The Pseudo-Chronicles of Mark Huntley

Such Great Heights II - 10/19/04

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Where were we...? The top of Tower B, out in the trackless right armpit of MoCo? Yes, that's right.

Just be prepared to revise your opinion of me. I did what I thought I had to do, that night.

Anyhow. Rence smacked into my back, coming out of the door behind me, and I stumbled. The noise alerted Naomi and the guys with guns that (ahoy there!) interlopers had just arrived on the scene. The two men turned in our direction. 

In the moment they turned, Naomi launched herself at the purple. It looked like remarkable bravery at the time. Though later I'd find out the whole story. 

The non-purple swung around and pointed his gun at her— then swung back toward us with the gun and halted us mid-step. Rence and I both put our hands in the air automatically. We’d seen every hackneyed action movie there was to see; we knew how this worked.

Naomi had knocked the purple on his back and sent his gun skidding across the roof. Now she leapt after the gun and pounced on it, then rolled to her feet with surprising speed and aimed the gun at the non-purple. "Drop yours, scumbag! Come on!"

Scumbag? I thought briefly. Somebody had been watching her movies too.

The non-purple knelt down and put the gun on the ground. Rence and I (tragically unarmed) lowered our arms and dared to move forward. 

We were only ten feet away or so from them when Naomi cried out in dismay. I saw the gun in Naomi’s hands melt, disintegrate into a kind of goo or putty that itself rapidly turned to dust and then was gone. I glanced at Rence. His open mouth confirmed that he'd seen what I saw. 

The purple sat up and laughed loudly, a deeply unpleasant sound that had the same quality I'd noticed in the speech of the other muchos: like many mouths speaking and echoing the same sound. 

His partner swiveled toward him, his eyes wide with disbelief. "Brower, what the hell happened to your gun?"

Before "Brower" could answer, Naomi dived toward the gun at the non-purple's feet, hoping for better luck this time. He dropped down to try to intercept her—and both of their hands closed over the gun.

The gun waved crazily in the air as they pulled back and forth, struggling over it... Rence and I took a couple of hesitant steps forward. Rence, who was a little closer, started to say something, but he was drowned out by the report of the gun going off. And my friend crumpled and fell to the ground. 

All freaky visions aside, I'm just some dude. I'm just a guy. Mark D. Huntley of Mediocrity Way, Cowardtown, U.S.A. Not the kind of person who goes jumping into life-or-death confrontations. Who has the courage, or the stupidity, for that? 

But when I saw Rence Robichaux get shot, everything went red. I bellowed like a cow with a potty mouth, something along the lines of You fucker or Son-of-a-bitch, something generic, not as good as “scumbag,” and I went barreling forward, ready to mow the shooter down by whatever means necessary. 

As I approached, the purple jumped on Naomi and pulled her away from his accomplice— she screamed at his touch. The non-purple was now free to get a handle on his gun. He fumbled it, crouching. I was close enough to strike. 

I'm not a puncher, not big on the whole fisticuffs thing. I don't think I've ever actually hit someone in my life, not even when Ricky Lefebvre broke my glasses in third grade and taunted me about it. So I knew lashing out with my fists probably wouldn't work. 

Instead, I threw out the hardest kick I could manage. It hit the man in his side. Tender spot, lucky hit. He stumbled, dropped the gun, fell towards the edge of the roof, and lay there mostly on the roof but a little off. A dangerous position for sure. But I wasn't done with him.