Traveling Salesman: Astronomgonist

Chapter 3

  The dragons were steam engine powered, with the body structure of a dragon and its essence summoned and trapped by a wizard-mage. They transported the billets of sugarcane to the sugar mill. The shift manager, Hazeldine had trained them. Hazeldine was twenty-four, a 4'2 pixie sailor-nymph with dark bluish-black down-turned shaped eyes, orange, yellow, blue and green hair worn long, straight with a fringe similar to pin-up model Bettie Page's popular hairstyle. Her hair cascaded the length of her carrot-shaped body. Her eighteen-year-old brother, Phenny was one of the sugar cane workers. He was fairly tall with deep-set eyes that were a silvery-white; the color of mercury, a mixture of clover and turquoise colored hair with streaks of dark brown in a ducktail hairstyle. Both he and Hazeldine were half-Algerian and South Asian.

Teer was spraying weed killer on the vampire needles surrounding the sugar cane fields. Vampire needles were a weedy thorn that grew wild and was a distant cousin of the Venus Flytrap. They were dangerous to the workers when harvesting the sugar cane. Their poison caused a fast-acting infection which caused a severe iron deficiency, sensitivity to light, sound, hallucinations, and bouts of grandeur with additional symptoms of manic-depressive states, followed by an agonizing death with zombie-like returns and death again with no reprisals. Several workers died because of its nuisance. Wearing protective clothing hindered him from getting stuck by them, but didn't stop them from growing sometimes as tall as the sugar cane. The weed killer was Teer's own special brand mixed with his own blood and was environmentally safe for the sugar cane and the workers.

Teer declined to work in the sugarcane fields in any other capacity, despite the fact he got offered other positions, some better than others. Due to the building of the St. Lawrence Seaway a few months earlier, many communities in Nothing Not Dead Man's Land had to resettle since the destruction from flooding during its construction.

Phenny and Hazeldine accompanied Teer to Nothing Not Dead Man's Land to help those who were struggling through the resettlement process. Those who were willing to start their lives over in DragenCamp, Hazeldine and Teer led them there where they were able to work in the sugar cane fields. The rest followed the caravan, Teer and Hazeldine organized to Hault Horizon. Teer stayed in DragenCamp, until the next harvest season.

In November 1960, Teer lived in a rooming house not far from the soda shop. He'd secretly stored some of the vampire needles in the freezer of his refrigerator. He'd not forgotten his original goal and like a hunter, he was preparing himself. Hazeldine and Phenny lived in the same rooming house and they often went to the movie theater in Phenny's 1960 red Chevy convertible. For sixty-nine cents per ticket, they went to see "Butterfield 8" during the third weekend of its release on November 27, 1960, because it was Phenny's nineteenth birthday and he had a huge crush on Elizabeth Taylor, who starred in the movie.

"That was far out, thanks, man." Phenny smiled. "You're a really cool cat. Like the big brother, I never thought I wanted. Taking me to that Philadelphia Seventy-sixers-Boston Celtics game a few days ago was boss, too. 'Cause o' you I made a lot of bread on that game."

"Don't sweat it." Teer shrugged the compliment off. Teer threw Phenny the car keys and Phenny caught them in the air and put them in his pocket. He took a box of cigarettes from his jacket pocket, took one and lit it with his lighter. He took a few puffs.

"I'm goin' to crash. Later." Phenny waved heading back toward the rooming house.

"Later." Teer and Hazeldine said in unison.

"I've been into you, since the first time I saw you at the soda shop," Teer said to Hazeldine as he lifted her in his arms and onto the hood of Phenny's car. She lit a cigarette.

"You're a hunk. But you're a bit too tall for me. I prefer pirates and military about 5'9 or 5'10 and usually older, cats like that."

"How much older? I'm only four years younger than you."

"About thirty, forty or older." She shrugged. "Don't get me wrong, you're no square. You're a gas to be around. You've got that quiet toughness about you, it's sexy and mysterious. When you came to me looking for a job, remember what I said? I said with those cut-throat good looks of yours, you're going to be trouble." She crossed her legs and took a few puffs of her cigarette.

"And I said if trouble doesn't bother me, I won't bother it," Teer shrugged.

"If we were to go steady, it'll make the kind of trouble I can't handle. You came here running after something. I know you'll be leaving here soon to continue running after it or whomever. I like that you're the kind of man who's running after something, instead of away from it. But it's going to break my brother's, heart. You're like family to us both. I have to be there to pick up the pieces when you're gone. I can't do that with my heart broken, too. I'd be stoked to have you as my main squeeze. Any girl would be. But I'll be less bummed out if we don't. You dig?"

"Yeah, I dig. Thanks, for laying it on me, Hazeldine." Teer nodded, leaned in and kissed her on the lips softly, slowly, lingering between long enough for her and him to catch a breath. He finished the kiss with a hard press of passion for which she reciprocated with a hungry moan.

"With a kiss like that, you'll make a girl want to reconsider." She smiled, licking her lips savoring the deliciousness of their kiss. Teer bit his lower lip seductively.

"Later." Hazeldine giggled a little. She jumped down from the hood of the car and headed for the rooming house.

"Later, Hazeldine." Teer's eyes lit up into fiery motley diamond orbs and he smirked looking through her stiletto heels, which added four more inches to her height, drainpipe jeans, plaid button-down shirt and beehive hairstyle. He examined further seeing her soul and how radiant and powerful it was which was just as much of a turn-on for him as her flesh, bones and blood vessels. She was such a perfectly imperfect, beautifully-made creature. "She's so fine." He thought.