The Tin Cowboy

[FoJaR]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

that's what she said!

[MalReynolds]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

Good news/bad news.

Tonight, I finished writing the book at my friends house. I e-mailed it to myself from his computer. The finale was 15 pages.

The bad news is the e-mail didn't send, and because I'm a paranoid ass, I deleted it off of his computer.

I'll probably re-write it tomorrow. But just so you know, that's the ETA on it, and how close it is to ending.

[FoJaR]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

[MalReynolds]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

I've decided it was a blessing in disguise -

What was on 15 pages should have been on 20-30, but I copped out on a bunch of details because I was tired and wanted to finish the book right then. So, I'm back to working on it on my lunch break. Should be done by week's end.

[MalReynolds]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

“Must’ve slipped my mind,” I muttered.

“Must’ve.”

“Hell, I even forgot what the recall was about,” I said, trying to draw an answer out.

“It would take me a little while to explain it and I’m afraid I only have a few more minutes. You can’t ask AIP – they like to pretend it didn’t happen. Aeroplexia was a bad disease, all right, but it left an open door for pharmaceutical companies to just march right in. AIP got the first product out a full year before anyone else, and people were so eager to snap it up, they pretty much ignored the fact that it wasn’t FDA approved. Your best bet is to research it yourself. There are some libraries around town.”

“Sounds good,” I said, cutting him off. “I don’t expect any trouble from the foot soldiers you have running around. Am I going to get any?”

“Like I said, son, only if you break the law.”

“Law is such a funny term around here...”

“You know what I mean.”

“Sounds like a plan. Now... What about my friends? They have to worry about being hassled by cops?”

“They can, but they’d be wasting their time.”

I stood up and shook his hand. “It was good to meet you, Murata.”

He nodded. “It’s a shame about your father. He always moved around the country, up north. I could never keep track of him. Next thing I know, I hear he’s fudged a landing and crashed into his own aircraft carrier.”

“He killed a lot of people doing that. Futzed it up big time.”

Murata laughed. “You were just a baby when it happened.”

I shoved my hands in my pockets. “Yeah, well, I keep up on the news. Hard not to.”

“I’d want to learn everything about my father if I were you, too. I mean, if I were in your shoes.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, you know – after that thing with your mother.”

“Oh, that. Yeah. Made me want to find out more about my dad.”

“I tried to find you, you know, after it happened. But your mother hid you pretty well. Haven’t seen hide nor hair of you since I saw the picture. That was a few years before your daddy went and lost it.”

“It’s good to know I have someone looking out for me, I guess. How did you know I was his son? You said you’d never seen me before.”

“You have your Pop’s eyes. And you look so much like him, it’s eerie. I only wish I knew what to call you.”

“People’ve been calling me Tim for the longest time, sir.”

“I trust I’ll see you around, son? Stay out of the funny papers.”

I nodded and left.

-

It was odd running into a man that knew my father. It seemed like such a strange coincidence, but what of Westing? Wasn’t this place nothing but odd coincidence after another, loose ends that didn’t tie up neatly? Mark Rice appearing almost out of nowhere in my life – just after I had met Sam, his love. Dean Benny and Graham Jones – father and son. I had been pulled into a world that I didn’t quite understand, but everything seemed to just come together.

At least I knew now that I had a father.

But then again, I had found one at Westing as well.

-

I gave my word to Liza, Dylan, Tyler and Sam that it was okay to leave the apartment and that we shouldn’t expect any more trouble from the fuzz. Liza hung around after everyone else had left.

“I don’t want to leave you alone right now, Tim.”

“Maybe I need to get going,” I said. “Just get out of here. No matter what I try to do, nothing good ever comes of it. Everything bad that’s happened can boil down to me showing up in this crappy town.”

“Yes, well –“

Liza, I’m sure, had some beautiful justification, but there was a knock at the door. I turned and stared – honestly, who was I expecting? My mind jumped to the police. Perhaps Murata didn’t have as much power as he thought and there was a squad waiting to take me away outside on some trumped up charge. Or maybe they knew the truth.

Maybe it was my past behind the door.

But the entire time while I was thinking all this, Liza had managed to get over to the door and open it before I could tell her no.

There was an older woman on the other side, standing, staring at her.

“Josephine!”

“Hello, Liza. You haven’t been to class in quite a while.”

“Things have been strange around here lately... You heard about George?”

Josephine shook her head. “Tragic, that. His funeral is tomorrow, in case you’re interested. He’s being interred at Westing Park, midtown. But that’s not why I’m here. A few nights ago, there was a huge attack at the burned out Wilmouth. An undercover cop died up there, got caught right in the middle of it. It’s tragic as well, what happened... But we can turn that around.”

Liza perked up. “Come again?”

“There were around fifty homeless people living in the building. Most of them are dead. They tore each other apart in a blind rage, they could no longer distinguish friend from foe. That... That’s a terrible loss as well. But they initiated some kind of ‘feeding frenzy,’ that I’ve never seen before, and it can be directly linked to Flash. Every last person in the building that night was a user, and an innocent cop was killed because of it.

“I’ve gotten permission to do an on air piece about the attack. I’m bringing in the best crew I can find, too. I’m going to try and break this one nationally. But there needs to be a written word piece run in the Westing Press detailing the event, and I couldn’t think of any person better suited to write it than you, Liza.”

“Thank you, Jo-“

“And we’re going to need interviewees about the attack and the drug itself. You and your boyfriend are more than welcome.”

“He’s not my –“

“Boyfriend, roommate, guy-pal, whatever. We’re going to be doing the interviews within the next week, so be prepared.”

Liza and I both nodded.

“Well, good day,” she said, shutting the door.

Liza turned back to me. “I’m going to have a piece run in the Westing Press, Tim... That’s a pretty big deal.”

“I can tell.”

She was cracking her knuckles, trying to find some outlet to release all of this positive energy, this excitement at her first real journalistic job.

Naturally, she grabbed my face, pulled me in, and engaged me in a terribly long kiss that lasted for more than a minute. It was a item of pure excitement and release at first, but soon grew out as we both realized the full extent of our affections. It broke from a kiss to a hug, until Liza pulled away.

“I’m sorry, but I should probably start writing the piece soon.” She was blushing, trying to hide her face with her hands.

“Don’t be sorry,” I said, pulling her in for another kiss.

-

Liza left a few minutes later, and soon, I walked out as well. Manny stopped me at the front desk with ID ready.

“Here you go, sir. Come and go as you please, the world is your oyster and all that.”

“Thank you, Manny.”

I left the apartment and headed over to The Center, where I recalled seeing a suit shop on the first floor. It was run by a squat old Italian man named Giovanni. He himself wore a black suit and a black cape. He couldn’t have stood more than five feet tall, shorter since he hunched over so.

“I need to be fitted for a suit,” I said.

He nodded. And thus began the most uncomfortable, gropey suit fitting I’ve ever faced. After a few minutes of languorous measurement, he deduced my pant size and worked his way up to my chest. His hands were cold and unbelievably clammy, but soon I was wearing a very snazzy jacket.

“An now zat ve have your size, ve von’t have to do that again for a while,” Giovanni said. “Unvess you vant to.”

“Do not vant,” I said. “Do not vant.”

He told me my suit would be ready by the end of the business day and stormed into the back. When he shoved the curtain out of the way, I saw an equally bizarre man leaning over a sewing machine. They began to swear at each other in Italian, but that was all I could see before the curtain swung back closed.

I had a few hours to kill, so I wandered over to the Archive. The front desk woman didn’t seem to recognize me. I wondered if I would recognize myself, after all I had been through. Either way, she looked up when I walked in.

“Hello, hello. Can I help you find anything today?”

“I’d like to look at some old newspapers. Four years ago, anything you have on the AIP Aeroid recall.”

She nodded, and stood. I followed her into the horizontal elevator, and we began our movement through the building. This time, it wasn’t nearly as unnerving as it had been before. We disembarked on a different floor than before, but the room looked identical. She removed a book from the far table, and placed it face down, where it descended into the glass cube. The laser began to dance, and she started to fiddle with a few knobs on the side.

“I’m going to be right outside. Don’t touch the laser.”

“I won’t.”

The screen sprang to life and I was met with the price of milk and gas four years ago. She had given me a very non-specific timeframe to work with, but I soon found out why. After scrolling through three papers, I was met with a headline that was in all capital letters.

“AIP PUTS OUT RECALL – PILLS DANGEROUS.”

I think that’s the one I wanted.

“AI Pharmaceuticals admitted their first mistake in marketing the new pill, which helps ease an asthmatic affliction known as Aeroplexia. Aeroplexia is a genetic defect that causes the lungs to cease and fill with liquid, and is transferred by either parent after having used Flash even once.”

I froze in my seat. So Murata had been hesitant to talk about my mother for a reason. She kept moving me around the country after my father died, and why? Because... Because maybe she had been on the drug. Or maybe he had. Maybe both.

“In extreme cases when both parents have used, the affliction is known to strike the victim up to three times a day.”

Well, one of my parents used. I was banking on my mother.

“AI Pharmaceuticals was the first company to produce a special type of pill that helped drain the lungs of fluid called an Aeroid. But due to timing restrictions and the urgency the product was needed, AIP forwent with FDA testing. The drug seemed too good to be true.

“And it was. Some children broke out in fever. Some vomited, and now, cases are coming forward where memory loss is not uncommon. Although only in severe cases, where many pills have been consumed in a short time frame, the result is the same. Complete memory loss.

“This isn’t a problem for most parents – their children still live at home. It’s a tremendous loss to have to reteach them, but some see it as an opportunity. However, concerns arose with young adults and adults that might experience this ‘side effect.’ They would be left stranded.”

AIP made an entire generation of tin cowboys.

“AIP has issued a complete recall on any and all pills. They will provide a full refund, but the blame falls squarely on the government for approving the drug for sale.”

There were locations listed where you could turn your pills in and get the new, safer pill, as well as hotlines and addresses for people who went missing while using the drug. I scanned the article, but could find nothing that resembled myself on the missing persons page.

My attacks had been fairly spaced out throughout my time at Westing, which could only mean one thing – Only one of my parents used. But I was in possession of enough pills to completely wipe my memory.

I did it on purpose. Whatever I was running from, I wanted to forget.

Shaking, I knocked on the door and excused myself.

-

I went to pick up my suit after spending some time lying down in my apartment. I still had no furnishings, but I didn’t mind lying on the hardwood floor, staring at the ceiling. Who I used to be – who I used to be was dead. I had killed them on purpose.

I should have left myself a note. What if someone dangerous was coming after me? No... Why would I want to forget that?

I stared over at my tennis bag. It was still full of money. Maybe I was a bank robber.

I would have seen news about that.

For the time being, I was relegated to lying on my stack of gold bricks with no one to trade them in.

-

I ordered furniture that night and told them to leave it in my apartment the next day, while I was out. I said Manny would let them in, Manny would keep an eye on them, and I didn’t have anything to steal.

The next day, I paid for a taxi to take us to the Westing Park in midtown. There was a graveyard – a cemetery that was smack in the middle of a hilly clearing. Mausoleums dotted the hillside making it look like an undead Shire, along with various tombs and tombstones. There were family plots laid out end on end.

Liza and Sam were wearing black dresses. Tyler, Dylan and I had opted for near identical black suits.

We crested one of the hills to find a large crowd – no, a huge crowd standing around a casket which was perched on top of an automatic lowering machine. There was a sickly priest standing over, his arms raised, and everyone had their heads bowed down.

I couldn’t count how many there were. There had to be more than two hundred.

[MalReynolds]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

The priest was speaking very, very lightly and could barely be heard, but we couldn’t get close enough to hear anything. The crowd was too thick.

After a few minutes, the priest stepped down and Hummingbird stood up – only her voice was not frantic at all. She spoke very carefully and slowly, projecting her voice to the back.

“I’m terrible at these kinds of things,” she said. “Gary was better at them. George was the best.

“All of you knew of George, but not all of you knew him. There are about thirty people out there that knew him well, and even less that he would consider his friend. This was not because George was empty or callous, rather, few people got to know him. But it’s when a sadness like this strikes that it brings everyone together.

“George went out of his way to help people. People who were down on their luck, people who didn’t have a future, people that some would consider to be a waste of time. They weren’t wastes of time to him. George was one of the few people that I would consider a saint among men, and it was an honor to be his friend.

“This has to stop. This violence – George was killed, but why? Over money, or drugs? Maybe someone just didn’t like the way he walked. But this is too much. When one of us – one of the future gets cut down in their prime for no reason, it’s too much. It’s too much to deprive a future generation of what we may provide for any reason. It’s too much.

“It’s too much. George said I could be verbose at times, and he said that was one of my best qualities. But not today. Today, I want you to think – not about me, but about what I’ve said. About the young man in the pine box behind me and what put him there. You all are here because you care, so give a care.”

She turned to the coffin, leaned down and whispered something. She looked back over her captive audience and stepped down.

-

Everyone in attendance took a shovelful of dirt and poured it over his coffin. Liza and I were the last, and as our dirt piled on top of so many others, we were stopped by a robust man and tiny woman. They were looking Liza and I over.

“Are you Tim?”

I nodded. “Excuse me,” I said to Liza. She walked over to Dylan, Tyler and Sam.

“What can I do for you?”

The man coughed. “We’re George’s parents.”

“Oh. I’m very sorry about –“

“George wrote home more than normal. He missed it, but he loved the city. Do you love this place, Tim?”

“I don’t know. It’s taken a lot from me.”

“George thought the same thing. He mentioned you in the letters.”

“I hope I didn’t do anything to upset him,” I said, thinking back to the last time I saw him alive.

“He said... His last letter said that he thought it was going to be his last. But he said...” The woman reached into her purse and removed a piece of paper that was folded three times, but looked like it had been handled by many people. She held it out, and I took it in my hands, looking it over.

“I’m sorry, Mom. Dad, but I don’t think I’ll be able to write any more after this. There’s something bad that’s about to happen. I can tell, and I need to warn everyone before it does. I don’t know what it is yet, but I know that Tim... He’s trying to stop it too. I should have trusted him more. I should have listened to him.

“If you don’t get a letter after this... Or if something happens to me, I want to be interred in Westing. Even if I’m not alive to help the place, maybe in my... Maybe I can help anyways.

“Find Tim and tell him I’m sorry for not trusting him more. If I’m gone when you get this, find him. He’ll be around Liza – he looks constantly lost.

“Just in case, Mom, Dad, I love you. I didn’t say it enough.

“Here we go,

“George.”

I folded the letter and tried to hand it back, but they wouldn’t take it.

“You keep it,” the woman said. “Thank you for being his friend, Tim.”

“Yeah.”

“He said in his letter after the carnival that you had talked to him in the woods and made him feel good about what he was doing. We both know he was losing his spirit and his hope to change the world. Westing was killing the idealist in him, but you helped fix that.”

I brought my hand up to my cheek and slowly ran it through my hair. My face and eyes were burning. I rubbed them as if there was dust in the air. “It’s no problem. He would have done the same for me.”

There was a silence as we stood, staring at each other. They weren’t crying, they were smiling at me. The man had his hand on the woman’s back – he stood a full foot taller than she. They had cried themselves out before the funeral.

“Thank you for the letter,” I managed.

They nodded. I shook their hands and walked away, back towards the group with Liza and all them.

-

Instead of being dropped off at the college, I made the cab take us to the outskirts of the city to the rubble pile that used to be Westing Chapel. All four walls had collapsed onto each other, but the crooked cross sat atop the pile.

“What are we doing here, Tim,” Sam asked quietly.

I motioned for Tyler and Dylan to follow me and I dismissed the cab. I climbed atop the rubble and pulled the cross down, which sat loosely between two stones. I handed it off to Dylan and moved down the pile, onto the ground. I set the cross as flat as I could with the bend in it, and held it down with Tyler as Dylan stepped on the bend, straightening the cross.

I moved back up the rubble pile with the straight cross in hand, pulling rocks away until there was a hole deep enough to set the base of the cross in. I piled the rocks back on top of the base and slid down the hill.

The golden cross now sat perfectly atop the mound of mortar and brick, moss and hope. The sun hit it, causing it to glint in the fading light.

I turned to Sam, who was standing, shading her eyes with her hand. She was nodding approvingly.

We stayed and watched the cross until the sun no longer made it shine, the moon making it nothing but a shadow. We stood in silence, in contemplation.

“So... How about you tell us what happened, Tim,” Tyler said.

“Tomorrow.”

We walked back in to Westing. I offered everyone the opportunity to stay at my apartment, and all declined except Liza.

When I stepped inside, I remembered that I had ordered furniture. For the next two hours, Liza and I moved boxes back and forth, trying to find the bed that I had ordered. It needed to be put together, so we laid the outline on the ground, and collapsed onto the mattress.

“This’ll do for now,” I said, pulling her close and closing my eyes.

-

I owed everyone an explanation. No more cloak and dagger.

They all funneled into my apartment. I had managed to get some chairs and a table put together, as well as a cabinet and most of the bed – we had somehow managed to lose a slat, but otherwise, the apartment looked downright livable.

I made them sit down. I told them it was going to be a long story.

And I started. I still left out the memory loss, but I told them everything, from the Island to Haines, to Marlene and Ma and Pa. I told them about the bargain I cut, the hand I played in Larson’s displacement, Wesley, The Archive, the shooting... The only detail I omitted was my memory.

They sat in silence. Liza already knew the story, and was standing next to me as I told it, a lone beacon of support from their scrutinizing eyes.

“Is that all true?” Dylan asked.

I nodded. “Every last word.”

Sam looked up at me. “George... My parents, they died because –“

“They wanted to make a difference. And they did. Nothing that happened here will be in vain.”

“But how can you be sure?”

“Josephine is running an on air piece. I’m doing a written word story about it. What happened at the Wilmouth might just be the jump we need to get attention on this matter. It’s no joke – Flash, corruption, everything that’s synonymous with Westing. Now people will have to pay attention.”

“I don’t trust you,” Tyler said. “You hustled us all from the beginning.”

“Are you angry because I’m better at it than you are, Tyler? Everything I’ve told you all has been the truth. I didn’t come to Westing looking for any kind of trouble. I didn’t choose you all. You all weren’t targets, you all were friends first and foremost. Most of what I did here was to protect you.”

Dylan stood up. “I can understand that.”

Liza scoffed. I looked at her and smiled.

There was a sudden knock at the door that made us all jump. I walked over and opened the door.

“Tim? Smith?”

I nodded.

The man on the other side of the door stood six feet tall and had a scar running down the left side of his face. His head was bald and glowed in the fluorescent hall light.

“You are a hard man to track down,” he said. “But I asked around.”

“What’s this about,” I said, reaching behind the door for anything to defend myself.

“Mark Rice was an undercover officer of the law. I believe you knew him as Oliver Haines.”

“Ollie, yeah.”

“Well, he was quite attached to you.”

“What are you –“

He handed over two items. The first was a small black leather-bound book that had a strap holding the loose binding down. The other was a set of keys.

“The book goes to a miss Samantha Feldspar. The keys go to you. The car is on the street.”

“Haines left me a car?”

“Mark Rice did. Oliver Haines never existed. He was a persona.”

“Right. I got that.”

Sam stood and moved over to the door. I handed her the book.

“Please, step outside with me.”

I nodded and followed him into the hallway, out the building. Sitting in front of my complex was the beat up looking car that Ollie had driven into the city for my first meeting with Benny.

Maybe Ollie had wanted me to find out. It only made sense – otherwise, why would he introduce me to the new Dean? Was he really ready to kill any of us?

It didn’t matter now.

I walked around the car and looked inside. There was a card sitting in the driver’s seat. I opened the door and took it out.

“Mr. Rice had explicit instructions to make sure that found you.”

I nodded. “Are you expecting a tip or something?”

The man grinned. “You are a very hard person to get a hold of.”

I sighed and handed him a twenty.

I flipped the card open.

“Enjoy the car, kid. Sorry I can’t be around to teach you tricks with it. Better luck next time.

Haines.”

I smiled and slid it into the glove compartment, moving back into the building and up the elevator.

Naturally, I was shocked to find Clarice storming out of my apartment. How she even got in, I had no idea, but she was clearly upset about something. Dylan soon followed her.

I walked in. “What was that about?”

Liza was staring out the window. “Tried to make amends. I shot her down.”

“What happened between you two anyway?”

She smiled at me. “Clarice works as a pharmacist’s aid. When I started taking birth control, she told my father. I blew up at her – she really betrayed my trust. We used to be so close, but that... That really was a damaging thing she did.”

I nodded, moving over to the sofa.

“Where’s Sam and Tyler?”

“In the bedroom. They’re going over the book that man left.”

As if on cue, they stepped out. Tyler was still glaring at me, his eyes burning with a distrust I had never seen before.

“It’s Mark’s journal,” Sam said, moving over to the sofa. “He started keeping one the day he left the chapel – when he disappeared. My eighteenth birthday. It says on the first page that, ‘When we’re together again, this will make the perfect gift. My rise to glory, and it’s all for you, Sam.’”

As she read the passage, her voice began to crack. “I’m sorry, Tyler. It’s just –“

He pulled her up and close. “It’s okay. You don’t have to explain anything.”

She began to sob into his chest.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here before we get killed.”

“Tyler,” Sam began, but he moved her to the door. They both walked out.

I sighed and Liza sat next to me on the sofa. “It’ll get better.”

“I know. As strange as it is, I finally feel like things are getting back to normal around here.”

She smiled, and put her head on my shoulder. “So,” she said staring at the blank wall, “I think that’d be a good place for a TV.”

-

The next few days were a flurry of small events, but through them, I learned one new skill. Looking ahead instead of looking behind me for threats.

Josephine interviewed most of us. I tried to give on as objectively as I could, but my intense hatred for the drug seeped out at several points. After collecting around four hours of footage for a ten minute piece, Josephine left.

Liza wrote and published her article. A few days after it ran in the Westing Press, she received an invitation to speak at a conference for the press. She accepted and told everyone that she would use the opportunity to its fullest to address the problem.

The piece ran on the air and garnered acclaim from the local press. It was distributed nationally to a few news outlets. The problem... It looked like the epidemic might be on a down swing.

Tyler and I still didn’t talk much. It hurt to lose a friend like him, but I found out from Sam that he was trying to make things right.

And I should too.

I talked to Dylan, only because he was the only person I know that lacked scruples.

“Dylan, my ID went AWOL a little while ago. If I needed one made... off the radar, do you know someone who could do that?”

Dylan introduced me to a sweaty man named Alonzo who had his own photo business. He typically did weddings, but in the small room in the back, he did IDs for college students that were too young to reap the benefits of alcohol but wanted to anyway.

He seemed perplexed when I told him I didn’t want him to make me older, rather, keep the same age.

“It’s easy,” I said. “I’m also applying for a social security card. My parents were missionaries and I was born over open water, all that stuff and loopholes. But I still want to fly under the radar as much as possible.”

Alonzo didn’t ask another question and set me up with a fancy driver’s lisence. I used it to drive my new car around Westing, but there wasn’t much of interest.

“Hey, Dylan,” I said to him after getting my plastic. “Thanks.”

He smiled and nodded. “See? I don’t need to be a jerk all the time.”

“That’s what I’m talking about!” I clapped him on the shoulder.

-

I asked Liza to make amends with Clarice. I didn’t have any kind of medical insurance and a fake ID wouldn’t go over well with the doctor.

I told her about my memory, but that I was done running.

“That’s it. Whatever it was I wanted to forget, I’ve forgotten.”

“I want you here, with me now,” Liza said. “Give me the pills.”

I nodded. She took them and hurled them from the open window. “I don’t want you to disappear like Mark did,” she said.

“I won’t. But I’m going to need a new prescription.”

She nodded and pulled her phone out. “Clarice’s number is still in here, even after all these years.”

-

I had found myself.

I found myself walking into a pharmacy the next day.

“Thank you for staying,” Sam had told me. “You’ve done more than you can imagine for all of us.”

I walked past the mouth wash and toothpaste, making my way to the pickup counter.

“Stay, leave, it doesn’t matter,” Tyler had said. “But if you leave, you know... Who am I going to beat at pool all the time?”

I moved past the individual cereal boxes and bubble swords.

“I figure I have to give you a shot at being an actual person,” Dylan said.

Liza... She had only said, “I love you.”

I walked up to the prescription pickup counter. In front of me was a pharmacist in a white coat, staring at me from an elevated floor.

I held the gold bricks in my hand, the keys to my past, my memory.

“I’m here to pick up a prescription.”

“Name?”

I dropped the bricks on the ground, scattering them as far as I could. I didn’t need them anymore. Before, I had taken my own life and now... I had made a new one.

“Tim Smith,” I said. And for the first time, I said it with confidence.

THE END.

[FoJaR]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

THE END???

[ShastaTwist]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

I Thought More People Would Die

What The Hell's Wrong With You?

[MalReynolds]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

Sorry it didn't end on a down note.

Good jesus god damn I killed off almost all of the secondary characters, no wait, all of them except those I introduced in the last few pages

[FoJaR]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

i thought you were gonna do something with the garys

[MalReynolds]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

They all died in a car accident the next day

The end.

[FoJaR]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

i thought

[Ice wolf]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

Yay! Now I won't spend hours trying to finish this every day.

[MalReynolds]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

So - here's an update.

I'm editing right now. Not any posts in this thread, that would take forever. But let it be known!

Gary does come up again. He is now in the letter George wrote to his parents before he died. Gary is on the run from the cops, and he confronts Tim at his apartment. Gary says it's unfair he should be punished for a mistake he made once, and Tim agrees. Tim also says the best thing to do would be to work on something that would reverse the effects of the drug, which could be possible due to the notes on the Island. Gary leaves.

And the ending is changed somewhat. The reveal to Liza is going to be bigger, and it's going to take place in the car that Haines left Tim. He's going to repeat Haines' life philosophy of choices to Liza in an effort to show her that he's going to start making his own choices.

The rest of the ending plays out the same.

-

Here are the edits to the ending:

in the letter George leaves his parents:

"“The cops are on to Gary. I told him to run, and he did. He’s trying to get out of here as fast as he can, but... Knowing Gary..."

-

This next part takes place between the 'flurry of small events' and Tim getting his fake ID.

"-

Gary found me before I even thought about looking for him. He had made his way into my apartment when I wasn’t at home and perched himself on the sofa. I walked in and he pulled a knife out, staring at me. It looked like he had been crying.

“This isn’t fair, Tim, this isn’t fair!”

“Slow down Gary. What’s not fair?”

“They’re going to haul me away. They’re going to take me away for a mistake I made once, Tim!”

“Gary... Put the knife down.”

“No. If I’m going out, I’m going out with a fight.”

“Things are changing, Gary. There’s no guarantee that you’d be treated the same way as people before... You could be part of a new wave. There could be rehab, you know –“

“That’s a lie! There’s no cure for what I have! I’m a time-bomb, Tim. A goddamned time-bomb. George said... George said I should go to you if I had nowhere else to go, but you don’t know jack.”

“I’ll try and help you. I have a car, I’ll get you out of Westing.”

“I don’t want to run away. I don’t want to be forced out of my city like a second class citizen!”

I sighed. “Just put the knife down, Gary.”

His eyes were welling with tears, and he turned his head to the side. “Aren’t you afraid that you’re going to set me off?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Well why not!”

I shrugged. “It’s hard to make me scared.”

Gary laughed and cried at the same time, his hands shaking as he put the knife on the table.

“I don’t know what to do. Alice and John, they tried to turn me in after George got stabbed and – and I trusted them. I have nowhere else to go.”

“There are tons of empty buildings.”

“I want to just... God, it was a mistake trying that stuff. But I only did it once! I just wish I could take it back.”

“Well, what if you could?”

“What?”

“If you’re any good at reading formula, the original recipe is out on Banana Island,” I said. “There’s a new form making the rounds, but that’s going to die out. If you found someone that could work with physics and chemistry, you could try and reverse the effects. But knowing how Flash works... It would probably be very, very painful.”

Gary stood up. “No one knows about the formula. They just know about those stupid mushrooms.”

“Yeah, well. Now you know. Think you can fix it?”

He shook his head. “No, but I’ll find some people that can help me. Even if we get taken out, we’ll get taken out trying.”

“And Gary?”

“Yeah?”

I opened the door. “I think you should devote as much time as you can to this over your improv troupe.”

“Yeah,” He muttered, walking towards the door. “They suck anyway. That’s your knife, I got it out of you silverware drawer.”

I shut the door behind him, closed my eyes, and slid down the wall until I was seated on the floor. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the knife.

He was going to try. It was out of my hands now, into his. I had done enough – it was my turn to rest.

I leaned my head against the wall and closed my eyes, until they were startled open with the ringing of my tableside phone.

Who had my number?

I answered. “Hello?”

“Hi. Is Charlie there?”

“Charlie?”

“We saw you on the news,” the voice on the other end said. “We’re from Ontario.”

The only response they got was heavy breathing at first.

“Hello?” the voice called.

“Oh. This is Charlie’s retainer... Tim. Charlie was killed after the news piece by some... Some idiot. I’m terribly sorry to break the news to you like this, but Charlie... Charlie is dead.”

There was a pause on the other end.

“Seriously? It took us so long to find his number...”

“Seriously.”

There was another pause. “Thank you,” the voice said on the other end. Before I could tell them they were welcome, they hung up.

I pressed the receiver down and immediately blocked their number."

-

And finally, the reveal at the end:

I told Liza that we were going for a drive. She sat down in the car, looking over at me as I turned the key in the ignition. The motor hummed to life and I pulled out, driving north into the city.

I stopped the car outside of the park. We sat on a hill overlooking the graves.

“Liza,” I said, turning to her, “I don’t know who I am.”

“We all get like that sometimes, Tim,” she smiled.

“I can’t remember anything before fourteen days ago.”

“What?”

“I... I started remembering things after I paid off that cab driver. He dropped me off in front of Westing College, and then Dylan thought he recognized me. I don’t know if my real name is Tim – it probably isn’t.”

“What is your real name?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

She paused, staring at me, her eyes jumping back and forth, trying to read me like a book.

“And that’s it. Now you know everything.”

She kept staring at me.

“Please stop staring at me like that.”

“I can’t help it.”

I turned and looked her in the eye. “Life... Life is a series of choices. The moment I stepped out of the cab, I let other people make mine for me. That’s not much of a way to live. So now I’m making my own. If you don’t want to talk to me again, fine, but I’m staying in Westing. That’s my choice,” I said, echoing the sentiment of Haines.

“And I’ll choose to stand by you,” she finally said. “Even if you’re not a real ‘Tim.’ I did think that name was cute, though, in a Christmas Carol kind of way.”

I pulled out my fake ID and handed it over. “Well, according to my new ID, that’s my name.”

She turned it over in her hands. “Tim Smith? Of any last name you could pick, you picked ‘Smith’? How generic can you get?”

I smiled. “It’s what I knew. But... Since I’m staying...” I told her about the pills and where my memory went.

She grabbed them out of my hand and threw them from the window. “I don’t want you to disappear like Mark did.”

“I’m going to need a prescription, though.”

Liza pulled her phone out, flipping through the directory. “It’s weird, you know, how Clarice’s name is in here even after all those years. I wonder if her number is the same?”

I smiled, and Liza hit ‘Send.’

-

The rest of the ending is identical. Sorry if it was undesirable for it to end as such, but there it is.

[FoJaR]

Re: The Tin Cowboy

nah i liked the way it ended, i was just wondering about the garys