Round Three
I've received my new research-free schedule. Differential equations, or as my father affectionately calls it, "Diffy Q", is the only real threat to my dominance. I'm back to work on band, my security job, and fencing. I also had my testicles removed to prevent hair loss in the near future, and sold them for book money. However, I soon suffered from a loss of equilibrium and realized I had to get them back. The dealer on whom I palmed them off told me that he did not share his records with anyone, so I sneaked into his house and found them in a strong box. Using the Rat style I learned in the sewers of Tibet, I gnawed through the corners and removed the details. I found that they were sold to a self-styled apothecary who makes aphrodisiacs out of such things. I briefly researched the process to discover they would be grinding them into a fine powder. I suspected the process would be irreversible.
With little time to lose, I found he operated out of a small shack in southern Louisiana. By the mercy of fate, or the tendency of junked-up old pickups, he had suffered engine trouble on the road, and I beat him to his shack. The next beating was administered by my hand unto his face, and having subdued him, I discovered he was no longer carrying my precious cargo. What I had taken to be a blessing had proved a curse--he was forced to trade my testes for assistance on the road to a homeless hitch-hiking former mechanic. Fortunately I am good with landmarks, for I had no means of tracking him down except for where the car had broken down. There I was apprehended by the police, for unbeknownst to me, there was a warrant out for my arrest in Jackson. The hitch-hiker had used some of my incriminating hairs to mask his own trail. Fortunately, after explaining my situation to the police, they let me go and I recovered a valuable clue from the experience.
In Jackson my fate changed for the worse. The crime scene yielded nothing to my benefit, and the hitch-hiker was still all but untrackable. It was during my third fruitless night when a car drove up behind me and three men got out. One said something like "Stay out of other people's business" and then a bag was over my face. When I came to, I was at the bottom of a deep body of water with cinder blocks chained to my knees. I employed the Rat style to chew my bindings and swam to the surface. The tepid, waveless water could only have belonged to the Gulf. Seriously set back, I wondered what recourse I had. It was then that I saw a huge, old fish. It looked at me with a wizened, almost human look. I knew at once to follow. Grabbing hold of its tail, I swam along with it through the Gulf to the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, and perhaps beyond. In the swirling colors of the water I saw many things that humans had forgotten, or perhaps had never known. I came to realize that I was seeing history as it had never been seen, a history told by the animals and plants. Through it I discovered the true significance of the hitch-hiker, the great trickster and usurper. He sought to halt evolution so that he alone could go uncontested. Pulling no punches, he did whatever he could to stay at the top of the game. He was generally resented by all peaceful creatures, for wherever he prospered it was at the expense of others. Though his life had been sought after for eons, he was never caught, either through trickery or by monopolizing the strongest life form available. Now, as a human, he was abroad again, and pitting his timeless wit against the craft of humankind. However, whether by design of fate or random chance, our paths had crossed. I knew that this went way beyond me.
I learned years of knowledge in one night, but I had one question unanswered. Without saying it, the fish took me to one last image. In it I saw a brood of eggs. They hatched and fish I had never seen swam out. The were of radiant colors with beautiful flowing fins and long, delicate whiskers waving from their faces. They were truly the most beautiful of all fish, and in their faces I saw an intellect that surpassed our own. I watched as they grew. The sea filled with life and as the years passed, but the radiant fish neither ate, aged, reproduced, nor died. Then a shadow passed, as though a great fish swam above them. But the shadow descended without taking form, and settled on the muck in the bottom. It ate greedily and that it could not swallow it corrupted, making devils out of living things. The creatures of the sea attacked it but none survived swallowing the vile poisons of its constitution, save the radiant fish that ate nothing until this time. The ate and ate it, and diminished as they did so, but nevertheless kept up their assault. When they finished, only a handful survived. They were now as brown as the muck. They swam into fresh waters where they settled to the dirt on the bottom and fed there forever more. The great catfish was one of the survivors of that battle, and though he shared the appearance of his short-lived and simple descendants, I knew that deep down inside some of the radiance had survived his poisoning from that day long ago when the most beautiful and carefree of all creatures sacrificed themselves to save the budding life on earth.
I swam to the bay. It was still night. The fish followed me up as far as the shore, where it barely had water to breathe. Even then, it pushed onwards so that I had to throw it back in the water. But it resisted my efforts, and I was forced to relent and watch it beach itself. I thought vaguely of burying it, but I was weary from the night's adventures and hungry to boot, so I made a fire and cooked him. Then, I devoured him and promptly fell asleep. I had a nightmare that night. Black oil poured from my mouth and nose. I tried to cover them up to stop the flow, but it backed into my lungs and I coughed and sneezed. Oil squirted between my fingers and I couldn't breathe. It pooled around my feet, and my reflection looked at me mockingly. Even as I suffocated and my life faded away, I used my last effort to kick at the reflection, distorting it into a bizarre and somehow horrifying shape that I cannot to this day will myself to remember. Then, I was swimming in blackness, and the feeling of the filth was both disgusting and penetrating. I felt a sharp stab of cold all around my body and realized I was in water now, though the blackness had not abated. The fish spoke.
"My life would have come to naught if it were not for you. For though the radiance of old still shone on in me, it diminished year after year while the poison did not. On this night, I knew I would succumb. You ate me and with me you have ingested the devil. But fear not, for even as I speak you are recovering. You have survived and will not die, not yet. You will survive the poison, and it will not be imbued in your body as it was in mine. I realize for what end I had been made to contain the poison for so long, why I survived the physical agony of the corrupting toxin and the emotional agony of loneliness as my brethren passed on one by one into blissful oblivion."
I awoke in mid morning. Some passers-by noticed my and made some comment about their party days of passing out on beaches. It occurred to me that I could kill them more easily than they reckoned, but I knew what I had to do. I had a weapon now that not even the hitch-hiker could resist. I headed to Jackson to settle the score and get back my own. It was about a day or two when I was accosted again. The same three scoundrels approached me in another alley,but they did not know it was I who hunted them. They came at me brandishing switch blade, cleaver, and garrote, but such weapons, though cruel, can be bested. For in my nightly travel I had a good length of rebar such that I could wield in both hands, swift and sure. In a quick stroke I snapped the garrote and brought my weapon down with such force that all three jumped back. Then I stood, and the one with the cleaver advanced. I struck a window and, in surprise, he covered his head and the sound and rain of glass. Chuckling inwardly at the old trick, I dispatched him with a mighty blow to his side. The man formerly armed with the garrote approached me and I dropped my weapon. He immediately went for it, and I brained him with a glass bottle so hard it shattered on impact. I am always careful to check for useful unbroken bottles in an alley when I suspect violence. He fell to his knees, subdued for the moment, and I immediately whirled around and thrust the jagged edge of the bottle in front of me. The third man with the knife had thought to flank me and get me from behind while I dueled his comrade, but had not expected my trick maneuver any more than his vanquished friends. Now, before he was able to stick steel into my side, he was staring at the clear green shards an inch from his face.
I looked at him directly and said "You are the one I want. You are the leader."
He took a step back. "How do you figure?" he asked.
"Because," I said, "Only a bully could keep thugs like those in check, and the way you went to
my back while your tougher friends fought face to face clearly shows me you are the only one cowardly enough to direct violence at people who trust you with their lives."
He flinched before me, but his tongue was ever smooth. "Well, this makes us one for one, but are you ready for round three?" And as he said it, his weary comrades picked themselves up. Now they surrounded me, and two were still dangerously armed. "Finish him off."
Yet I sensed their hesitation and played on it. "Are you men really going to attack me? If so, you're more loyal than I could hope to be, fighting for a guy who lets you two take all the licks and when we're face to face, waits for you to get back up rather than fighting me."
"Shut up! Shut his stupid trap boys!" he snarled.
"'Finish him off!' he says! Well try if you may, but it'll cost at least one of you a few bruises apiece and this guy won't get his hands dirty for it!" I indicated the leader, of course.
"Damn it, you lazy slugs! Carve his eyes out! Throttle him 'til his head explodes!" He ranted, though still not approaching within striking range of my weapon.
"If you ask me," I said coolly, "it's him who needs the finishing."
And with that the disarmed man picked up my rebar and advanced right beyond me. The cowardly leader ducked, dropped his knife, and put his hands to his face as his goon raised the stout steel rod over his head for a blow that never came. I grabbed the bar from the thug's hands as he swang. He looked at me dully. I looked at the leader. "Where is he?" I asked.
"You'll find him at the Greyhound bus station at about ten tonight," he said without hesitation.
I looked at the goons. "Don't waste your muscle on this idiot. You are strong and honorable men. If you want my advice, go out and make something of yourselves. Never talk to this creep again." I have no idea if they took my advice, but I did, and I have not seen him since.
The bus station was mostly empty. It's funny how some people look like they bring their whole house on vacation, yet it's the guy who has nothing lounging in the seat who looks like he actually lives there. I saw that guy, that uncommonly light traveler. The drifter. "Traveling man, eh?" I said. "I've done a fair bit myself. But I can see I'm not as well traveled as you."
"Most aren't," he replied.
"I reckon there are none. In history. At least among humans, seeing as how you pre-date us." He didn't stir. "You've seen a lot of places. A lot of times. Continents that don't even exist anymore." I thought I was being impressive, but if he was taken aback he didn't show it. I was afraid he somehow knew of my coming, of my weapon. I continued. "Mister, I think it's about time your travels came to an end.
"You can have 'em back, just don't tell the cops it was me." He reached into his pocket and pulled out my two best friends.
"So you just wanted to outwit the cops, but you couldn't outwit me."
"Who cares if I outwit you. You're not a challenge, Steven the Relentless Inquisitor." My surprise was more obvious than I'd have liked it, for his next phrase showed that he saw it plainly. "Why do you think I'd be carrying these around if I didn't expect you? Now take them, I really don't want them. Go back to school, and take better care of yourself."
"How about we trade?" And with that, I let fly my special weapon. Deadly black ooze sprayed from the palms of my hands, and for once, I was rewarded with a look of surprise. The spray was not powerful, yet he was thrown back from his chair on impact. He sputtered as he fell, and dropped my precious cargo. I dove to protect my balls from the spreading pool of disease and caught them very nearly.
He looked at me and choked out his last words. "You'll...never see that last of me...but you've unleashed...contagion...on your planet......A...bleak...future...for us all..." and with that he faded. All around the bus station the black ooze lay, but it looked like nothing more than dirty water except for that which was on the body of the hitchhiker. There, it undulated and swept across his body like smoke, and ate at it. It spread like a puddle. I don't know what prompted me to do this, but I threw my own nuts into the puddle of evil poison. To my surprise, they soaked it up. But upon doing so, they met their end just as that glorious fish did all those ages ago. I knew that the trickster would be back, for he had lived for ages and would bury us all, but now that my nuts were destroyed I felt my victory was meaningless. I left dejectedly and made for Starkville.
What did I fight for? I wondered to myself. The contagion was stopped, but at what cost? The fish had died. I ate poison and suffered to defeat my foe, but the respite was temporary and the prize was lost. And it was then that I realized my equilibrium was back to normal. I hadn't realized, but when I sprayed the poison at my opponent, it took other injuries with it, and surely enough a fresh new pair of apples hung from the branch of the tree. My balance was perfect, and I suspected that my hair would remain as full as it ever was. I returned to Starkville with a light step.
I was late for D.E. on Thursday but it was an 8:00 a.m. class, so I don't feel bad about it. Besides, who can learn at that ungodly hour?
With little time to lose, I found he operated out of a small shack in southern Louisiana. By the mercy of fate, or the tendency of junked-up old pickups, he had suffered engine trouble on the road, and I beat him to his shack. The next beating was administered by my hand unto his face, and having subdued him, I discovered he was no longer carrying my precious cargo. What I had taken to be a blessing had proved a curse--he was forced to trade my testes for assistance on the road to a homeless hitch-hiking former mechanic. Fortunately I am good with landmarks, for I had no means of tracking him down except for where the car had broken down. There I was apprehended by the police, for unbeknownst to me, there was a warrant out for my arrest in Jackson. The hitch-hiker had used some of my incriminating hairs to mask his own trail. Fortunately, after explaining my situation to the police, they let me go and I recovered a valuable clue from the experience.
In Jackson my fate changed for the worse. The crime scene yielded nothing to my benefit, and the hitch-hiker was still all but untrackable. It was during my third fruitless night when a car drove up behind me and three men got out. One said something like "Stay out of other people's business" and then a bag was over my face. When I came to, I was at the bottom of a deep body of water with cinder blocks chained to my knees. I employed the Rat style to chew my bindings and swam to the surface. The tepid, waveless water could only have belonged to the Gulf. Seriously set back, I wondered what recourse I had. It was then that I saw a huge, old fish. It looked at me with a wizened, almost human look. I knew at once to follow. Grabbing hold of its tail, I swam along with it through the Gulf to the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, and perhaps beyond. In the swirling colors of the water I saw many things that humans had forgotten, or perhaps had never known. I came to realize that I was seeing history as it had never been seen, a history told by the animals and plants. Through it I discovered the true significance of the hitch-hiker, the great trickster and usurper. He sought to halt evolution so that he alone could go uncontested. Pulling no punches, he did whatever he could to stay at the top of the game. He was generally resented by all peaceful creatures, for wherever he prospered it was at the expense of others. Though his life had been sought after for eons, he was never caught, either through trickery or by monopolizing the strongest life form available. Now, as a human, he was abroad again, and pitting his timeless wit against the craft of humankind. However, whether by design of fate or random chance, our paths had crossed. I knew that this went way beyond me.
I learned years of knowledge in one night, but I had one question unanswered. Without saying it, the fish took me to one last image. In it I saw a brood of eggs. They hatched and fish I had never seen swam out. The were of radiant colors with beautiful flowing fins and long, delicate whiskers waving from their faces. They were truly the most beautiful of all fish, and in their faces I saw an intellect that surpassed our own. I watched as they grew. The sea filled with life and as the years passed, but the radiant fish neither ate, aged, reproduced, nor died. Then a shadow passed, as though a great fish swam above them. But the shadow descended without taking form, and settled on the muck in the bottom. It ate greedily and that it could not swallow it corrupted, making devils out of living things. The creatures of the sea attacked it but none survived swallowing the vile poisons of its constitution, save the radiant fish that ate nothing until this time. The ate and ate it, and diminished as they did so, but nevertheless kept up their assault. When they finished, only a handful survived. They were now as brown as the muck. They swam into fresh waters where they settled to the dirt on the bottom and fed there forever more. The great catfish was one of the survivors of that battle, and though he shared the appearance of his short-lived and simple descendants, I knew that deep down inside some of the radiance had survived his poisoning from that day long ago when the most beautiful and carefree of all creatures sacrificed themselves to save the budding life on earth.
I swam to the bay. It was still night. The fish followed me up as far as the shore, where it barely had water to breathe. Even then, it pushed onwards so that I had to throw it back in the water. But it resisted my efforts, and I was forced to relent and watch it beach itself. I thought vaguely of burying it, but I was weary from the night's adventures and hungry to boot, so I made a fire and cooked him. Then, I devoured him and promptly fell asleep. I had a nightmare that night. Black oil poured from my mouth and nose. I tried to cover them up to stop the flow, but it backed into my lungs and I coughed and sneezed. Oil squirted between my fingers and I couldn't breathe. It pooled around my feet, and my reflection looked at me mockingly. Even as I suffocated and my life faded away, I used my last effort to kick at the reflection, distorting it into a bizarre and somehow horrifying shape that I cannot to this day will myself to remember. Then, I was swimming in blackness, and the feeling of the filth was both disgusting and penetrating. I felt a sharp stab of cold all around my body and realized I was in water now, though the blackness had not abated. The fish spoke.
"My life would have come to naught if it were not for you. For though the radiance of old still shone on in me, it diminished year after year while the poison did not. On this night, I knew I would succumb. You ate me and with me you have ingested the devil. But fear not, for even as I speak you are recovering. You have survived and will not die, not yet. You will survive the poison, and it will not be imbued in your body as it was in mine. I realize for what end I had been made to contain the poison for so long, why I survived the physical agony of the corrupting toxin and the emotional agony of loneliness as my brethren passed on one by one into blissful oblivion."
I awoke in mid morning. Some passers-by noticed my and made some comment about their party days of passing out on beaches. It occurred to me that I could kill them more easily than they reckoned, but I knew what I had to do. I had a weapon now that not even the hitch-hiker could resist. I headed to Jackson to settle the score and get back my own. It was about a day or two when I was accosted again. The same three scoundrels approached me in another alley,but they did not know it was I who hunted them. They came at me brandishing switch blade, cleaver, and garrote, but such weapons, though cruel, can be bested. For in my nightly travel I had a good length of rebar such that I could wield in both hands, swift and sure. In a quick stroke I snapped the garrote and brought my weapon down with such force that all three jumped back. Then I stood, and the one with the cleaver advanced. I struck a window and, in surprise, he covered his head and the sound and rain of glass. Chuckling inwardly at the old trick, I dispatched him with a mighty blow to his side. The man formerly armed with the garrote approached me and I dropped my weapon. He immediately went for it, and I brained him with a glass bottle so hard it shattered on impact. I am always careful to check for useful unbroken bottles in an alley when I suspect violence. He fell to his knees, subdued for the moment, and I immediately whirled around and thrust the jagged edge of the bottle in front of me. The third man with the knife had thought to flank me and get me from behind while I dueled his comrade, but had not expected my trick maneuver any more than his vanquished friends. Now, before he was able to stick steel into my side, he was staring at the clear green shards an inch from his face.
I looked at him directly and said "You are the one I want. You are the leader."
He took a step back. "How do you figure?" he asked.
"Because," I said, "Only a bully could keep thugs like those in check, and the way you went to
my back while your tougher friends fought face to face clearly shows me you are the only one cowardly enough to direct violence at people who trust you with their lives."
He flinched before me, but his tongue was ever smooth. "Well, this makes us one for one, but are you ready for round three?" And as he said it, his weary comrades picked themselves up. Now they surrounded me, and two were still dangerously armed. "Finish him off."
Yet I sensed their hesitation and played on it. "Are you men really going to attack me? If so, you're more loyal than I could hope to be, fighting for a guy who lets you two take all the licks and when we're face to face, waits for you to get back up rather than fighting me."
"Shut up! Shut his stupid trap boys!" he snarled.
"'Finish him off!' he says! Well try if you may, but it'll cost at least one of you a few bruises apiece and this guy won't get his hands dirty for it!" I indicated the leader, of course.
"Damn it, you lazy slugs! Carve his eyes out! Throttle him 'til his head explodes!" He ranted, though still not approaching within striking range of my weapon.
"If you ask me," I said coolly, "it's him who needs the finishing."
And with that the disarmed man picked up my rebar and advanced right beyond me. The cowardly leader ducked, dropped his knife, and put his hands to his face as his goon raised the stout steel rod over his head for a blow that never came. I grabbed the bar from the thug's hands as he swang. He looked at me dully. I looked at the leader. "Where is he?" I asked.
"You'll find him at the Greyhound bus station at about ten tonight," he said without hesitation.
I looked at the goons. "Don't waste your muscle on this idiot. You are strong and honorable men. If you want my advice, go out and make something of yourselves. Never talk to this creep again." I have no idea if they took my advice, but I did, and I have not seen him since.
The bus station was mostly empty. It's funny how some people look like they bring their whole house on vacation, yet it's the guy who has nothing lounging in the seat who looks like he actually lives there. I saw that guy, that uncommonly light traveler. The drifter. "Traveling man, eh?" I said. "I've done a fair bit myself. But I can see I'm not as well traveled as you."
"Most aren't," he replied.
"I reckon there are none. In history. At least among humans, seeing as how you pre-date us." He didn't stir. "You've seen a lot of places. A lot of times. Continents that don't even exist anymore." I thought I was being impressive, but if he was taken aback he didn't show it. I was afraid he somehow knew of my coming, of my weapon. I continued. "Mister, I think it's about time your travels came to an end.
"You can have 'em back, just don't tell the cops it was me." He reached into his pocket and pulled out my two best friends.
"So you just wanted to outwit the cops, but you couldn't outwit me."
"Who cares if I outwit you. You're not a challenge, Steven the Relentless Inquisitor." My surprise was more obvious than I'd have liked it, for his next phrase showed that he saw it plainly. "Why do you think I'd be carrying these around if I didn't expect you? Now take them, I really don't want them. Go back to school, and take better care of yourself."
"How about we trade?" And with that, I let fly my special weapon. Deadly black ooze sprayed from the palms of my hands, and for once, I was rewarded with a look of surprise. The spray was not powerful, yet he was thrown back from his chair on impact. He sputtered as he fell, and dropped my precious cargo. I dove to protect my balls from the spreading pool of disease and caught them very nearly.
He looked at me and choked out his last words. "You'll...never see that last of me...but you've unleashed...contagion...on your planet......A...bleak...future...for us all..." and with that he faded. All around the bus station the black ooze lay, but it looked like nothing more than dirty water except for that which was on the body of the hitchhiker. There, it undulated and swept across his body like smoke, and ate at it. It spread like a puddle. I don't know what prompted me to do this, but I threw my own nuts into the puddle of evil poison. To my surprise, they soaked it up. But upon doing so, they met their end just as that glorious fish did all those ages ago. I knew that the trickster would be back, for he had lived for ages and would bury us all, but now that my nuts were destroyed I felt my victory was meaningless. I left dejectedly and made for Starkville.
What did I fight for? I wondered to myself. The contagion was stopped, but at what cost? The fish had died. I ate poison and suffered to defeat my foe, but the respite was temporary and the prize was lost. And it was then that I realized my equilibrium was back to normal. I hadn't realized, but when I sprayed the poison at my opponent, it took other injuries with it, and surely enough a fresh new pair of apples hung from the branch of the tree. My balance was perfect, and I suspected that my hair would remain as full as it ever was. I returned to Starkville with a light step.
I was late for D.E. on Thursday but it was an 8:00 a.m. class, so I don't feel bad about it. Besides, who can learn at that ungodly hour?