SADDLEBAGS, Trunks, and Tombs

Chapter 16: Red Flag: Part 1

The Walker

     I am getting to the point where I don’t care too much about the columns of light.  All I’m doing is picking up items.  What I do get is the time to remember.  Time to remember my young wife, who I left on the east coast, alone.

     I remember the boats coming in.  I had taken Marty into town, on a shopping trip for the house.  Before I dropped her off to do the grocery shopping for the manor, we stopped and watched the boats coming in and out of the harbor.  Of course we maintained our distance in public, but I had wanted her to have as much as I could possibly give her, which was nothing next to what she deserved.

     She was humming a song, softly, a song that I remember her mother singing to her when she was a little thing.  “Marty, I’m going to tell my father.”  She had turned to face me then.  “Why, Jack?  Why would you do such a thing right now?  He will never accept me.  I can wait.”  

     I looked at my bride, wanting to bring her into my arms so badly that they ached.  This was the reason.  “You are my wife, not a servant at the manor.  You deserve to wear the fine clothing as a lady of the house and I deserve to hold you in my arms whenever I choose to.  Yes, my reasons may be selfish, but you are a Winchester and it is time.”  

     “Just give it a little more time”, she said, moving as close to me as either of us would dare in public.  “A little more time and planning and it will all work out.  I believe your father is somewhat fond of me, it should help.”  With that we had begun to make our way into town.

     The letter, addressed to Mr. Franklin Winchester, was laid at the front door.  The person delivering it had waited until Master Jack and the pretty maid had disappeared down the road.

The Watcher:

     “Hey, Ken, thanks for stopping by, the food was great!”  “Anytime, my friend, anytime!  I will get these articles out for you and I will be in contact.”  “I appreciate it.”  With that I closed the door.  

     No sooner was the door closed when I felt the air change.  I spun around quickly and noticed the old man bending to pick up a new item.  I flew back to the couch and prepared to write.

Red Flag 

     As soon as the shirt was in the wrinkled hands, it began to dry, rapidly, as the smell of it dissipated, leaving only a lingering scent of what had been meant to be.

      Adrian Robinson had never wanted to be in a gang.  He wasn’t the first nor would he be the last that hated the street gangs that ran the streets.  Yet, here he was again, sneaking around the back of the science building, which was next to an open gate, putting on his red sweatshirt and sunglasses.  

     He carefully folded up the papers in his hand and stuffed them in his back pocket, carefully placing the red bandana over them so that it would hang down and hopefully hide his work.  He pulled his jeans down so that most of his red boxers could be seen and put his sunglasses on.  With the transformation complete, he began his four block walk home from school.

     Adrian was sixteen and a junior at one of the more notorious high schools in Los Angeles.  He had been a straight A student since he had started school eleven years ago.  His mother had never had to worry about getting him up in the morning.  He was a good kid and loved school.  Then the worst happened, Adrian had been forced into the neighborhood gang.  

    They had been after him for more than two years and had finally “convinced” him that his mother and younger sister needed the protection that only his allegiance to the gang could secure.  Protection from the gang, he had no option.  His mother had screamed, had threatened, had cried, yet even she knew it had only been a matter of time.  He would not be allowed to live a normal life, a gang free life.  Not choosing the gang life meant no life for him, literally.  

     So Adrian was forced to be “Ant” during the late afternoon, and a college bound student as soon as he could make it into the house and get to his homework.  His teachers had done what they could.  His counselor, Mr. Anderson, had arranged for him to keep an extra set of books at home.  School books wouldn’t fit in the back pocket of his sagging jeans.

     There they were, as usual, hanging near the corner that led to Adrian’s house.  Just one day, he would love it if they met somewhere else and he could just go home.  “What up, blood?”  Adrian made a slight nod up with his head.  “Right, right.”  

    The night went on as usual.  Talk of rival gangs, drinking, smoking bud, girls to get at, a normal night.  Yeah, it was normal, but for some reason Adrian didn’t feel like this was going to be a normal night.  As the night wore down, Adrian began to head down the alley, towards home.  He was nearing his back yard when he heard the car.  It was coming up behind him, slow, and the headlights were off.  

     Fear ran cold through his veins.  ‘Drive-bys’ happened all the time, but it had been Adrian’s hope that he would make it out of the Jungle without being part of one, in the car or out.  He wouldn’t.  He began to run, the car began to chase.  Just as he was coming up on his house he felt the pain.  Whatever it was, hit the left side of his head, then there was nothing but darkness. 

     Adrian woke up in the sweltering heat, in pitch black darkness, with something that made a migraine seem like a massage.  Wherever he was, or whatever he was in, he was moving and that meant he was alive.  Even though his head pounded, he tried to move around, tried to get his bearings.  He hadn’t been shot, he didn’t think anyway, and the pain reminded him that he was definitely not dead.  

    The moving stopped and within seconds there were bright lights flooding his temporary prison and hands pulling him out of where he had been.  Tossed on the dusty, dry ground, he was met by stomping feet into his abdomen and head.  It seemed like the beating would go on forever, but for whatever reason, it pummeling stopped.  

     Adrian smelled the gasoline just before he felt the wetness of it on his skin.  He never saw his attackers, but did it really matter who they were?  He was going to die, he could never tell on them, dead.  Still he wondered, through the nauseating pain, why were they taking so long?  What happened to the rain of bullets that he had expected in the ally?

     Unfolded pages of paper were dropped next to Adrian’s head.  Out of his right eye, which was no more than a bloody slit, he saw his name at the top of the paper, in his own handwriting.  His science homework.  Madness began to fill his mind.  He was going to die because of homework!!  

     Adrian curled into a tight ball, as tight as he could manage anyway, considering things were swollen and broke.  He never saw the match being struck, the match that was meant to ignite his gasoline covered body.  Something had changed.  His attackers were moving away, quickly.  He heard the car doors slamming, then there was nothing, nothing but him and pain. 

     Adrian’s gang had meant for him to be found.  Meant for those who found him to see his name on the science homework and report his death, his burning, to the media.  They had meant for a rival gang to be blamed.  One of the members had meant to get ‘Ant’ out of the way for his own purposes.  

    The drive to the deserts of Nevada had been long.  They had found a Mexican restaurant, with a lot of open desert behind it, to do what they had come here to do.  The initiate for the night was running towards the car with the rest of the gang, having forgotten to drop the lit match on the curled up body lying not far away.  Cars were coming.  They had to get out of there.

     Paul Mason was on his way to work.  He was happy to finally have a job.  Everybody in Pahrump didn’t.  He was thinking about how he and his now pregnant wife, were lucky that he had found a gig, as he was driving his cement truck to the construction site on Blagg and Wilson.  

     The sun was not yet fully over the horizon but he was still able to see the hunched body falling to the ground on the side of the right side of the road.  Paul was going too fast to stop before he passed, but he stopped just beyond and pulled his truck off the road.  As he jogged toward the crumpled body, pulling his cell phone from his pocket, the vision lying at his feet made him want to cry.

      Adrian was not aware of anything anymore.  To him, there was nothing, nothing but the red shirt on his back.  He had to get it off.  Even though he was covered with blood, he would never again be a ‘blood’.  He struggled and struggled to get the red sweatshirt off.  

     Later, the trauma team at Advance Medical, just across the street from where he had fallen, would be amazed that he had taken the shirt off himself.  His determination had been stronger than his two broken arms.  As he dropped the shirt to the ground, the pain took him into the darkness.  He would never know those who came to his rescue or how his life had been saved.