Ozymandias Chapter 8

 

It felt like rain, but the sky couldn’t have been clearer. Tyler wiped his face. It appeared a mist was rolling in.

Lula’s unrelenting pace reminded him of Faye. Where was everyone going?

“Are we following her?” Tyler asked Magus, who now looked identical to him.

“She knows where she’s going,” answered Magus. “We don’t.”

“And where’s she going?”

“The Cocoanut Grove, of course. Rex runs the place, although the bulk of his business is strictly under the table.”

“And he can help us find Laurel? No one seems to knows her.”

“Faye is the key to all that. And Rex knows Faye.”

The lights of Broadway and 5th flashed and cajoled, but the mist was already obscuring everything. Lula walked into the street, to the furious horns of black Buicks and Fords that stopped to let her pass. Magus and Tyler sprinted, to benefit from the traffic jam Lula left in her wake, horns blaring anew as if no one had the right to cross.

“Lula,” yelled Tyler. It was better to talk than play chase.

Lula didn’t respond.

Determination mounting, Tyler sprinted until he was standing before her. She attempted to pass him, but he blocked her.

“What do you want with me?” she seethed. “You don’t belong here do you, you and your twin?”

Lula paused, hand to her broad hips. Magus appeared at her side.

“So what do you flatworlders want anyway?” she demanded.

Flatworlder, thought Tyler. Was that what people in the shadowlands called reality, a world where people didn’t pretend they were something they weren’t, and they didn’t disappear just to lure someone to find them?

“We’re looking for someone,” explained Tyler. “Another flatworlder.”

“And I haven’t seen her. You can ask Rex if you follow me. But like I told you I got nothin’ for you. You won’t get no where ‘till you take the wool outta your ears.”

“Can you slow down so I can follow you?” asked Tyler. He heard nothing from Magus, who was proving to be of little use.

“What’s in it for me?” she asked with a smirk. “Unless you got something for me, I go as I please and answer to no one.”

“And this Rex …” asked Tyler.

“What’s between me and Rex is none of your business,” she insisted before turning on her heels in the direction of Pershing Square.

Hurried footsteps revealed men in coats and hats shuffling past them.

“Blue Knights,” someone mumbled, as if some shared watchword.

The push of foottraffic had begun to resemble a stampede.

“Where are they going?” asked Tyler.

“Doesn’t matter,” she answered with a shrug. “They’re Olvidados. They go where the others go, and they do what they’ve always done, again and again.”

Lula crossed the street, avoiding the headlights that shone through the thickening fog.

To Tyler’s surprise, there were trees at Pershing Square. With its broad expanse of grass and pathways, one was more inclined to call it a park.

Tyler turned to seek out Magus, who merely followed him like a shadow.

“What do you think?” Tyler asked Magus.

“I think we should be careful,” answered Magus, his voice hollow.

In the distance, Tyler saw rhythmic flashes of red. The trees of Pershing Square assumed a blue tint.

“Well, are you comin’ or not,” yelled Lula from the other side of the street, her platinum hair incandescent in the misted light.

Street light shifted blue, as footsteps echoed through the open square. Tyler could hear a wordless scuffle, but he could see nothing in the clouded darkness.

Lula rejoined Tyler, her face ashen.

“It’s a sweep,” she warned. “You’d better go.”

Tyler turned, only to find a blue capped police officer, night stick in hand, leaning over Magus.

“And who are you?” asked the faceless officer, his night stick held to Magus’ chin.

“We’re looking for someone,” explained Tyler.

A second officer appeared, larger than the first, his body a haze of blue. “What you lookin’ fer, buddy” demanded the second officer, his meaty face a mass of wrinkles.

“Well if it ain’t Lula Mars,” said a third officer, stepping into the light from behind Tyler.

“You got nothin’ on me,” she answered saucily.

“I got everything on you, sweetie pie,” said the third officer, his hand caressing Lula’s cheek. She recoiled. “I can take you in whenever I like. Or you can gimme some of your company outta the goodness of your heart.”

The third officer’s features were angular and handsome, but his eyes were too small and distrustful. Turning on Tyler, he sneered.

“You saw her turning tricks,” he asked.

“No,” answered Tyler. “She’s helping us find a friend we lost.”

“Who is this?” asked the third officer.

“Her name’s Laurel Harrington and she …” began Tyler.

“Sounds like a flatworlder,” said the first officer.

“What’s your name?” asked the third officer of Tyler.

“Tyler Hackett,” answered Tyler.

“These names are not names I know,” said the third officer, eyeing Tyler closely before turning to Magus. “And your name?” he asked Magus.

“I don’t have one today,” replied Magus with a faint smile. “Or you can call me Tyler Hackett too.”

“Oh you don’t eh?” asked the first officer. “You think this is funny?”

“I think we all play our roles,” replied Magus. “Mostly without thinking.”

The first officer slammed the back of his fist against Magus’ face, Magus losing balance as he fell against the second officer who threw him to the ground.

“Anyone who can’t answer a question is a flatworlder,” concluded the third officer. “You’ll come with us.”

The second officer hoisted Magus to his feet, although Magus grinned as if it didn’t matter. “It’s OK,” mouthed Magus.

“We just need help looking for someone,” pleaded Tyler.

“A flatworlder looking for a flatworlder?” mused the third officer. “That’s two crimes in one.”

“Look at their mugs,” said the second officer looming overhead. “You can’t tell ‘em apart.”

The third officer noticed the resemblance. “So what’s the gag? Tell it to me plain or you’re all goin’ to Twin Towers.”

“You got nothing on me,” squealed Lula. “It’s flatworlders you want, not me.”

The third officer grabbed her by the shoulder. “You can tell me everything you know about Rex. I know the rackets he’s got goin’. We got a room reserved in the slammer for him, and one for you too if you don’t smarten up.”

Lula bit her lip. She was struggling to contain her rage.

“Take these two in,” the third officer told the other officers. Meaty hands grabbed Travis by the arms.

“What did we do?”

“Your kind’s not invited here,” explained the third officer. “I don’t know why you people bother? There’s nothing here for you.”

“We’ll go home,” agreed Tyler.

“Really?” observed the third officer. “I got a hard time believin’ that. I never met a Flatworlder who told the truth. They don’t got it in ‘em. They’re garbage.”

Hands released him, moments before the third officer took his night stick to Tyler’s arm, knocking him to the ground. Boots began to pound in his back and stomach. He was furious, desperate to defend himself with his hands, but everything happened so fast and from all directions.

The pain was excruciating; and then suddenly, in the ensuing silence, it’s all there was. Tyler craned his neck upward.

A man garbed in nineteenth-century-style jacket and pantaloons, his face masked under a broad-brimmed hat, stooped for a pistol from the ground. A coiled whip slung at his side. Had he incapacitated the two officers?

“You must go,” said a man with a Spanish accent one might consider genteel.

The pain in Tyler’s midriff was intense. He wondered it he’d broken a rib. He remembered Magus.

“Magus. They took him.”

“Half way to Twin Towers,” said the masked man dressed as a nineteenth-century dandy, whip in one hand and pistol in the other. “There’s no time. You must go.”

“I need him,” insisted Tyler, clambering to his feet. He could see a sea of blue pouring through the pathways of the park. He’d never associated blue with danger before.

“They’re twins,” announced Lula with a shrug, as if familial relations meant nothing to her.

“You’re a flatworlder,” observed the man with a grin. The man was handsome, his arms sinewy and muscular. “Come, we must get you somewhere safe.”

With the man’s hand to Tyler’s arm, they stumbled forward into the road, horns bleating until they’d claimed the other side.

“Hey, where we goin’?” shrieked Lula, eyes narrowed and hands formed into fists. “And who the heck are you anyway. You got now right telling me what to do.”

“I’m Don Diego, and I’ve been here long before the Blue Knights put the fear into people. And those Blue Knights are on the hunt. You will never pass. Not tonight.

“They never stopped me before,” she answered.

“Your friend. The flatworlder is in great danger.”

“I don’t know him,” she answered contemptuously.

“We will never know freedom unless we believe in it together. But no one believes.”

“We’re fine, Mr. Diego,” said Lula, anxious to be free of the masked man.

Tyler wasn’t feeling fine. He tightened his grip on Don Diego, but Don Diego’s grip on him was even tighter.

By the time they reached Broadway, the mist obscured even the brightest of lights. Crossing the road was treacherous, yet the vehicles always stopped as if on cue. One had merely to walk, and so they did.

At the opposite corner, Don Diego grabbed Tyler by both arms and gazed at him. “A sign of good things to come. Flatworlders always bring good fortune.”

“I’m not supposed to be here and I should probably go home,” answered Tyler.

Don Diego shook his head emphatically.

“You got your lovefest,” observed Lula. “I’m outta here.”

Don Diego grabbed her arm. “No. He needs you. Whatever his quest, it is right and true. Ozymandias was a flatworlder and he made all of this possible because flatworlders are pure possibility.”

Lula chuckled. Did it matter that Magus was taken to prison? When would he seem him again? How could he, a flatworlder, negotiate for Magus’ release without earning himself a prison sentence too? Perhaps Magus was accustomed to such things in his peregrinations around this land they called Two Cities.

He’d lost Magus but he’d gained Don Diego, who seemed determined to protect him. But Magus was like his other self, his pretend friend, his dream companion. There was a connection. It wasn’t clear how, but they were linked. Tyler felt nauseous thinking he’d lost something irretrievable.

“Flatworlders are illegal,” explained Lula, “or didn’t you know that? Maybe you should go back to your costume ball ‘cause I’m not gonna pretend something’s what it’s not. Me, I keep things on the up and up and I got things to do.”

“You will stay by him,” insisted Don Diego, standing before her. “You will follow his quest and …”

Don Diego turned to Tyler.

“You do have a quest, don’t you?” he asked Tyler.

“To find Laurel,” answered Tyler, his ribs giving him a sharp twinge of pain.

“Seeking a senorita you love is the noblest of quests,” replied Don Diego. “Laurel, you say?”

“Laurel Harrington,” added Tyler. “I don’t really know her.”

“I’d find her if it weren’t your quest to find her.”

“Oh, brother,” groaned Lula.

“Never let your ignorance overpower your will to truth,” Don Diego told Lula before turning to Tyler.

Tyler wanted to go home. He wasn’t much good at quests; and he figured he wouldn’t be much use at finding people. He’d already lost half of himself, if that was what Magus was.

But what good would he ever accomplish if being a flatworlder were illegal?

“Why don’t they like flatworlders?” asked Tyler, grabbing hold of Don Diego’s arm as the masked man guided him and Lula past Fifth Street.

“Because flatworlders change things,” answered Don Diego. “They tip the balance in unexpected ways, and for the General and his Blues, there’s nothing more terrifying. But this world doesn’t belong to him. It belongs to all of us. We need no leaders telling us when we can come and go.”

“I’m not going in there,” said Lula, suddenly apprehensive. “That’s the Nickel, ain’t it?”

“The only place where the Blue Knights leave people alone.”

“They’re homeless,” answered Lula, standing her ground. “They’re angry, they stink and if you want to talk about places where they don’t like outsiders, this is it.”

“They know me,” said Don Diego, guiding them toward the ill-lit streets, seemingly abandoned. The fog was lifting, enough to see local residents peering at them from under stairwells and walls.

“The King of the Tramps,” yelled Don Diego. “Where is he?”

A man in a ragged duster and a bowler hat appeared at the far end of the street, lighting a cigarette.

“I’m not goin’, I tell ya” insisted Lula, refusing to budge. Tyler and Don Diego approached the man with the cigarette.

“We seek asylum,” yelled Don Diego.

The man, his face weathered and his clothes torn, layers of various colors giving him a clownish appearance.

“Don Diego,” answered the other man. “There is nothing I can refuse you.”

“I need asylum for my friends. This one here … I never got his name …”

“Tyler,” answered Tyler.

“He is a flatworlder on a quest, but the Blues are on a sweep. They took his friend. The lady over there has joined his quest although she pretends she hasn’t.”

“They are safe here,” answered the man, his arms and legs like sticks as his exhalations formed perfect rings of smoke.

“How long do I wait here?” asked Tyler.

“They will know when it’s safe,” answered Don Diego. “But I must go. There’s no telling what the Blue knights will do tonight.”

Don Diego grabbed Tyler once again by the arms. “I wish you well, My Tyler. May our paths cross again under better circumstances.”

The masked man was already sprinting across the road before Tyler could formulate his own words. He wanted to ask about Magus in the Twin Towers but perhaps Don Diego would appear again as he’d appeared the first time.

“Welcome, My Tyler,” said the man with the cigarette. “Welcome to the Nickel.”

There was nothing reassuring about the welcome. Tyler had never felt so lost.

About Baron

I'm a writer of novels and screenplays living in Los Angeles.
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