AGNES
Predator Press
[LOBO]
ay Bultema wasn't a particularly handsome guy, but he was interesting looking. Something about him, his demeanor, something, drew your attention.
The quintessential soon-to-be-former front man for my first band, Cheap Thrills, was sleeping lightly with his head against the train window as I studied him closely, trying to put my finger on it.
At twenty-two, he was fully five or six years older than I, and I would be lying if I said there wasn't some level of older-brother hero-worship at play.
Ray and I were on the train home from a six week tour of the east coast; the band's bus dropped us at some long-forgotten train station in Jersey, and we dragged ourselves exhaustedly aboard.
It was then that Ray announced he was done.
I can't say I blame him. All the trouble I could've been in, Ray would've had double. I did half of the last year as an illegal high school dropout, and I still wasn't old enough to go into the bars where we "made our bones". Ray would've most certainly done time in a prison for having contributed to my delinquency. It was a particularly grueling tour this time as well; we were broke, and Ray had to sell some of his equipment to get us home.
But we were doing something more important than all that.
Until now.
Our meager and battered luggage was crammed awkwardly around our feet, and on top of his was a new pink "Hard Rock Café Miami" book bag, a gift for his rarely seen five year old daughter. Ray was giving up everything in hopes of rebuilding his shattered family.
"Yeah my everything, too," I thought. I wasn't really as angry with him as maybe I should have been. Even as a teenager I knew that sometimes the toughest decisions in life are ones where, ultimately, there is really no choice at all.
***
The announcement for my stop comes over the intercom, and he wakes, catching me staring at him.
"What?" he says blearily.
"Look," I says. "I love you, and I don't want you to take this the wrong way. But you are one ugly motherfucker. I mean, I know monkfish that wouldn't fuck you."
He laughs, rubbing his eyes. "Yeah, I know. I'm pretty fucking sick of looking at your flycatcher myself. You look forty years old."
Probably true; we hadn't had good sleep in days. "This is my stop," I says, reaching for my bags.
"Your parents going to be cool?"
"I dunno," I shrug. "No."
"Well, you know where to find me."
"Yeah," I says, trying to sound aloof. "So long," I says, shaking his hand.
I struggled with my bag through the thin isle. Toward the end of the car, it snagged, strangely firm. I turned to look, and realized that the little pink bookbag had hooked itself on a ticket clip; when I grabbed my bag, I must have accidentally reached through one of the pack shoulder straps. And empty, it's so light I never noticed I had it.
"Shit," I says turning around. Retracing my arduous path back to Ray, the doors at the front of the car slide open, and a guy in a trench coat and Army fatigues slips in quietly. I'm about only about four seats behind Ray when he swings the shotgun out from under his coat and proceeds to open fire on the passengers.
By the second or third blast, somehow in my panic I've sort of collapsed on the floor between some seats on opposite and behind where Ray is. Oh God, Ray-- Another seismic roar, and blood arcs across the window behind where he was; illuminated by dehumanizing fluorescents, a pale, pink mist of blood and bone fills the air.
Screams. Pleas. Panic surges through the remaining survivors. People were trying to flee. Curled into a tiny, terrified ball, I can see the gunman's heavy boots under the seats and through the smoke, calmly advancing through the car, crunching over broken plastic shards and glass. More shots; the plastic molding of the train's interior vibrates, resonating each explosion.
He stops more or less right in front of me.
It's quiet.
I peek out from behind the empty bookbag, and I'm staring into a silvery circle, bellowing white smoke. I close my eyes and wait for the inevitable.
Moments pass. Minutes maybe. The acrid smell of gunpowder sears my nose.
The shooter sighs audibly.
I force my eyes open. He seems frozen ... wrestling with something in his head. Mouth open, his broken, jagged teeth don't seem like they would fit together right.
He blinks, shoulders seeming to relax a little. "When you get home tonight," he says in a thin, furious southern drawl, gesturing at the bookbag, "Yer gonna give that little girl a hug, an tell her how much you love her."
I stare, silent and bewildered in yet-unmeasured horror.
And the he was gone.
[LOBO]
The quintessential soon-to-be-former front man for my first band, Cheap Thrills, was sleeping lightly with his head against the train window as I studied him closely, trying to put my finger on it.
At twenty-two, he was fully five or six years older than I, and I would be lying if I said there wasn't some level of older-brother hero-worship at play.
Ray and I were on the train home from a six week tour of the east coast; the band's bus dropped us at some long-forgotten train station in Jersey, and we dragged ourselves exhaustedly aboard.
It was then that Ray announced he was done.
I can't say I blame him. All the trouble I could've been in, Ray would've had double. I did half of the last year as an illegal high school dropout, and I still wasn't old enough to go into the bars where we "made our bones". Ray would've most certainly done time in a prison for having contributed to my delinquency. It was a particularly grueling tour this time as well; we were broke, and Ray had to sell some of his equipment to get us home.
But we were doing something more important than all that.
Until now.
Our meager and battered luggage was crammed awkwardly around our feet, and on top of his was a new pink "Hard Rock Café Miami" book bag, a gift for his rarely seen five year old daughter. Ray was giving up everything in hopes of rebuilding his shattered family.
"Yeah my everything, too," I thought. I wasn't really as angry with him as maybe I should have been. Even as a teenager I knew that sometimes the toughest decisions in life are ones where, ultimately, there is really no choice at all.
The announcement for my stop comes over the intercom, and he wakes, catching me staring at him.
"What?" he says blearily.
"Look," I says. "I love you, and I don't want you to take this the wrong way. But you are one ugly motherfucker. I mean, I know monkfish that wouldn't fuck you."
He laughs, rubbing his eyes. "Yeah, I know. I'm pretty fucking sick of looking at your flycatcher myself. You look forty years old."
Probably true; we hadn't had good sleep in days. "This is my stop," I says, reaching for my bags.
"Your parents going to be cool?"
"I dunno," I shrug. "No."
"Well, you know where to find me."
"Yeah," I says, trying to sound aloof. "So long," I says, shaking his hand.
I struggled with my bag through the thin isle. Toward the end of the car, it snagged, strangely firm. I turned to look, and realized that the little pink bookbag had hooked itself on a ticket clip; when I grabbed my bag, I must have accidentally reached through one of the pack shoulder straps. And empty, it's so light I never noticed I had it.
"Shit," I says turning around. Retracing my arduous path back to Ray, the doors at the front of the car slide open, and a guy in a trench coat and Army fatigues slips in quietly. I'm about only about four seats behind Ray when he swings the shotgun out from under his coat and proceeds to open fire on the passengers.
By the second or third blast, somehow in my panic I've sort of collapsed on the floor between some seats on opposite and behind where Ray is. Oh God, Ray-- Another seismic roar, and blood arcs across the window behind where he was; illuminated by dehumanizing fluorescents, a pale, pink mist of blood and bone fills the air.
Screams. Pleas. Panic surges through the remaining survivors. People were trying to flee. Curled into a tiny, terrified ball, I can see the gunman's heavy boots under the seats and through the smoke, calmly advancing through the car, crunching over broken plastic shards and glass. More shots; the plastic molding of the train's interior vibrates, resonating each explosion.
He stops more or less right in front of me.
It's quiet.
I peek out from behind the empty bookbag, and I'm staring into a silvery circle, bellowing white smoke. I close my eyes and wait for the inevitable.
Moments pass. Minutes maybe. The acrid smell of gunpowder sears my nose.
The shooter sighs audibly.
I force my eyes open. He seems frozen ... wrestling with something in his head. Mouth open, his broken, jagged teeth don't seem like they would fit together right.
He blinks, shoulders seeming to relax a little. "When you get home tonight," he says in a thin, furious southern drawl, gesturing at the bookbag, "Yer gonna give that little girl a hug, an tell her how much you love her."
I stare, silent and bewildered in yet-unmeasured horror.
And the he was gone.
Comments