I AM A MAN: MAKE SURE THE RAGE DRIPPINGS ARE USED TO FUEL YOUR OWN MACHINE

Lofton is quite efficient at cleaning up messes and making everything nasty go away. as soon as daylight strikes the tired smoke of Halloween night in Fancytown, any news of the shooting of Dry Dream is gone out of the mind of the city, like a dream, which is what Halloween is once a year. it was a nonstarter, it never happened, Dry officially became a number because it was just another unsolved shooting. neighbors dare not speak, snitches get stitches, especially the ones who witnessed it, cos eyewitness testimony is the most unrealiable as ironic as that seems. others more powerful and learned are quickly paid off in hush-hush rooms and the brighest smile in the room and the city always belongs to Lofton, he is brighter than the sun who peeks behind a cloud this day and radiates a disinfectant over the gory details of Fancytown.

Lofton quickly sends his squads to go hunt for Ty and Tudey. or maybe he doesn't. Lofton just has to make it appear that he's searching for them. it's not the actual fear, it's the posibility of fear. Ty and Tudey understand this, the two are huddled with a group of other three by the railroad tracks. Tudey convinces Ty that this is the safest place there is, the most abandoned, the river here is so polluted not with chemicals but by a broken heart of never being visited and tended to. nobody comes here, it's not even fit for the cement of those gangland murders in the city's past, the cement becomes too easily warped, it doesn't hold correctly and evenly, the clean getaway can't be accomplished cleanly.

Ty: this is Akira Hall?

Tudey: well i'm hearing through my sources that that place is booked. man, i never thought someone as important as Lofton would care enough about two nobodies like us to send his top troops and military police to scour the countryside for us. i mean, shit, on any other day, Akira Hall is full of abandoned pool tables.

Ty: this entire city is abandoned, full of people and abandoned. that is the drug of anonymity, you can hide in the shadows. once you're known, you can't be erased, other than by a bullet. you are a target for life.

Scootch: i don't know who you are. i barely know this girl. i was told there was a leader who could bring hope and change to this area. is that you? i don't got time to wait to see if you have the stuff, i've got mouths to feed, detailing to do, my cars...

Base Fase: i'm a worthless basehead, but worthless basebheads are people, too. isn't a society based on dignity one that bases its moral compass on how it cares for its most-pressing helpless citizens? who's to say i won't get clean and end up president, where i can keep all the gold for myself and finally have myself a delicious, paid-for chicken dinner? we all have dreams, i am just as important a cog. without me to step on, other people don't achieve their dreams. i'm vital. call me a basic bitch, but we're all basic. we're all humans, that's what unites us after all.

Mario: i'm here to help, to fight, to do whatever, i am the fist that grips the sword, Ty, i am the loyal soldier. i don't believe in anything, much less myself, but i believe in action. not so much action bathed in purpose, but the motion of action, the kinetic energy, i like to see things move in a circle, in a pattern, my thinking goes off into weird patterns, i can't make sense of why point A feeds into point B, but i do understand the basic concept of action turning point A into point B, that is something felt. a punch, a kick to the head, that matters, the matter in my head, unkicked, is useless mush.

Ty sees a knife stuck in the middle of the dried-up dirt. he picks it up strangely. he doesn't pull it out by the handle, he pulls it out by the blade-end. his palm bleeds.

Ty: all knives are unsheathed to start with. the handle is a crutch, a manufactuired, put-on illusion that you are safely wielding power. the knife cuts both ways, you have to be ready to accept that. as you cut, it cuts you.

Base Fase: better than nothing.

Ty: Tudey, you keep this knife. think of it as me when i'm not here to protect you.

Scootch: what do we do now? the meeting is adjourned. i'll take the minutes later. we all know why we're here and what we want to have happen. the dictator must be overthrown. if we have to give our lives to do it, our lives will have not meant anything cos they will be over. if we don't so anything, our lives are over and meaningless. i suppose it's a matter of community, nihilism goes down more easily when shared.

Ty: i got this. i'm masta detective. no shit, Sherlock, just the straight shit. i know where to look for clues. i know i can prove he murdered your big brother, Tudey, eradicated him in cold blood. my blood is hot on the case. i'll check you guys late. we are united, friend, never forget that. when your blood is spilt, mine is. when you die, i don't die until i die and we are united, there, finally. united in ceaselessness. keep safe. skirt trouble. avoid the through streets. seek out cul-de-sacs.

Mario: but we're trapped in cul-de-sacs.

Ty: no, you trap them. is that them? fuck! who's running at us?

this happens frequently, Ty can't tell if he sees a shadow, a police gunning for him, an officer running at him, or a jogger on an afternoon stroll. oh to have a lazy Sunday again.

Lofton owned a ship. he built the pirate boat, actually, piece by piece, sail by sail, pole by pole, an exact replica of an early model, every detail perfect from those times pirates ruled the seas. the ship was docked by the railroad tracks. nobody in the town knew about this pirate ship though it was moored out in the open for anyone to see. either the citizens didn't care, were too busy getting shot at, had their own problems, were too busy dancing in the clubs to avoid getting shot at, had their own problems created by Lofton's government so they were busy with that, or because it was at the area no one went to.

Mario: we need guns, man! the fucking government has confiscated all of our guns, every single one. Lofton is an anal asshole. he made sure every single square inch was ransacked. every house, every single location, every edifice, every building searched from top to bottom. no guns on the streets except for the police's guns. but there is no backlash because crime rates have dropped, by one fucking percent. that's enough to keep the status-quo floating atop the sea. we are powerless. it's like bringing a knife stuck in the ground to a gunfight. it's like ten thousand

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when all you need is a knife that can block state-sanctioned bullets.

Lofton is aboard his vessel. the parrot on his shoulder is his earpiece, listening to the police radio wirelessly and spitting commands into his headset.

Lofton: you have the body? an agent of mine was embedded in that ambulance. good, you got it. cremated? good. send the urn by drone to my location.

Lofton takes off his headset and taps the shoulders of his mateys who are diligently looking through golden scopes and donning red-and-white-striped shirts.

Lofton: release the nets! we shall catch our prey yet! i own the ocean.

Lofton sits down on his heavy coat. he doesn't feel the sea breeze on his cheeks.

Lofton: ah, i remember the last time we netted. we caught a whole bunch of old weapons at the bottom of this sea. fuck this city was a big pile of mess before i cleaned up everything. there was one knife in particular that struck me. it had a distinctive blue handle with a two-blue symbol that cut me too blue. it was blue as the ocean, the ocean now, the ocean when i was a child, it wasn't a handle, it was an ocean gem culled from the bottom of the clean sea, made shiny by the years and years, layers and layers of dust, soft dust not hard dust, and swarming life. i love the life down there at the bottom of the ocean, it goes swimmingly unimpeded and unnoticed. this knife struck me, it struck me in the abdomen leaving this permanent scar boil here. hurts like the dickens but i wear it proudly as a war wound. i had to make tough choices, cut the heads of those in power, i had to wage a one-man war against the city that i loved before chaos turned to order.

Lofton takes off his shirt to show the men but the men are too scared to turn around and leave their post.

Lofton: this is what we're fighting for, gentlemen. scars are reminders of pain. but pain is transitory unless it's permanent. hopelessness is permanent pain. there is good pain, pain which brings about the end of pain, a temporary prick which prevents the gusher from bleeding out. i am the bandage, the simple brown-colored restraint who decided to take a stand. i am the bandage that covers over the area where the dutiful pirate's limb used to be. in the name of pirates everywhere, renegades, raiders, i carry on the tradition as your captain.

Lofton receives the urn of Dry Dream's ashes by covert plane. it's dropped in his red palms.

Lofton: to you, Dry Dream, as i've come to know your name. my shooting of you was random, that's what makes it magical. it has helped me out so much. there is truly an interconnectedness of all things that we don't see. even when we try to avoid things, we fall into them, they land in our laps, they land by air courier. who could have imagined that all my problems would be solved by one flick of the trigger? my hand really did slip this time. oh greater purpose, it was destiny. hughhughhugh, it makes me think. all those times i intentionally killed people, always turned out in the end to be unnecessary. i get a little paranoid and, well, whatever, it happens. such a shame. so much crudity, crudeness, vileness, it's such a bloody messy scene, *hugh*, there must be a better way.

with that, Lofton shakes his head in disgust and pours Dry's ashes into the ocean. he cuts himself on a rusty jagged shard that is coming apart off the cheap urn. his blood mixes with the ashes which mixes with the salt water.

TO BE CONTINUED...