Just for the halibut
I’ve said before that I’m not much of a writer. I get a couple of great ideas, but have a helluva time stringing them together. Well, just because I got nuttin’ better to do, here are a couple of the scenes that have popped into my head in the past couple weeks.
Follow the dancing bear…
The cop walks up to me, looks me over as I do the same to him. He’s young. Probably only a year out of the Academy. Still hasn’t managed to grow the ‘regulation’ mustache; it looks more like a small caterpillar marching across his upper lip. One of the guys on the ground moans as the cop’s partner finishes cuffing him and stands him up.
“Could you tell me what happened here, Mr. MacInnes?”
“Pretty simple,” I say. “These nitwits had the bright idea to pull a knife or two on us as we were walking back to the car after dinner, told us to hand over our wallets. I didn’t much care for the idea, so I told them no.”
“Then what happened?” he asks, as he scribbles in his notebook.
“They got more insistent, and the one in the black hoody there, he waved that knife under my nose and told me how he was going to cut up my girlfriend if I didn’t hand over my money.”
“Go on.”
“I told them they had ten seconds to walk away before I beat the shit out of them.”
The cop raises an eyebrow. “And then?”
“Those dumbasses stood there shouting at me while I counted to ten. Hoody there lunged at me when I got to eight, and got close enough for me to grab his wrist. It didn’t take long after that. Well, it would have taken less time, but hoody’s pal kept getting up, so I finally had to break his leg to convince him otherwise.”
The cop’s other eyebrow shoots up to match the first. His partner walk up next to him and says, “Put that down as an ‘Injury sustained while resisting citizen’s arrest’. So, did Mrs. Weaver assist you in arresting these perpetrators, Mr. MacInnes?”
“No, Officer – Nancy just spent $45 on those nails yesterday, and I didn’t want her to risk breaking one.” Nancy smiles and wiggles her fingers at the cops. The second one tries to stifle a chuckle and fails. I grin back at him.
“Well,” the first cop says, “we’d like you to come down to the station and fi…”
“Forget that, Tom,” the second cop interrupts, “he gave ’em fair warning. We’ll be in touch if we need anything further from you, Mr. MacInnes. You two are free to go.”
“Thank you, officers,” Nancy says through one of her kilowatt smiles. “Keep in touch.”
*******************************************************
“Hey Flynn, you up here?”
I turn around in my lawn chair and see Dave’s head poking up through the roof hatch. “Hey, you finally made it! I was beginning to think we’d have to send out a search party.”
“Nah, just got hung up getting out of the airport. You know how it is when you have to travel with your tools,” Dave says as he climbs the rest of the way onto the roof and slings a big duffel down next to the other chair. I reach into the cooler on the other side and hand him a beer as he flops down. “Wow. This is some view you’ve got up here.”
“Yeah, I come up here for the sunset when I can. Everyone raves about how you gotta live downtown to keep up with the city, but the best view is from the East side of the river. Over there, all you can see is your neighbor, but from here I get the whole skyline and the West Hills sunsets.”
“What’s with all the red lights over there on the left?” Dave asks, pointing at a ridgeline..
“Those are all the radio and television transmitters – the lights are to keep aircraft from running into them. I’ve sat up here for hours before just watching ’em blink. It’s restful, almost kinda Zen.” I reach into the cooler and grab another beer for myself as a shadow falls across the roof. “Here’s the best part, when the sun slips down the last bit.”
We sit in reverent silence as the city transforms from dusk to full night, watching the tower lights blink in the distance. Dave lets out a contented sigh and sips his beer, taking it all in. “You’re a pretty fair photographer,” he says, “you ever get any good shots of this?”
“Tried a couple times,” I reply, “but I’ve never quite managed it. Thought it was my equipment at first, so I played around with lenses and filters for a couple days, but there’s really too much light. Washes out the picture.”
“That’s a bummer.” Dave sips his beer some more, then rummages around in his duffel.
“It’s really just one light that’s giving me all the problems. There’s a house about halfway up the Hills over there on the right – guy’s got a driveway light, one of those gazillion-candlepower jobs pointed mostly this way. Can’t seem to…” There is a muffled crack! beside me, and the light in question disappears. I turn and see Dave grinning at me with his rifle in his lap.
“Told you I brought my tools.”
Hollerings