Writing For G.O.T

The Tale of Jack RainFlower - addition to the Undying

In fact, I made myself run. I didn’t want to back in there, to be interrogated accused, Kangaroo courted, thrown in the slammer, and locked up for life. Darn it! The freaking evidence was against me. Now I had to find new evidence to eliminate the old one. I ran until my hips and my knees ached. I ran as storefronts, people, buses, cars, my very own life whizzed by.

Where was I running to? I couldn’t go to any of my chums. Most of them were cops and the others would trust the cops. To begin with, I wasn’t the boy scout of the year, either. A couple of marriages gone bad, not to mention oodles of soured relationships, and my once-upon-a-time boozing and oozing, which none of my cop chums ever forgot. Although I wouldn’t blame them. Like I said, I am no boy scout. Still, at the moment I was sucker-punched.

Just about I had run out of legs, I realized something. Something bone-chilling. I was gasping for breath and I still had my uniform on. The thing about uniforms, they stick out.

Imagine a cop running in uniform. Everybody had to have spotted me. Very amateurish for a professional.

Disgusted, I made a roundabout and dashed inside the park that opened to the woods in the back. I leaned behind an elm tree, trying to catch my breath. That was when Teddy Black Crow with his chiseled face and jet-black hair hanging on his shoulders popped up in my mind’s eye.

Teddy could hide me. Teddy would hide me. My ticker pulsed with the thought. What if I was the one who nailed him first seven years ago!

I grinned at the memory. Some crazy dude of a security guard had called us from a sub-basement club, and I had the honors of apprehending the guy, roughing him up a bit for show, but then, my partner and I let go of him.

We did it on purpose. First, there was no crime. Second, that basement was a dirty clubhouse bar of sorts which was the front for all things delinquent. What could be wrong with a guy downing his drink and wanting a little company afterward? Company the club could provide but didn’t. Only because those hoity toity guys there had their heads in the wrong place. The saw the Indian instead of Teddy.

After that, Teddy was our eye, and we greased him from our slush fund. During my boozing days, I downed a Bud or two with him, to boot. Once he even lucked into a contract-death council and hobnobbed with the fat cats. Fat cats running reds, putting punks up front. Our team got the accolades for Teddy’s work.

I reached for my cell, then thought better of it. Those cheap tracers! They’d know my whereabouts. But I opened it anyways. I checked Teddy’s phone number. I’d call from elsewhere, though. No need to give off signals.

I fixed my looks, tucked my cop blue shirt in, buttoned up the jacket. Uniform or not. Have to look cool. I walked out of the park from the side door, the pistol in my jacket pocket bouncing against my hip.

Up front, a parade went by, soldiers and all. Like a slap in the face. The complete armada. The whole thing played heck with the traffic. People stopped and saluted despite the fevered scrutiny. That scrutiny could hit me broadside sharp. My insufficient destiny at it again. I hit my circumspection buttons and dunked myself into a side street.

Kids by a graveled driveway in front of an apartment building were shooting bb guns. They tried to split, seeing me. I grabbed the one taping the action with his cellphone. He screamed.

“It’s okay, Kid. Hush up.”

“I don’t wanna go to jail!” He pleaded.

“You ain’t going nowhere,” I said. “Let me see that phone. That’s all.”

He handed me the phone. It was all kid stuff. I reached for my phone. He tried to take off. I caught him again.

“Tell you what. You take my phone. I take yours. Even switch. Okay?” I handed him my phone, after copying my address book into his.

He looked at it, his eyes like saucers. “Neat!” Then he took off again. He was chubby but fast. I didn’t chase him. I grinned. They could trace my phone as much as they wished now.

I called Teddy and asked him to pick me up. Then I walked into the entryway of the apartment.

He pulled up in his jeep. I breathed a curse under my breath. He had all kinds of stuff painted on the jeep. Mostly eagle faces though. We’d be the greatest show on earth.

“My luck keeps fumbling!” I cursed while jumping in next to him. The jeep rumbled away while I filled him in.

Teddy shrugged. “Happens, Jack. Your owl must have shifted in his sleep.”

I didn’t ask what that meant. It had to be an Indian thing. I futzed with the kids’ phone.

“No worries, Jack RainFlower. We’ll fix it,” he added.

He might have thought so, but dead was dead. There was no getting around it. Teddy reached behind him and threw me a blanket, making the jeep zigzag on the road and knocking me backward.

“Wrap this up around you. Lose the cap. You’re bull’s eye in cop-blues.”

I grabbed the blanket. He reached down under the seat, pulling large dark glasses from a box, which I hadn’t spotted earlier. I had to be losing my touch.

“Put these on. We’ll be taking the highway. Lean back and sleep or pretend to sleep, whatever…”

I did as told and closed my eyes. I tried thinking about the way everything was before. It failed. Instead, dead bodies popped up. Two dead bodies. One on the roof, shot. The other…what the devil! And NEDERI NEDERI NEDERI!!! I must have said that out loud.

“What did you say?”

I opened my eyes. We were on the highway now.

“The woman Bo shot. She kept saying things in some weird tongue and all I can remember is, “NEDERI NEDERI NEDERI!!!”

Teddy jerked his foot off the gas pedal. The jeep spun a tad. I stared at Teddy. He looked shell-shocked.

“That’s trouble! You’re in no place worth bein’, Jack RainFlower.”


1059 Words

Tagging ℰ𝒯𝒞．．． from Greyjoy