Survive! Somehow get through it?

50.

Traffic remained snarled from Park Slope to the Jackie Robinson Parkway. It had been so since just after the explosion up the road a piece at Forest Park. Vivian lit a herself a Phillies Blunt. Or so it might appear from a distance . Her passenger offered little in the way of small talk. He was a problem child. He was also armed and dangerous. Marian could certainly pick them.

The people at the shelter had first found Reggie sullen and withdrawn. They attributed this to his having been abused recently. The ruse was working. Reggie felt sure he would soon go insane. Daydreaming about Lydia worked for a time. Memories of his earlier married life interfered with the process. Remorse did not issue from killing nearly a dozen people. They all deserved it. Regrets form a life of barely complete and therefore totally unfinished social relationships ate him up inside.

The folks at the shelter did not interview him or check his bag. They promised transactional analysis. Encounter group would follow upon dinner. He wanted no part of it but biding his time did not say so. When pressed he produced his weapon and the staff called Marian and Vivian to have him removed. Playing the borderline madman was not hard for him. Knowing when and how to stop the role play was becoming increasingly so.

They were headed to a meeting with Marian. Several venues were texted to her. South ozone Park? The Belt near Elmont? Southern State near Sunrise Highway in Rosedale? No. Flatlands, There they could find a non-descript German Deli across from the ambulance corps building. Nice and open, There would be a clear line of fire in all directions. Not a few police patrols too. All the better to hide in plain sight. The guy and the event were combining to freak her out big time. The hemp was making it.

Marian insisted in no uncertain terms that he brought to her quickly. No doubt. No argument. Urgent and critical necessity. They got there in one piece. Reggie and Vivian almost ignored one another upon parting. He might just have shot her. Vivian felt a sense of relief. As she saw the monster slip through a side door. Marian met him there with a furtive hug. They both disappeared from view. Careful Love! The guy is certifiably insane.

Marian did not think so at all. She kissed him on the mouth. Reggie returned the kiss. His orientation could not be in doubt? War time had led them to a state of mutual arousal? The condition was palpable and quite real. Good thing too? They were slated to drive to waiting ferry at Port Jefferson. The short term destination would be Bridgeport. The Frente 26 Julio had some influential supporters there and in Hamden. The video of Reggie slaughtering the Ivans struck a responsive chord in their community. They decided they would and could shelter him. They saw ample reason to extend their protective umbrella over Marian as well. Her connections might prove useful? The better to avoid deportation?

Reggie smirked, grimaced and finally just smiled. Nothing mattered? Nothing shook out well? Lydia and the kid were okay. He and Marian might well be too in the short run. All those pukes like Boris resided in Hell tonight. He drew hard on his last remaining Russian cigarette. Marian declined one final toke. They embraced and kissed deeply and slowly. Damn! There was love among the ruins.

51..

The insane and random momentum was all but spent. It had evaporated in a cloud of dust and rubble. The cloud screamed out success. Gianell halted her offensive in Lawrence at a point not far from the Inwood town line. They were low on ammo. They were short of fuel. Frente 26 Julio elements had all but dissolved before them.

She told herself she was frustrated by this happenstance. There was no doubt that she was hungry and to her surprise, genuinely horny. War was a turn on? Killing got her wet down below? Grandfather found reincarnation in her today? It was all too clear that many of the collateral casualties were innocent civilians who practiced various forms of the Jewish Faith. There for all to see in North Woodmere stood a Sephardic Temple. Frente 26 Julio had fortified it. Gianell had it surrounded but did not attack it. The Army wouldn’t let her. She failed to see why? Hey! Orders were orders.

Upon nibbling a captured Cuban sandwich, she noticed a small wound. The caudilla had been grazed by a bullet near her right knee. There did not seem to be any meaningful bleeding on the surface. Subdural bruising and a bit of stiffness were  natural sequealae? Right? How? When? By whom?

Guess the Major would get a wound badge of some kind? The leg grew numb from the knee down. The process felt gradual. Real and oh so progressive but gradual? Her chest felt tight. Must be exhaustion? It was all hitting her so fast. The face of her brother as a twelve year old flashed before her. How nice he looked before the drugs, the boys and the self-hatred tarnished his image for once and forever more!

God? Where am I? Is there a way back from her? Her spirit had traveled somewhere? No lo creo! Tan milagrosa! A young girl approached her. You could make out a glow all around her. The wounds inflicted by her family the other night were close and healing. The girl offered an injunction in a raised voice. Debe ser volviese mi propia bombera!

Gianell sensed a firm hand on her neck. One of the federal people urged her to wake up in a faint whisper. He tapped her chin and whispered the request five more times. She came back to where she had been ions ago. Her knee was packed in ice. The rest of her leg was at home now in a traction splint. Why did they elevate it at a forty five degree angle? A bundle of taped together inflation splints cushioned her hip.

The fed told her she’d been out for more than three hours. She had gone into shock. The missile fragment the nicked her carried a really lethal punch on it. The KGB cooked this toxic brew up back in the 1960s. A small object with holes in it could carry enough poison to kill a chosen target. Gianell had gotten an anti-toxin. She would live to fight and kill some more. He pressed her. Alert times two or three? Tell me about your nightmare? As she lay there under the influence she had been babbling? Who was ninita? Who was pobrecita? Gianell did not say a word. There was no reason to tell him. Would he react when she suggested that there could be no reunion with grandfather at a lager in the next world? Would he care that she now had it on impeccable authority that she ought to plan on returning to a quite different and nicer place?

52..

Green tarps lay over the bodies arrayed in neat rows near the four burnt out fighting vehicles. G.I. s and state cops were entitled to a formal burial? How? When? It was an administrative issue. Ted left it to the Feds on site to fumble this ball too. Crissy was struck by the scale of the thing. You didn’t realize how much fighting actually went on in the smoke of the event. Never mind the smoke in your own memory! You scarcely managed to reflect on it because the noise of battle still echoed in your ears for hours thereafter.

Hard to fathom how people might live through this sort of thing on a routine basis. Although it was apparent that she herself maybe could handle it on an episodic basis. No more crying over killing the other guys for her. Not that she was proud of it just yet! That pride would come in time! Ace killer reporter had been relegated to a drab image as things go right now? Road warrior par excellent might be a better image?

Good thing she and Ted were one otherwise she’d be dead, wounded or reduced to the role of an electronic magpie once more. How can you get her back in the van now that she’s seen death up close and quite personal? Love, sex, passion and death on demand were the order of her day! And all of it without your panties on Missy!

Yeast can give you power? You get an itch to do something! Do anything but stand or sit still? How does one douche at the Front? Fuck it. No. Fuck him. Over and over again as much as possible? Must be how those vixens felt in French and Swedish movies decades ago? Open crotch and open mind? Why be timid about it so long as you had the right guy? She did.

Ted fumbled with his cell phone. Things were destined to improve with each passing minute but would they? At the least the fighting was taking place elsewhere. All sides saw the lumber yard area as a no fire zone. Combat should not occur there. Frente 26 Julio promised to avoid the place. Federal and state authorities thought the Ivans thought the Ivans had no reason to fight there any longer. After all, they incinerated the modern day La Pasionara there already. This led to her brother’s vengeful mission a bit later on. He died there too. The Ivans could only delight in such hallowed ground.

It now had many uses. It formed the basis for a morgue. It had promise as a site for a field hospital. Choppers could land there. Vehicles could move stabilized patients to LIJ or Winthrop from there. What a great location! Predictably Ted found his investigation bothered some influential people. No surprise there. It might continue on a bit longer. He knew he should never be allowed to unearth or unveil any definitive findings. Ivan mischief would remain hidden beneath Al Qaeda oriented  lies?

How could the feds tell folks in Metro New York the truth? Communist drug lords and Nazi fellow travelers were destroying the city and its suburbs. And how would they react if they knew that their national, state and regional authorities chose to help the Fascist side? So much so that they were actively allied with them in the trenches of the current struggles? Wouldn’t play well with Holocaust survivors? Wouldn’t play well with leftists either?

Ted saw no good side to be allied with for the Feds or anyone else. Two plagues were ravaging the city and the county. The unlucky souls living in it  knew nothing from Adam what it might be about. Our dear government had declared war on its own population? At least in part? Dr. K’s bunch contrived mightily to have it appear that it was the work of Moslem fanatics. Ted knew it was yet another invitation to be a martyr at the bureaucratic altar.

He could be a pawn and get a well deserved payoff. He could try to stop it all. This classic either or had come his way before, not once, but several times. It didn’t feel the same now. It was all different  because Crissy had to be considered. If he played Icarus, where might she wind up?

He made some calls. He sent out some icons over a passive optical network. A good plan took so little time to set in motion! Thinking on your feet came out better with electronic augmentation behind it. Things happen. Life happens Love happens. And so in turn a signal act of rebellion might yet be launched with added spirit. Crissy mattered. FEMA did not. Hey there heroes? Nice dress shirt? And my is your tan holding up so late into the near Fall? So many buffs. Too many chumps. Not enough magic.