnecessary cosmetics and surgical procedures.  It makes the money go around.”  The Special Agent leaned forward.  “Beauty is meaningless in the real world.  Certainly not here.”  She waved around the room.

Dr. Jimbu laughed loudly.  “Beauty is what brings men and women together.  Beauty literally makes the human race.  Keeps it ever evolving forward.”

“Women don’t need beauty for that, simply sex.  All they have to be is available for sexual congress and let any man know about it.”  The Special Agent leaned back.  “Beauty has nothing to do with anything essential.  Sex!  Look at rape statistics.  Any and all types and ages of women are raped.  It has nothing to do with their supposed beauty.  It was simply opportunity.  Beauty, pssst!”

Dr. Jimbu looked back at Jack perplexed.  Jack shrugged.

“And bigger breasts do nothing for a woman.  Sweden has the most breast implants. . . .”

“Augmentations.”  Dr. Jimbu interrupted.  He never liked it when others spoke more than he.

The Special Agent waved her hand in the air.  “As you Americans say, Whatever!  The most per capita implants but still the highest suicide rates among women in the world.  Big breast do nothing except give boys fantasy fulfilling erections.  Sexual Disneyland, a masturbatory thrill ride.  The American Dreamland, big hard breasts with scars.  Very attractive!  Just like your supposed 9/11 mentality.  You Americans finally learned that the world is a dangerous place and it will reach out and hurt you.  Your blessed virgin homeland.  Sex obsessed children.  The world is violent and deadly, always has been and always will be.  You are now playing with people you do not understand.  They don’t have problems, they just have garbage.  If they have a problem they kill it and throw it away.  Oddly they are much like your John Wayne.  Got a problem?  Shot it first then you don’t have to ask any questions.”

Dr. Jimbu blinked.  “And what does any of this have to do with me?”

Jack looked over at Special Agent Rasenmueller.  She was silent for now.  “Well, your name has come up in a human organ theft-smuggling-murder investigation.”  Jack paused like they had planned him to do.

Dr. Jimbu didn’t hesitate to fill the silence.  “I’ve been accused of many foul deeds, but this is a unique one.”  Dr. Jimbu laughed.  “I have a lawyer that deals with these random accusations.  I could give you his number.”

“No, no.”  Jack shook his head as he looked at his lap.  “It’s this Richard Stanly cruise ship thing.  It’s in the news and you know the whack jobs out there.  We just need to run down all the leads, good or bad.  Whacky or not.  You know, just routine.”

“Just so.”  Dr. Jimbu nodded and smiled.  This smile actually had some emotion in it.

“You’ve been to the Caribbean before?”  Jack asked calmly.

Dr. Jimbu sat back in his chair for the first time.  “Yes, occasionally, business and pleasure.”

“So you have a license to practice out there?”  Jack scratched his upper lip.

“I have a few patients with residences out there.”  Dr. Jimbu nodded while maintaining the emotionless smile.  “Convenience for them.”

“Okay, well, we wanted to inform you about this more than anything.  It’s probably nothing.”

“It is nothing and thank you.”  Dr. Jimbu stood up abruptly.  “I realized I have to meet another well known client.  She doesn’t take well to others being late.”  Dr. Jimbu finally reached out to shake Jack’s hand.  A business card remained in Jack’s palm.  “My card.  If you need to discuss this matter further.”  Dr. Jimbu looked down at them without a smile. 

Jack examined the card.  It was warm and actually felt like it was made of flesh, human skin.  It was weird and caused Jack a quiver of disgust.  “No, no.”  Jack shook his head and handed the card to Special Agent Rasenmueller.  “Nope.  That was it.  And thanks again for the opportunity to protect and serve you.”

“Okay bye.”  Dr. Jimbu walked away rapidly.

Special Agent Rasenmueller flipped the skin business card onto the small table between them.  The two officers sat quietly until Dr. Jimbu pulled away in his car and down Sunset.

“Ya think?”  Jack reached for his coffee.

“Yes I do, very much.”  Special Agent Rasenmueller nodded and sat forward.  “I could smell the change in his body chemistry when Stanly was mentioned.”

“You smelled him?”  Jack sipped his expensive coffee.  It was the best coffee he had ever had up until that moment.

“I grew up on a farm outside of Rotterdam.  I was good with the animals.  I spent most of my time with them.  I grew able to smell their fear and excitement.  When I joined the police force I realized I could sense the changes in humans too.  Some more than others.  Dr. Jimbu is a very cool person.  He is hard to anger.  There was almost no arousal to my insults of his profession and country.  Odd really.”

“Yeah, you were starting to piss me off but even I picked up on that.  Stone cold he was.”  Jack drank down the last drop of his coffee.  “He’d do it for the thrill alone.  Like the cold hearts of many of the gang members I deal with.  Death is nothing more than a bit of a buz to them.  A passing high.”

“As long it’s someone else’s death.”

“Yeah, that’s true.”  Jack sat the coffee cup down, reluctantly, even though it was empty.  “We have no proof he was involved.  What should we do?”

“Why do you stay in Los Angeles?”  Special Agent Rasenmueller drank down her coffee quickly.

Jack shrugged and picked up the check.  “Inertia.  The weather.  That, I guess?  Ugh!”  The check was much more than he expected.

“The weather was why I joined Interpol and requested the Caribbean, to get away from the European cold.  And now with the new ice age approaching, it seemed the wisest of things to do.”

“Ice age?”  Jack stood up, took out all the money he had on him and placed it on the top of the check.  Jimbu hadn’t left any money behind.  “Rich people never pay for anything, that’s why they’re rich.”  His ex-wife would have reminded him.  “What do we do with Dr. Jimbu?”

“My prediction?  If he is involved, as am I sure he his.”  Special Agent Rasenmueller stood up.  She was only an inch shorter than Jack.  “He’ll head for the Islands.  We just watch.”

“I like to watch.”  Jack’s face turned red when he realized what he had said.  “Oh sorry.  I spend too much time alone.”

“Never mind, I’m European, remember.”  Special Agent Rasenmueller laughed for the first time.  Of course, it had to be at Jack’s expense.  Everything in the world seemed to cost Jack dearly.

“Steve Majors!”  Kept going through Dr. Jimbu’s mind as he drove away from the rude police.  Dr. Jimbu would put a stop to this dangerous nonsense, right now!  He would go directly to Falman.  If Falman approved of this ridiculous attack, Falman would pay also.  Dr. Jimbu always kept a travel case in his trunk with passport and all he would need for a week’s excursion.  So, he drove directly to LAX.  He would catch the first plane over there.  “Put a stop to this shit, right now!”  Dr. Jimbu usually didn’t talk to himself.  He did it only when he was angry.  He rarely got angry. 

Outside of Eugene Falman’s inner office was an expanded corridor used specifically for pat down’s and weapons searches.  Falman Healthcare Providers had facilities throughout the Islands.  Eugene Falman had found that healthcare providers, efficient or inefficient, were given great latitude in the Caribbean.  Anyone willing to help the distressed peoples was encouraged to do whatever they needed to, however they needed to do it.  Everyone breaks a few rules to get things done down here.  Eugene Falman prided himself in getting things done and never letting an opportunity go unutilized.  He used the healthcare facilities for all kinds of business deals and transactions, legitimate and not.  In his various lines of business it was difficult to tell what was legal or illegal.  Getting things done was more important.  He even used the facilities for money laundering.  No service was too big or too little for Eugene Falman.

Falman Healthcare Providers also provided organ transplant services, of course, at a substantial markup.  Originally, the moneyed patients had to provide their own organ donors, but that had changed with Falman’s realization that even further substantial mark ups could be done if the Falman’s provided the organs.  Falman saw no shortage of organ donors.  They were walking all over the Islands.  Tourists come and go and no one knows you stayed or went.  Falman liked to joke that his business ‘grew organically’.  Everyone in the room would laugh with him, even if they didn’t get the true meaning of the joke.  They had to.

On top of being an opportunistic business person, Falman was also cautious.  “Survival is the most important part of any successful business.”  He would say and laugh, so everyone else had to laugh too.  A nervous laughter, but laughter all the same.  So, no one could speak directly with Cautious Eugene without being checked for weapons.  Dr, Jimbu thus stood in the pat down corridor with his arms out.  He was being both wanded and physically searched.  Dr. Jimbu hated being touched unless he wanted it.  He didn’t want it that often and certainly not today.

The wand beeped at Dr. Jimbu’s chest.  The wander pulled out a yellow metal fountain pen and frowned at it.

Dr. Jimbu shrugged.  “It’s a fake.  You can keep it if you want.  It’s a good fake.  Oh, the watch is a fake Rolex, but you can keep that too.”  And the wander did.  Everyone likes a Rolex even if it wasn’t real.

The toucher reached into Dr. Jimbu’s jacket pocket and pulled out a bunch of foil packets.  He grunted for a clarification.

Dr. Jimbu tapped a skin colored patch on his neck.  “Nicotine patches.  Trying to stop smoking.  Nasty habit.  I wish to keep those items if you don’t mind?”

The toucher nodded and pushed them roughly back into Dr. Jimbu’s pocket.  Dr. Jimbu smiled the best he could, but it was his emotionless smile.

Eugene Falman was old, cautious and a casual dresser.  That’s why he loved the Islands so much, short sleeved cotton shirts and Bermuda shorts were expected dress.  He loved to give people what they wanted as long as he got what he wanted too.  He started this healthcare clinic originally for the maintenance of his own health, but opportunities were seen and realized.  Eugene sat in a big plush automated chair that would, at a touch of a button, do most anything Eugene wanted.  It even helped him stand up.  Eugene preferred to stand when he was being forceful.  He wanted to be forceful with Dr. Jimbu.  Bimbo Jimbo, as Majors called him, needed it at times.  The bodyguard in the room would do everything else that the chair couldn’t, so Eugene wasn’t worried.

“But Lenny, Lenny.  You always said that money didn’t matter to you.”  Eugene snickered.  Money not mattering was funny and wrong.  “You said that it was your skill and accomplishments with the knife that warmed your heart.  Ha. Ha.”  Eugene emitted what used to be a strong laugh.  “I have had hit men say the same thing to me, so I understood.  Pride in work and all, but now you’re all in a twist about the money.  Arguing over money is not good for business.”  Eugene smiled what he always thought was a warm, winning smile.  It wasn’t.

“It’s the value of my services that I want to maintain.”  Dr. Jimbu remained seated but he sat erect.  “Without cash compensation you will feel my services have a diminished value.  You understand, more than anyone, the ‘you get what you pay for’ frame of mind.”

Eugene nodded and paced slowly in front of Dr. Jimbu.  “But there were unforeseen expenses and the client’s death, well; his Family is quite influential in the international business community, if you know what I mean?  They refuse to pay and you know my motto.  ‘Shit rolls down hill.’  What can I do?  Compromise my own standards?  You are downhill whether you like it or not.”

“But I provided two fresh young healthy kidneys.”  Dr. Jimbu knew his heart rate was now higher than normal.  If he could sweat, he likely would be doing that now too, despite the A/C.  “There was every reason for success.  I told you you should let me do the entire procedure.  It was fumbled by those hacks in the OR.  It’s not my fault or my problem.”

“They aren’t being paid either, if that is any consolation?” 

“It’s not!”  Dr. Jimbu’s breathing rate was increasing too.  He knew the conversation would go this way.  “This thing with Majors and the police.”

Eugene shrugged.  “Lenny, you’re like a son to me, but you always misunderstood me and the situation.  I am a nice guy, I know.”  Eugene laughed as did the bodyguard.  The chair never laughed and neither did Dr. Jimbu.  Eugene frowned.  “You see what I mean.  You just don’t understand the situation.  I’m in charge here, ergo I make the rules.”  Eugene stopped his pacing and pointed at Dr. Jimbu.  “You’re not.  You have to understand that.  Take this as a lesson in proper organizational behavior.”  Everyone laughed this time except the chair.

“Ohh okay.”  Dr. Jimbu reached into his pocket, bent over to stand up, paused and then stood up slowly.  “Since you put it in those terms.”  Dr. Jimbu pressed his hands together in front of himself.  “Alright, I guess you’re correct.  I have to modify my perspective.” 

Eugene nodded.  “Good way of expressing it.  Modify perspective.”

“Yes, modify perspective is what we will all do.”  Dr. Jimbu reached out with both hands to shake Eugene’s formally strong right arm.

“I’m so glad you now understand.”  Eugene extended his hand.

Dr. Jimbu gave him a Roman forearm clasp and a securing left hand behind the elbow.  It was a long hardy shake, but Eugene’s smile turned to a frown followed by an expression of panic.

"What have you done?”  Eugene whispered even though he thought he was shouting.  Eugene’s legs failed him.  He sank to the floor.  Dr. Jimbu held on tight to his arm to make the collapse as gentle as possible.

Dr. Jimbu shouted at the bodyguard.  “He’s having a heart attack.  Get a crash cart in here stat!”

“Uhhh?”  The bodyguard and the chair may have had equivalent IQs.

“Run to the clinic and get help, other doctors.”  Dr. Jimbu laid Eugene out on the thick green orange tinted carpet.  “Say Heart Attack!  Coronary!  Go!”

The bodyguard finally went.  While they were alone, with Eugene’s eyes fluttering, trying to focus on something, Dr. Jimbu pulled off the patches from Eugene’s forearm and behind his elbow.  “Now, we’ll modify your perspective of the world, dramatically.”  Dr. Jimbu whispered in Eugene’s old ear.  It didn’t matter if Eugene heard him or not.

Jack Purettes and Arsun Rasenmueller sat in the main lobby of the Falman Healthcare Clinic.  Both Jack and Asrun had hats in their lap.  The sun was too bright for either of them and their pale skin.  They were not dressed casually.  They were on duty.

“Asrun is an Icelandic name.  My mother was from Iceland.”

“Most Americans don’t know where that is.  Iceland.  I don’t.”  Jack watched the main door from the inner clinic.

“Most Americans don’t know where the Netherlands are.”  Asrun looked out the window to the bluest of seas.

“Yeah, I don’t.”  Jack laughed.  He actually did or he thought he did.  He didn’t know where Belgium was for sure, or was that Denmark he didn’t know.  That worried him; he had to look at a map of Europe.  Dr. Jimbu walked out of the inner clinic door.  “Our man’s here.  Geography later.”  They both intercepted Dr. Jimbu in the center of the lobby with their hats in their hands.

Dr. Jimbu didn’t recognize them and tried to walk around the sudden obstruction.  He got annoyed when he couldn’t.  He had been too emotional in the last week.  He didn’t like it.  “Out of my way!”  He barked.

“Excuse us Dr. Jimbu.  We need to speak with you.”  Asrun spoke gently but firmly.

“Who?”  Dr. Jimbu still didn’t recognize them.

Asrun and Jack held out their badges.  “Remember now?”  Jack inserted.

“Oh.”  Dr. Jimbu frowned.  “The cops from L.A.  What are you doing here?  Vacation?”

“Vacation?  Here?”  Jack chuckled.  “That’s funny Doc.”

“Police, but that is less important than reminding you about Richard Stanly.”  Asrun slipped her badge wallet into her jacket breast pocket so the badge was exposed.  Jack had no jurisdiction here.  He couldn’t even carry his gun on him, so he closed his badge wallet and put it completely in his pocket, unexposed.

“Who?”  Dr. Jimbu’s breathing rate was increasing.  He was annoyed.  “Look, I have just spent the last few days treating an old friend and former patient.  Despite my best efforts he didn’t make it, so I am a little on edge.”

“Yes, I can tell.”  Stated Asrun.

“I can too, even.”  Jack added.  “Too bad for you.  Life is tough sometimes when people die.”

“Or are killed.”  Asrun added.

“I followed standard procedures.  All was done in text book fashion.”  Dr. Jimbu frowned at the unbeautiful woman in front of him.  “What a waste.”  He thought but said.  “You can check.”

“Certainly, I will.  That was Eugene Falman, your old friend?”  Asrun pointed at the lobby.  “He doesn’t have his own doctors here?”

“Maybe just one or two.”  Jack smiled warmly.

Dr. Jimbu frowned at Jack’s smile.  It made him uncomfortable.  “Yes, but we have known each other for years.  Just the other day Eugene said he thought of me as his son.”  Dr. Jimbu’s throat began to hurt.

“You know what we found out?”  Jack inserted with a smile.  “Well, Interpol did, Richard Stanly’s cruise ship, well the one that he was a passenger on, stopped at this very port before he went missing?  Isn’t that interesting and a coincidence too?”

“What?”  Dr. Jimbu didn’t like being confused.  He was getting very annoyed as well as confused.

“Richard Stanly, the newlywed that disappeared from his ship, his wife and apparently the face of the earth.”  Jack continued even without jurisdiction.

“And our information states that you killed him for his organs.”  Asrun pointed around the lobby again.  “They do organ transplants here?”

“You know that they do!”  Dr. Jimbu was getting too annoyed.  “I have never been on a cruise ship.”  Dr. Jimbu looked out at the bluest of seas.  “They’re a breeding ground for microbial infections.  I wouldn’t set foot on one, ever.”

“Funny, we have a security video from that ship showing a guy that looks a whole lot like you.”  Jack bounced his hat in his hands.  He had never done an interrogation in public like this.  It felt sort of exotic and exciting.

“I have a common face.”  Dr. Jimbu frowned.

“No.  You don’t.”  Asrun corrected.

“People are always confusing me with some friend or other.”  Dr. Jimbu continued.  He then reached in his pocket.  “Here’s my lawyer’s contact information.”  He handed a card to Jack.  “You can discuss these matters with him.  I have a plane to catch.”

Jack nodded, happy that this card was made of paper, only.  “So, I’ll see you there.”

“What?”  Dr. Jimbu felt the sea calling.

Jack waved the lawyer’s card in the air.  “L.A.  See you in L.A.”

“I gather.  Yes, if you insist.”  Dr. Jimbu stepped around the pair and walked quickly toward the bluest of seas.

“He’ll insist.”  Asrun said to Dr. Jimbu’s back.

“We’ve still got nothing solid on that bastard.”  Jack said.

“We’ll just have to find something.”  Asrun patted Jack’s forearm.  “Let’s go do just that.”

Jack had spent a few more days on the Island with Asrun, not really a vacation, but almost.  She was European as she reminded him again and again.  She was also a real woman.  He didn’t need any reminding of that.  She was also much more fun than he had expected.  Jack was never any good at expectations either.  She knew things he should have known but hadn’t.  He did now though, thanks to her and Leonard Jimbu, M.D., arrogant prick and likely murderer.  Furthermore, Jack realized that L.A. heat was a dry heat.  Island heat was not.  Jack liked L.A. heat better.  Weather was obvious.  Weather was important.  So what, if there was an earthquake every ten years.  The weather’s nice always. From his Parker Center office window though he couldn’t see any sky, only another building, its windows and another person over there looking for the sky.

He opened his useful e-mail.  There was a flagged report from the Coroners Office and two follow ups from the West L.A. division.  Leonard Jimbu, M.D. was found last night in a Westwood parking structure near U.C.L.A. dead from a single shot between the eyes.  Jack shook his head and immediately called Asrun.  He had wanted to talk to her anyway, just hear her voice.  The department could pay for it. She picked up on the first ring.  “Bonjour.”

“Asrun, Jack.”  Obvious and concise.

“Oh, so soon a call.  You miss me all ready.”  She was warm in both body and voice. 

Jack’s face warmed as did other parts of him.  “Absolutely, but I wanted to tell you first.  That you were correct, our Dr. Jimbu was playing with people he didn’t understand at all.”

“He’s dead!  Already?”  Asrun cleared her throat to make it more official.  Death was always official for her.

“”Evidential procedural matters are obviously unimportant to Falman’s people.”  Jack chuckled.  Death wasn’t that official to Jack.  “They seem to go for the most obvious and straight forward scenarios.  My kind of people, sort of.”        

“And rightly so.”  Asrun paused.  “I still have to work the Stanly case.”

“And I am not through with Dr. Jimbu either.  He just went from suspect to victim.  Professional hits never get solved, so Dr. Jimbu will be with us for some time to come.  Something to hold us together.  If we needed it?”

“It is some sort of legacy, one could say.”  Asrun giggled despite her official tone.

“That and all the faux breasts walking the streets of L.A.”

“A mobile silicon memorial.”  Asrun giggled again.

“They will last a thousand years.  Here’s to ego gone astray.”  Jack giggled to.  “Without it we never would have met.”

            THE END

Copyright 2006

 &&&&&&&&&&&

Love is Only an Ethical Argument

            From behind the base of the boulder the old man could see the three figures advancing toward his camp.  They had spread themselves out in a straight line with about two meters distance between each of them. 

            “Poor strategy for a daylight assault.” Thought the old man.  “There must be more of them.  These are just the young and the stupid, sent to draw me out.”

            The old man crawled backwards along the dry desert floor to a low outcropping of rocks.  He crawled behind the outcropping until it sloped upward enough for him to stand.  He ran silently up the slopping rock face.  Near the top he crawled on his stomach until he could just see down into the gorge. 

            The old man looked out behind the trio that continued a slow approach on his camp.  “No one behind them.”  The old man took his short sword in his left hand, blade resting along side his left forearm, slipped over the crest of the rock and down behind the youngest of the trio at the right flank.  The nervous lad turned at the old man's light footfall.  The lad twisted to bring the heavy axe around.  The old man grasped the axe handle with his right hand while he cut across the lad's throat with his short sword.  There was only blood, no scream.  Just the way the old man wanted it.  Other’s deaths seemed to be the only thing he could control.

            The closest of the remaining two leapt, with broadsword raised, at the old man.  The old man drew his long sword and impaled the youth in the descent.  The long sword penetrated chest and then heart from below.  The youth's bleeding and convulsing body fell the remaining distance to the ground.  The old man rolled to the left avoiding the falling body and removing the long sword from its target.  The sole remaining youth had been close enough behind his fellow attacker that the old man's rotation allowed the hilt of the short sword to directly impact on the left temple of the advancing boy.  The youth lost consciousness before he and his dull bladed broadsword tumbled onto the dry sand.

            The boy was awakened by a dull throb at his left temple.  Blood caked his left eye, dust caked his right.  His lips were baked dry.  He attempted to move his arms.  They felt heavy and sluggish.  His wrists were chained to his ankles.  Laying on his right side, he could not easily sit up.          “Hey, Mon!” The boy called out the back of the kneeling old man.  “Hey, mon, jou mon?”  The old man kept his back to the chained youth.  “Com'on mon, gimme some water.  I need da drink!”

            The old man drew his long sword from its back sheath and stabbed a piece of cactus from the metal bowel on his far right.  Without turning around, the old man flipped the cut cactus within arms reach of the boy.

            “Ain't ja got no real water!”  The boy yelled.  “I don' wanna suck cactus piss.” 

            The old man continued working silently with his back to the boy.

            “Hey mon . . . Fuckin' mon . . . Damnation!”  The boy yelled as he rocked himself to a sitting position.  “Bastard mon!  Won't gimme water, mon?  You devil, sure, mon.  Jou snake fucker!”  The boy finally picked up the piece of cactus and sucked out the stored moisture.  “Taste like arm pits!  Shit, mon!”  The boy threw the depleted cactus piece in the direction of the old man's back.  The piece landed wide.  “What jou fuckin' do with my boys?  Hey mon!  What jou do?”

            The sword flashed out again, a shirt billowed and fluttered into a pile of soiled clothing at the boy’s feet.

            “Jou kilt my boys?  Fuck mon, we just wanna talk to jou.”  The boy gently rubbed his left temple with the back of his hand.  “It lonely out here and jou had a fire.  How jou know how to make fire, mon?  Jou got matches?”  The boy tried to move forward toward the old man.  A short chain locked tightly around the base of a boulder restrained him.  “Fuck mon, jou got me chained good!  I'ma friendly guy.  Let's be friends?”  The boy pulled the clothes toward him with his feet.  “Hyma, had some smokes here.”  The boy said as he went through the pockets of the clothes.  “Yea, mon, here dey are.”  The boy put a cigar butt into his mouth with both hands.  “Gimme a light, mon?  Hey mon!  Give a boy a light.  What jou lose, mon?  Fuck, com'on mon!”

            As the old man stood up, he lifted a board with strips of meat stretched out on it for drying. 

            “Just a little fire mon, what jou say?”  The boy’s voice was overly friendly.

            The old man placed the drying board in the front of the tall wooden cart that sat some distance from the chained boy.  The old man closed a cover on a rack containing five other drying boards strung full of meat.  He then walked over to the fire, pulled out a burning clump of roots and tossed it at the chained boy.

            “Fuck, mon, jou crazy!”  The boy rolled over on his back.  The flaming roots fell where his feet had been.  The boy rolled back to a sitting position and looked at the flames.  “Oh, yeah, thanks mon!”  The boy bent over and lit the cigar stub. 

            The old man reached into the steaming pot that sat in the fire and pulled out a large bone that had a few chunk of meat still clinging to it.  The old man tossed the bone to the boy.  The steaming bone thumped in the sandy dirt also at the boy's feet.        

            “Oh, mon!”  The boy exclaimed.  “What a thoughtful gift jou are givin’ me.”  The boy grabbed the bone and started eating without wiping off the sand.  “Oh, so sweet!  We hadn’t found any meat in weeks, mon.  See, I knew jou were someone we should get to know.  Hee.  Hee.  Too bad the boys were not fast enough to be here.  Oh, he who is, is!”  The boy crunched into the end of the bone and sucked on the marrow. 

            The old man picked up the steaming pot, went into the tall wooden cart and shut the door.  From behind the door came the sound of a wooden latch falling into place.

            The grey coolness of dawn, the boy lay on the ground covered with the discarded clothing.  The boy's eyes snapped open.  He knew the sound that awakened him.  He knew the face of danger that now stared back at him.  He wanted to scream, but he knew it was too late for anything except death.  A flash of metal and red, he screamed deeply, again and again.  When he finally stopped screaming, the giant snake face remained before him, but now it was motionless and the slit-eyes were dead.  Its stillness allowed him to conquer his fear of the deadly visage, he looked up, the head had no body to propel it.  Only a blood trail flowed out behind the severed Death’s head.  At the end of the blood trail, the old man stood with the enormous body of the snake draped over his shoulders.  The old man held the still bleeding stump of the snake's neck over a large drum.  It sounded like rain drops as the blood pulsed into the metal container.

            “Hate dese fuckin' snakes, mon.”  The boy could finally yell.

            “It will keep us alive for a while longer.”  Said the old man as he squeezed the neck of the serpent to keep the flow regular.  “A blood breakfast is salty but keeps you alert!”

            “Hate those fuckin' snakes!”  The boy shook again.  “Killin's all dey're good for.”

            The old man dropped the body of the snake with a shrug.  He took a metal cup and dipped it into the metal drum.  The cup over flowed with the warm, partially coagulated, crimson.  The old man lifted the cup to his lips and swallowed its contents.  “Simply predators surviving like us all.”

            “Cook mine first, hey mon?”  The boy shook again.

            The boy drug himself from behind the rock with his elbow.  “Hey Mon, when you unchain me?”  The boy's wrists and ankles were still linked together.  “It been 'most three days, mon.  Jou good to dis boy here.  Feed him good.  I not go against jou.  Jou kill me if I did.  I'd know dat.”  The boy stopped crawling as he reached the end of the chain.  “Doing ma business is pretty smelly.  Oh my, yeah.  Da hole fillin' up anyway.”

            The old man walked over to the cart and pulled out a snakeskin rope that ended in a noose.  He turned around and threw the noose across the camp so it fell over the boy's head. 

            “Hey!”  Yelled the boy as he tried to shake the noose from his neck.

            The old man pulled the rope tight and tied it around one of the cart's large, wide metal wheels.  The boy screamed as the noose tightened on his neck.  The boy could not move without pain.  The old man pulled a set of keys out of his worn, dusty jeans and walked over to the boy.

            “What jou do mon?”  The boy was close to panic.

            “What you ask me to do.”  Said the old man as he bent down to unlock the boy's ankles from his wrists.  The boy's wrists remained together and attached to the chain leading to the boulder.

            “Oh, yeah, Ha . . . HA!”  The boy was sweating noticeably.  “Thank jou, my mon.”

            The old man walked back to the cart and released the rope.  “Take it off your neck, slowly!”  The old man said with force.

            “Sure, mon. da pleasure’s for me.”  The boy pulled the noose up over his head and then flung it on the ground.  “Jou no need to do dat.”

            “Just move slowly and everything will be fine.”  The old man coiled the rope.  “I need you to help me get more water.  You drink much more than I do.”  The old man secured the rope on a hook on the side of the cart.  From a compartment at the rear of the cart he pulled out a steel tube three feet long with a half-foot diameter opening.  One end of the tube was covered with painted sheet aluminium.  To the open end of the tube the old man fitted the two ends of a Y shaped steel link to the holes at the lip of the tube.  As he walked over to an outcropping of rock, a chain of many different linkages trailed out behind him.

            “Hey, wha's dat, mon?”  The boy watched the old man closely.

            “It's the only type of bucket that can make it through the openings in the rocks.”  The old man said as he looked at the aluminium bottom of the water ‘bucket’.  He then banged the bottom of the tube on the rock and looked at it again.

            “Dere water down dere?”  The boy was surprised.

            “Of course, it's just very deep.”  The old man placed a steel bar across a large crack in the rock and hung the ‘bucket’ over the bar.  He walked back to the cart while letting the makeshift chain run over the palm of his dry, rough right hand.  “What do you think those enormous snakes live on?”  The old man nodded in the direction of the long, sun-bleached, headless backbone that stretched out to the right of the camp.  At the cart he pulled out the remaining chain, found the end of the chain and threw it at the boy. 

            “Mon, I try not to think 'bout dose monsters!” The boy caught the chain in the air with both hands.     

            “They only come up to feed on the surface when they smell prey above.”  The old man went back to the ‘bucket.’  “If you let go of that chain, you let go of your life, understand?”  The old man looked directly at the boy as he said this.

            The boy shook all over and said, “Mon, jou no need to worry 'bout me.  I tol' jou dat.” 

            “It took me three seasons to put this length of chain together.”  The old man said as he lowered the bucket into the fracture in the rocks.

            “Oh mon, jou no need ta worry 'bout me.  Jou treat me better than my own fatha.”  The clanging and scraping of the bucket against the rock became more distant as more and more chain unwound.  “Da bastard!  When my motha die, I'ma gonna find dat pile of shit and kill him slow!  He chase me and my bother off even before we were growin' hair 'round our love sticks.”

            “He does take care of your mother, though.”  The old man said still looking down the crack in the rock.

            “So, he just want her ta feed and fuck him, dats all!”

            “He let you grow up until you could take care of yourself.”

            “My brotha not able.  He die early.  I live ta kill dat old fucker some day.”  The boy still held tight to the end of the chain.  A distant splash came up from the rocks.  “Why jou take his side, mon?  Jou don' know da piece of snake shit he ‘s?”

            “Pull up the slack.”  Said the old man as he began hauling the chain back to the surface.

            “Okay, mon.”  The boy pulled on the chain quickly. 

            The old man strained with each pull on the full bucket.  “Pulling through these rocks, Christ, it's heavy.  Must be getting old!”  The old man said to himself.

            “What jou say, mon?”  The boy was also straining to hold the chain.  “Jou are ol’.  Ha!”

            “Could you not say Mon, so much?”  The old man pulled at the ascending water-filled bucket.  “It's becoming damned annoying.”

            “Sure, sure, what ever jou want, mo . . . Fuckin’ water ‘s a real load.” 

            “It’s the chain.  It will get easier as we pull up more of the chain.” 

            “Don’ spill anythin’, I sweat more than we get, I think?”

            The old man smiled slightly and continued to pull hard on the chain.  “But the water is sweeter than you are.” 

            “I don’ know? I’ma pretty sweet guy, afta jou getta know me.  Ha! . . . Ha! . . .”  

            “I assure you it depends on one’s personal taste.”

            The boy continued to laugh as they pulled on in the rising desert sun. 

            The old man appeared suddenly at the side of the wooden cart.  “There is a scrounge gang of five approaching through the gorge.”  The old man said as he pulled at the locks on the door of the cart.  It was firm.  The boy jumped up and looked down the gorge. 

            “Can't see ‘m.”  The boy said.  “I need a blade, mo!”  He held out his chained wrists in the direction of the old man while still looking toward the gorge.  “Com' on, jou can’t leave me chained here without protection.”  The boy pulled at the chain that looped around the boulder.

            The old man looked at the chain, then at the boy's open palms.  The old man reached to his waist and flicked his short sword at the boy.  The sword slashed into the sand at the boy's feet.  “Keep quite and keep down.”  Said the old man and then he ran quietly up and over the rocks.  The boy pulled the short sword from the sand and then he lay down near the boulder hiding the sword underneath him.  The sweat dripped across his eyes, but he didn’t move.  He heard many footsteps approaching.

            The two scouts, both with large hunting knives, appeared at each side of the gorge.  The boy remained on the ground.  The one nearest the boy saw the chain and said, “Hey slave, where's your master.”   The other man ran around behind the cart.  The boy remained quiet.  “Fucker, where's your master?”  The man kicked the boy in the foot.  The other man came from behind the cart.

            “No one here!”  He yelled. “This thing is locked from the outside.”

            “We’ll have to break into it.  Go tell the boss to come ahead.”  The man said as he kicked the boy’s foot again.  “Hey, asshole, get up!  You dead?”  The boy thought it a good idea to play dead, rather than be dead.

            The scout with his hunting knife in hand re-entered the camp followed by two men armed with spears.  A large man with a broadsword in his belt strode just behind the two spear-carriers.  As a group, they walked over to the other scout near the boy.

            “What have we here?”  Said the man behind the three.

            “Some slave kid, Boss.”  The scout kicked the boy again.  “Male, unfortunately, I’m no sure if he’s alive even.”  The scout said as he bent toward the boy.  “I’ll check.”

            “Alive ‘s me.”  The boy yelled as he plunged the short sword into the stomach of the scout.  Everyone yelled in pain or surprise.  The boy pushed the dying scout off the sword into the other scout.  The men with the spears had to step around the scouts to get at the boy.  The long sword of the old man removed the head of one of the spear-carriers with a single pass.  The old man jabbed the released spear into the leg of the other spear-carrier.  Just as the scout pushed aside the dead scout, the old man stabbed the living scout in the chest with the long sword.  The boy grabbed the end of the spear as its carrier stumbled.  The boy pulled himself and the short sword into the man's abdomen.  The boy drug the sword back and forth inside the man's body, severing all life.  The boy was washed with the contents of the dead man's intestines and body cavity.

            The Boss died without drawing his sword.  The old man had cut the throat of the Boss with the tip of his long sword.  The old man hadn't even taken a step toward the Boss.  The Boss's body struggled violently with death on the bloody sand, but lost the battle, quickly.  Blood poured onto the sand from every side.

            “Holly, holly!”  The boy shouted,  “Are dere more?”

            “Not that I could tell, but I'll go check.”  The old man jumped over the now quiet bodies and ran off down the gorge.

            “Kill jou bastards!  Wow!  Oh Yeah.”  The boy swept the short sword back and forth in front of himself.  “Stand up and fight like men. . . Ha . . . Ha!”  The boy sniffed the air.  “Smells bad, even for me.  Don' jou boys learn manners from your parents.”  The boy looked around, put the short sword in his belt.  He then removed everything from the pockets of the bodies and piled it by the boulder; two cigar butts, four cigarettes in a dull metal cigarette holder, fourteen matches wrapped in a leather pouch, an old faded, broken picture of a naked woman, five sharpened, curved animal teeth, a human tooth, a couple of handfuls of wood shavings and many smooth stones.  “Not many smokes.  Too much blood.  Should clean up after dis kick ass party.”  The boy put one of the cigar butts in his mouth, leaned over and pulled out the Boss's broadsword.  “This’ll do just fine.  Okay boys now lend-a-hand in da plantin’.  Ha!  Ha!  Sure jou will be right in dere.”         

            The old man walked slowly into the camp, “Found their camp, five seems to be all there was to this band.  I got their water bag.”  The old man stopped, he could only see two bodies and no boy.  The cart was untouched.

            “Wow!”  Said the boy as he walked from behind the boulder.  “I’ma buryin’ dem with my own shit.  This place gonna stink worse then it does now.”

            “Drop the sword!”  The old man had his long sword within striking distance of the boy's chest.

            “Shit, mon?”  The boy released the broadsword and held his hands out away from his body.  “Be calm now.  Be calm.”

            “Take the one from your belt and toss it to me, easily.”

            “Sure, whatever jou want.”  The boy removed the short sword with his fingertips and tossed it at the old man in a high arch.  The old man caught it by the handle in the air.  “I tol’ jou I’ma no fool.  I not go against jou.  I be dead like our visitors here.”

            “Sure, sure.”  The old man backed away from the boy to the other side of the camp. 

            “Our buddies swords and knives and othra stuff, I stack over dere by da fire.”  The boy pointed to the weapons in the dust. “I kept da smokes.  Jou can have ‘em if jou want.”  The boy pulled the cigarette case out of his hip pocket and held them out to the old man.

            “No, no, they're yours.”  The old man looked toward the cart.  He picked up a cup, took up some water in it and went over to the door of the cart.  He unlocked the door and then turned around.  “You’re right about the smell.  It will attract all kinds of things.  We had better go before dark.”  The old man then entered the cart and latched the door once inside.

            “I’ma still locked to dis rock jou know.”  The boy shouted.  “Oh, well, I'll just finish my cleanin' up first.”

            “I feel like da fuckin’ ox.”  The boy stood in front of the wooden cart.  His chain was looped around his two shoulders and the end was locked to the front of the cart.  “It make jou happy?”

            “Pull on the chain!”  The old man stood to the side of the cart with his short sword in his left hand.  “It seems secure enough.  I’ll be pushing from behind, so go up over that rocky patch, then straight on into the open desert.”

            “Almighty, no one go out dere!”  The boy shook his head.

            “That is the very reason I'm headed that way.  There are too many people wandering around in this area.  It’s safer away from the people.”

            “Jou right dere!  Jou one dangerous bastard, but jou eat good!  So, I die witha full belly.  It has been worse.”  The boy begun to haul the wooden cart.

            “Boy, in my long life I have learned, that no matter how bad it is, it can always get worse.”  The old man walked to the back of the cart and pushed.

            “Jou right, Jou right, Jou so right . . . Fuckin' ox, I am . . . beast of burden . . . Damned heavy.”              The wide metal wheels of the wooden cart screeched as they manoeuvred it onto the rocks.  The cart was easier to move on the rocky layer.

            The dusk embraced them as they sat on the sand at the side of the wooden cart.  The old man looked off into the distance ahead of them.  The boy looked back the way they came.  The boy took a hard bite from the dried strip of meat. 

            “No one com’ after us.  We could ‘ve fire.”  Said the boy turning to the old man.

            “No fires for a few more days.”  The old man scanned the darkening horizon.

            “No water either?”

            “Just tuber shavings and cactus pith for at least two days.”  The old man pointed to the rocks just visible as black bumps on the horizon.  “There should an opening to water in those rocks.”

            “No one come out here,” The boy said shaking his head.  “’cause of no water and da killer snakes.”

            “This area use to be all green just a hundred years ago.”

            “Not in dis world.”  The boy chuckled and took another bite of meat.

            “The way I heard it was, the scattered nuclear blasts that occurred at the end of the last big war, caused a change in the tilt of the axis of the earth.  Rapid and dramatic climatic changes like these were the result.”   The old man shucked on his teeth.

            “I don’ know what jou say man.  I heard des lies before. Dey just to scare the kiddies.  Dey not real.  Never been any different here.”

            “Maybe so, it's been like this my whole life.”  The old man shrugged and turned toward the boy.

            “So what ‘bout da snakes?  Jou know so much, I wanna know too.  We survive good with what jou know.”

            “There must be a vast water table connected by a network of caverns all around under this desert.  That is where the snakes live.  They must have moved there when the air got so dry.  Likely that many other animals have gone to live down there too.  The snakes hunt those creatures for food, usually.  They must have some other source of food than what they can get on the surface, which isn't much.  Mostly, just unaware children like you.  Anyhow, those snakes only come out on the surface at dawn before its too hot, then only around the rock opening.”  The old man scratched at the sand before him with his fingers.

            “Jou right there.  My boys never stay da night in da rocks.”  The boy said as his body shook all over.  “We thought jou must be crazy mon, ta camp in da rocks, so we comed ta see what da crazy bastard had to offer.  We found out dat, oh mo . . . ah sorry.  Jou more dangerous dan da snake.  Jou eat dose ugly fucks for breakfast jou do.  Jou make dis boy feel safe ta be with jou.  Safer dan in my life.  Jou like no other boss 'round.  Mo . . . uh, jou somethin' special!  Oh, I shit more dan ever, I eat everyday!  No boss, I heard, gets his clan food everyday!”

            The old man chuckled, “Doesn't take much to make you happy, does it?”

            “No, no, no, m . . . If ma belly ain't a yelling at me ta fill it.  I happy as a bug on a warm rock.”  The boy patted his stomach and smiled.

            “It will get worse out here.”

            “Oh, me with jou, so I not afraid.”  The boy laughed.

            “I think you should be.” 

            “Oh no, not me.  Jou can show me how to make it in dis hell hole of a sand pit, so I’ma full a joy for my life.”

            “We should all fear for our lives out here.”  Said the old man as he stood up.  “You just don’t know enough yet.”

            “Hey, Ol' Bossm’n, could I sleep on top of the wagon.  The ground here ‘s cold as my fatha’s heart.”  The boy spit on the ground beside him.

            The old man looked at the cart door, then up at the top of the cart.

            “What I do?  What could I do ta jou?  Jou my best Boss.  I won't wanna lose jou.”

            “Okay, but move slowly.  Any rapid motion and I will kill you.”

            “Slow as a lizard before dawn, ‘s me.  Never jou worry.”  The boy stood up grabbed the top of the cart with his chained together hands.  “Gimme a lift?”  The boy put out his foot to the old man.  “Com’on justa boost?”  The boy shook his foot at the old man.  The old man reached over and lifted the boy up easily.  “Thanks.  Bossm’n, I will sleep fine ‘bove my best Boss.”

            The old man cleared his throat, entered the cart and latched the door behind him.

            “Finally, we reach dese stinkin’ rocks!”  The boy fell spread eagle in the red dirt.

            “They were a bit further away than they looked.”  The old man sat down heavily in the on a small out cropping of rock. 

            “Dere sweet water here, I hope?”  The boy rolled over and begun to remove the chains from around his chest.

            “At least, that’s correct.”  The old man put his face over a small fissure in the rock.  “I can smell the moisture.  I just hope we can get at it.”

            “Jou get the bucket and I pull the chain.  I pull all night if need be.  I wanna real drink, not nothing dat I squeeze out of plant or animal!”

            “Okay, but quickly before it gets too dark.”  The old man got up and went over to the back of the cart.

            “No moon ta night.  Should be black as that pit with the water and the monsters.”  The boy sat up and shook his torso.  “Funny, would be scared pissless so close to dose crawling deaths down dere, but we be fine, now.”

            “I am reassured by your calm.”  Said the old man as he handed the boy the end of the chain.  “That crack over there looks big enough for the bucket to slip through.”  The old man walked over to the fracture in the rock face and pushed the bucket into the opening.  Before releasing the bucket, he turned around to face the boy.

            “Hold on for ma life!  I know.  I will.  I wanna drink too!”  The boy shook the chain.  “Let it go, jou ol’ snake butt!”

            The old man shrugged, turned and began the bucket's descent.  The opening was clear and the bucket moved down unobstructed.  As the boy let out chain he said, “Ol’ Bossm'n, jou have a cat in dat wagon?”

            “Why do you ask that?”  The old man said as he looked down the crack in the rock.

            “Last night, on da roof, I hear purring sounds in dere with jou.  Jou got some pet in dere I know.  Jou bring it food and water.  Bring out its messes.  I see dis, I do!” 

            The old man continued to lower the bucket.

            “Jou wanna keep it to jour self, huh?  I hear’ ‘bout furry little kitty cats from my motha when I was a boy.  She was gonna get me one som'day.  I never seen one though.  Jou got one?  I’d like ta just see it.  Ol’ Bossm’n, jou hear me? Jou Ol' Bastard, jou are dat.  Why no answer me?  Damn, Ol’ Bossm’n keep da ding for jour self.  Fuck it anyway!  Maybe dats what jou do, huh?”

            “Shut your mouth!”  The old man yelled still looking down the crack in the rock.

            “Okay, Okay, mon, sorry Bossm’n.  I just, just been pulling dis cart too long.  Need a drink.  Sorry Ol’ Bossm’n.  Jou right!  I shut up.”

            “Then do it!”  Said the old man, then there was a distant hollow splash.  “We’ve hit water, start pulling up.”

            “Oh, now my mouth will be busy soon, no more talking just drinkin' and drinkin’.”  The boy smiled at the old man's back.  “Hey, Ol’ Bossm’n, since we stop here for a while.  Jou show me some sword handlin’?”

            The old man strained to pull up the chain and the bucket. “You handled a sword pretty well back there.”

            “Dat was nothin’ special.”  The boy pulled hard on the chain.  “Dose guys just stupid to stand so close together.”

            “See you already know the most important factor in a fight.  It is other people's mistakes that allow you to win the battle.”

            “No, it not, just luck!”  Said the boy.

            “No, not luck.  The skill is not making the mistake first.”  The old man looked over his shoulder at the boy.

            “Like da mistake of every fightin' with jou my Ol' Bossm’n.”

            “Maybe so, maybe so.  Get the big pot off the cart I’ll hold the water here for a moment.”  The old man held the metal tube just above the crack in the rocks.  The water flowed over the lip of the bucket and darkened the old man's hard, dried hands.  The boy placed the large metal pot at the feet of the old man and stepped back.  The sound of the water jumping into the pot was like music to both of the men.

            “Even sounds sweet!”  Said the boy as he stared at the water filling the pot.

            “Oh, it is so very sweet.”  Whispered the old man.

            The rasping of the sand broke his sleep.  Even atop the roof of the cart, the boy could hear the dry sand scrape against the massive reptilian scales.  In the middle of camp a dark column swayed in the gloom.  The morning stars reflected yellow in the two eyes that demarcated the head of the column.  The snake was bigger by two than any other snake the boy had seen, living or dead.  The snake smelled the air with its tongue, directing itself in the predawn darkness to the warm animal scent.  The boy lay very still and kept his breath slow and shallow.  The head of the snake raised high off the ground, scanning for the prey it knew was up there.  The boy was not afraid.  The old man would kill even such an enormous monster.  There was nothing to fear with the old man here. 

            The snake's determined the proper direction and distance to its meal, thumped its heavy body on the ground, and slid toward the cart.

            “Hurry, Ol’ Bossm’n.”  Whispered the boy.  “Where jou at?”

            At the side of the cart, the snake lifted its head, tongued the air again and then pushed its massive body up the side of the cart.

            “Hey, Ol’ Bossm’n.”  The boy mumbled into the roof of the cart.  The scales grating on the wood shook the cart, gently.  “Ol’ Mon!”  The boy’s voice was louder.  The dark pyramid of the serpent head rose slowly past the edge of the cart roof.  The boy's breathing matched that of the snake's.  The hunter and the prey had made contact.  The snake pulled back to strike, the boy screamed and rolled off the other side of the cart.  The snake's teeth whined as they clasped against one of the metal crosspieces of the roof.  The immense creature hissed in pain and frustration.  The boy screamed again and dived under the cart.  The snake propelled itself against the side of the cart.  The cart rocked to one side.  The boy screamed, again. 

            The snake pulled back for another lunge.  At that moment the cart door sprung open and the old man threw a broadsword into the pale chest of the rearing monster.  The old man followed closely behind the flight of the wide dull blade.  The old man slashed his long sword across the body of the snake just below the impaled broadsword.  The snake snapped at the old man as he drove the short sword deep into the side of hissing beast.  As the snake bend down in another attack, the old man drove his long sword through its neck.  The sudden backward jerk of the snake wrenched the long sword from the old man's hands.  The old man grabbed the imbedded broadsword by the handle and pushed it back and forth inside the snake's body.  The serpent's tail flipped about wildly.  Clouds of dust and sand stung the old man's eyes.  He pushed harder on the broadsword, until the blade penetrated through the body and severed the snake's backbone.  The raised body of the snake slammed into the ground with an even more dense cloud of dust.  The old man had let go of the sword to jump away from the falling beast.  The snake's jaws still snapped as the old man extracted the long sword from the monstrous neck.  The old man chopped again and again before the head was finally separated from the body.  The body convulsed with waves of blood being thrown into the now, greying light of dawn.

            The old man stood covered with blood and sand.  He stood there without movement.  The boy lay under the cart, his arms covering his head.  The dust finally settled.  The death rattle of the beast ceased.  There was no sound but three people's breath.  The boy looked out from between his arms.  All quiet except for the breathing.  The boy turned over on his back and pulled himself out from under the cart.  As he stood up, he looked into the open door of the cart.  The old man had never let him see inside before.  It was dark, but there was the faint outline of a person resting in a pile of clothes on the floor.  This was the source of the third person's breath sounds.  There was someone else in the cart!  The boy turned around just as the old man kicked the boy's feet out from under him.  The old man, sticky with snake blood, landed on top of the boy. 

            “Ol’ Bossm’n, don’t please!” The boy yelled with the little breath he had left.  “Dey your’s!  I know! I know!”

            The old man’s sour breath filled the boy's face.  The boy stayed very still.  The old man looked into the boy’s eyes.

            “Dey yours!  Dey all yours!  I know!”  The boy cried.

            The old man pushed himself up off the boy, pulled the cart door closed and snapped the lock together.  The old man walked over to the snake's body and removed the short sword.  “Get up and help me with this.  We have fresh meat for breakfast today.”

            The boy slowly got to his feet, “Sure, Ol’ Bossm’n, I help you, sure.”

            The old man shook his head.  “The trip must have really exhausted me.  I never would have let this thing get so close.  God, I feel old.”

            “We eat good today.”  The boy walked to the side of the old man.  “We all feel better then, okay?”

            The old man walked down the snake's body to the broadsword.  He cut into the side of the serpent to expose the broadsword handle.  He grasped the bloody handle and pulled.  The fluids in the snake pulled back on the sword and then released.  The blade came free with a sticky, sucking sound.  The old man tossed the broadsword at the boy’s feet.  “Here, take this and start cutting down the middle of the body.”

            “Okay, Bossm’n!  Whatever you say.”  Said the boy.  As he bent for the sword, the boy never took his eyes off the old man.

            The old man nodded his head and said, “Good, that’s the second lesson in sword fighting.  Never take your eye off of the enemy.”

            “Put the last of the scraps in the pot.  It’s almost to a boil.”   The old man stood over fifteen boards, all of them had long strips of snake meat stretched out on them.  “These should dry soon in the heat.”

            The boy dumped the chunks of meat from the blade of the broadsword into the large metal pot.  “All done, when do I eat?”  The boy took the broadsword by the blade and extended it handle first toward the old man.  “Here.” 

            The old man turned around and looked at the offered handle.  He looked into the eyes of the boy.  The boy offered a quick smile.  “You keep it.”  The old man turned back to the boards.  “If there are any more monsters like this one out here, you'll need it.”

            The boy slowly pulled the sword back from the offer.  “You teach me some tricks with dat blade?”

            “Sure, later today.”  Said the old man.

            “Oh, you won't be sorry.  I can help you to hunt and kill.  Yes, I can.”  The boy rubbed at the dull blade with his shirtsleeve.

            The old man walked over to the cart door, unlocked it and went in.  As he came back out, he carried an extremely thin human in his arms.  The boy stood perfectly still as the two emerged from the cart.  The old man propped the thin person up against the side of the cart in the shade.  “She has been in there too long.  She needed to get some air.”  The thin female face smiled at the old man and hummed a positive response.

            Standing absolutely motionless, the boy said, “Ol’ Bossm’n, can I move?”

            “Yeah, yes.”  With a metal cup, the old man reached into the boiling snake stew.  “She needs to eat something fresh, too.”

            The boy walked very slowly to the other side of the fire and also reached into the boiling pot with a metal cup.  He handed it across the fire to the old man.

            “She's not very strong.  All she can comfortably eat is broth.”  The old man spoon-fed the thin woman from the cup.

            “She your wife, Ol’ Bossm’n?”  The boy said softly.

            “No, no, I found her about two seasons ago.  She was worse than this then.”  The old man looked into her eyes as he fed her.  “Never thought she would last.” 

            “You found her?”  The boy looked at the ground in front of him.

            “Have you ever wondered about those roaring sound coming from the sky every few days?”

            “Da boys use ta say it ‘s God farting, but I don' believe dat.  God not even waste a fart on us.  I don' know what dey are.”

            “Those sounds are sub-orbital transports re-entering the atmosphere.”  The old man wiped the woman's mouth with his thumb.

            “Wha’ ever you say Ol’ Bossm’n.”

            “You know, flying machines.”

            “Oh! Sure.”  The boy said and continued to look at the ground before him.

            “Well, they don't always complete their journey.  Even back in the time I lived in the city, the fleet was beginning to deteriorate.  No one was interested in maintenance just use it until it breaks.  Stupid Bastards!  Oh, well!  When these things have problems on re-entry they usually will explode.  Emergency escape pods along with the wreckage of the transport fall on the desert.  Most of the cart and what metal I have here comes from that wreckage.”

            “My boys use ta look for da metal to make swords for fightin’ and tradin’.”

            “There does seem to be more of the debris around than there use to be.  Anyway, about two seasons ago I came on some transport wreckage, but most of the usable material had been gotten already by other scrounge gangs.  All of the visible escape pods had been cracked, their passengers were dead, their bodies rotted, a waste.  The emergency rations were all taken.  Sometimes though, if the pod comes down at a steep angle, the pod will bury itself in the sand.  If you look carefully, you can find the buried pods.  I found the one that contained her.  She had been buried a long time and had wasted away to this.  I have been taking care of her since then.”

            “If dese people from da cities, why I never see any city types looking for dem?”

            “The people on the coasts want nothing to do with the desert and those few that live out here.  That is just as well.  I don't want to have anything to do with them.  They’re all crazy.  All city people are like the snakes, they’ll eat you if you're not paying attention.”

            “Not much different out here.  Only the best, strongest bosses can make you feel safe.  You the best boss.”  The boy said to the ground before him.

            “Out here though, there is enough space to get away from most people, or at least, it gives you enough time to take care of the situation before you’re lost.”  The old man looked at the boy and continued.  “Oddly enough, I feel more in control of my life out here, than I ever did in the city.”

            “You in control, no question from me.”  The boy shook his head.  “You sure are, ta me.”

            The woman hummed pleasantly smiling at the old man.  “Remember that.”  Said the old man.

            The boy nodded his head rapidly.

            “We are so far out that few people would have come here.  There should be transport debris some where out here.”  Said the old man.

            “You show me how ta find it.  You show me what ta do.”  The boy said to the ground.

            The old man and the boy stood on the top of the rock outcropping.  The old man pointed down into the barrenness that opened before them.  “See it out there, the rippled sand, like ripples in water.  In the center of those ripples is a pod.  I’m certain of it.”

            “Looks far away.”  The boy shielded his eyes from the sun with his hand.

            “About a day there without the cart.”

            “Leave her alone?”  The boy looked at the old man.

            “I have to do it sometimes.  I leave a rag hanging out of a can of water just beside her mouth, so she can drink.  She is tougher than she looks.  Let’s go!”

            “Whatever you want, Ol’ Bossm’n.”

            The old man kneeled in a shallow hole in the reddish sand.  His hand was on the black, curved wall of a small escape pod.  “This is made of a high quality composite.  This isn't from a domestic transport, this most be a military design.”

            “So, let's bust it open and see what’s dere!”  The boy hopped from one foot to the other.

            “Could be booby trapped.”  The old man stood up. 

            “After all dat digging, you’re not goin’ ta open it?”  The boy stopped hopping.

            “I’ll open, just more carefully.”  The old man wedged the broadsword into the latch, climbed out of the hole, and pulled his long sword from its back sheath.  He pushed on the handle of the broadsword with the long sword blade tip.  There was a burst of smoke and sound as the black composite hatch exploded out into the shallow hole.  The old man looked at the boy.  The boy shrugged.  "Always watch the enemy."  The old man said and he jumped into the hole.  The boy followed immediately.

            The pilot was encased in a dark seamless foam body suit that merged with the virtual reality, 360 degree flight helmet.  The pilot's sealed body hung against the seat restrains.  The old man reached around the pilot, detached a silver container and shook it beside his ear. 

            “Still about half full.”  He passed the container back to the boy.  “Here’s some recycled water.  Save it for the trip back.”

            The boy placed the container outside the pod.  The old man popped a rack from the wall and backed out of the pod.  “All the food rations have been eaten, but here's the personal armoury.”  Attached to the rack was a small automatic rifle and two 9mm automatic pistols. 

            The boy pulled off one of the pistols.  “What’s dis?” 

            “That is a gun.  I bet you have never seen one.”

            “No way, a gun, mon, you dreamin.’” The boy held the pistol close to his face.  “You mean we can kill people from far away now?”

            “No.”  Chuckled the old man.

            “What you mean. You said dis was a gun.  I even know dat guns hurt people far away.”

            “Guns in general do that, but not this gun.”  The old man reached over and pointed the barrel away from the boy.  “Now, hold it like that and go over there about ten paces and pull the trigger, that thing hanging down by your finger.”

            “I can’t.”  Said the boy.

            “Why, not?”

            “I can’t count.”  The boy turned away from old man.

            The old man laughed.  “Go over there by that dune and pull the trigger.”

            The boy walked slowly over to the dune, while the old man continued to laugh.  At the dune, the boy turned and pointed the gun at the old man.  “You stop laughing at me or I shoot dis at you!”

            “Go ahead.  Fire away.”  The old man laughed.

            The boy pulled the trigger and nothing happened for a second.  The boy looked at the gun then screamed dropping it.

            “Hurry!  Get away from it.”  Yelled the old man. 

            The boy turned and jumped to the other side of the dune as the guns hissed and exploded.  The old man roared with laughter.

            The boy peeked over the dune at the remains of the gun.  “What you do ta dat, you ol’ fool?”

            “Oh, it wasn’t me.  A long time ago, the military realized that guns were dangerous in other peoples’ hands.  The military became the sole manufacturer of weapons.  They made all weapons personalized to an individual.  They put an identification device in each weapon, so only the person the weapon was made for can use it without it exploding in your face.”

            The boy walked back to the pod.  “You could have tol’ me dat, without me being blowed up.”

            “Personal experience is the best teacher.”  The old man put his hand on the boys shoulder.  “Now, you know why there are no guns out here in the desert.”

            “Thanks, you great teacher you.  Scare me so much I almost pissed my pants!”  The boy jumped back into the hole beside the pod.  The massive flight helmet pulled back in the seat.  The boy screamed, “Fuck, he alive.”

            “Yes, I know.”  Said the old man as he stepped down into the hole.  He pulled out his short sword and leaned into the pod.  The old man cut the seal at the base of the helmet.  There was a rush of air and the helmet rolled off the pilot's small head.

            “He just a kid, younger dan me.”  Said the boy.

            “No, they modify them before they are born to be this size.”  Said the old man as he pulled the pilot's head back by the hair and put a knife to the pilot's throat.  “Smaller pilots, less fuel needed.”

            “Why kill ‘em?  He almost dead, anyway.”

            “He would kill both of us if he were able.  Still, I have a reason not to just let him die.  I prefer fresh meat for dinner.”  The old man cut the pilot's throat to the backbone.

            The glow of the small fire lit the old man's face, he chewed slowly.  The boy was away from the fire, swallowed in the night.  He walked into the weak circle of light and reached into the dusty rucksack. 

            “We should save the dried meat for the trip back.”  The old man said then took another bite of roasted meat.

            The boy pulled out a piece of dried meat and gnawed at the blackened protein as he walked back into the darkness.

            “Have you seen any animals other than the giant snakes, small lizards and the bugs?  If your disgust comes from human flesh, be disgusted with yourself, that’s not snake or lizard.  It might even be one of your boys.”  The old man looked off into the darkness.  “What are any of us once we’re dead, just protein, food for something.  The pilot might as well be our dinner, instead one for the desert insects.  I just won’t waste food, there is so little of it out here.  If you kill, you might as well eat!”  The night remained quiet.  “Unlike the scrounge gangs, I will only kill a man when he makes it necessary to my survival.  Humans are too dangerous to do anything with but avoid.”  The old man stood up and spoke into the night.  “What good is a moral code if you’re dead?”

            The boy slipped noisily down the rock face into the narrow gorge.  Loosened rocks rolled along with his descent.  The boy kept his broadsword held high above his head.  The old man moved along the lip of the gorge, watching the fissures in the rock face and not the boy.  The boy landed so heavily at the bottom of the gorge, he fell forward onto his face. He still held his sword high.

            “At least, I didn’ land on it!”  Yelled the boy as he got off his face.  He looked up at the old man.  The old man watched the gorge in front of the boy.  The boy shook his head and walked into the gorge, "You some dried up piece of shit, you are, Ol’ Bossm’n.  You right, my boys end up good for som’ thin’.  Keep me going a little longer.  Thanks guys.”  The boy said to the sky.   

            The sun was just below the lip of gorge, so its middle was in the shade.  The boy walked along enjoying the relative coolness of the shade.  He began to hum to himself and lowered his sword almost to the ground.  The large snake propelled itself along the shaded sand directly toward the boy's humming.  It did not lose speed as it raised its triangular head from the ground preparing to strike at the boy's stomach.  As the boy saw the advancing serpent he started to pull his sword up.  The middle of the sword blade banged into the lower jaw of the snake.  Its head tumbled to the sand at the boy's feet.  The old man stood at an arm's distance from the boy.  At the old man's feet writhed the decapitated body of the snake.

            The boy heard a hiss behind him and turned on the approach of another slightly smaller snake.  The boy thrust the tip of his sword into its ruby mouth.  The old man leapt around the boy and impaled the struggling, scaled pyramid with his long sword.

            “Don’t usually find two together like this.”  Said the old man as he twisted the long sword in the snake.  “Good reactions you had there.”

            “Ah, thanks.”  The boy pulled slowly back on his sword drawing it from the snake’s mouth, the red fluid of life followed the retreating weapon.  “Didn’ even see it.”

            “Good, reacted first, that's what I said about surviving.”  The old man put his foot on the snake and pulled out the long sword.  He then walked down to the tail of the snake and kicked it over.  “Yeah, a female, that guy over there is a male.  We killed a mating pair.”

            “Lovers ugh, serves dem right.  I got nobody but myself.  None of dem should have any fun.”  The boy stabbed the broadsword into the sand to clean off the snake blood.

            “There could be a number of young around here, we had better hurry.”  The old man walked over to the larger snake and lifted the tail up on his shoulders.  “You can pull the female out of here can't you?”

            “I been draggin’ dat damn cart all over dis desert, I can hold dis mama.”  The boy pulled the smaller snake's head over his right shoulder.  “Jou first, dis time.”

            “I want ta do somethin’ else.”  The boy jabbed the broadsword at the chest of the old man.  The old man's short sword brushed the thick, dull blade off to the side. 

            “You should stab harder.  Don't worry about me.”  The old man sheathed the short sword.

            “Me not worry, you not worry.  We agree here.”  The boy jabbed the broadsword at the old man.  The old man slapped the sword blade out of the boy's hand.

            “Hold tightly and use the tip of the blade, the rest of it is no better then a club.”  The old man walked toward the small figure that reclined in the shade of the cart.  “I have to get her some water.”

            “I got her a drink 'fore we started practice.”  Said the boy as he picked up his sword.

            The old man bent down and touched the slim figure’s smiling lips.  The old man smiled back at her.  The old man stood and walked to the cart.  He pulled out the water ‘bucket’ and a length of chain and then moved out into the ever increasing heat of the desert afternoon.

            “Yoowwww!” Echoed down the gorge walls.  The old man reacted to the boy's scream by securing the water ‘bucket’ chain by quickly wrapping the end, repeatedly around the base of a boulder.  He drew his long sword from the back sheath with his right hand and the short sword from his waist sheath, breathed once, then sprinted up the gorge toward the camp.  No other sounds had come from the camp after the first scream.

              As the old man jumped into the campsite his eyes were directed at the slim figure sitting in the shade.  She was slumped over.  Blood seeped from all around her.  A figure shot from behind the cart, the old man exploded toward it, broadsword tip ready.

            “Wow, mon!  Wow, mon!”  Cried the boy as the old man ran toward him.  “It’s me Bossm’n!  I killed da snake!”  The boy held out his left hand.  It held the bloody, but still twitching head of a medium sized snake.  With the tip of his long sword, the old man pierced the left eye of the bloody head and flipped the disembodied serpent in a high arc out of the campsite.

            “Hey!  What you do dat for?”  The body looked at the old man.  “I wanna keep dat head.  I kill it maself.”

            The old man quickly ran back to the woman and gently pulled her back to a sitting position.

            “She fine!  I not let da snake get at her.”  The boy stabbed at the air with his broadsword.  “Get dat monster in da neck.  Blood go everywhere, but da piece a shit try to run away.  I catch it back dere and hack its fuckin’ head off.”  The boy walked in the direction of where the old man tossed the boy's trophy.  “I gonna keep dat head!  It mine!”

            The old man looked into the woman's eyes.  They smiled back at him.  He tried to spit into his left hand.  His mouth was too dry.  He dipped his left hand into the metal bowl of water near her.  He kept his right hand always on her shoulder.  He poured water down her face.  The reddish hue flowed down her into the sand around her, and then evaporated into the desert air.  He continued to pour water over her until the water was gone.

            The boy came back into camp.  “I tell you, I'm keepin’ dis head.  I got it maself!”

            “Fine, fine, fine.” Said the old man as he stood up.  “Looks like a young one.  It probably belonged to the mating pair we killed a few days ago.”

            The boy looked in to the face of the snakehead.  “See boy, I kill your parents and I kill you!”

            “There must be more of them around here, too.” 

            “Good,” the boy yelled into the distance.  “I kill all of you too, when I see you!”

            “No, it’s too dangerous.  This one attacked in the middle of the afternoon heat. Something strange is happening out there.  We have to go.”  The old man picked up his swords from the ground next to the woman.  “Start packing up, we have to leave here as soon as possible.  I’ll get more water and get back here quickly.”  The old man said as he walked toward the gorge.

            “Okay, Okay, you the boss.”  The boy watched the old man walk down the narrow walled gorge.  The boy turned toward the woman and said, “Where we gonna go?  Dere nothin’ out dere, at all.  Da old mon, he me best boss but he crazy most times.”  The boy laughed and shook his trophy in the sky.

            The boy pulled and tugged at the chains around his chest.  Despite the heat, he wore two old shirts; two shirts because of the hot chains.  The sun baked them almost to scalding.  The hot chains around the boy and his forward motion pulled the cart forward.  Still, the old man pushed from behind.  The old man used a sun bleached snake skull as his buffer to the hot metal walls of the cart.  Counter to his convention, the sides of the cart were open also because of the heat.  The heat dominated all actions and all thought, rather non-thought.  All three suffered but understood the imperative to evade, to run from the giant snake predators, plunging head long into the deep desert heat.  Heat was better than death.  Sweating was better than being swallowed alive.  Better than being digested as a conscious whole.  True hell was a snake’s stomach, not the hot dry desert.  The alternate death to the stomach hell was dehydration; dehydration unto death.  Were some deaths better than others?  Is death simply death, nothing more?  Can a philosophical intent affect death?  Avoidance of death was the simplest truth.  “Don’t die.”  Was all that came to mind.

            The three thus answered these legitimate questions with movement, slow flight from the certainty of a snake to the uncertainty of the vast wasteland dryness.  It wasn’t philosophy that allowed the uncertainty to dominate their action.  It was their faith in the skills of the old man.  Day after day; night after night, it was the old man they looked to.  His strength kept them all moving.  But strength had its limits.  Blind faith had its limitations.  Desire though, physical desire was always there in the boy’s young body.  Desire can be beaten into a corner.  It can be cowered by excessive stress and fright, but it can’t be destroyed.  Humanity hadn’t become extinct simply because of the persistence of desire.

            The boy was flooded with stress, fatigue, and fright, but he was an adolescent.  Desire was his center.  Desire drove itself to the surface.  Desire kept trying.  The old man knew about such desire; his and others.  The old man feared that desire, but here they both were together.  All three had refused to be digested.  Refused to be food, yet.  They escaped that density together by choice.  It forced the old man together with the boy’s desire.  The old man was always sandwiched between fears.  Fears he hoped he could control.  He had been able to control them so far.  But he feared his age, too.  Age had diminished him.  The years had worn him down.  He sagged.  He limped.  Still, the old man watched as much as he could.  Controlled as much as he could.  But the old man had to sleep sometimes.  There was nothing else he could do.  So they pushed and pulled on into the uncertainty ahead.  There was nothing else any of them could do.  Uncertainty was the only known.          

            The nights, at times, were cool, always cooler than the sun lashed day.  On one of those cool dry nights, desire expressed its persistent self.  Everyone sought privacy.  The old man and her closed into the cart.  The boy left exposed to the lonely, but cool night.  So, the boy crawled behind a rock.  Put the rock between himself and the cart, himself and he rest of available humanity.  Most human emotions were social, except desire.  Desire needed privacy.

            Even to the boy, who grew up in a gang of boys, needed privacy for his desire.  In the desert, females were hard to come by.  The privacy always ended up to be complete.  Early on, the boy had learned self expression of his desire.  It was the only way.  Women were diamonds to the boy; hard, unbreakable and scarce, or so he had heard.  His hands were flexible and available.  Dry and rough could be overlooked.  Dry and rough had to be overlooked.  Desire’s persistence could overlook so many obstacles and barriers, at least, the desire for desire.  The fulfilment of desire could be and was regularly interfered with.  His penis was stiff.  Its rigidity could tolerate the grit and sharpness of the ubiquitous desert sand, but any climax of that desire seemed to have evaporated, fled into the dried out desert like the sweat of his brow.  The boy tried and failed.  Tried and failed.  Napped, tried and failed.  Eventually though, the boy and his desire for desire accepted defeat.  “Shoun’t waste moisture like that, anyway.”  The boy looked up over the rock barrier at the calm cart.  “Ol’ mon likely has no problem with dis either?”  The boy shrugged at the inadequacy of youth.  “Ol’ mon.  You are such a mon.” 

            The boy fell asleep drooped over the rock.  The rock lost its sun absorbed heat easily.  The rock was thus cooler than the night air.  It felt good.  It felt pleasant.  Stone cold, but comfortable.  Pleasure was relative.  Pleasure depended on perception.  The boy only cared that it was cool.  Being hard and unyielding was just like everything else in his life.  The unusual cool pulled him immediately into deep, non-nightmare, healing sleep.  Sleep shutting out the hardness of the real world.  A pleasure in itself.   

            Surprisingly, fear wears thin, too.  Fear gets forgotten.  Fear evaporates like water in the heat.

            “Old Bossm’n, dis is da most crazy thing you do.”  The boy stood in front of the seated old man.  “We been out here many days and found nothin’, absolutely nothin’, cause dere nothin’ out here.  No water, no food, no plants!”

            “No snakes and no people.”  Said the old man as he looked down at the sun-hardened earth in front of him.

            “Only us three fools!”  The boy turned around in a circle.  “Only us, stupid enough to come out here.”  The boy sat down beside the old man of the cracked ground.  “We don' got much water or food left, Ol’ Mon. We gotta go back!”

            “It’s too dangerous back there.”  The old man stood up but remained in the same place.

            “It fuckin’ dangerous here too, Ol’ Boss.”  The boy stood up. “We die here but only difference here is, it is from thirst!” 

            “We are not completely without resources.”  The old man said in a low voice and he looked at the woman laying in the shade of the cart.

            “You don' mean her?” 

            “No. I don’t!”  Said the old man as he turned to look the boy in the face.  “Why do you think you are here?”

            “You my best boss, and I your best boy.”  The boy took a step backwards.

            “I never wanted to be anyone’s leader.  You chose to become my ‘Best Boy.’  That was never my intention for you.”  The old man stayed in the same position.

             “You mean I was just an animal to you.”  The boy put his hand on the hilt of his broadsword.

            “We are all just animals or bait.  Some are just better at survival than others.”

            “No Ol’ Bossm’n, you won' do this to me.  I help you with her.  I'm your best boy!  Mon, Ol’ Mon.  Damn Ol’ Mon.”  The boy pulled his sword from his waist sheath.  Before the boy had the broad blade fully removed from the sheath, the old man had grasped the boy’s sword hand and pushed it toward the ground.  The old man drove the hilt of his short sword into the right temple of the boy's head.  The boy hit the ground limply.

            The old man rolled the boy over on his back.  The old man pulled over the metal blood ‘Bucket’ and laid the boy’s head in its opening.  The boy’s neck rose up toward the sky.  The sharpened edge of the short sword just touched the taught skin of the boy's neck.  The old man heard the humming of the woman.  He looked up at her.  Her eyes were intense.  Her eyes were everything.  Her eyes were the only thing.  The old man waited to know what to do.  The old man waited.  The day got hotter.  Her stare got more intense.

            The old man lifted the blade slowly.  He moved the boy off of the blood ‘bucket’ onto the ground.  The old man stood and walked over to the woman.  “I made the first mistake by letting him live originally.”  The old man picked up the square of cactus pith from beside the woman.  “This will be my second mistake!”  The woman smiled at the old man.  He then walked back over to the boy and squeezed the pith over the boy’s dried cracked lips.  The boy’s eyelids fluttered.  The old man stood up and said.  “Okay, jou right, we’ll go back mon.” 

THE END

Copyright 2006 - MWC

 &&&&&&&&&&&

Just to be perfectly clear!

All Rights to this piece reside with the Author

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