[Alabaster] "On the Road to Savannah" (PG-13)
Author's Note: Written for comment_fic's Author's choice, author's choice, driving through empty towns in the small hours, with only the light of the sodium lamps, and graveyard shift radio. Inspired somewhat by the essay "On the Road to Jefferson", in the anthology.
A cold November night, cold enough that Dead Girl and Bobby moved more slowly than usual, content to remain in the Monte Carlo while the Bailiff did his errands for Miss Aramat, fetching and carrying her small horrors and things needed for her and her ladies' dark pleasures. Only the sodium lights on the main roads and the light of the stars in between towns to show them the way, and the jangle of Gospel and honky-tonk stations on the radio. The former irked Dead Girl, while Bobby and the Bailiff sang along with the latter, when there was a song they knew.
At long last, on a particularly dark stretch south of Jefferson and north of Athens, between interminable cow pastures and fallow fields covered in winter rye, the twin points of headlamps shone from a ditch on the opposite side.
"Looks like folk in trouble," the Bailiff said.
"Will there be a lesson?" Bobby asked, hopeful, glancing between the big man beside him and Dead Girl, in the back seat, curled up with a book.
"Maybe a different kind of lesson," the Bailiff said, pulling the car over to face the ditch, before killing the engine, leaving the lights on as he opened the driver's door to get out.
A guy in a leather coat cut like something Dead Girl had seen as a girl, eyeliner and pale makeup on his face, stood in front of a crippled Honda station wagon; several young folk sat jammed into the front and rear seats, dressed like a bunch of whores from hell's cotillion. The Bailiff asked where they were going, the young man in the leather frock coat replied, with something that earned a grumpy comment from the Bailiff. The man made a request, which the Bailiff refused: no surprise, as they had to be in Savannah before sun-up. The young man pressed him, but the Bailiff replied more firmly, insistent without bitching.
At length, the Bailiff came back to the Monte Carlo, getting in and keying the ignition.
"That was no fun," Bobby noted. "What were we supposed to learn from that?"
"Bobby, don't be a whiner," Dead Girl muttered.
"A little thing called charity," the Bailiff said, heading for the center of town. "Best way to hide in plain sight: doing normal things that normal folk do."
"How is leaving those kids there charity?" Bobby asked.
"You'll find out once I find a payphone and call in a tow truck to haul them outta that ditch," he said.
A cold November night, cold enough that Dead Girl and Bobby moved more slowly than usual, content to remain in the Monte Carlo while the Bailiff did his errands for Miss Aramat, fetching and carrying her small horrors and things needed for her and her ladies' dark pleasures. Only the sodium lights on the main roads and the light of the stars in between towns to show them the way, and the jangle of Gospel and honky-tonk stations on the radio. The former irked Dead Girl, while Bobby and the Bailiff sang along with the latter, when there was a song they knew.
At long last, on a particularly dark stretch south of Jefferson and north of Athens, between interminable cow pastures and fallow fields covered in winter rye, the twin points of headlamps shone from a ditch on the opposite side.
"Looks like folk in trouble," the Bailiff said.
"Will there be a lesson?" Bobby asked, hopeful, glancing between the big man beside him and Dead Girl, in the back seat, curled up with a book.
"Maybe a different kind of lesson," the Bailiff said, pulling the car over to face the ditch, before killing the engine, leaving the lights on as he opened the driver's door to get out.
A guy in a leather coat cut like something Dead Girl had seen as a girl, eyeliner and pale makeup on his face, stood in front of a crippled Honda station wagon; several young folk sat jammed into the front and rear seats, dressed like a bunch of whores from hell's cotillion. The Bailiff asked where they were going, the young man in the leather frock coat replied, with something that earned a grumpy comment from the Bailiff. The man made a request, which the Bailiff refused: no surprise, as they had to be in Savannah before sun-up. The young man pressed him, but the Bailiff replied more firmly, insistent without bitching.
At length, the Bailiff came back to the Monte Carlo, getting in and keying the ignition.
"That was no fun," Bobby noted. "What were we supposed to learn from that?"
"Bobby, don't be a whiner," Dead Girl muttered.
"A little thing called charity," the Bailiff said, heading for the center of town. "Best way to hide in plain sight: doing normal things that normal folk do."
"How is leaving those kids there charity?" Bobby asked.
"You'll find out once I find a payphone and call in a tow truck to haul them outta that ditch," he said.