The Tin Cowboy

[MalReynolds]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

First draft.

...

I like that word

[FoJaR]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

yeah they were just so close together!

[MalReynolds]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

Doors opened and closed while I remained seated, eyes shut. I played the last few seconds over again and again until the last few seconds grew into the last few minutes, and before long, the Rec Hall was almost filled. I almost stood when I felt a hand on my shoulder – I turned and George was standing there, beaming. The light coming off of his teeth was almost too much.

“Hey, bud,” I said. “What’s going on?”

“Who’s your favorite?”

“That’s a non-specific question. My favorite what, actor? Movie? Singer? Pick for American Idol? Maybe girlfriend. Favorite chia pet type?”

“Whose your favorite George?”

“Washington.”

George laughed and sat down across from me. Joining him was one of the Gary’s – what looked to be the Alpha if my memory was worth anything – and several other student’s who I had never seen before. George did a roundtable introduction to their generic names, which I quickly forgot, but found that they were also members of the student council. They sat in a circular fashion with George at the head, looking very much like Jesus in “The Last Supper,” had Jesus been a stocky kid with glasses instead of a savior and son of God.

“We’re all here to talk to you about enrolling in Westing,” George said.

Lord, I hadn’t expected to have to deal with a public service announcement or recruitment video. Oh, the things I do to make good on my word.

“Okay,” I said. “So… Talk,” I shoved a chip in my mouth.

Girl A, who was sitting at the far left of the table, began to speak. She was talking about twice the speed of a hummingbird and with all the clarity of a radio after an atmospheric nuclear detonation. I believe she was the representative from the Student Activities’ Committee, from what I could hear, and they offered all of the wonderful escapes that static has to offer. I managed to make out something about a Frisbee club, which brought me jarringly back to the world where I was reminded that I was at a college. No where else in the world would a Frisbee club even be considered, much less considered practical to existing.

There was a large man sitting immediately to her right. His muscles were rippling out form under his shirt like some kind of Spartan ready for battle, and he wore a backwards visor. If I had gained fifty pounds in muscle, we might have looked similar – he was even wearing the same size clothing I was wearing. After Hummingbird stopped talking, he started, not even giving her time to pause.

Spartan was the Student Athletic Co-coordinator. Of course, he spoke very slowly, choosing his monosyllabic words very, very carefully. He even went so far as to mention the Frisbee club again, although this time there was an air of disdain in his voice rather than the air of excitement that Hummingbird emitted from every pore. It was the disdain that only someone who practiced actual physical activity could manage when speaking about a club whose main pillar of existence revolved around throwing a hard plastic disc.

He brought up wrestling and self defense, and in what I could only consider his one period of lucid and creative thought, offered to arm wrestle me. I declined.

Then there was George, who passed the buck. The Student Council, the grand joining of higher representatives of the main clubs in the school. The people that carried the power that mattered only to the six square acres that comprised Westing. Kings of the ruined castle.

Next to George was another woman. Her hair was bright red and her face doubly pale that Ms. Roberts had been on the Island. She spoke almost normally, although at a volume so low only a dog could truly make out what was being said. From what I could gather – pale skin, long tapered fingers, and rough patches on the tips of said fingers – she either worked with computers or pianos. She mimed typing something, confirming that it was the former rather than the latter. The Technology Foundry, the only club that might have a real future, and yet their best representative was someone who would fit in far better with Gothic Englishmen from the sixteenth century rather than computers.

And lastly was Alpha Gary, commander and chief of the Dramatists Guild. He was well spoken, even as far as the be somewhat enthusiastic about what he was trying to sell. A genuine enthusiasm, much more so than Hummingbird and without the boredom of the Spartan. Of course, I couldn’t be moved by anything he was saying. All I could do was feign interest and hope that it didn’t trigger him into some homicidal mood.

“So, what do you think,” George said when they were all finished verbally assaulting me.

“Sounds pretty good, I think. So… When am I supposed to meet with the Dean o’ Students?”

“Well,” George paused, “We – we, all of us, Alice, John, Alice and Gary all think you’d be better off talking to the Dean of Admissions.”

There was a solemn nod around the table. Even Hummingbird’s mood seemed to have dropped, and here I was, thinking the only way to make her remotely sad would be to fling her into the sun.

“No, no. Come on, I said Dean of Students.”

“Why are you so bent on that? He’s not a good person. You’re better off if you go with the Dean of Admissions, Tim. It’d increase your chances of actually getting in to Westing about a thousand fold – don’t throw the opportunity away.”

“I’m going to rely on my natural charisma to somehow ease me through the situation.”

Hummingbird spoke very slowly and very carefully. “Tim,” she said, her normal voice deep and mellow. There was no doubt in my mind that she would be a terrific singer if she could manage to take it down to this peg more often. “None of us trust the Dean of Students. Eric isn’t good people, you know. Don’t you know anybody that you just don’t trust? I’ve talked… I’ve been around him before,” she said, clutching one arm, “He’s…” And then she stared to cry. Right there, right next to me, she started to sob. She pulled her hands to her face, apologizing profusely for the outburst through the messy sound of inhaling that only true sadness can bring.

Spartan reached over and put his arm around her, pulling her in and holding her, rocking gently.

“Alice had to meet with the Dean one day,” he said. “She hasn’t been the same since.”

“Since? What happened?”

John looked down at her. Her body was wracked with shivers and coughs. “We don’t talk about it anymore.”

“God,” I muttered under my breath. No, there was no way I’d meet with the Dean of Students now. Eric Larson wasn’t a man fit to be around anyone at Westing. He sounded like he would be best kept in a three by three box all by himself.

Everyone was staring at me, dead eyed, except for Hummingbird who was still sobbing into the Spartan’s arm. Their eyes were pleading me not to talk to Eric, that it was an option but it was more of a death wish for any kind of future that I wanted to have. But what kind of future did I have? I had found at Westing something I could do that could change the lives of a thousand people, and all I had to do was meet with Larson. All I had to do with shake his hand and act congenial, and then one thousand lives would be changed forever. Hummingbird would be vindicated, and I would have done my part to cut back on the epidemic that had made its home so soundly in Westing. I felt, in that moment, with the Student Council staring me down with their guilty eyes, that I had found something worth calling my future – even my destiny, on some level. I was creating my own past again, my own history. And what a brave first step it would be.

“When can I meet with Larson?”

George sighed. “Tomorrow, at two. The administrative building is next to the Women’s dorm, across the Quad. But… We warned you, Tim. If you don’t get in, don’t ask for any more favors,” George stood. “Good luck tomorrow. I went ahead and told them your last name was Smith, so that’s what the appointment is under. I hope it goes well, I really hope it does.”

Gary, Hummingbird, Gothic and Spartan all stood with George. They quietly walked away from the table, towards the doors in the back. None of the four even so much as spared a second glance behind themselves as they exited. They were acting like I had chosen some kind of a death sentence, that the man in charge of the students was some kind of monster – and judging by Hummingbird, that might not be a far off assumption. But to them, I was a dead man walking. No future here, no future anywhere else.

Oh, if they only knew what I had planned to write in the book of my life.

Maybe winding up at Westing hadn’t been chance at all. Maybe it had been fate. Maybe the cosmic forces, the yin to the greater evil of Westing’s yang had pulled me in, leading my by the nose to this place and stripping me of my memory, using me as a vessel to right innumerous wrongs.

Maybe. Maybe I was just a washed up junkie, an ex-dealer that was so drug addeled that I couldn’t remember where I came from, afraid of upsetting the very people that I represented – the users that would snap at any second. Perhaps I would snap… It was possible.

I hoped it was my destiny rather than my curse to be at Westing. And hoping was all I had.

[MalReynolds]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

-

The trek outside of Westing was bitterly cold. Mother winter had laid her breath across the roads, coating them with a thick layer of snow. The trees that lined the walkway to the Dorms were coated with ice and every breeze make a whip-crack of the ice breaking. I had one more step I had to take before I left things up to chance with Larson. There was only one person I could trust implicitly that knew more than anyone how important it was to get Larson out of there, and it was coincidentally the man that had talked me into it. Ollie Haines knew about the setup and was the only person who did.

I walked to the beach through the snow, my shoes sagging down and my feet growing numb. Most of the store fronts along the shore had closed down for the season, leaving me with nothing but wet feet and a slight chill. My shoes were layered enough to keep a large majority of the water out, but it was enough to make me shiver. The beach was no longer a beach, rather and extension of the white I had been floating along – the shore line looked like one large interconnected blanket that led into Westing instead of a divide of sand and concrete.

The outcropping of rocks was empty, as was the immediate shore. There was no motor boat tethered to a post, there was no row boat floating off of the rocks. It was empty.

I kept walking in the direction of The Kinder, hoping that by looking down the right back alley I would run into Haines. The alleys started to get more and more spaced out until I was no longer trekking through the beach outside the city at all, rather through the beach that bordered the fields that led to the Carnival grounds. The ground beside me rose higher and higher as I kept walking, until it was hard to see the top – all that was seen was the sheer rock face next to me, the tiny cracks and crevices filled with ice. In a thousand years, they would expand enough and the entire structure would collapse, dropping whatever field lay above into oblivion. Given one thousand years, anything could go to oblivion.

I set a way-point down the line, at the horizion. My deciding point, where I would turn around and head back, declaring the search fruitless. The way-point was a small post that stuck in the ground, and as I approached, I found it not to be a small post at all, but rather a walking stick that was leaning against the cliff face. A few feet down, there was a man, staring out at the sea. A thin fog set down around us, but in the snow, it made visibility almost impossible.

I approached him very quietly, hoping that I could walk past without him noticing, but he heard me and turned. The walking stick, I gathered, was not a walking stick at all, rather a rudimentary device that allowed him to feel cracks and crevices in the ground, because he was quite blind. He took his hand, holding it out.

“Whose there? No one comes here anymore. Who is it?”

“I – I go to Westing, sir.”

“You’re a long way from home, son.”

“Probably,” I said. The old man grinned, smile lines creasing his face.

“You’re pretty far out here, you know that? Maybe six or seven miles from the college, if I’m counting right.”

“I’ve been walking a lot these days. But that’s… Yeah, the distance can really sneak up on you if you’re not careful.”

The old man sighed. “Yes, yes it can. When you’re like me, you have to be careful.”

I looked at him and he turned back to the bay. “What are you doing out here, sir? You’re a ways away from anything that resembles society. And what are you doing, looking out over the bay?”

“I used to walk out around here a lot when I was younger. And I like the sound of the ocean, you know? It provides comfort for my ears, something that my eyes will never have again. When I turned fifty, I decided to take a walk all the way out here, and I had a pretty bad fall… So this is my spot now. I take this spot, it’s mine, and I don’t walk past it. I can’t, really. After the fall, my mind won’t let me move from this spot.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s nice here. I feel like I could go on, make something of myself, but I can’t find my stick anywhere.”

I turned, and the stick was no longer leaning against the wall next to me. The fog had to have been playing tricks – it seemed to have moved two feet away from me when the old man had approached, as if it were avoiding him.

“It’s leaning against the wall right over here,” I said, walking over and taking it in my hand. It was hot to the touch.

“I can never seem to find it,” he said. “And I can’t go anywhere without it.”

I walked over and took his hand, turning it over. He opened his fist and I placed the walking stick in his grasp. His fingers wrapped around it, and he smiled, his pure white eyes shining.

“Thank you, son. You’ve done a tremendous favor.”

“Not a problem. I have a question, though – Have you seen anyone around here named Ollie Haines?”

“Haven’t heard that name in a while… I can’t remember. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay.”

The old man rested over on the stick, leaning. He was still smiling when he began to glow a faint white. The faint turned into a brighter light, until I could no longer stand to look at him anymore. At first, I thought something had gone terribly wrong – maybe he had been triggered or maybe the stick was too hot to hold. But through my fingers, I saw the old man disappear in a glow of pure light.

After one brilliant flash, he was gone. The fog began to subside with the next breeze, clearing the ground near my feet. Unsure of what I had just seen, I stumbled over to the wall, my brain refusing to process what my eyes had witnessed. I stepped onto one of the rocks, on top of the snow, looking at where the old man had been standing. All the snow surrounding him had melted, leaving a perfect circle of sand.

I stood unmoving on the rock for a few minutes, still trying to figure out just what was going on. I stepped down, onto a branch, which snapped and brought me back to the thin haze of reality that I was experiencing.

When I tried to walk, I found myself stepping on more branches. I looked down at my feet and was shocked to find that they weren’t branches in the least, but rather bleach white bones that had broken with my steps and were now protruding from the snow. I dropped to my knees and began to clear away as much snow as I possibly could, shoving it out of the way in great big handfuls until the entire skeleton was clear.

I had managed to step on one of the arms and one of the legs, but the rest of the bones weren’t in good shape either. They lay draped across a series of stones, bent at odd angles. The skull had a long crack running through the top that had been filled with ice, and it glinted in the sun as I moved away from it.

But worst of all – it wasn’t the skeleton that scared me. It wasn’t the fall that the bones had taken when they were a living being.

It was the walking stick that laid perfectly in the skeletal fingers, clutching it in a death grip. Not a walking stick, really, but a rudimentary device to feel cracks and crevices in the ground. Perhaps the old man had taken a harder fall than he imagined.

I was no longer cold, but I was still shivering as I walked back north towards Westing.

-

I found Haines in The Kinder eating a bagel. He was dressed as he always dressed, the comically oversized coat with the collar pulled up around his face. When he saw me enter, he stood and made his way to the entrance of the kitchen, trying to avoid me.

“Don’t make me say it, sir,” I said.

“Say what,” he shot back behind him.

“Your title. Job description, whatever. I need to talk to you.”

His shoulders heaved and he sat back down, sliding a chair out.

“Okay, but make it quick. I’ve got stuff to do, kid.”

I sat down. “I know how to get Larson out of there. It’s not going to be easy, but you’re right. He’s not a good person at all and he needs to be taken care of. But I need your help.”

“I can’t get caught up in this. Covert Ops aren’t supposed to be my thing, kid.”

“Then don’t get yourself caught up in it. You’re the only person that knows that I’m setting Larson to take a fall, so I need your help. All I need is for you to give him a little push.”

“Okay, what are you talking about?”

“I need you to call the police at quarter after two. Put in an anonymous tip or use your weight, just make sure the cops show up at the Administrative Building around two fifteen. If this guy is everything you say he is, no money is going to save him from the cops, no matter how much he’s pouring into them already.”

Ollie nodded. “And that’s it? You just want me to put an anonymous tip in? Kid, you could do that yourself.”

“Something tells me that the police would take you a little more seriously than me. Especially if you have to make it a non-anonymous tip. You could lead the battle charge if you want, but if they’re not there at 2:15 on the dot, I’m screwed. So… let’s make sure that doesn’t happen, okay?”

“I gotcha, kid.”

“I don’t have much weight to throw around, but if I get caught, I won’t have much of a life left anyway.”

“You got that pretty girl of yours, the one that was in the nest. She could visit you in the clink.”

“That’s not how it works around here, and we both know that.”

Ollie laughed. “Quarter after. I’ll be there, but you won’t see me. And once this gets finished, we can have a talk.”

“What about?”

“Small things. You’re not going to get a public ceremony, but I can throw some money your way. Something from the higher ups. Maybe take you out to lunch or something – big brother showing its helping hand a good time.”

“Sounds good,” I said, standing. “Quarter after,” I shot behind me, walking out the doors back into the cold of the afternoon.

[ShastaTwist]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

I smell climax.

[FoJaR]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

filthy talk

[MalReynolds]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

As I was walking back towards Westing, taking the back alleys which had been spared the brunt of the snow, I was careful not to step in any of the growing puddles. My mind was racing in every direction, from the old man evaporating to the random bursts of adrenaline my body was getting by the mere thought of tomorrow. To say that I was anticipating the upcoming event would have been like saying the Persian Empire was “kind of big.”

There were buildings I was walking behind that I had no interest in entering, or seeing ever again. The outsides of these buildings, the sides facing the streets were nice, shapely. But some of these buildings were only accessible through the back alleys, sandwiched between two street facing giants, and these were the ones that troubled me. Scarred storefronts, people hanging sheets out of windows to dry, illicit goods around every corner. It was like stepping into another world, and all I had done was step two hundred feet to the left.

It was in this trek that I ran across Wesley again. That’s not exactly the case, rather, I walked past him and he said something. I had noticed him – he had been hunched very close to the ground picking at something when I brushed past, stepping into a puddle and shattering his concentration. His ideas were scattered to the street like the water that slowly sluiced its way back to the Earth.

“Hey there, boy-o.”

I didn’t think he was talking to me at first. I still had no idea that it was Wesley. It seemed like any other vagrant. I stepped up my pace.

“I said, ‘Hey there, boy-o.’ Aren’t you going to stop and talk to your favorite ferryman?”

I turned and was somewhat relieved at who it was. “Hello, Wesley.”

“How have you been? I’ve been rather cold, see, because they won’t let me back in my building. It’s a terrible thing, it’s a terrible thing, and they don’t want me at the chapel, either. No, no, see, they don’t really like me around these parts too much.”

“I’ve… I’ve been all right. I’m sorry to hear what troubles you.”

“It’s not your fault, see? I don’t make enough money boating people to Banana Island, see? And I can’t hold down a real job. Not in Westing. No one around these parts wants to hire someone who has his face all burned up,” he said, smiling. He removed the hood from his slicker and ran a scarred hand over his scarred forehead. “I make do, I make do.”

“You left me on the Island the other night.”

“The other morning, yes, see? That guy you were with had some money, and I couldn’t say no. I couldn’t say no because I have to keep myself alive and he said he would pay me double and that we would head back in a day or so. I didn’t see the harm in it, I didn’t see the harm in it, see? I can hardly help that I need money, that I need money, see?”

“You on Flash, Wesley?”

“No sir, see. I never touch the stuff, never ever. I know what it can do to you, I know what kind of world rocking you invite in when you try it. I’m smarter than that, so much smarter than that, and my appetites are more conventional. Expensive, but conventional, see?” he said, pulling his sleeve up and revealing a neat set of tracks that ran up and down his arm.

“Yeah. That’s beautiful, Wesley. Really touching.”

“Hey, hey, see, I don’t want you to think I’m some kind of monster. I’m not. It’s just my poor wife, my poor wife, I need money to take care of her.”

“Your wife is dead, Wesley.”

“In my mind, I need to take care of her. She was perfect, see, the type of lady you would do anything for. I hate boats, I really do, see, but she liked boats, so I built that one with my bare hands, and when I found out… I would do anything for her, see?” He was beginning to lose his breath. He leaned against the building next to him and put his hands on his knees, trying to catch back up, but couldn’t. He slid down the wall into a puddle, his head rocking back and forth.

“Wesley – Hey, come on,” I said, leaning over him. “Snap out of it.”

His face shot forward, and he was grinning, hands placed firmly on my arms. “I’m fine, see, just a little shaken up. That’s all, a little shaken up, see?”

Grinning wasn’t the right word. He was beaming, and it scared the hell out of me.

“Settle down, man,” I jerked my arms away and he stood.

“I have a favor to ask, boy-o, a tiny favor.”

“I’m already doing favors for people up and down this city, Wesley.”

“I just need a little bit of money, just a bit of money to tide me over until people start wanting to use the boat again. The Winter is the harshest mistress you can find, the harshest one.”

“That’s poetic, Wesley, but I don’t feel like fanning the fire of your addiction.”

“I’m a poet, that’s why it’s poetic. I have a bunch of them written up, I do, and do you want one? You can have one if you wanted, see, for a little bit of money. I can make one up right now.”

“No, no, don’t worry about it.”

I turned to leave, but thought of Josephine on the Island. I would need to get back out there at some point, and considering the happenstantial circumstances that surrounded running into Ollie, it might be beneficial to have the ferryman owe me a favor.

“All right, Wesley. I’ll give you forty right now if you promise me that the next ride out to the Island is free.”

“Make it fifty and I’ll row you myself.”

I paused. “Deal,” I said, reaching for my wallet. I pulled out three bills – handing over a total of sixty, but not really caring. I hadn’t depleted my wallet by even one tenth at this point, after all the time I spent in the city… And I still had a multitude of stacks in the tennis bag.

“Eleven at the jetty,” he said, “Every night. Eleven for the night ferry, eleven for the night ferry, see? Have to make my money, see… Eleven, every night.”

“What time?” I asked, smiling.

“Eleven, every night.”

“Got it,” I said, turning and walking down the alley towards Main Street. There was a buildup of snow against the opening between buildings, and I saw that a plow had made its way down the road, clearing a path in the center for people to walk in. Building owners had paid off people to start shoveling paths to their storefronts. It seemed like a very happy place to be in.

I turned and looked at the two buildings I had come between – Alastia Incorporated Pharmaceuticals and Terrell-Mack Press House. They were the prominent postings on the front door plaques, but other smaller business had rented out the office spaces as well. Alastia had taken the top floor, across from Terrell-Mack. I pulled out the bottle of Aeroids from my pocket and scanned the white cap. There was a thin indentation across the top, a series of letters that at first glance meant nothing.

AIP. It took me a second to put the two pieces together, and I stared straight up at the building that housed the developers that had saved my life more than once. I thought about walking in and seeing if they kept prescription records, but my bottle was barren. There were no markings, nothing at all that would distinguish me from the next person that walked through the large glass double doors.

I said a small thank you in my head and walked away from the building, making my way through the snow to the center walkway.

It should come as no surprise that as I was walking, I was pegged by a snowball that hit the side of my head. It should also come as no surprise that there was a thin coating of ice over the ball as if it had been dipped in water – not enough to hurt, but enough to irritate. And who did I know that was enough to irritate but not hurt?

Dylan was perched up in a tree, one of the few arbors that lined the road, with a stack of snowballs in between his legs. He was laughing and pointing at me, motioning to someone on the ground. George was standing under the tree, staring over at me – He looked up at Dylan, looked back at me, and looked back at Dylan.

George, glasses George, stocky George jumped up and pulled the branch that Dylan was on down, before letting it bounce back up. Not only did it jar Dylan greatly, but it launched the snowballs that had been so neatly stacked between his legs upwards at Dylan, who after getting hit in the face with one of his own creations, leaned sideways and fell out of the tree, tumbling to the ground with a thud.

I walked over and held out my hand to help him up, but he tossed a handful of loose snow up in the direction of my face. It was fairly easy to dodge – it broke apart so much on the up trip that it did nothing but powder and fall back down. However, it worked in the opposite manner when I picked up a handful of snow and dropped it on his face. It stayed clumped together and he started to sputter. I once again held out my hand, and this time he took it, raising to his feet.

“I got you pretty good back there,” he said, grinning and brushing the snow off of his face.

“George got you better, I’d think.” I looked over at George, who had backed away to what he thought was a safe distance from throws, and I gave him the thumbs up.

“Now I know where his loyalties lie,” Dylan adjusted his cap.

“Loyalties? Dylan, what are you talking about? We’re not at war or anything.”

“That’s what you think, pretty boy. Up and taking Liza like that, and you think we’re not at war? Come one, Paris. Wake up and smell the thousand ships you’ve wrought upon yourself.”

“You’re off your nut, Dylan.”

“I’m just messing around,” he said, reaching over and clapping my shoulder. “God, you’re easy to mess with.”

“Why – I mean – why can’t you be a nice person, Dylan.”

As he tried to stall and come up with a decent answer to a question that most people in his position couldn’t answer, I turned and headed back to the college. He yelled something that was lost to the wind, something I could only assume was some kind of stair-case witted retort about my mother or my physical being. I didn’t turn and say anything. Instead, I turned and hurled a snowball, which went through a perfect arc before splattering across his face. He stumbled over backwards and stared in my general direction.

I gave him the thumbs up and left him to stew in his anger.

-

Westing College was a nice dry comparison to the drudgery of the snow I had just walked through. There were many people standing in the entrance, most talking about the absurd weather, how it wasn’t cold enough for snow and how we should take advantage of it now because by this time tomorrow, it would all be gone. Take advantage of the cancelled class, take advantage of the time you’re given. A wonderful philosophy, but they were all standing around talking instead of doing.

I walked back into the Guest Dorm and went for my tennis bag, changing out of my dress shoes and setting them aside to dry, before pulling out a pair of comfortable sneakers and a fresh pair of socks. My feet weren’t as wet or as purple as I thought they were – in fact, they were near dry and comfortably warm. The extra layer of clothing around them, however, did feel nice.

When I stepped back out, I glanced up at the clock. It was four, which wasn’t bad at all. For once, I had free time to myself – I was in no rush to get either here nor there. Half of me wanted to fall asleep and save my strength for the day to come, but what if I awoke in the middle of the night? I would be confined in a room of smelly people for hours. I was not looking forward to that.

With very few options left of how to spend my free time, I took my chances and headed to the Rec Hall with the foreknowledge that neither Dylan nor George were waiting for me.

[FoJaR]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

:thumbsup:

[MalReynolds]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

Naturally, the first thing that happened after I stepped through the door was to be slapped with a question from Tyler, who was standing, arm outstretched and pointing at me as if he had been expecting me through that door at any second. I didn’t catch the question at the first pass – after a second, he relaxed, turned back to the pool table and took a shot, sinking it in the corner pocket. Sam was standing across from him, leaning against her pool cue.

“This is why I don’t play pool,” she said, sighing and rolling her eyes. Tyler lined up another shot and sunk the red ball.

“So, what is it then, Tim?”

“What?”

“If you could have one superpower, what would it be?”

I paused. “Are you kidding me?”

“No sir. I never joke about things like this. What superpower would it be?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’d fly. That’d be a good ability right there. I could be anywhere in an instant.”

“That’s not true. You’d have to stay low in the atmosphere, otherwise you’d black out,” I offered. “You’d be good for like, fifty stories, but then you’d need to watch out, cause,” I made a whistling sound and hit my fist against the nearest chair.

He stood, staring at me. “Well then, I guess your power would be to… kill… fun or something, fun killer.”

“Don’t blame me,” I said, taking a seat, “That you picked an absolutely rotten superpower. Me, I’d take the ability to make flames without a lighter. That seems pretty nifty.”

Tyler hunkered down and took one last shot, sending the cue-ball careening into one of the corner pockets. Sam giggled and pulled it out, putting it square in the middle of the table. Tyler, one stickler for the rules of the game was about to protest when Sam gave him a playful shove. “Girls rules,” she said, and took her shot.

Girls rules or not, she was still awful at the game. After scratching, set her cue down and sat across from me, declaring that the game was flawed and she was quitting. As she sat, she said, “My superpower would probably… Impervious to pain.”

“Stop right there. Impervious to pain, or impervious to damage? Cause there’s a disease out there that kills most all pain, and it’s really dangerous to have.”

“Tyler was right, Tim. You’re kind of a fun killer.”

Tyler set his cue down and sat next to her. “What about you, Tim? You might catch fire, generating flame.”

“That’s a risk I have to take. I figure, as long as I’m born with the power, I’ll grow with it and be able to control it to a good degree. Unlike… Being impervious to pain. You’d probably die very quickly into your life, and you Tyler, you’d just have to exercise extreme caution every time you wanted to fly.”

The warped wooden door scraped the ground, but stopped short. I knew immediately it was George – he was the only person that I had seen enter the Rec Hall that had trouble opening the door all the way. He slid between the door frame and door awkwardly and stepped in.

Tyler stood and pointed, much like he had at me, and fired the question at George, who without a moments hesitation said, “I’d like to make ice.”

“You going to kill the fun on that, Tyler?”

“No way. I’d like to hear him explain it, though.”

“I like ice. I could always go skating or something, it’d be easier than walking everywhere, if I had skates with me… Plus, think of all the pranks. All of the pranks! How glorious would that be to just put a rough patch of ice on the sidewalk and watch people go slipping everywhere?”

Tyler laughed. “Got a bit of a vindictive streak there, George – and you’d have to be rivals with Tim. He’s got fire power under his control.”

I clicked my thumb up and down like it was a lighter. “Fire melts ice.”

George was still shaking the snow off of his clothes onto the throw rug, but I could hear him mutter something under his breath.

“So, George hit Dylan pretty hard out there,” I said, launching into the story about the tree and how George had managed to actually use physics to his advantage. Sam couldn’t stop laughing as George mimicked Dylan falling out of the tree, and Tyler stood stalwart as he listened to the story. Tyler, I had noticed, very rarely made light of any light situation, opting to hide behind a wall of humor at a moments notice only when it pertained to any serious matter. His arms were folded over his chest and he was leaning back against the pool table, nodding along to the story.

“Not bad, not bad,” Tyler said finally, moving back to the sofa next to Sam.

There was a long pause as George made his way over and took the chair next to me. An even longer pause followed as we sat in silence.

“So, what do you guys do for fun around here?” I asked. It was a congenial ‘get-to-know-you’ type question, which felt odd. Had I really been deprived of that much free time after having arrived at Westing? Looking back over the previous days, I realized how busy I had truly been, running back and forth from Island to Church, to the Kinder and The Center. This was a true moment of free time, free from responsibility of any kind, and it felt rather good.

“We hang out,” Tyler said.

“Right, but… I mean, what do you guys do?”

“Well,” Sam said, “Sometimes just being together is hanging out. You don’t have to be ‘doing something’ to be doing something, you know? It’s possible to just enjoy being in each others company, even if you’re not running around like a chicken with its head cut off.”

I had to think about that.

“That’s what we’re doing right now, then?” I asked.

“I don’t know what you did for fun up north,” Sam said, “But sometimes this is living life. Sometimes this right here is better than it gets.”

I leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling. The pattern in the tile was random to the point where it looked like a pattern, but each tile was different than the one next to it. It would take forever to find a repeating section.

Sometimes that’s living life, I thought to myself.

“Anyone know where Liza is?” I sat up.

“Probably around. Sometimes she likes to hang out with her journalism professor. I swear it’s like a fem-crush sometimes, how much she admires that stupid teacher,” George said, tapering off and ending the thought looking down at his shoes. I felt a little sympathy for George as I realized that Dylan wasn’t the only other person that had feelings for Liza that extended past the norm. I wondered how often George offered to carry her books or walked her to class, sacrificing his punctuality for faux-protection.

George, though, was a prime example of how to do it right. You have to keep it to yourself, otherwise things can go wrong. You don’t say anything, things don’t go wrong, they only run their course. No heart break, no rejection. George was playing it safe instead of running head first into the problem.

“What about Professor Boris or whatever? Did he make it to the Carnival,” I offered, raising my shoulders.

“I don’t have his class every day. He’s – he’s something else, though. I don’t know. Maybe he got grabbed, but I didn’t see him with the group we were with.”

Sam got up and offered everyone a drink before sauntering over to the back of the room. I got up and joined her, helping her load the tray.

“I don’t know how you can do it, Sam,” I said, putting a glass of punch on the red plastic. “I don’t know how you can be happy when someone you loved is out there like that.”

She looked up at me, sliding a glass onto the tray. “And what would you rather have me do? It’s been so long since I’ve even seen his face, Tim… Moving on is what I have, you know? If I stayed in the past, if I stayed behind, I’d still be at the Chapel with my parents. It took everything I had to get out of there, and I like to think I’m better for it.”

“You’re stronger than I am,” I said, putting the last glass onto the tray and paying for it. She carried it back and set it down on the coffee table, where we summarily took tumblers and began to drink. The wooden door behind me opened, and Dylan stepped through, took one look at the room and turned back to go through the door. He ran smack into the Spartan, who half forced him into the Rec Hall simply so that he could be inside the room.

Dylan was almost in a panic trying to get out of the door, afraid, I assume, that I would launch into another attack. When Spartan had made it through the port-way, Dylan could finally make his exit. I half expected him to leave a comical dust cloud behind in the shape of him running away, the speed he was going.

“He’s not bad all the time,” Tyler said. “He’s has redeeming qualities. You… You just kind of brought out the worst in him.”

“You don’t need to explain him to me,” I said, folding my arms across my chest.

“Yeah, well… I’m just saying, he’s not hateable all the time. There are moments where he’s not so conniving, where he’s not quite… Like that. The snowball thing, that’s one thing – I would have thrown a snowball at you just for fun – but the Island thing. I don’t know, it’s hard to make out what’s going up there in his head sometimes. I just don’t want you to think any less of us for befriending him, because he’s been nothing but a buffoon to you.”

“He wasn’t like that all the time,” I said. “The first night I was here, he was downright corrigible.”

“He just needs to get over himself,” George said, raising his head. “Liza made her choice. I think she made the right one, too – Dylan, he’s not bad all the time… But I don’t know why he thinks he deserves another chance, especially after, you know…”

I nodded. “Yeah, he told me on the Island.”

“He should know. He should really know, especially after what happened to her father. Dylan thought he could have protected her, but whatever.”

“Wait, what?”

“Dylan thinks he could have done something to stop the waiter.”

“Dylan… Was there when it happened?”

George nodded. “I thought you knew that…”

“Lord, no. That… That’s terrible. Does he know there was nothing he could do? You can’t stop someone whose been triggered like that.”

Tyler sighed. “Dylan has always been a little wonky, but after Liza’s father got grabbed because of the… The incident, all he could do was blame himself for not being able to protect her or the one she loved. He’s always took that a little hard, and that was three years ago.”

“I had no idea,” I said, putting my glass down.

Before I could speak again, the Night Scan announcement interrupted me. I groaned irritably, standing and moving over to the doors, wishing everyone a good night. Sam looked as if she was gearing up to give me a hug, but thought better of it.

I shook George’s hand and thanked him for the meeting tomorrow and said goodbye to Tyler, hoping that it wouldn’t be a final farewell.

Rather than finding solace in sleep in the Guest Dorm, all I could do was sit up and think about tomorrow until tomorrow finally turned into today. And when I arose, I was not tired at all.

Adrenaline is an amazing thing.

[Ice wolf]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

Go Go Go!

[MalReynolds]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

It was the end game for me. This final thing and I would be able to try and re-establish my life, maybe in Westing, maybe with Liza. One last favor before I could decide what the rest of my life would hold for me, whether I could keep clinging to the past or try and make a new future for myself. All I had to do was clear one last hurdle and I would be done with it. The plan was simple.

Nothing is ever simple. Nothing is ever as you planned it. Even with all of the side plans and back ups that I was running in my head, even with all the careful measurements and sizing of buildings, even with my watch set to the sun, nothing can or will prepare you for what can happen. You may think you’re prepared, you may feel that you’re prepared, but – it’s trivial what you think and what you feel, when you get right down to it.

Or maybe I have it wrong. Maybe nothing is trivial. Maybe every detail that you ingest into your brain subconsciously helps you move your foot slightly to the left to avoid it being stepped on or helps you get the door open a fraction of a second faster. Small things that the untrained eye doesn’t notice and that the trained mind doesn’t pick up on, but help the situation. Things that you think you have no control over.

Control is such a funny concept. What is in your grasp, what is out of your grasp… If you can feel it, touch it, or wish to touch it, is it in your control then?

I think too much.

My shoes had dried out by this point, my good dress shoes, and I managed to dig up a pair of casual jeans from my tennis bag. Things to make me look as non-descript as possible. I had blended with trust fund babies yesterday, and I planned on doing it again, looking like I was still suckling at the teat of my parent’s checkbook one more time. In, out, no one look at me twice.

I had to be normal.

As I walked down the hallway and out the door, I didn’t feel normal. The weather wasn’t normal, either. All of the snow from yesterday had melted leaving small rivulets running down Main Street into various storm drains. The grass was wet, but not even wet enough to scuff my shoes or leave grass stains. It was like the snow had never even happened, and the air felt like it was beginning to warm up.

It was too early to go to my meeting – if I showed up ahead of time, the check in person might remember me. Punctuality was key. Be utterly forgettable.

Instead, I bode my time and headed down to The Kinder. I ate something, which didn’t sit well with me. My nerves refused to let me digest whatever the hell it was I had just eaten and it sat in my stomach like a stone. Poor college students came in and left, grabbing food, no one bothering to check back with any of those damned kids in cages or the teacher that stood tirelessly day after day trying to make sure that they had some kind of future.

I kept hoping that the door would open and that Liza would come through, that I would be able to tell her that things might be difficult after today, and that I might not be around much more, but the door remained closed. I even wanted Dylan to walk in so that I could tell him that I knew and that I didn’t blame him, but he never came. Instead, I was just left with my thoughts until one.

My thoughts, what a terrible thing to be left with.

The chair was uncomfortable. I still doubted my past – I doubted my future even more. I thought about Mother and Father back at the Chapel. Father knew what I was about to embark upon… I would have to tell them what happened after. They would want to know that I was all right, and Father might even like to know some of the details… Assuming I lived through it. Assuming that everything went according to plan.

Well, when you’re in a plain white shirt and jeans, how can things not go according to plan?

I kept my eye on the clock, watching it like it was going to sprout legs and leave. I watched the second hand slowly crawl around, passing the minute and the hour hand, almost taunting them with its speed. And soon the minute hand passed the hour hand, smirking, because the hour hand would always finish in last place – and that was its existence, to be a few steps behind everyone else. To always try and catch up.

And there I was, walking down the street, hands in my pockets trying not to shiver and trying not to act like an idiot. I kept my head to the ground, my stomach filled with butterflies, trying to keep it all together. I mean, so far, keeping it together has been enough. If I could just hold onto it for a little while longer, things might look up.

I walked through the Quad, trying not to draw any attention from the dealers and the users, ducking under a game of contact Frisbee that Hummingbird had no doubt put together. I was on edge when one of the players knocked into me, almost knocking me to the ground on my side.

Careful planning. It would have been over, then, had I fallen. I didn’t look up after he apologized, I just kept my head down and heard him turn back and toss the Frisbee to someone else. That was that, just another almost casualty of the Quad. Forget me, Frisbee man, don’t look back and don’t think twice. Did you really run into anyone at all, or did you just feel a phantom breeze?

I was shaking more by the time I was outside the Administrative Building. I walked up to the doors, my footsteps uneven, my hands trembling at my side.

I steadied myself as I reached for the handle.

And as I opened the door, I became someone else. I stopped shaking. I took note of one camera in the corner of the check in area that was on a pivot – it was the only camera in the room, and by timing my entrance, it would miss me completely. I walked over to the check in desk after watching it make two sweeps, pulled the appointment book over, and tapped my name twice. The check in lady smiled and pressed a button on her desk that buzzed open a door behind her.

A man in a suit walked out as I walked in. He did a lazy mans hold on the door for me, letting his arm linger back and holding the door for a fraction of a second longer than is absolutely necessary, and I slipped through. I made a note of the wall plaques, and found that Larson was on the forth floor.

I looked at one of the wall clocks. I had ten minutes.

As I passed an elevator, I saw cameras on the inside, and I kept walking. I would be nothing but a blur on the film, and even someone who knew what they were looking out for would not be able to catch my face on film.

I took the stairs instead, two at a time, launching myself up the concrete corridor. I maintained control over my breathing. I was still cool, calm and collected by the time I hit floor four.

When I opened the door, it was a surprise. It was a stark contrast to the dimly lit hallways below. There was red carpet that lined the hallway – and only one set of doors on the side that I noticed, and those belonged to the elevator. I slipped out, and made my way down towards the bend in the hall. Further down was another door – another set of stairs, I noticed, and a final door at the end with a sliver name plate on it.

“Eric Larson, Dean of Students.”

I knocked.

“Who is it?”

“Your two o’ clock. Tim Smith.”

“You’re late.”

“No I’m not. Five minutes is only late if you’re busy.”

There was another buzz and the door opened. There were two cameras that caught almost the entire room – they were angled so that they could see most of the action at his desk, which was sitting in front of a window. I was and entire room away from him – the cameras seemed more like shackles to me than security devices, monitoring what he was doing. I knew there were blind spots in the room near the walls from the way the cameras were mounted, so I feigned in interest in some of the pictures, never stepping into the center.

Larson was in a large leather chair. He was facing the window, I suppose, for dramatic effect, and when I stepped inside, he wheel around. He had a scar running down his cheek, like someone had cut him with a piece of jagged glass or scratched at him with their nails.

I shuddered and thought of Hummingbird.

“This is unorthodox,” he said, a twang of southern accent in his voice. “Your parents must be a traditionialist pair, wanting you to meet with me instead of Captain Admissions over there…”

Well, George had worked his magic. He might be better at lying than I had given him credit for. I feigned a southern accent as well to match his.

“Why, yes sir. Mah parents were born and raised in Richmond, so you know how they can be.”

“I’m from the city myself,” he said, smiling and rising to his feet. He was wearing a slick blue sport coat and a debonair white shirt under. His khakis had creases in them – very precise. He was a man of great wealth and a man of great practicality. His face was kind of chubby as if he was five or six pounds over, and could lose it in an instant… But chose not to.

He kept his hands in his pockets as he walked over. He glanced up at the cameras as I stared at a picture of his graduating class.

“Well, what would you like to know about Westing,” he asked, slither over beside me. His lips were thin and pursed. The way he was looking me over with his sharp, black eyes caused my skin to crawl. I expected to feel his hand slide across the small of my back at any second, and I shuddered.

“Oh, just a few things heah and theah,” I said. “Not too much. But I have to say, Mr. Larson –“

“Please, call me Eric.”

“I must say, Eric, I ahm ratha impressed by yah office heah. It’s verah nice.”

“Thank yah kindly.”

I nodded. “But it’s kind of cramped, don’t you think? We could go somewhere else, couldn’t we? I don’t think I can concentrate right now,” I glanced over at his desk. There was a small analog clock sitting there, some kind of award for something.

“Whea would you like to go,” he smiled, and moved towards the door.

“Wheaevah you would like,” I said. “Pehaps back to my hotel room?”

He nodded greedily and opened the door to the room. I stepped out into the hall behind him, and we walked towards the elevator. I could see that it was already moving.

Quickly, I dug my hands into my pocket and shoved them down into his. He smiled, but that melted into a scowl as I pushed him and then kicked him square in the pocket. There was the sound of shattering glass, and he cried out in pain, clutching his side.

I can’t imagine the amount of agony he had to have been in with two broken vials of Flash cutting into his leg. He fell over, sliding against the wall, glaring at me. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he started to convulse.

The elevator doors opened and three armed police officers rushed out. Larson was still on the ground, clutching his leg like it was the last hope he had, but I was around the corner. I could hear him crying out as they dragged him into the elevator, and I could hear him scream as the doors closed.

The sound of boots followed me into the hall, but I ducked into the auxiliary stairs before they could round the corner. I could see them running into his office, checking the corners, but by the time they would even suspect that there was a charming southern boy, I would be gone. I would be back in the Quad, catching the Frisbee and throwing it to Hummingbird.

I didn’t sign my name on the sign in sheet. I tapped it twice. I didn’t leave ID behind. I wasn’t on any of the cameras.

Whatever Larson said to the police were nothing but the sad delusions of a completely lecherous being that had been caught red handed.

As for me, I was a delusion. I said it before…

To Larson, I was just a ghost in this.

[MalReynolds]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

All during the game of Frisbee I watched the scene out of the corner of my eye. There was press – someone called someone else about the police going in, and before you could count to ten, news vans had shown up. There were light rigs every which way and people scrambling over themselves trying to get the arrest on tape.

Larson was pulled out of the back of the building with a crimson bag over his head. He was kicking and thrashing, and there was an intimidate sound of a tazer going off every few seconds, but that didn’t slow him down at all. He poured enough money into the police force to know what happened to guys like him when they got caught. And he got caught hard – fell over in a hallway with two vials in his pocket, traces of Flash in his system and sure, there may have been someone else there, but where was the proof? There wasn’t even any reasonable doubt.

The police had set up a dummy van for the reporters to flock to and pulled Larson out the other side of the Quad to a car they had waiting. They pushed his head down into the back of the car, and through all the commotion, through all the running and pushing of students and press alike to see what was going on, I could still hear him yelling out. His words were unintelligible, but they were filled with a fury that shook me down to my spine. Fifty years of the best laid plans to go down the drain. To go from untouchable one second with the world in your palm to being the very scum you pretended to hate on the weekend. Not to mention the glass. It was an agony scream filled with every type; physical, mental, and that third that makes your face red and your hands tremble but doesn’t have a name, that rare fury that would drive you to kill. Larson was shoved into the back of the squad car with blood lust in his voice.

Hummingbird had even abandoned the game to see what was going on. I did too – I had to feign interest, otherwise it would have been a tad suspicious. I wanted to very much like the loner I was pretending to be, walk across the field with hands in my pockets, grinning and staring at the ground as I ambled off into a sunset, but as much as I favored the dramatic, I needed to be realistic.

Kicking and screaming, he disappeared into the back of a police car, never to be seen again. The history books might forget about him, the fat southern man who had a sexual penchant for anything with legs, the man who ran drugs and corrupted youth as part of his trade, but the students in the Quad that day would not. Any student at Westing under the rule of Larson certainly would not. No, there was no room for forgetting anything anymore.

Times, they were a-changing. Hold onto the past, I’ve learned, unless it’s something you want to forget.

It was a day of triumph and high spirits for most of the students. Hummingbird, Spartan, a random assortment of girls and guys, I could see it in their faces. They knew that a horrible chapter had just closed and a new one was beginning. They maybe even began to hope, dared to dream. Ding-dong, the witch is dead and all that.

After the cars pulled away and the press dissipated, things kind of went back to normal. There was a heightened sense of awareness across the Quad and many people had abandoned their games in lieu of reporting to their friend the occurrences thus far of the day. The only people who seemed genuinely down were those that stayed by the fringes, hands in pockets, worried looks across their faces.

Business would be down for them, that’s for sure. They were no longer operating under the protection of Larson – any person suspected would be taken. Maybe people would start to notice what a problem Flash had become after all.

I started to hope, too, that maybe things would change. Life would be more normal, even. I know it was much to think about, even too much to think that one person could control, but I let my hope spiral. Larson’s gone, which meant that some of the dealers were gone, and maybe their parents would notice and write letters, and maybe someone else would take notice, and then before you know it, the problem would have to be met face forward. No more ignoring it. It was a lethal tiger sitting in the corner of the room that everyone would rather forget about than try and take care of, but maybe, this would be it.

It was foolish to hope that much, to think that one person could change something so entirely, but it felt good to think that I had made that big of a difference in history. Even though I knew it to be a lie, it felt good to deceive myself for even a second that I would perhaps be omitted as well from the books, but stories would be told about me. They would whisper my name, whatever it had evolved to after being passed around, as the one man that stood and made a difference.

It was foolish, because no matter what, no one would know what hand I played in the game. And even if the course of events to come were in line of the destruction of such a vile drug, I would be nowhere near the glory.

Even if, even if.

At least I had the thoughts of my friends to contend with. Especially Liza – I knew how much she despised the drug. Telling her of the deposed despot might garner me more favor with her, as if that was in short supply.

-

I found most of them huddled in the break room around a TV, with a large group of students. They were on the outskirts of the group – ‘they’ being George, Sam, Tyler, Liza and Dylan, the inseparable friends.

There was a quick report playing over and over – one of the journalists had managed to get half of the arrest on film. Not half as in half of the duration, but she had simply been pointing in the right direction and got half of Larson going into the car with the crowd of students behind it. In the very distance, I thought I saw myself, but the image was far too blurry to be able to tell.

It was big news. A Dean of Students in possession of, from what the reports said, a lethal amount of the drug in his system. If it had been taken properly, said report, through the eye, then he would no doubt be dead, but since he happened upon an accident, it was introduced directly into his bloodstream rather than eye-socket… And he would be fine. Well, as fine as the police would allow him to be.

They played the clip over and over for about ten minutes, allowing each of the students to look for themselves in the crowd and get their fifteen minutes of glory. Every time the camera would swivel, someone would point to the screen and there would be a cheer – yes, you’re on the news old pal. Kudos, you were in the right place at the right time and now you’re immortalized in celluloid.

I kept staring and the screen, looking for myself before giving up the game. I couldn’t see me on there – I was too far in the back, too far down. I had kept myself out of sight just in case Larson had managed to get the bag off and see me. It was paranoia at its best, but I was out of the lime-light. I did, however, see Hummingbird, and I knew that I was right next to her, behind that tall guy in the blue basketball jersey.

Eventually, the crowd began to thin. The television was turned off, picked up, and hauled back to whoevers dorm it came from. The room emptied back down to its usual occupants, plus a few more gossipers that stood around talking about what they think happened.

“Oh, well I heard from a friend that he was shot in the leg, that’s why he’s bleeding…”

“No, you’re stupid. He ran into the wall, that’s what they said – “

“Yeah, if you want to believe the news.”

I stopped to listen, and after a few seconds, interjected.

“Who knows, maybe he was set up?”

“Please, that’s not possible. They would have said something about it on the news. And of course he’s going to say he was set up. And who would even set him up? God, get away from me,” the bird said before turning back to her friends.

It felt good to know that I had some kind of appeal.

I meandered over to the sofa and sat down, and was soon joined by ‘them,’ the collective friends.

“What do you think about it, Tim? That’s pretty extreme. I can’t believe they finally nailed Larson – it just goes to show you, the higher up, the further you fall… Or something,” Tyler said.

But I wasn’t looking at Tyler. I wasn’t even processing what he was saying. George was sitting across from me, glaring.

“That’s rather lucky, don’t you think, Tim? Larson gets busted right when you were supposed to meet him. Where were you? You’re… That’s lucky, you know, because if you were with him, you would have been arrested too, I think.”

I nodded. “Well, I decided to take your advice and not talk to Larson. I decided to play Frisbee, instead, with Alice. You can ask her. I was in the Quad when it happened.”

He didn’t flinch. “That’s just lucky, I think. You’re a pretty lucky guy, Tim. Not getting arrested with Liza or me at the carnival, and then lucking out of the Larson thing. You even managed to find your way off of an island. Someone left a boat there, you said. That’s just incredible. Maybe I should be around you more often, you seem like a four leafed clover.”

Tyler and Sam were staring at George. Liza was staring at me.

I tried to speak, but couldn’t find any words. George never took his eyes off of me, but rather tried to purse the truth out himself without speaking again. I was still stammering, trying to come up with a feasible reason, but all I could do was think of the lies. Liza knew, her eyes were pleading me to say something, to put George in his place, but I was frozen.

But Liza spoke. “Some people, George, are born with it. Other people are jealous. Some get over it, and some people – most people, find that luck runs in streaks. Maybe he’s just been lucky at Westing, but… Are you accusing him of something?”

George sighed. “No. Not a thing.”

“I thought you were a bigger man than that,” Liza said, frowning.

“Whatever,” George stood and walked to the door. He still couldn’t manage to get it open all the way, rather, and had to slide out in the thin crack. It’s hard to slide out like that in a huff.

It was not jealousy, I surmised, that was driving George. Nor was it whatever seeds of doubt Dylan had planted in George’s head about me. Rather, it was that George had no reason before this point to distrust me. I had never lied to him, to his knowledge.

And now there was a foundry, a small area that gave in, that pointed out that I was less than honest.

George realized then that I was not the person he thought I was, and it hurt him to be wrong about me.

It hurt me that he was wrong.

[MalReynolds]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

Everyone sat in silence for a few minutes until Sam took it upon herself to apologize on behalf of George.

“That was really, really strange,” she said. “I’m sorry he blasted you like that.”

I still couldn’t speak. I just nodded, expecting Dylan to jump on me next – but to my surprise, he remained silent and seated.

“It’s okay, Tim,” Liza said, sliding her arm around me. “Don’t let him get you down.” She looked at me with pleading eyes, eyes that were hard to say no to. I couldn’t bring myself to sling my arm around her, but she knew. She just sat there and held me, her grasp like blanket, protecting me from the harsh winds of reality.

“I’m sorry, guys,” I managed, putting my head on her shoulder.

“You don’t need to apologize, man,” Tyler said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Come clean. Do it. Tell them now, just tell them. Let them see what you know, show them that you’re not a good guy. The world is cruel and you’re cruel to them, so just tell them that everything they know is wrong. Tell them you don’t know who you are. Tell them that in six days, you’ve been responsible for the deaths of at least five people, and the arrest of more. Tell them that you have no idea what you’re doing with your life, if you’re trying to escape your past or find your future. Just bite the bullet already and tell them.

“Just tell Liza. Whisper in her ear that you don’t know who you are. See what she says. She’s never doubted you before, and she knows all of your other dirty secrets. You have blood on your hands and she still wants to hold them. By holding out on her, you’re doing nothing but prolonging the problem and jeopardizing whatever chance you’ve got with happiness here.

“They might be able to help you find out who you were, if you even wanted to know. Dylan could call some people up north from the party and start asking around. You could have your old self back in no time.”

A small drone, a voice in my head just repeated those things over and over, progressively getting louder until I didn’t think I could stand it anymore. It was insane – I was insane. These people trusted me, stood up for me, would fight for me as I would fight for them, and they were fighting for a lie.

Instead, I sighed. I didn’t say anything. I closed my eyes and started breathing through my nose, taking in the sweet scent of whatever shampoo Liza used. She ran her hand up and down my arm, squeezing it gently but not saying another word.

I was a lie, and she understood that.

-

The walk, in its entirety back to the Guest Dorm was filled with the buzz of Larson’s arrest. There was no mellow aftermath – even students who did not know him were finding a new reason to party. Horror stories were being swapped around about Larson, some outlandish, some down to Earth. Most were about how he killed people before while he was serving in the military, that it crafted a finely honed machine that lived for pleasures of life and could only really gain satisfaction from stealing what he could get free.

Larson and killing were two things that went hand in hand together in all of the stories. Some say he jumped out of a plane and ripped the wings off of ducks to fashion his own and fly close to the sun. Outlandish, but with an element of ruthlessness that brought credence to the stupid rumor.

The man with a plan was gone. In his place, a void filled with nothing but negativity, stories that were a testament to his willingness to end life for personal use. The legacy he left behind was nothing more than a scar, an accent, and bad memories. Larson was nothing but a bitter windswept tear on the face of time, soon to evaporate into a small trail that would disappear forever in the sun light.

But my fatigue caught up to me. I hadn’t slept in the last 24 hours at all. All day I had been running off of pure adrenaline, facing down challenge after challenge until there were no more to be faced. Accusations had been slung and I had remained silent, but up until this point, I hadn’t thought about sleep.

Sleep, the great bane. Ay, there’s the rub, perchance to dream and all that.

The 24 hours of adrenaline left my body and were replaced with an insurmountable tiredness that was impossible to ignore. By the time I was down the stairs and in the Guest Dorm, I couldn’t see straight. My legs ached, my back ached, my neck and arms were all dead at their side. The room began to grow dim as I slid into the corner, a full ten minutes before the Night Scan announcement, and before I could even close my eyes, I was gone.



Chapter 10

Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life. Mission accomplished, job well done, pat on the back and here’s your check. You’re out of the game now, son, and you’ve got a whole lot of planning to do. Where are you going to live? Your pass expires in a few days. Have you given any thought about actually attending a school, or maybe you just want to drift until the end of the whole mess, leaving behind a ghostly tale in your wake of good deeds that can’t be tied down. Maybe you want to be a phantom, or maybe you want to be a hero.

We all want to be heroes.

I was a hero, but I had no idea what to do with myself. This was it. There was no one I could go to for advice, to be sure – there was no one I knew that had ever been in the situation I was in. Well… I might’ve known someone like that, before Westing, but that’s how it goes.

My new life. One step at a time.

Step one was getting breakfast.

I had steps planned out. Step two was going back to the school and waiting around for Liza. Step three was whirling her around into some devilishly romantic kiss and asking her to run away with me.

That was as far as I could go without having to come up with multiple escape roots. The inevitable, “We’re just friends,” or worse yet – she would agree to run away with me and I had no idea where I was running to, or what I was running from.

Too many variables. Just focus on the other step right now. Step one.

Step one – Get breakfast. Go down to the Kinder, get a bagel, eat the bagel, think about step two.

I put Step one into action with a plan I called Step One – A. That was putting my shoes on. Step One – B was walking to the Kinder, which started shortly after Step One – A.

It was freezing outside again, the spring like temperature of yesterday had gone and left me with nothing but a memory of the sun kissing my skin. There were patches of ice on the road and it had begun to lightly snow – nothing serious, nothing that I would regret trudging through, but it was already snowing.

Weather at Westing was indeed a force to be reckoned with.

The Kinder was full up with students discussing the events of yesterday, talking back and forth excitedly. People were spending money again – How Larson figured into that, I had no idea. But I found myself actually having to wait in line for once.

Maybe Larson had nothing to do with it. Maybe I was just in over my head.

But the line was long. The line was longer than I cared for – the best kept secret of cheap food had gone the way of the dodo and I was forced to wait in that living, breathing line for what felt like an hour but was probably closer to two. By the time I had reached the food, my stomach was growling. Step One was dashed. I no longer wanted a bagel, but something more substantial.

There was a hand grabbing at my shoulder. I turned, and was staring at an almost familiar face, but something was missing. I raised my hands up to my eyes and put my fingers out to block the mans cheeks, and I was right – my finger blocked in the shape of the collar of the trench coat that Ollie typically wore around that shadowed his identity.

He was dressed rather dashingly, to say the least… At least, compared to everyone else in the Kinder. He was wearing a suit, tie, white shirt, slacks, and nice dress shoes. Over his shoulder slung a jacket, which he thrust in my direction, uncomfortable with his naked face.

“Here, kid. Take it. Put it on.”

“What?”

“Lunch, remember? That thing I said about that other thing… You know, the reward. Job well done.”

“Oh. Right,” I said, sliding it on. It was too big for me and I could tell it belonged to Ollie. “Where are we eating?”

“Franco’s. Kind of upscale, but not too nice, you know?”

“I guess.”

“Yeah, well, I’m also doing some surveillance work. The kitchen staff are rumored to be running some drugs around.”

“Do you ever take a day off?”

“Do I look like I do?”

[FoJaR]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

heh yeah he does in a suit!

[MalReynolds]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

I shook my head. “Where is Franco’s?”

“For that, kid, you get to ride in a car.”

I paused. An actual car? I had seen a few littering the streets and had come to the conclusion that they were some kind of luxury. People favored walking or biking everywhere and I myself had even acclimated to walking a large distance to get anywhere.

A car sounded like a real treat to me, so I said such and Ollie smiled.

“It’s nothing fancy. Something to get me from point a to point b when I’m not power-boating around. Considering the lack of useable streets around Westing, most of the time, the boat is faster. Let’s go.”

I ducked out of the line, the person standing behind me seemingly grateful to have gained ground. Ollie held the door open for me and I walked outside, moving past the building to the street where a beat up green something or other sat idling. Smoke was pouring out of the exhaust, and the car wasn’t purring like a kitten – it was hacking like a sixty year old with a set of shot lungs. The paint was peeling from the sides and the antennae was bent at an odd angle. Ollie walked around the car and opened the drivers side door.

“Come on, kid. You can open your own door,” he said, sliding inside.

The handle felt grimy, but the interior of the car was something else. It became clear that the outside was a just a showcase, hiding the interior. Leather seats that were heated, a dashboard console the size of my fist, and a stick shift with a decidedly bizarre eight ball for the handle. Before I could say a word, Ollie peeled off, and we were gone.

-

Ollie had a knack for the driving thing. He weaved in and out of parked cars and mobile ones as well, making great time as we sped through parts of the city I had never seen before. Westing college laid on the outskirts, at the southernmost tip where the city had thinned out like the bottom of a diamond on a playing card. The city expanded out and up as we went north, past The Center and buildings with tops that I could not see. The further north we got, the more I felt like I was being swallowed by a large monster. People littered the streets, some homeless, some well to do – I caught a glance of a man I had seen entering the AIP building, who was standing at a street vendor buying a hot dog.

The drive felt like it took an incredible amount of time, but I was busy gawking at everything. I had established a comfort zone at the college that I was afraid to operate outside of – especially after the evaporating old man, but it was strange. We crossed a few bridges that covered trains that were running here and there, public transit at its most efficient. Busses and parked cars – it was almost foreign compared to where I was staying.

Ollie pulled the car over in front of a set of twin buildings and shut the car off. We both got out, and I watched as he walked over to one of the doors on a hotel, the Grammercy Suites. It seemed like a fairly swanky upscale place. The floors were polished marble, the desk clerks wearing funny little suits, but Haines and I blew past them, walking to the ball room. There were double doors, and when Ollie threw them open, I almost expected to be met with cheers and ticker-tape.

But it was a nice restaurant. The coat was sliding around all over me and I was forced to roll up the sleeves in an attempt to remain socially acceptable. The host looked me over and stuck his nose in the air.

“Benny. I think our third might already be here,” Ollie said to the host.

“Let me check,” he said with a heavy French accent. “Grright this wey,” he said, motioning for us to follow. I rolled my eyes, and walked through the restaurant. The floor was a pleasant purple color, but the smell irritated me. If upper class could have a smell, it would have smelled exactly like this – unappealing food, unappealing drinks, and… I believe the faint scent of attitude.

The place was born from money. It made me feel somewhat uneasy, but I couldn’t say no. We were already there, meeting with Benny – whoever the hell that was.

I found out soon enough. Ollie and I sat at a table across from a man who looked old enough to be my father. He was sipping a white wine out of a snifter, his short white hair looking friendly and almost snow like. His eyes were kind, and he extended his hand for me to shake.

Good, firm hand shake. Strong. He was old, but not weak.

“Kid, this is Benny Easlemen.”

“Good to meet you, Benny. I’m Tim Smithson.”

“Ollie here tells me you’ve done something great,” Benny said, smiling and placing his napkin in his lap. I followed suit as I saw the waiter approach. I hadn’t had time to look over the menu.

“Are we ready to order,” he asked.

Ollie nodded. “I’ll have the fried asparagus and white chicken breast of spinach leafs,” he said.

Benny looked at the waiter. “The usual – your most expensive item stuffed with your second most expensive item.”

“Lobster stuffed with steak it is,” the waiter said, smiling. “Really, sir, the usual?”

Benny nodded and the waiter jotted something down. “And for the boy?”

I scoffed. “The boy will have… A grilled cheese sandwich with a side of French fries. And whatever cola you have on tap.”

The waiter stared at me for a second before writing my order down. He blinked twice and walked away.

“I just wanted to thank you on behalf of everyone for what you did, Tim,” Benny said sipping his wine. “What you did took guts.”

“Thank you. Ollie – Ollie helped.”

“It couldn’t have been done without you, kid. Don’t sell yourself short.”

For one moment, I felt proud of myself. Proud of the work I had done and happy that someone acknowledged it. At Westing I would get no recognition, but this man Benny knew I had done something. I was getting praise that was rightfully mine.

Hubris. Be careful, hubris.

Benny began to talk to Ollie, and they stood, walking away from the table. Benny excused himself and they began talking amongst themselves, leaving me to play with the napkin in my lap. Benny seemed to be urging Ollie to tell me something, and he finally relented.

“Benny – Benny wants you to know he thanks you especially because he’s going to bring the reform that Westing College needs.”

“He will?”

“Yes, Tim. I’m the new acting Dean of Students,” he said.

There was a pause. “See, Ollie, it wasn’t that hard. The kid doesn’t even go to the school, I don’t know why he would care.”

Ollie shrugged.

“Congratulations, Benny,” I said as the waiter dropped our drinks off. He topped off Benny’s wine and then wandered away from the table. “So, what exactly are you going to do in Westing to turn it around?”

“Tardies, things like that are going to have a bigger effect. Going to scare kids from skipping class so they don’t run off to huff fumes or take Flash – and that’s another thing. You have it on campus, you’re out of the school. If you set foot on campus again, the cops come, and bye-bye you. I mean, naturally I have to get some of these changes passed with the higher-ups at the school, but I’m a fairly progressive person. I think this is a good opportunity for me, all things considered, and I think it’ll work out well for all of the students.”

I was nodding along. “And what about – Well, what if I were to want to enroll in Westing?” I asked.

“As much as I would like to cut you some kind of favor,” Benny said, “I’d have to review your transcript and all that. Potential students are going to have to see me before enrolling in Westing, but… I’ll see what I can do. Grades aren’t a problem, I just have to make sure you’re not some kind of problem child.” He paused. “Sorry.”

I was disappointed. “It’s all right. You have to do what you have to do.”

“You don’t have some kind of record, do you?” Benny asked.

“I may or may not have had… some kind of turbulent past,” I said. It was the truth.

“Well, get your transcript sent anyway and I’ll see what I can do.”

I nodded. The waiter was back, and he dropped off all three plates. I was very surprised to find that Benny’s regular meal item wasn’t actually the most expensive item stuffed with the second – that was some joke he had cribbed off the television – rather, a grilled cheese sandwich with a side of French fries. And white zinfandel to wash it down with, naturally.

“Great minds think alike, son,” he said, and picked up half of the sandwich, biting down into it.

Before I could life my sandwich and get a bite, a woman walked over to the table.

“Hello, Benny,” she said, clutching her purse. Her hair was tight in a bun over her head, worry lines creasing her face and making her look old. She had tired, sad eyes, the eyes of a woman who had been utterly defeated.

Benny didn’t look up, but instead looked ahead, ignoring her.

“And what are you up to,” she asked, “With the youth of America?”

“I just came here for a meal, please leave me in peace,” he said. “I don’t want to deal with you right now.”

“I’m not a problem you can get rid of, Benny. Just remember, I have my eyes on you.”

The woman sauntered away, out of the double doors back into the foyer. The doors slammed shut and Benny took another bite of his food. He reached down into his pocket and removed a knife, cutting the crust from the bread.

“Why don’t you just use the one on the table,” I asked.

“Restaurants. Filthy places,” he muttered. The knife was nice – it had a pearl handle and serrated edge. “I’m sorry if I seem distracted. That woman… She bothers me so much. And now we’re going to be working in the same area.”

“She works at Westing?”

He nodded. “Journalism professor. She’s always been on my case over the years. Thinks I’m ambitious,” he smiled. “But what Josephine Robert doesn’t understand is that ambition can be good, too. She just can’t see that.”

I had been sipping my drink, but I coughed when I heard the name. “That’s not Josephine,” I managed in between coughs.

“I don’t know how many Josephine’s you know, but she’s the Journalism professor at Westing. Thinks she’s some kind of hot stuff… I don’t know,” he said, biting his sandwich.

“Kid, eat something. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

My mind flashed back to the Island, to Josephine in her red suit and converse shoes. I wasn’t in Franco’s anymore, the swanky upscale restaurant in the swanky upscale hotel. I was a mind apart.

The old woman that had talked to Benny right now…

“Come on, kid, you haven’t touched your food.”

I sighed. “Actually, Ollie, I don’t think I’m hungry anymore,” I said, sliding down in my seat.