Pursuit Of The Cygnus Thief

Chapter 15 - With His Eyes Open

Chapter 15

“With His Eyes Open” By Roseyone

    He slouched in the doorway of the old shed, behind his glorious head beams of morning light shot through myriad holes in the shed’s dilapidated siding, from where I stood John appeared to be crowned by sunlight. I’d carried out a dome covered tray of breakfast; bacon, eggs, biscuits, jam, milk and black coffee. I’d made it myself because it seemed the best, safest thing for John.

“You ought to level with your father and tell him about that creep.” John said after a cursory greeting. He wore a striped pajama top over matching pants; John seemed wholly comfortable to be seen that way, without a bathrobe for cover. John smiled and shifted in the doorway to collect his tray.

“It’s not that simple.” I’d thought that his looks, so novel to me the day before might have diminished instead, the opposite was true; disheveled, dusty-eyed and cotton mouthed John’s tousled stale state seemed as contrived as a movie star’s on set.

“Why not? You didn’t bring it on did you?” John asked. His eyes had turned pale green overnight. Was it the lighting or his irises that actually shifted? I put that thought aside, it tugged at me again, then I concentrated on what John had just said.

“Of course not!” It was an offensive question but I’d already asked myself the same thing too many times. I’d have to face them all after school, Mr. Abel, Mrs. Abel the Crowns; I wasn’t certain that I could apologize knowing that four of their number knew quite well what had really happened in the tavern.

“Then it’s simple see? You’re in the right and Abel’s in the wrong. You tell your father, he’ll fix it, he’s no chump. You won’t have to be somebody’s snot rag anymore.” The sharp image of Mr. Abel blowing his nose on me while I sat crunched up in a ball exploded in my brain. I wanted to explain that I was not a snot rag, that what John had seen was the very limit, things hadn’t gone any further, I was still clean.

“He’ll kill Mr. Abel or go to prison or be killed. You don’t know how things go around here. John, I have to tell you something-”

“Sure your Dad will punch his lights out. After what I saw, him pawing you like that, Abel’s got it coming for sure. He’ll see you’re not an easy target so he’ll glom on to easier pickings elsewhere. He’ll respect your father for it.” John looked eagerly at the tray in my hands, he shifted in the doorway and bounced on his toes, folded his arms and rubbed them both in reaction to the cool desert morning before he stretched and stifled a yawn. My skin grew hot, he was a he, a grown man probably naked beneath his pajamas and I was to serve him breakfast. I placed the tray at the top of the short stoop not far from his bare feet.

“No. It’s not that way here. They control everything…don’t you say it in front of Matilda, she’s one of them.” I glanced back at the house behind us, both my father and Matilda were awake, there could be no doubt that Matilda watched us. She’d started her day sucking something stinky and no doubt noxious from a flask and spitting it onto the floor into different corners of the house until my father discovered her and dumped the contents of the flask down the kitchen sink.

“So…let me get this straight, you’re saying they’ve got an outfit here in Our Lady of the Assumption town? Gee,you really kill me kid. Of all the hare-brained,” John flashed a white smile, he had so many teeth and like good soldiers they all stood at perfect attention.

“-It’s true…the Abels lead it, the McKees enforce it and the Barcas make it legal. They squeeze the life out of-”

Suddenly, John Woodstock’s entire body shook with laughter, I stepped back, at first hurt and then disturbed to notice that as he laughed John never closed his eyes or even blinked the way most would have. Who else laughed with his eyes open? John straightened himself out but the grin remained on his face as he again spoke.