The Feather (the rest of the story)

Katy wearily undressed listening to the sound of the tub filling. It was good to be home again. Her mind wandered back over the dreaminess of the last month or more as she stepped out of her dress. The small iridescent tip of a peacock feather floated to the floor as she freed her breasts from her bra and dropped it to the floor. She smiled down at it, as she stepped into the tub. She felt her tired body slowly going limp as she laid back in the warm water and felt it caressing her. She closed her eyes.

The Mojave desert had been scorchingly hot as she had driven west. She had taken the advice of the old man at the gas station miles back and turned off her air conditioning. "The less you make your motor work, young lady, the better your chances of making it across." He had been skeptical in looking over her rusted out Ford. Who knows how long that odometer had stopped counting the miles? It was at 217,000 miles, whenever it had given out. Under the hood, he had shaken his head several times in looking over her belts and hoses. Nevertheless, he topped off her oil and coolant and had given her two gallons of water. If you don't need it, your car might." he said. She sat in her car as he disappeared into the weathered wooden shack to get the change for her twenty. The whole place looked like a kindling pile that would go up in flame if someone lit a match. He approached her window and leaned down to look at her as he handed her several oil stained bills. "Take this too." he said, handing her a roll of silver duct tape. "Your radiator hose ain't the best I've ever seen. If it blows, you can probably patch it together with this. If you lose your coolant, the water I gave you might help you make it to the next station. Where you headin', anyhow?" "San Diego, I guess." she replied. Truth is, she wasn't sure where she was going. "Looka here," he said, pulling a map from his back pocket. He traced her route with his finger. "Bull Head City is about a hundred miles down the road. There's a Texaco just as you're comin' into town. If you're needin' help, ask for Johnny. He's my nephew. From there you can go south to 95 west. That'll take you through the Joshua trees, and you'll hit California right along the Mexican border." She smiled at him as he handed her the map. She looked at him in her rear view mirror, standing there along the roadside waving at her with a dirty red grease rag as she pulled away.

The old man hadn't boosted her shaky confidence by any means. But she knew he was shooting straight. The desert looked beautiful and scary at the same time. Why she thought California might offer her anything more than any other place, she wasn't sure. In fact, she wasn't sure of anything.

Her mother's advice had been, 'Look, you just gotta do what you can, with whatever you've got, wherever you are." She fought back an impulse to cry. It would be a waste of precious water under the circumstance. She glanced at the water jugs on the floor board, and then to the map on the passenger seat. She picked it up and looked at it. From its folds, the twenty dollar bill she had given the old man fell to the floor between her legs. That's when the tears began to fall.

Katy didn't quite make it to Bull Head City. She could actually see it in the distance, shimmering like a mirage. She opened the hood and backed away from the thick smoke that suddenly came billowing up from her motor. She went to the trunk and rummaged through it, not really knowing what she was looking for. She opened one of the boxes she had packed and looked down at its cluttered contents. Memorabilia. She wondered why she had even packed it. Nothing all that memorable about any of it. She picked it up and threw it off to the side of the road, its contents spilling out on the dusty ground. "I am not going to feel sorry for myself, damn it!" she muttered. She walked over to the cardboard box, and angrily tore it apart and took one whole side of it back to the car. She, in fact, did feel quite sorry for herself at the moment. And that was pissing her off even more. She didn't want those feelings, but they were there. She got in behind the wheel and looked at herself in the rear view mirror. She brushed her wind-blown hair. She put on some lipstick, then smeared it across the cardboard, the word, 'HELP!' She laughed, from somewhere deep inside her, about how ridiculously murderous the dark red letters looked. As though drawn in blood.

It was a plan. Not much of a plan, but a plan. It wasn't the big plan about California. It was a little plan. She would just start walking, with her purse slung over her shoulder, a gallon jug of water in one hand, her "HELP!" sign in the other. She would wave it around to anyone passing by. After several weary miles, she began to realize the flaws in her plan. Only one car had passed her and it was going in the opposite direction. A state trooper, no less. He didn't even slow down, even though she flipped him off as he sped by. She tossed her cardboard sign off into the air watching it sail a few yards and land in a mesquite bush. It was another oddly funny moment. She tipped the gallon jug up and took several large gulps of the more than tepid water as she walked over to the bush. She poured the remainder out over its dusty drak green leaves.. It splashed onto the cardboard sign and stained the soil a darkish brown. "Here you go, you mindless thing. Just remember, my name is Katy, I gave you water when you didn't even ask."

It took another hour to get to the outskirts of Bull Head. From a distance it appeared to be a big and busy city. But coming in on the East side, things looked rather shabby and run down. Windows on buildings seemed covered with a fine desert dust, as did the cars and trucks parked here and there. Looking ahead to the next block she could see a sign suspended over the sidewalk. It was the red Texico star. She felt weak and a bit light headed from walking almost three hours beneath the desert sun. She walked past an old rusty looking tow truck and saw the legs and boots of someone sticking out from under the front of a pick-up truck, and she could hear some muffled cursing. "Excuse me," she said, bending down to peer under the truck. "Is Johnny around?" "Johnny's busy right now.", was the reply amidst some more cursing and banging noises. She stepped back as the man began to slide out from under the truck. "How can I help you, ma'am?" he said as he stood and wiped a bloody knuckle with a grease rag. "I'm looking for Johnny.", she said. "Why? What's he done now?" "Oh, it's nothing like that." she said, " His uncle told me to ask for Johnny if I was needing help." The man squinted at her, shading his eyes from the sun with his hand. "You talkin' about that crazy old man way back down that road a good ways?" he said, gesturing off to the east with a nod of his head. "Umm, well, he didn't seem crazy to me.", she replied. Oh, he's crazy alright; harmless, but crazy as they come. What's the problem, ma'am?" "Well, my car broke down way back there." she said, pointing down the road. He tossed the grease rag onto the pavement behind him, and looked at his watch. "Will Johnny be back anytime soon?", she asked. "Look, lady", he replied, "How far down the road did you break down?" "I don't know", Katy shrugged. "It took me a couple of hours or more of walking to get here." "Come on", he said walking toward the tow truck. He opened the door, "Hop in. We'll go take a look at the situation." "You mean, right now?" she asked. "Yep, time's awastin' darlin', he replied glancing at his watch again. She climbed up into the dirty cab of the truck.

She glanced over at him as they drove down the highway. He was quite brown skinned. With black shaggy hair tied back with a bandana. She looked at his hand on the steering wheel. His knuckle, still bleeding in a red trickle down toward his wrist. "You need a band-aid for that cut." she said. He glanced down at it, then raised it to his mouth and licked it. "Look down there in that tool box," he said, pointing down to it on the floor board at her feet. "There might be a band-aid in there somewhere." She rummaged around through the greasy tools. "Oh, here's one. Hold out your hand." He glanced over at her as she gingerly applied the band-aid to his knuckle. "What's your name?" he asked. "Katy," she replied, glancing up at him. "What's yours?" "Johnny." he said, smiling at the surprised look on her face. "You mean, the crazy man is your uncle?" He nodded, chuckling. "It kinda runs in the family."

Johnny figured out the problem, he'd seen it before. "It's seized up." he said, turning to look at her. "What does that mean?", Katy asked. "It's a major melt down, so to speak. Your oil pump blew, and so the motor got so hot, the pistons got froze up in the block." Katy looked at him. "It got so hot, it froze?" "Something like that." Johnny said. Katy sat down by the side of the road, and began to cry. "It's not that bad." Johnny said, kneeling in front of her. "Not that bad?" Katy said with her hands over her face. "I am stuck in the middle of the desert, with a motor that just froze because it was so hot, and that's not bad? I am so fucked!" Johnny brushed her hair away from her face. "No, it's not that bad. I can drop another motor in for you in 48 hours. " She suddenly laughed hysterically. "Oh, and so, how can I afford that?!" "Hey, look, I got three motors sitting in the back of the garage with nothing to do. You can make it up to me one day. I can tell you are on your way somewhere, and I'd like to help you get there."

Katy spent the next two days at Johnny's mother's house. The old woman seemed constantly in the kitchen. Constantly putting more food in front of her. Both Johnny's mother and father agreed, she was way too skinny for a girl her age. She went up to Johnny's apartment in the attic, and slept with him at night. He was a sweet and gentle lover.

Katy stepped out of the tub and wrapped a towel around her. She walked barefooted through the boxes of all her stuff. Tomorrow she would head back to Bull Head City, and with a brand new motor. She tickled her nose with the peacock's feather Johnny had given her, then tucked it under her pillow. She faded into sleep thinking about Johnny, what kinds of jobs there were in Bull Head City, and how, of course, she would stop off to see Johnny's crazy uncle.

Line in the Sand, (the rest of the story)

Jake Atkins drove slowly down the winding road through the trailer park negotiating the mud holes and ruts. The place looked more like an abandoned junk yard than a trailer park. Some of the trailers were empty, their doors open, windows broken out. Broken down rusty old sedans sat here and there on flat tires, or no tires at all. Broken furniture was strewn here and there. Black plastic trash bags ripped open by ranging dogs, spilled cans, beer bottles, dirty diapers and rotting food along the roadside. He glanced over at a dull maroon '73 Buick parked beneath the rusty steel frame of a child's swing set. The car's hood lay nearby in tall weeds. A black greasy motor hung suspended above the Buick, dangling precariously from a chain, its weight pulling the overhead pole of the swing frame into a sagging bow. Everything looked just the way it did some 3 months ago when he was thrown into the county jail. He pulled slowly up to trailer 39 and sat there with the motor running, his eyes scanning the windows that were draped in white sheets. He saw several fingers pulling back the sheet a small bit, then closing it again. She had seen him. He glanced down at his watch, and lit a cigarette.

Deanna grabbed a pillowcase stuffed with clothes and hurriedly scribbled a note to her father. "Fuck you, asshole." was all it said. She swung the door open and ran toward Jake's car. They hugged and kissed and then Jake floored it doing a 180 degree fishtail , his spinning tires flinging a spray of mud into the air. "Oh, my God! We did it!" she said sliding over close to Jake. "Did you get any money, baby?" Jake asked putting his arm around her. "I got a little." she said grabbing the hand on her shoulder and kissing it." "How much?" Jake asked as they turned out of the trailer park and onto the county road. "About a hundred dollars." she replied. "That should get us to Galveston." he said, shifting into fourth gear, and turning to smile at her. "What's in Galveston?" she asked, kissing his cheek. "It's just a place to get lost in, baby." She rested her head on his shoulder as they crossed the railroad tracks on the edge of town. "What if he finds us, Jake?" she said quietly. "If he's got any sense at all he won't try. What I did to him last time, ain't nothin' compared to what he'll get if he shows his face again." Jake replied.

Jake had just done 90 days on an assault charge for going after Deanna's father with a baseball bat. He had broken the old man's leg just below the knee. But, he had it coming, as far as Jake was concerned. After seeing him throw Deanna against the wall so hard the blow knocked her out. Lucky for her father, that he hadn't broken Deanna's nose, because then the bat would have come down over his head. He glanced over to Deanna. "You sure got a cute nose." he said, reaching over to pinch it. "Quit it Jake," she giggled. "You're gonna run us off the road." There was one thing for certain, her father would never lay a hand on Deanna again; or see her again, for that matter. He turned off on a side road and into a driveway and pulled up to Jackson's house - a buddy of his. "Stay here, baby," Jake said, 'I gotta pick up some clothes and stuff. I'll just be a minute." "Hurry, Jake," Deanna said, "I'm scared." He kissed her. "You ain't got nothin' to be scared 'bout anymore, baby. You're with me now. I'll be right back," he assured her, giving her nose another playful pinch. Deanna nervously chewed on a fingernail and turned to look out the rear view window toward the highway, as Jake disappeared into the house.

She watched as Jake stood at the front door holding a large green Army duffel bag. She smiled as she watched them awkwardly trying to say goodbye. The quick and manly hug with slaps on the back, and a high five, then knocking their fists together. The door closed and Jake approached, tossing the bag into the back seat. "Let's go baby." he said firing up the engine. Jackson came running out of the house, waving his arm at them. "Dude" he said, handing Jake a small box through the open window. "I almost forgot to give you the bullets."

The Rest of the Story

From Galveston, the ride to Bolivar Island was short and by ferry. There was plenty of work there on the island since the recent hurricane. In fact, the island was a somewhat surreal scene as they drove across the debris littered sands of its wide and desolate beach. Beach houses lay in piles of splintered wood or were simply blown over onto their sides as though taking a nap. Inland, there were some sounds of industry. There was the churning sound of chain saws sectioning Live Oak trees that had been up-rooted and thrown about. The voracious noise of chippers reducing them to mulch. There was the sound of bulldozers pushing destroyed homes into burn piles, and here and there the black and sooty smoke of large fires darkened the sky.

For awhile, it was not too bad for Jake and Deanna. They spent their first several nights sleeping beneath a brown canvas tarp that had washed up on the beach. They had draped it over a palm tree that had almost been taken out by the gale winds but still hung on, leaning low to the ground. Jake got a job feeding tree limbs into a chipper. Deanna worked for a guy with a lunch wagon, a truck that drove through the neighborhoods selling sandwiches and cold drinks to the demolition crews. A week later they secured a better shelter. A small two room above a garage. It had survived the storm, but sometimes the structure swayed in gusts of wind. Deanna was sick a lot in the early stages of her pregnancy. And Jake worked that much harder.

It all ended quite abruptly. Within two months, Jake was dead. A falling rafter of a beach house being pushed down by a dozer had snapped his neck. The crew boss assured Deanna that he never knew what hit him. The bus ride back home was bleak, with Deanna crying in the arms of some woman she didn't even know. She walked wearily down the road into the trailer park, the heavy duffel bag dragging along the ground. Nothing had changed much in the three months she had been gone. Except for one thing. Trailer 39 stood abandoned and boarded up. A neighbor informed her that her father was dead. He had died in the front yard while staggering out to his car. Police said it was a drug overdose.

It was Jackson, Jake's buddy who helped Deanna pick up the pieces of her life. They now live together in Cleveland in a small but comfortable apartment. Jake's son, also named Jake is going on seven. There is another baby on the way.

Botched

It is often this way in a city so large. One encounters people never seen before while walking down the street. The bus is crowded with strangers. And yet, the air was filled with chatter. Small talk. People who knew nothing of each other, except perhaps what they might guess about the other judging by their appearance. Young? Old? Married? Single? Happy? Sad? Nervous? Poker-faced and blank? Asleep? "And how must I appear?", he wondered. In a suit and tie, with a folded Wall Street Journal under his arm. A business man, perhaps? A banker? A lawyer? Today he took a seat next to a young woman who held several books on her lap, looking out the window. She had on a dark but faded looking dress that came to about mid-calf. Over that she wore a bulky knit boat-neck sweater of a dreary gray. It was tattered and had several unravelled places revealing the dress beneath. But, most intriguing were her shoes. They were boots, actually. And he recognized these as a kind of boot he had worn in the air force some years back. They were brown and scuffed, having lost the high polished appearance they would have had on an officer of that time. She wore thick olive green socks folded and pushed down in bulky folds around her ankles and covering the top of her boots.

All of this he took in, in discrete glances, as she gazed out the window. Her appearance was quite different and alluring, in some strange way. She, perhaps lived in a world quite different from his own. More strange and interesting, perhaps. He felt so staid and stuffy in his suit. As though, she was one who lived as some new-age bohemian sprout on the fringe of the culture, and he was more like a tick sucking what blood he could get out of the establishment. As though she was clean and pure in her shabbiness, and he was soiled and dirty in his crisp new suit. His shiny shoes.

He was momentarily taken aback when she turned to look at him. "Do you have the time?" she asked. "Of course." he smiled, glancing down at his watch. "It's 11:32." Of course, he, of all people, would know precisely what time it was. He calibrated his watch daily to the tick of coordinated universal time. Time, for him, was of the essence. Time for him, was, indeed, money. He glanced back at her, absorbing the features of her face quite quickly. This, too, was important in his profession. To perceive quickly and accurately the subtle unspoken nuances, body language, facial expression and gestures of people. Understanding such characteristics, whether of the client or their competitors, often made the difference in making or breaking a deal. "Thanks" she said, turning back to stare out the window again. So, what was he to make of her? She was quite pale looking, as though she rarely sat out in the sun. Her hair was short and straight. Black, but with a kind of metallic quality about it. Like the sheen of a Purple Martin's feathers. Her ears were pierced, but not like the fashion of the day. Instead, the holes in her lobes had been stretched open enough to accommodate two spent 38 caliber shells. Bright and silvery. There was a certain edginess about her, a toughness of appearance that was feigned perhaps, to keep people at a distance. Yet, beneath all that there seemed to be some uncertainty, some vulnerablity. She seemed so different from the simple packaged personas he usually dealt with. More complex and paradoxical. He glanced down at her her crossed legs. Her arm draped lazily across them. Her limp and dangling hand. Her slender pale wrist. The thin silver chain wrapped around it. The tiny silver dagger that dangled from it, swinging hypnotically like a small pendulum. He looked up toward the front of the bus as it slowed down. The approaching street sign. This would be her stop. And his, as well.

"Excuse me." she said in standing, "This is my stop." "Mine, too," he replied, standing to let her go ahead. He walked slowly behind her down the block. She turned into a juice bar that offered smoothies, and bubble tea as well. He followed her in. She placed her order at the counter, and turned to look at him. "Are you following me?" "No," He said shaking his head, "I come here all the time. They make the best orange-banana smoothies. I am addicted to them." "To each his own." she said with a shrug, picking up her bubble tea and retreating to a booth. He ordered his drink and turned to look over at her. She had opened a book and was sipping her tea through a lime green straw. He looked at his watch. It was getting late.

She looked up as he approached. "You're following me." she said. "No, really, I'm not some kind of 'weirdo axe-murderer', or anything. But, you seem like an interesting person, and I'd just like to talk to you. May I?", he said, pointing to the seat opposite her. She looked around the empty room, and then back at him. "Sit down, if you want. It's a free country. But, I am reading an assignment right now, and don't care to talk to you, or anyone." He sat, and placed the newspaper on his lap. He watched her flipping through the pages of her book. "Interesting read, I suppose?" he said, as she reached beneath the table to scratch her leg. He reached slowly for the gun in the fold of the paper. He had been sent to kill her. She looked up and straight into his eyes. "You are following me, aren't you.?" He smiled, about to speak. And that is when she shot him, from under the table. His whole body jerked violently and his gun fell noisily to the floor as he clutched his leg. The shot had missed its intended target, his groin, but it had shattered his kneecap. He fell over in excruciating pain, clutching at his bloody pant leg, feeling pieces of bone beneath it. She bolted for the door, glancing back at him as she threw it open. "Bastard!", she shouted. And then she was gone. That moment of ambivalence had been his undoing. His intentions had been clouded over somehow by the look in her eyes. It had only momentarily disabled him, freezing his finger on the trigger. But that was all it took. It had been just another in a long list of lucrative jobs to do. But, that brief moment of vague desire had left him bloody and moaning on the cafe floor.

___________________________________________

Audra sat on the side of the bed and bent to unroll the thick woolen sock that was draped down over her boot. She pulled it up over her lean calf enjoying the way it warmly hugged her leg. She wearily retrieved the .38 snub nose from its holster around her ankle, and tossed it onto the bed. She was tired. She had sensed from the moment of waking up that morning that this would be the day some shit was going to go down. But it wasn't what she had expected. Jack had hired a stranger to do his dirty work. What an idiot, to think she wouldn't see through that. She slumped back on the bed, staring up at the dark stains on the ceiling as she untied her boots and let them drop to the floor. She raised herself up on one elbow and grabbed a small box from her bag, and plugged a fresh shell into the empty chamber of her gun, and spun the chamber as she looked around the room. What a dump. But there was no way to return to her apartment now. Not with Jack and his stooges looking for her. She fell back on the bed and fell asleep without undressing.

_____________________________________________________

Jack paced angrily around the hospital room. "What the hell happened?" Johnny looked past the trapeze-like affair that held his leg suspended. His words were slurred from the pain meds they had given him. "I was just about to nail her....I didn't know she even had a gun....." he said, wiping some drool from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. "It's my gun, damn it! She took it when she took the money." Jack muttered. "She's one cold bitch, Jack." Johnny replied. "Yeh," said Jack, putting on his leather jacket. "She's gonna be one really cold bitch down at the morgue when I find her. What did you tell the police?" "I didn't tell them nothing. I just said some psycho chick tried to whack me for making a pass at her." Johnny replied. "They think I'm the victim."
"So, where's the gun?" Jack asked, stepping up to the bedside. "The cops took it into evidence. But, what the hell, I've got a license to carry. I told them it musta fallen out of my holster after the bitch shot me." Jack turned to leave. "Hey, Jackie", Johnny called out. Jack stopped at the door and looked back. "When you kill the bitch, shoot her in the knee first." Jack nodded. "Just for you, Johnny. both knees."

_________________________________________________________

Audra stood in front of the mirror adjusting the blond wig on her head. It had been cut and shaped into a retro page-boy look. It fell nicely around her face and concealed her dead give-away piercings. "Hi, my name is Dinah. Dinah Shore.", she said looking at herself in the mirror, and turning this way and that to examine her figure in the floral print shirt-waist dress she had found at the thrift store. "See the USA, in your Chevrolet...", she sang to herself as she strolled over to the tattered stuffed chair by the window. She glanced out the window, at the street below, as she slipped her feet into a rather cheap looking pair of white mules. She threw the gun into her bag first. Then her cosmetics. She paused to check her lipstick in the mirror of her compact. "Kiss it all goodbye, Jack," she said, smoothing out the blush on her cheeks. She stood, tossing her compact into her bag. There was business to attend to. A car to rent. A plane ticket to purchase. But first and foremost, a trip to the bank.

At the bank, she was known as April Hofmeister. And they knew her only as a blond. Her only account was a safety deposit box. This had taken months of planning. Months of putting up with Jack's cheating and lying. He had ripped her off on the last three jobs they had done together. That's three times too many. But it took awhile to put together another identity. To stumble onto the combination of his safe. To catch him in a drunken sleep, and take the money that was rightfully hers, and the rest of it as well. She drove slowly past her apartment building. It was not worth the risk to gather some things and pack a bag. As for the cat, surely someone will adopt her. She's probably on the roof of the building right now, stalking sleepy pigeons. There were just two more things to attend to. She pulled up to the drive-in window of her mother's bank. She made a substantial deposit. Enough to buy off her nagging guilt about leaving her mother to fend for herself, and a bit of a bonus too, for all the times she had put her mother through hell with her reckless ways. And now, there was but one more matter of business between her and the airport.

_____________________________________________________

Jack sat behind his desk in the office at the Drunken Sailor Lounge. He was on the phone and on the fax sending Audra's photo out, cashing in favors owed, and making promises he couldn't keep. Five grand for a photo of her with a bullet in her head. Ten grand, if you can deliver her to me alive. He put his hand to his neck and felt his pulse as he strolled out into the dim blue lights of the lounge, and motioned to Jason behind the bar. "Gimme a double shot of bourbon...the good stuff", he said. He looked over at the attractive red-head at the bar. "Get her whatever she's drinking." he added. Jason nodded. He strolled over to the woman. "Welcome to 'The Drunken Sailor', he said, easing onto a stool near her. He was desperately in need of the kind of relief a woman could offer. His eyes traced the long loose curls of her hair as it draped her naked shoulder. He watched her as Jason pushed the fresh drink to her. It was tequila, straight up. She threw her head back and tossed it, then slammed the glass down on the bar. She shook her head in the sting of the drink going down. "What do you do with a drunken sailor?" she asked, turning to him. "My kinda woman!" were Jack's last words. He never heard the shot that dropped him. The last thing he saw was Audra's eyes. Audra, motioned with her finger to Jason who seemed in a state of shock. She slapped two crisp one hundred dollar bills onto the bar. She picked up Jack's double shot of bourbon and handed it to him. "Pour it on his face, Jason, and find another job." "Whatever you say, ma'am"' Jason stammered. Audra walked toward the door, looking back to watch the splash of bourbon on Jack's blue face trickle to the floor and mingle with the growing pool of blood. She had 30 minutes to get to the airport. Plenty of time.