RangerWickett
Legend
(For returning readers, read here to see a dragon and a virgin.)
The tedium of the Greyhound bus is pierced by a blues tune coming loud out of one of the passenger's headphones.
"I ain't superstitious.
"Black cat crossed my trail.
"I ain't superstitious,
"but a black cat crossed my trail."
Passengers turn away from the windows. Endless Texas forest passes by on both sides of the two-lane road as thirty people glare at the annoying guy in the third row. They're in no mood for even the slightest disturbance. After their plane being grounded last night for a terrorist threat, and having to submit to riding a Greyhound bus to get to their destination, loud headphones immediately get the passengers to grumbling.
Robert Black is about to get up and confront the guy when suddenly the bus lurches. Brakes squeal on the dozen tires and the bus driver cries out in denial, and then with a crash of metal and shattering glass, the bus stops.
People panic and struggle to open the emergency exits, afraid the bus is about to explode. Robert Black moves calmly to the front exit, stopping to help the bus driver get clear. Near the back of the bus, Scarpedin Jones pops out the side window exit and jumps through, taking stock of the massive car pile-up but ignoring the others who need help getting out of the window. Belladonna Lee lets a handsome young man carry her bag as she tries to maintain her dignity while fleeing. Stuck in the middle of everyone else's panic, John Rourke jumps up, pushes open the roof exit, and swings himself onto the top of the bus.
John is fairly confident the bus won't explode - the collision wasn't that bad - so he takes the moment of calm to light up a cigarette. From the roof of the bus he can see that the Greyhound is only the second vehicle in a line of wrecks. Wondering what caused the car in front of them to stop so suddenly, John scans the road and the treeline.
Just inside the trees on the right side of the road, he spots movement. A man dressed in a fine black suit, with a white flower on his lapel, bends over and picks a black cat up from the ground, then carries the cat away into the forest.
Down at ground level, Scarpedin adjusts his leather duster to make sure his uzi is comfortably hidden in his armpit. The road is a mess, full of confused people. The guy with the headphones has taken them off and is wandering through the crowd. If Scarpedin had to say which famous person the headphones guy looks most like, he'd say Mos Def, that guy who played Ford Prefect in the Hitchhiker's Guide movie. It's a trick Scarpedin learned from the cops - it's much easier to compare a person to a famous actor than to just describe their appearance. Elsewhere in the crowd he sees a Don Cheadle look-alike, a Carrie Elwes, a Noah Wylie, and a young Tom Cruise standing next to a young Catherine Zeta-Jones. Scarpedin smirks and heads toward the hot chick.
Belladonna Lee has just gotten the name of the kind man who has been helping her out -- Terry Abrams -- when a scruffy man in a leather duster comes up. Aside from the expensive coat, he's dressed atrociously, wearing a white wife beater and blue jeans, with a black plastic tube slung behind his back like a map case. The man looks like he's about to flirt with her, but Terry seems to know that Belladonna doesn't want to be bothered. He steps in between her and the ruffian.
"Hey, are you alright?" Terry asks.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Scarpedin says. He tries to talk around Terry. "Hey, miss-"
"Nice jacket," Terry adds, giving Belladonna enough time to slip off.
Scarpedin glares at the kid in front of him; he couldn't be older than twenty-five. "Thanks. Hey, are you with that chick?"
"Heh," Terry chuckles, "I wish."
Scarpedin laughs, and he decides he likes the kid.
Meanwhile, Belladonna has wandered away to the front of the bus, where the bus driver is inspecting the damage to the Greyhound and to the poor VW Bug it smashed into. A few people are lingering around the bus driver. Belladonna picks the best-dressed and nicest-seeming one -- a twenty-something black man, and asks him sweetly, "Pardon me, sir. Do you know what happened here?"
Robert Black turns as a beautiful young lady addresses him with a soft New Orleans accent. He inclines his head to the bus driver. "Missy here, our driver, says the car in front of us just slammed on its brakes, and she tried to keep from hitting it. Just our luck, huh?"
"What about the driver of the other car?" Belladonna asks.
That driver approaches with the help of one of the Greyhound passengers. She looks very shaken, and she has a cut on her cheek that Robert recognizes as a sign that an airbag saved her life, but otherwise she's unharmed.
"Hey," Robert says, "excuse me, miss, but what happened?"
"What?" the woman says. She stammers, "I- I don't . . . what do you mean?"
"Well, cars don't just suddenly stop in the middle of the road, usually." Robert tries not to be too harsh, but he can't helping being a little sarcastic. "Did you see something? Hit somebody?"
The woman nods slowly. "There was a cat. I didn't want to hit it. It just ran in front of me."
"You stopped for a cat?" Robert frowns, incredulous. He looks at the line of wrecked cars behind them and mutters, "Damn, I hope she killed that f*cking cat."
"A cat?" Belladonna says. "Is it alright?"
A man appears next to her and Robert, like he fell from heaven. In truth, he just jumped off the top of the bus. John Rourke gestures with the cigarette in his mouth at the trees.
"It ran off. We goin' anywhere soon?"
"Doesn't look much like it," Belladonna says, her voice managing to sound sexy even with such a bland statement.
The bus driver, Missy, is fuming over the damage. The front of the bus is crushed inward, the windshield is shattered, and one of the front wheels looks misaligned. Passengers are grumbling again, and it doesn't look like they'll be able to move at more than a limp. Belladonna excuses herself and heads back to talk to Terry.
Back in the thick of the crowd, Scarpedin's bitching about the wreck to Terry. Terry, for his part, looks more nervous than he ought, but Scarpedin's not really paying attention. Belladonna comes up and quietly asks if everything is alright, and Terry smiles and nods away her concern.
Terry asks Scarpedin, "So were you flying to New Orleans too?"
"No. I don't fly." Scarpedin doesn't mention that the airlines wouldn't let him bring an uzi -- especially an illegal uzi -- on a plane.
They stand around for a moment, and Scarpedin notices a man who looks kinda like a bald John Goodman, dressed in a friar's brown robes. That's out of place. He's not supposed to see people dressed like that in the 21st century. Scarpedin wants to know what's up, so he swaggers over to the monk.
"Ho there, sir friar. What brings one of your holy brethren out to these here Texas woods?"
The Goodman-Friar is taken aback, and then he laughs deeply. "Oh, sorry. I wasn't in character yet! Aye, aye, it be a long . . . no wait, that's pirate. Okay, ready.
"My son," he says, trying again, "are ye as well headed to yon Renaissance Festival? Oh, what bountiful joy may be had at King Henry's fair festival. Alas, but this pileup of horseless carriages has verily stopped my pilgrimage."
"Huh?"
The monk hesitates. Dropping out of character he asks, "You're not going to the RenFest?"
Attracted by the monk's outburst, Robert and John each come up, joining Scarpedin, Belladonna, and Terry. Scarpedin has a hard time placing an actor for John; he looks Italian, but nothing like anyone in Godfather.
"What's a 'Renaissance Festival'?" Robert asks.
Missy the bus driver comes up and points. "It's right down the road, and it's where we're headed. I've got to wait for someone to show up to do repairs."
Robert holds up a hand, looking down at the ground as if collecting his thoughts. When he speaks, the rest of the crowd listens, because he's summing up how they all feel.
"Hold on a second," he says. "Last night, our flights get grounded because of some stupid terrorist threat, so we're stuck in the Dallas terminal until 6am. Then the airline generously offers to pay for Greyhound bus tickets down to New Orleans, so we'll be getting there a day late. Then, and stop me if I'm getting this wrong, but then, our bus crashes into a car because a-" he looks around to make sure no children are nearby, "-a stupid f*cking cat jumps in the way, and now you want us to hike our way to some festival where people dress like this guy here," he points at the monk, "and wait for you to fix the bus."
"Is that a problem?" Missy asks.
"No." Robert is stiff, grinning in polite anger. "I just, you know, wanted to make sure I had all this clear. Well hey, come on. Let's go to the RenFest."
The tedium of the Greyhound bus is pierced by a blues tune coming loud out of one of the passenger's headphones.
"I ain't superstitious.
"Black cat crossed my trail.
"I ain't superstitious,
"but a black cat crossed my trail."
- Jeff Beck Group
Passengers turn away from the windows. Endless Texas forest passes by on both sides of the two-lane road as thirty people glare at the annoying guy in the third row. They're in no mood for even the slightest disturbance. After their plane being grounded last night for a terrorist threat, and having to submit to riding a Greyhound bus to get to their destination, loud headphones immediately get the passengers to grumbling.
Robert Black is about to get up and confront the guy when suddenly the bus lurches. Brakes squeal on the dozen tires and the bus driver cries out in denial, and then with a crash of metal and shattering glass, the bus stops.
People panic and struggle to open the emergency exits, afraid the bus is about to explode. Robert Black moves calmly to the front exit, stopping to help the bus driver get clear. Near the back of the bus, Scarpedin Jones pops out the side window exit and jumps through, taking stock of the massive car pile-up but ignoring the others who need help getting out of the window. Belladonna Lee lets a handsome young man carry her bag as she tries to maintain her dignity while fleeing. Stuck in the middle of everyone else's panic, John Rourke jumps up, pushes open the roof exit, and swings himself onto the top of the bus.
John is fairly confident the bus won't explode - the collision wasn't that bad - so he takes the moment of calm to light up a cigarette. From the roof of the bus he can see that the Greyhound is only the second vehicle in a line of wrecks. Wondering what caused the car in front of them to stop so suddenly, John scans the road and the treeline.
Just inside the trees on the right side of the road, he spots movement. A man dressed in a fine black suit, with a white flower on his lapel, bends over and picks a black cat up from the ground, then carries the cat away into the forest.
Down at ground level, Scarpedin adjusts his leather duster to make sure his uzi is comfortably hidden in his armpit. The road is a mess, full of confused people. The guy with the headphones has taken them off and is wandering through the crowd. If Scarpedin had to say which famous person the headphones guy looks most like, he'd say Mos Def, that guy who played Ford Prefect in the Hitchhiker's Guide movie. It's a trick Scarpedin learned from the cops - it's much easier to compare a person to a famous actor than to just describe their appearance. Elsewhere in the crowd he sees a Don Cheadle look-alike, a Carrie Elwes, a Noah Wylie, and a young Tom Cruise standing next to a young Catherine Zeta-Jones. Scarpedin smirks and heads toward the hot chick.
Belladonna Lee has just gotten the name of the kind man who has been helping her out -- Terry Abrams -- when a scruffy man in a leather duster comes up. Aside from the expensive coat, he's dressed atrociously, wearing a white wife beater and blue jeans, with a black plastic tube slung behind his back like a map case. The man looks like he's about to flirt with her, but Terry seems to know that Belladonna doesn't want to be bothered. He steps in between her and the ruffian.
"Hey, are you alright?" Terry asks.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Scarpedin says. He tries to talk around Terry. "Hey, miss-"
"Nice jacket," Terry adds, giving Belladonna enough time to slip off.
Scarpedin glares at the kid in front of him; he couldn't be older than twenty-five. "Thanks. Hey, are you with that chick?"
"Heh," Terry chuckles, "I wish."
Scarpedin laughs, and he decides he likes the kid.
Meanwhile, Belladonna has wandered away to the front of the bus, where the bus driver is inspecting the damage to the Greyhound and to the poor VW Bug it smashed into. A few people are lingering around the bus driver. Belladonna picks the best-dressed and nicest-seeming one -- a twenty-something black man, and asks him sweetly, "Pardon me, sir. Do you know what happened here?"
Robert Black turns as a beautiful young lady addresses him with a soft New Orleans accent. He inclines his head to the bus driver. "Missy here, our driver, says the car in front of us just slammed on its brakes, and she tried to keep from hitting it. Just our luck, huh?"
"What about the driver of the other car?" Belladonna asks.
That driver approaches with the help of one of the Greyhound passengers. She looks very shaken, and she has a cut on her cheek that Robert recognizes as a sign that an airbag saved her life, but otherwise she's unharmed.
"Hey," Robert says, "excuse me, miss, but what happened?"
"What?" the woman says. She stammers, "I- I don't . . . what do you mean?"
"Well, cars don't just suddenly stop in the middle of the road, usually." Robert tries not to be too harsh, but he can't helping being a little sarcastic. "Did you see something? Hit somebody?"
The woman nods slowly. "There was a cat. I didn't want to hit it. It just ran in front of me."
"You stopped for a cat?" Robert frowns, incredulous. He looks at the line of wrecked cars behind them and mutters, "Damn, I hope she killed that f*cking cat."
"A cat?" Belladonna says. "Is it alright?"
A man appears next to her and Robert, like he fell from heaven. In truth, he just jumped off the top of the bus. John Rourke gestures with the cigarette in his mouth at the trees.
"It ran off. We goin' anywhere soon?"
"Doesn't look much like it," Belladonna says, her voice managing to sound sexy even with such a bland statement.
The bus driver, Missy, is fuming over the damage. The front of the bus is crushed inward, the windshield is shattered, and one of the front wheels looks misaligned. Passengers are grumbling again, and it doesn't look like they'll be able to move at more than a limp. Belladonna excuses herself and heads back to talk to Terry.
Back in the thick of the crowd, Scarpedin's bitching about the wreck to Terry. Terry, for his part, looks more nervous than he ought, but Scarpedin's not really paying attention. Belladonna comes up and quietly asks if everything is alright, and Terry smiles and nods away her concern.
Terry asks Scarpedin, "So were you flying to New Orleans too?"
"No. I don't fly." Scarpedin doesn't mention that the airlines wouldn't let him bring an uzi -- especially an illegal uzi -- on a plane.
They stand around for a moment, and Scarpedin notices a man who looks kinda like a bald John Goodman, dressed in a friar's brown robes. That's out of place. He's not supposed to see people dressed like that in the 21st century. Scarpedin wants to know what's up, so he swaggers over to the monk.
"Ho there, sir friar. What brings one of your holy brethren out to these here Texas woods?"
The Goodman-Friar is taken aback, and then he laughs deeply. "Oh, sorry. I wasn't in character yet! Aye, aye, it be a long . . . no wait, that's pirate. Okay, ready.
"My son," he says, trying again, "are ye as well headed to yon Renaissance Festival? Oh, what bountiful joy may be had at King Henry's fair festival. Alas, but this pileup of horseless carriages has verily stopped my pilgrimage."
"Huh?"
The monk hesitates. Dropping out of character he asks, "You're not going to the RenFest?"
Attracted by the monk's outburst, Robert and John each come up, joining Scarpedin, Belladonna, and Terry. Scarpedin has a hard time placing an actor for John; he looks Italian, but nothing like anyone in Godfather.
"What's a 'Renaissance Festival'?" Robert asks.
Missy the bus driver comes up and points. "It's right down the road, and it's where we're headed. I've got to wait for someone to show up to do repairs."
Robert holds up a hand, looking down at the ground as if collecting his thoughts. When he speaks, the rest of the crowd listens, because he's summing up how they all feel.
"Hold on a second," he says. "Last night, our flights get grounded because of some stupid terrorist threat, so we're stuck in the Dallas terminal until 6am. Then the airline generously offers to pay for Greyhound bus tickets down to New Orleans, so we'll be getting there a day late. Then, and stop me if I'm getting this wrong, but then, our bus crashes into a car because a-" he looks around to make sure no children are nearby, "-a stupid f*cking cat jumps in the way, and now you want us to hike our way to some festival where people dress like this guy here," he points at the monk, "and wait for you to fix the bus."
"Is that a problem?" Missy asks.
"No." Robert is stiff, grinning in polite anger. "I just, you know, wanted to make sure I had all this clear. Well hey, come on. Let's go to the RenFest."
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