I AM A MAN: RAGE TOWARD THE MACHINE, MAKING SURE TO CATCH IT AT JUST THE RIGHT ANGLE OF MOONLIGHT

Ty, Tudey, Scootch, Base Fase, and Mario relocate just outside the city. Base Fase has a big-enough hole in the wall in the neighboring city for the bunch to hide out in till the heat dies. Fancytown on the other hand is awash in live protests, firework explosions on a non-holiday, street riots, riot police using tear gas to spread open the eyes of the protesters throwing rocks and stones, creating a hole wide open to let in their military, outside-the-city rabblerousers causing trouble, Lofton's police being the biggest instigators, all directed with technology by Lofton sitting on the futtock of his pirate ship.

Ty: you lied to us, Base, this turned out to be nice, not a hovel. and you're still sure the owners won't come back at night and scare us?

Base: lips are sealed, i know the deal, i walk the streets, squat or no squat, i avoid the pop.

Scootch, Base Fase, and Mario sit next to each other on the couch and share a joint.

Scootch: it was smart to leave the city, but be right next to the city, next to the property line, we can still see the ocean and Lofton's garish pirate ship. his thugs can't reach us.

Ty: and he would call us thugs. don't underestimate him. this is a stop but not a cure. the running around before gave me time to think. that's how i fill my days now, with thinking and computing on my ipad, researching.

Mario: and fucking Tudey.

Ty: thank you for keeping that on the down low. it was not my intention, furthest thing from my computing mind actually. i don't need a distraction, the goal is all that matters. but it happened naturally as the best things do. thank you for keeping here on the couch when we're in the next bedroom.

Mario: you remind us of what we can achieve, my blood. and it doesn't hurt to get a little second-hand smoke wafted our way.

Ty: you can afford to be passive smokers, but i must be doing the smoking when the time comes. the plan is set, right fellas? we've been over this. everything is in place.

Base: thanks to me you have your gun.

Ty: shiny one, too, nice and dull and shiny. this is proof that you never know what's up a friend's pocket. best to make many friends so as to have many pockets to stick your hand into.

Scootch: while we're assigning praise, remember it was i who suggested leaving the city and its rules.

Ty: i forgot you in the commotion but i will never forget you, my brothers. nobodies become somebodies in the forge of purpose. and numbers reign, oh do they reign, a cause is nothing without many minds sharpening the spear. when many contribute, the one becomes fortified. it is still one, lost in its combination, only the one shines through, but the memories of the individuals who shaped that one's spear call out at the moment of impact. though forgotten, you are never forgotten because the very existence of the spear was proof of your being.

Mario: you have my bullets, right? they are special bullets, they turn counterclockwise when fired instead of the usual clockwise, they are poetic like that, i love seeing things in motion, round and round and round, i desire that spinning of intent, i cannot afford to be idle.

Ty: yes my friend, you are my arm that plunges the blade, that knifes the life, truly. the weapon is set. i may think i have all the answers, but you guys remind me that thinking is flawed. in action is resolve, in action is result.

later that night, Tudey returns through the shadows to the bedroom and curls up with Ty.

Ty: dat u, boo? i was having the strangest dream, a nightmare where i wasn't the leader i made myself out to be, i wasn't man enough for the job, i wasn't the man you or the guys expect me to be.

Tudey: leader problems. what about me? i am certainly the woman for this job and then some. the things i've had to do to that man. but it's all for the cause i keep telling myself, when he holds down my head, opens me up, and pulls my hair.

Ty is incensed internally and it spills out like incense externally. he offers Tudey a comforting kiss. these two solemn naked folk kiss with their big lips big love for each other and hug forever.

Ty: do not spill the details, i don't want to know. i can't picture the face of mine enemy at this moment doing such horrid things to you, and that is for the best. best to be cold when coldness is required. please spill the details, did you get any dirt on him and his locations?

Tudey: i have some things that i will whisper in your ear. do you think my big bro would approve of this?

Ty: i hope Dry is smiling. i did not want this. i did not want you. i did not want me. this seems convenient, not romantic, like it was borne out of necessity rather than lust. it's the fireman who moves in with his fallen fellow fireman friend's widow. Dry, i do hope you know that we do this out of a bonded concern for you, this is in memory of you, this isn't about us, it's about keeping the family unit together, for though the two of us were strangers not too long ago, we are family now, and families have a unique way of keeping themselves strangers to each other.

Tudey: you say the sweetest things, my brother, you sure know how to make a girl feel special. it's incestuous and messy yet not. in the end, it's a coming together. whether it's because we are the only two people in the room, bodies seek comfort whatever their locations in life. loneliness is the one enemy which cannot be gotten rid of easily with a gun.

Ty: until you use the gun. my eyes are starting to go, they're straining in this pale light. i need to wash the blood off my face.

Tudey: that's just redness. you get hot easily.

Ty: true true. my face burns now than ever before. even after i shower, the refreshment lasts but a minute. i need to douse my face with water constantly, keep my eyes open with soothing liquid.

Tudey: you have to remind yourself to wake up, wake up, always be waking up. perfect, now that you've awoken, you have time to listen to my day. time to talk about our feelings.

Ty: i think not, i am an animal of feeling, i am ready to listen and fully engage.

Tudey: the change occurred gradually, it seemed natural, then one day i woke up and snap, just like that i quickly realized that community organizing was not a thing. i want to be a nurse.

Ty: feel, it's to honor Dry. his death makes you want to save others as a replacement for the one person you couldn't save.

Tudey: will everything in my life be about my brother? when does my own life start?

Ty: as soon as it's done, and there's closure, except the chapter is never closed because Dry Dream wasn't able to write his epilogue the way he wanted, it was written for him by a dirty, inky hand holding a feather.

Tudey: i miss him, Ty.

Ty: i know. that's the only thing i know. i feel it, i don't just think it. but you are forever my bitch. more importantly, you're my sister. we'll get through this, but only together. no man is an island in the middle of the ocean on a ship.

the two kiss on the side of their mouths and smile internally. Tudey tries to get up but Ty playfully hangs onto the white sheet.

Tudey: i need a glass of water.

Ty: oh to be able to drink water than have to splash it on.

Ty gazes at Tudey's large naked butt as she walks away. his gaze moves right and covers the entire bedroom slowly. his point fixes at the open window where the thin curtains are being dragged back and forth by the sea breeze. anchors and bells are thinly sounding in the distance. Ty can sense the shadow of Lofton's ship in the offing, he can't see the shadow but he senses it. next, Ty scans the bedroom's open closet and notices a white nurse's uniform hanging on a hanger, drooping.

he gets up and goes to the washroom to wash his face. he collects the dirty rented tap water into his two palms and throws the water ferociously into his face. his big mouth drips and drips and drips. he tries to look himself in the bathroom mirror but the image goes right through him. his face starts feeling warm again, pins shock above both ears, his head is in turmoil, he's remembering, thinking back to the dream he had, the swirling colors of the afterlife, Dry trying to add color to Ty's manic confused dream, letting him know that he is there, his friend lives, the cacophany of the beats and the rhythm and the vocals of pain and anguish,

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK.

Ty: the two of us share the wound of fallen family, the five of us share the wound of being under the heel of the boot of tyranny. no drug lasts forever, we all wake up the next day with the truth, bleary eyes stay bleary only for so long, water resets the face and the day but never the reality of no more days ever. the five of us were bars of pig iron, always the Man's truffle hogs, now we merge and melt and fuse together into steel to slaughter the pigs, with a blowtorch unseen by the tyrant. this flame was boiling the rock underground into lava, unnoticed for decades by the tyrant too busy on top of the cool ground amassing his wealth and influence. cracks in the ground are beginning to form, the lava is seeping through, things unchecked have a way of checking themselves into balance again. the time is nigh. the time is night, black as night.

Ty listens to the silence. he hears through the window the quiet. the storm and the inbetween storms, that's where the sea lives. the moonlight is a bright dull column tonight, catching white on his face for a split second, bathing the waters and one side of the pirate ship. nothing can be seen on the ship, it's too far away, except for the discernable tower of shadows it casts over the land. he hears the metronomic tone of the waves, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

TO BE CONCLUDED...

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