She felt cold, gritty asphalt under her cheek and moved her head slightly to look around. She must have passed out. She was lying amongst bones, gleaming white in the moonlight. Some skeletons still had clinging tattered pieces of hair and skin. The odor wasn’t bad; faintly sweet and spicy. She wondered if it was safe to stand. Who brought her here? She stood up, and the first thing she noticed was she only had two legs. She lurched precariously, but caught herself before she tumbled. What happened to my legs? Her legs were hairless and she had human arms and hands instead of her forelegs. She touched her face and marveled at how flat and small it was. She felt she was missing huge chunks of herself, and she looked around warily for the missing pieces. How insignificant she felt. She touched her forehead and cried out. Her horn was gone! She looked more closely at the bones and recognized them; the large skulls and horns, familiar shapes of ribcages and legs. She narrowed her eyes and saw families running together on green waving prairie grass. The bones were humming, and she recognized the song. These were her ancestors. She felt so weak and frail. She had no weapon or clothes. She opened her mouth to whinny and only a soft sigh escaped her throat and was lost in the wind. She didn’t know if she could make anything work. Was she in the future or the past?
There was an acidic chemical scent in the wind, but everything was faint and muted to her senses. It was either nightfall or the sun had finally died, for all was darkness and shadows. Only a horned moon glowed faint light and was cold comfort. A red machine on wheels screeched to a halt outside the gate near her. It was then she realized two things: she was trapped, and she was helpless. Surrounding her were tall black iron bars with one rusty chained gate. She was imprisoned with only the unicorns’ bones for company. She scooped up a nearby pearlescent horn and instantly felt ten times bigger, stronger. Meanwhile, the red machine opened up and a man darted quickly towards the gate. He deftly snapped the chain with a shining tool, and pushed. The gate didn’t budge. She moved away from the man and the gate, stepping high over the bones, and trying not to stumble. She clutched the horn in her hands, and turned back towards the man. He was muttering something, and pushed again. This time the gate gave way. He leapt gracefully over the bones like a dancer, and she marveled how one could move so beautifully in such an ugly body. She raised the horn uncertainly and closed her eyes. Is this a dream?
No, and we must move quickly. We don’t have much time.
She opened her eyes wide in shock. He was covering her with a long white cloak, and had already moved her out of the gate and into the red machine.
It’s called a 'car.'
She gasped and sucked in too much air and started coughing. Her coughing soon became strange hitchings and wails she couldn’t seem to control and salty water poured from her eyes.
Calm down, he soothed. You are going to hurt yourself.
He never once uttered a sound, she ‘heard’ him in her mind. Sound or talking wasn’t necessary here it seemed.
We are….different, he said hesitantly. Not all can communicate as we are doing. I will explain everything.
But why am I here? She thought painfully.
He quickly glanced at her as he maneuvered the car down winding black paths with tall flat mountains on either side. Don’t you know?! He moved his face nearer, and touched her head. Red was on his fingertips. You must have hit your head, are you in pain?
This whole body is in pain. Yours isn’t?
He smiled and shook his head. You are from Before, and this world needs you to set some things right. He touched her horn spot, and she felt a tingle. The horn she held gave a high trill. These two men will try to kill you.
In her mind's eye, she saw an old man in a worn coat with mud or blood surrounding his mouth, she saw only the dark shadow of the other.
He shrugged. We can never get a good look at that one..But we think he will try a bomb or some sort of explosive device. The future is fuzzy, you know.
The afternoon was aqueous and stifling. A heavy humidity. A heavy waiting. She wrote the words down carefully, slowly on an old college-ruled notebook leftover from classes. An abstract butterfly graced the cover, and the subjects of her classes had been written, then marked out and written three times. She was frugal. She worked on preparing breakfast-though it was mid-afternoon. Breakfast, for her, was always the first meal of the day no matter the time. She may have cereal or scrambled eggs in the middle of the night. Her thoughts were traveling in hypersonic speed.
She was developing a repugnance for the world. Everything an irritant, a bother, a mindless chore. Each day a dark wave crashing into her again and again and again. Each day the same, the same, the same. She heard that hell is repetition, and she believes it. She felt like screaming. The pressure building up like a slow cooker. The constant ebb and flow of the cicada drone outside was grating on her nerves.
Looking through the slanted slits of her window blinds, she saw the wind moving the trees. As she watched, the breeze picked up and the trees waved and danced for her. Nothing moved her. She smelled the waffles cooking, with the necessary touch of cinnamon she loved. She noticed the waffles turned out better if she left the room; left them alone to do their thing. She rubbed the tears from her eyes with two fingers, then took the bottom of her black t-shirt to wipe her eyes and nose just beginning to run. Sometimes pain and sadness remain no matter what you do. She watched her cream-colored cat begin to bathe itself. She knew if she touched her or extended her hand, the cat would begin to purr. She let the tears run down her face, and got up to take out the waffles. As she took the second batch of waffles from the machine, she heard the first heavy drops of rain hit the tin roof above her patio. The drops brightened her up considerably. With rain, the insects would stop the constant mindless droning. Rain would cool the heat of the day, soothe her mind. Unfortunately the rain stopped with no promise of more to come. The mercy of the rain hadn’t dried alone.
The two boys had talked about starting a business for weeks. They’d sit in Mark’s tree house in his backyard and swat mosquitoes in the summer evening making their plans. Selling lemonade was discarded as was selling cookies, mowing lawns and babysitting. Neither one liked lemonade or knew how to bake. The hard work of mowing lawns in the summer heat did not appeal to either one of them. And both were too young to be babysitters. Both boys were 12. Mark was the leader, since he was born 5 months earlier then Alex. Two days ago, the boys were lying in the clubhouse amidst comic books, and candy wrappers discussing the future and the mysterious ways of making money. The new Robot Monkey 3 was coming out for their Elect-astic gaming systems, and birthdays and holidays were too far off for any serious gift giving. The game was $54.99, and both boys decided they just had to have it, or would be the laughingstocks of their entire 6th grade. They had talked to a few kids over the summer when meeting at the city pool, and everyone was talking about it and saying how they would be the first to buy. The boys needed to come up with something fast. Wafts of rock and roll drifted up from Mark’s Dad’s garage as he worked on his mustang. Fragments of AC/DC drifted up to the boys. “Dirty deeds, done dirt cheap….” Mark sat up and looked at Alex. Both boys’ eyes widened and smiled. It was perfect.
Two days later, everything was ready. They had their sign made and brought out a little card table. Mark’s dad told them they better not mess it up, and they told him not to worry. After they set up, promptly at 8am, in the cool delicious morning. Both boys were smiling and wide awake. They lost some of their resolve though when cars slowed to read their sign, and most drivers laughed and shook their heads. Some people looked confused and looked at the boys warily. Most people seemed to think it was a big joke, and drove off laughing. The boys were discouraged. Their sign simply read: Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. They thought it was genius, and even had matching blue collared shirts and blue hats, like mechanics. They felt very optimistic and professional. They set up their sign, and organized their price sheets-which consisted of their services and prices neatly printed in pencil by Alex on sheets of notebook paper. Alex didn’t want to use pencil, and he frowned at how weak their price sheets looked-but Mark insisted pencil was necessary in case they needed to change their prices on the fly. Alex wanted to run home and get a pen to at least print the services darker and bolder, but by then, they received their first customer.
Their first customer arrived, and Alex was annoyed at not being able to bold their services in ink. He was further annoyed when he saw it who it was. James, a creepy kid from the next block was riding his bike and stopped when he saw the boys. He read the sign, and smiled at the kids encouragingly.
“Cool idea,” he said. “What’s that?
“That’s our price list.”
“Can I see it?”
“Sure!”
James was 14; one of the ‘Big Kids’, and though creepy, one to be admired and respected-always. Mark did all the talking, and Alex tried to smile and nod most professionally. James laughed at some of the deeds, and he pointed at #4 and said, “I like this one. Ha ha”
“Okay,” Mark said business-like. “That will be $5. Just tell us who you want to scare...”
“No,” James cut in, “I didn’t say I want that one, I just said ‘I like it.’ You see, I have a little sister that I want to get rid of.”
Alex gulped, “Scare her?”
“No,” James said impatiently, “get RID of, see?”
The boys looked at each other, and Alex whispered to Mark. Kill? And Mark nodded. Mark smiled at James, and winked at Alex.
“Now aren’t you glad you brought your pencil? Now let’s talk prices.”
I discovered the story among the old yellowed pages of newsprint I was using to wrap up my remaining dishes and mugs; ‘Homeless Man Saves Flamingo.’ The faded photo was of a man in his seventies with an old Stetson tilted on his head, and the unmistakable head of a flamingo resting on his shoulder. The caption simply read: Charles and Pinkerton. I remembered the story. Three years ago, a local homeless man came across a flamingo which had both its legs amputated at the knee joints. The man, Charles Toskovich, adopted the bird and named him Pinkerton. The story kept me glued to the pages, and for a short while I was able to forget the upcoming move back to my parents, the selling of my house, and my recent divorce. Charles and Pinkerton were local celebrities in southern Florida two years ago. I remembered they would appear on local talk shows and news reports. Everyone was so tickled at the idea of a homeless man having a pet legless flamingo. Several of the townspeople had even chipped in and hired an engineer to design a sort of harness with crutches attached for the bird. No one thought it would work, but it did. Pinkerton was fitted with two or three different harness crutches before the design was perfected. I remember laughing and struggling to keep from spitting out my coffee as Pinkerton ran across the sound stage on a local TV morning show. Everyone laughed, but never in a mean way. Pinkerton had a way of filling everyone he met with wonder and joy.
Could those two still be around? Though BonitaSprings was only a short drive from Naples, I never visited. The city of Bonita Springs was pristine and picture perfect. The houses like plastic Barbie dream homes. I thought the town probably invented Charles Toskovich and Pinkerton the Legless Flamingo to give it some flavor. Since BonitaSprings was on the way to my parents’ home in Fort Myers, I decided this time to stop and see what I could see in BonitaSprings.
I was dreading the move like learning I was going to have to live with a debilitating disease the rest of my life, and decided to take the drive nice and slow. “This is only temporary like everything else,” I told myself. An hour into my drive, and too soon for comfort I saw the Bonita Springs City Limit sign in the distance. This soon passed and I was at a corner Mobil station to fuel up and ask for directions. I kept it simple.
“Charles and Pinkerton?”
The greasy middle-age man manning the register and pumps nodded towards the gulf.
“Pinkerton passed a little over a year ago, and Charles, if you find him, will either be at the beach near where he first found him or at Stan’s Shoe Repair Shop.” At my confused look, he continued. “They let him sleep in the back of the shop sometimes when the weather gets bad.”
My resolve diminished. I wanted to see the legless bird move like the wind on his crutches. But I missed it, like I feel I miss everything in life. I contemplated just forgetting about Charles and Pinkerton, but I came this far. Besides, I was homeless too. I decided to try the beach as the first place to look. Luckily it was also my last. Charles was there, still wearing his signature Stetson tilted at an angle. He was holding Pinkerton’s crutches on his lap and was bringing a small flask to his lips. I suspected the flask had been empty for some time. His movements seemed automatic and dreamlike as he stared into the ocean. Upon closer inspection Charles looked closer to eighty or ninety and had dark circles under his eyes. He didn’t acknowledge my presence until I spoke.
“If I woulda planned a little better, I woulda brought you something to drink.” I said pointing at the flask.
Charles quickly glanced at me and just as quickly away. “I gave up drinking when I found Pinkerton,” he said.
“Tell me what happened?”
Charles shrugged and seemed to hug himself. He opened his mouth then closed it. “He just flew away.”
“The man at the Exxon said he died.”
“No!” Charles shouted and his cheeks turned red. “No one knows that for sure! Pinkerton just left, and I’m hoping someday he’ll be back.”
“How long has it been?”
“Fourteen months and eleven days.”
“Well, maybe he finally got back on his migration path. You know flamingoes…”
But he cut in. “No! Pinkerton was different. He was my friend.” His chin trembled, and he brought the empty flask to his lips again.
I wanted to tell him there was no sense in waiting for something that may or may not come. Pinkerton probably was dead. Without his crutches, how did he stand to feed? But I had no right to dash the hopes of another. Charles was jingling something on the harness of the crutches. A little pocket?
“What’s that?”
“Oh! These crutches are fancy!” Charles chortled. “They have belts, pockets, bells and whistles!” He laughed loudly for a good two minutes. But he showed me what was inside.The pocket was filled with dimes all bright and shiny, some dating from the 1890s.
“Wow! Some of these are really rare! Where did you find these?”
Charles gave me a smug look. “These aren’t mine. These are Pinkerton’s. He found these. He loves dimes!”
I shook my head. “That’s ridiculous, even if I believed Pinkerton liked dimes, how on earth did he find so many and some so valuable?”
Charles gave me a long pondering look, before turning to gaze out into the ocean once more. He said, “The same way we find any treasure; through luck and perseverance.”
I settled more comfortably on the sand dune, locked my hands behind my head and waited for Pinkerton to come home.
Oh, fair Prince how your beauty lies
That the mere brush of a butterfly turns your head
The most fleeting of caresses turns your course,
And your constant weakness of will
Remains enforce.
Such thinking, thinking
Behind your fair brow
The flux of desire and illogic;
Setting aside your crown.
What sweet tortures you merit,
And stress upon my being
Misadventure and folly,
Deception unseemly.
But, I am beast in woman form
Not one to bow lightly
For in this tender heart resides a seed pearl
Of the rarest sort.
A gift, a treasure;
My priceless measure.
One can never guard oneself too carefully.
I will cleanse my sins in Diana’s pure water
I will be baptized in the blazing truth of the sun.
My heart and soul to guard,
My virtue to keep.
I dare’nt trust my heart and soul to thee.
