“Cricket, I hate the people who hurt my family.”
“They’ll be punished for what they did.”
“I hope so.” She lay down again and scooted further under the covers. The blanket touched her chin. “Are they really with God, like Sister Marie said?”
Cricket dove into a sea of religious emotion. She wanted to cry, scream, and adore God all at the same time. How could she articulate something the wisest had struggled with for centuries? Grace waited.
“Grace, the sun will rise tomorrow, pop right over our heads at twelve noon, and set hours later. There’s a beginning, middle, and end, like any story—for a single day or for the life of a single person. And great stories will be told again and again. Because some stories, like a beautiful day, not only give us hope; they make us really glad to be alive and remind us not to be afraid.”
“Was it the end for my family in their story?”
“How could there be an end? The sun will rise again tomorrow; summer will pass into winter and yet summer returns. And tonight a story for a young girl is just starting, and somewhere for a young boy. Their stories will cross, and they’ll feel like they’ve always known each other and together build an even more beautiful story. Your family’s story has crossed paths with God’s. And in some time and place they are living out a new life with God, a life that is really supreme.”
Grace smiled and jumped into Cricket’s arms. A soft knock on the door. It was Fritz.
He needed her and pointed downstairs.
“Goodnight, Grace,” Fritz said.
“Goodnight, Captain Fritz.”
Cricket lay a cool hand on Grace’s forehead and kissed her on the cheek.
“I want to grow up to be Cricket someday,” Grace said.
“Sorry, Grace has to be Grace.” Cricket playfully attacked her, tickling her through the covers.
Giggling, Grace repeated, “Okay—okay—I’m Grace—I’m Grace!”
“Good,” Cricket said, lunging toward the bed once more, Grace screaming her delight. “Pleasant dreams. Love you.” Cricket blew out the candle on the dresser and in the dark heard Grace still giggling and pronouncing her love for her. “Love you, too, Grace … bunches,” she said, and joined her friends downstairs.
In the living room Ron and Tony were all geared up for battle: dark clothes, baseball caps, automatics on their hips and rifles in their hands.
Ron said, “I just heard from one of the cops patrolling that a bunch of motorcycle guys are down at the park drinking and flashing their weapons.”
“Yeah, a few fights between the Latinos and blacks,” Tony said. “This is building into one nasty shit sandwich.”
“What are your plans?” Sister Marie said.
Fritz said, “Sister, we can’t just guard this house, stand on the porch with rifles. We need more of a perimeter. My dad and mom are making the rounds, trying to alert our neighbors to the danger, to defend themselves—get them to patrol their street, check in on each other. If criminals invade our homes, we have to be able to hurt them so that they never come back.”
Tony said, “Ron and I are going to circle within a house or two of here. We can’t wait for them to crash through the door. I’m going to nail their asses, hopefully before they get on the tree lawn.”
“I’m going to patrol the street with a few of the neighbors,” Fritz said. “Keep letting the rest of the neighborhood know we’re there for them.”
Cricket said, “I’ll stay here with Sister and Mrs. Holaday. And between the Barracuda and the jeep, we can get the hell out of here as a last resort.”
“Oh goodness, I don’t know if I can leave my house to those animals.” Mrs. Holaday stared out the living room window.
“Judy, you may have to.” George entered from the kitchen. “I can only get two families to commit to defending this street. They’re doing better behind us on Summit, but most of our neighbors are terrified.”
“I’ll take over the patrol in a few hours,” Cricket said.
The men left through the front door.
The three women looked at each other and Cricket said, “Something is wrong about this show of lawlessness. She wants this parade tomorrow. Why screw it all up with bad behavior tonight?”
“She doesn’t have any control over these animals,” Mrs. Holaday said.
“She’s fully in control.”
An hour later, having not gotten any rest, and against Sister Marie’s advice, Cricket left the house and headed downtown. Dressed in a black long-sleeve shirt and her leather vest, she kept off the sidewalks and found a narrow alley that dropped onto Main Street.
From the shadows of someone’s front lawn, sitting under a Japanese maple, Cricket watched the show: a large bonfire, near the sidewalk, mostly made from broken furniture, illuminated the gang members riding their motorcycles, drinking straight out of bottles, screaming obscenities into the night. A few women, staggering drunk, presented themselves to be manhandled, much to the crowd’s delight. A large, shirtless Latino man started shooting into the air. More joined in.
Two cops in uniform were there, outnumbered, milling around. Cricket spotted the police chief in civilian clothes.
As if escaping from a dream, a long silver rocket ship, motorized, came gliding down Main Street. The driver was Electron Larry, and behind him in the first open-air car was Anton; behind him sporting a long white cape was the Brazilian. She too was drinking, taking long swigs from a flask. She stood up in the car and a roar of appreciation greeted her.
“Put your guns away, boys. We have a big day tomorrow. The parade is coming to town. I’ve got lots of seats in my rocket car. Climb in. Back to my place.”
Someone shot his gun into the air and got seriously pistol-whipped for his lack of attention. Those who didn’t climb aboard the Brazilian Express took off on their motorcycles, leaving only a few stragglers whose burnt nervous systems had to negotiate a very long walk back to the compound.
Cricket returned to the Holadays’. The Brazilian’s seemingly harmless chatter about tomorrow’s parade didn’t quiet Cricket’s worries.
33
Bastille Day
There were more people than Cricket had expected, over a hundred, quiet, sorrowful-looking folks who recently had been “robbed” of their TVs, movie theaters, computers, cell phones, and iPads. Yet this was a moment of possible shared entertainment. The Brazilian was the ticket. Cricket had told Fritz and the rest of the household last night that manning the streets wasn’t enough, saying, “This woman’s highly unpredictable.” They needed to confront her and stop playing defense all the time.
Cricket stood not far from the curb holding Grace’s hand. Sister Marie flanked her left side and Fritz stood behind the three of them looking grim. People talked, but there was no excitement in the air.
Ron and Tony were back at the house with the Holadays. Diesel didn’t take Cricket’s command to stay very well, immediately lying down and resting his head atop his front legs with sad eyes, a last-minute plea for games and a walk.
The street was clear but then they normally were clear these days, only the occasional old vehicle, a Harley, or rustled-up cop car for patrolling. No one was asked to be in the parade. Mrs. Holaday had pulled Cricket aside before breakfast to tell of her worries about Grace’s attending the parade. Cricket just said, “Nowhere is safe.” She hoped that this so-called parade was a harmless moment in time, although she expected it to be strange: Why not have the young girl on the street expecting some kind of show?
The sound of motorcycles made the low-energy crowd go silent. Cricket and Fritz knew that several residents there were also packing. And most of the Falls police officers, nearly a dozen, lined opposite sides of the street spaced several feet apart.
Fritz leaned toward Cricket’s right ear. “From our visit and the number of characters you saw last night, I’d say she has a force of forty or fifty thugs.”
“A number like that could easily wreck everyone’s morning
with only a few cops and a depressed crowd.”
The bikes grew louder and they rounded the corner from Water Street and came into view. Four bikers with a woman on the back of each one. Then came the Brazilian’s rocket car, and the kids in the audience expressed their delight with a long “wow” and plenty of “oohs”.
Fritz knelt down and talked to Grace. “There was a man, a few years ago, who bought this rocket ship from an amusement park and had it motorized. Grace, the ship used to be a ride, and you flew overhead in a really big circle.”
As the motorcycles passed and the rocket car approached, Cricket could see that every seat was filled by guys who looked like pirates. Some were drinking. In a white chiffon dress, the Brazilian wore a silver crown and stood in her car waving. The mayor and his wife were in the front car. They both stared straight ahead, and Lynne looked like she had been crying.
The rocket car stopped, and the Brazilian stood up and addressed the crowd.
“Bastille Day is a celebration that we Americans should have been celebrating for years. The French threw off the monarchy and the clergy in one lovely, fell swoop. They addressed all the inequalities of the time and found that separating the wheat from the chaff was the quickest way to true freedom and brotherhood. Of course, they were still French and they screwed up royally—great pun, don’t you think?” Here she got a few chuckles from the residents. “You see, they didn’t have the courage to keep separating the wheat from the chaff, and mediocrity crept back in, and guilt and small ideas ended up making them a small people that late-night comedians could make fun of, when we once had late-night comedians. But storming the Bastille prison is still inspiring—the noise, the raucous crowd, and in the days that followed, chasing down royal scoundrels and those of the cloth. Believe me, the ending of conventions is something we should all aspire to.”
Grace was still impressed but she kept glancing up at Cricket with big eyes. She had questions. This kid’s no dummy.
Cricket said to Fritz, who looked very annoyed, “Let’s get out of here.”
In the last car a couple, half undressed, started making out fast and heavy. The woman then straddled the man.
Cricket turned Grace away from the street. “We’re heading straight back to the park. We’re going home the long way.”
“They really ruined it,” Grace said.
“Yes, they did, Grace,” Sister replied. “We’ll have a splendid day back at home with the Holadays and Diesel.”
Cricket stopped. “Fritz, take Grace back to the house. I’m staying.”
“There could be problems,” he said. “The rest of those goons might be showing up on their bikes.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t try and fight them all by myself. There’s something to learn here. I’ll be careful.”
“Okay. But get back soon.”
Cricket got back in time to see the Brazilian out of her car going after the mayor and his wife, who were hoofing it across the park.
“Come back here, Mayor,” the Brazilian demanded. Those with children had left. The remaining were the ambulance chasers.
Even though he towered over the Brazilian, Mayor DiFazio approached like a broke-dick horse followed by his petrified wife. He stopped a few feet short of the parade queen, staring at the ground.
“Get back in the rocket car, Mayor, or I’ll pull your wife’s hair out by the roots and make you eat it!”
Cricket couldn’t hear the mayor’s response; it was all soft shoe, and he got a hard slap across the face for trying to weasel out of the program. He grabbed his wife’s hand and she broke down as he dragged her back to the rocket car and shoved her in the seat. Cricket wanted to shoot the mayor, right after she perforated the Brazilian.
The Brazilian was just getting in her car when she looked up at the sun and then at Cricket. “You’re always welcome to ride along in my rocket, sweetheart.”
The Brazilian’s sentence ended and the first explosion came.
“The police station!” a short cop yelled.
“Officers, c’mon, ride with us,” the Brazilian offered. “I’ll get you there pronto.”
“No!” Cricket screamed, and most of the officers hurried onto the back of Harleys after the bikers’ dates were shoved off. She ran up to the police chief as a second explosion was heard.
“Don’t go!” she begged. “She’s responsible,” she added, pointing to the Brazilian.
“Let’s go, chief, the girl’s hysterical,” the Brazilian said, watching two women who had been unceremoniously de-biked grab Cricket by the arms and wrestle her away.
“Don’t you hurt her!” the Brazilian warned, driving off. “She’s my girl.”
“Screw you!” Cricket screamed, getting free of one biker chick and pulling her gun.
Both women put their hands in the air and laughed, and Cricket ran through the center of the park headed to the police station.
34
The Brazilian and the Priest
Cricket didn’t stop running until she hit a low fence in someone’s backyard and tumbled into a kid’s slide. She wasted no time getting back on her feet and ran again, impervious to what might trip or cut her.
She winced at the sound of gunfire from the police station. It was nearly constant. She thought of her dad, his life as a cop, heading straight into the action, once tackling a thief who had jumped from his car slashing the air with a machete, leaving a trail of spilled change and crumpled bills as he ran. She wished it was just an ordinary thief she was tracking.
She ran and jumped and ducked under tree branches, and her lungs ached. She stopped to catch her breath when the gunfire abruptly ceased and someone on a bullhorn yelled, “Lay down your weapons,” followed by a burst of gunfire, plenty of screams, and finally silence.
She rounded a house and crossed the front yard and saw the station at the end of the block. She saw smoke at the back of the building and thought the Brazilian’s troops must have taken out the generator.
She was less than a half block away, trotting along the sidewalk, when a man tackled her. With all her strength she went at him with fists and legs. He had his gun out first and shoved it into her stomach.
“Stop! Who are you?” The man said.
“Who are you?”
“Officer Holden.”
“I’m Cricket.”
“Who?”
“Fritz Holaday’s girl,” she said, using those words for the first time. The cop got to his feet.
“Get up. What are you doing here?”
“I came to see if I could help.”
“You’d last ten seconds. Too many of them.”
“Is it the Brazilian?”
“You mean that crazy broad driving a rocket? Haven’t seen her since downtown. A biker executed the chief moments ago. And my wife and kid are missing. Our house is right there.” He pointed to a small brick ranch. “I went to get them and the place is all torn up.” He talked low, yet Cricket knew he wanted to scream at the heavens. “The bastards would take my family!”
“Maybe they went to a neighbor, a relative,” she said.
“Maybe. I’ve got a few places I can look. The place was burglarized, but thank God, no blood.”
“How did you avoid getting shot?”
“I was one of the cops for that stupid parade. Even more stupid, I climbed on a bike, as if the thugs were out to help us. When we got to the station, the biker ahead of us was anxious to start the killing. I saw him drawing his gun. I drew first. But too late. He got my best friend but I got the sick bastard and my driver. Too much gunfire. So I took cover. A few started to follow but then luckily my guys inside let it rip, and the animals all joined in and forgot about me. I got to get my family back.”
“Did you see the mayor?” Cricket asked.
“No. I hope my guys shoot his sorry ass. Got to go. Be careful.”
“Good luck, Officer Holden.”
He glanced again at his home and took off.
Cricket crept beh
ind a parked car. The gleaming silver rocket car drove up with the Brazilian, the mayor, and more than a dozen bikers on Harleys. She stood up in the car and said something Cricket couldn’t hear, and the shooting stopped.
The mayor climbed out and headed inside, announcing his name loudly before entering the building. A few minutes passed and the mayor returned with three uniformed officers. One was limping, supported by the other two. Then, three shabby-looking bikers emerged to a few random cheers and laughter. They grinned, too, looking more like skinny pirates. One biker approached the trio like he was going to hand them an award. Instead he raised his sawed-off shotgun and dispatched them with several rapid blasts. More laughter. The mayor stood like a statue and then squeaked out his programmed political message, his voice shaking:
“We have brave men who have died here today. They need to be handled properly … their families need to be notified … I’ll do that.” He faced the Brazilian, saying, “This woman has brought peace today. Let’s go home.”
“Bullshit,” Cricket said under her breath.
Breathing hard, Cricket flew up the front steps past Ron.
“Fritz had to go out to the airport,” Sister Marie said. “One of his men arrived. He said to tell you he’d be back soon.”
“What happened at the police station?” Tony asked, closing the door.
“They killed the police chief and most of the officers who responded to the explosion.” Cricket stopped to catch her breath. “The Brazilian arrives, the mayor goes in and brings the men out to safety. Then they conveniently kill the killers. The Brazilian is behind everything. She made it look like some of her gang members went rogue.”
“What happened to the mayor?” Sister asked.
“He’s fine. He’s riding around in that goofy rocket car thing. He thinks she saved the day.”
“But why wouldn’t she just finish the job the attackers started?” Sister Marie said. “Those three officers could have easily been killed.”
Pulse of the Goddess: American Blackout Book One Page 17
