A Florida Knight

Hot coffee spilled as Wesley put down his post-consumer recycled cup and cardboard sleeve, and it burned his hand.

“Ah, damn,” he said, shaking his hand as if to throw off the sting.

The girl beside him on the plush book store couch shuffled and scooted away.

“Don’t worry, The situation is under control,” Wes said to the girl.

She looked up from her book. “Pardon?”

“Don’t worry about it. You didn’t mean to bump the table just then; it was bad timing on my part.”

“But I didn’t…”

“Water under the bridge, like I said. Though I may let you buy me a drink at the bar across the street.”

“Oh you’ve got to be kidding.” She went back to her book.

Wes breathed in and blew on his hand. “Ow” he said.

The girl started to gather her backpack and leave.

“Ok, ok, you didn’t spill it. Let me buy you a drink for falsely accusing you.” He smiled apologetically.

She paused, standing, biting her lip.

“Its an outdoor bar, just across the street. It’ll take ten minutes of your time, and the sun is going down. It’s a great view if nothing else.”

She looked around and back at Wes.

Out of the corner of his eye, Wes noticed another girl walking from the coffee till into the bookstore. He got up. “Right, tell you what. I’ll go grab a spot. If you’d like a quick drink, I’ll be over there.” With that, he walked to the exit, away from the girl he had seen from the corner of his eye.

Wes put on his sunglasses and crossed the street. Outside in the fenced-in bar seating, he sat on a raised chair at a small round table, like the kind you see in the bar areas of tex-mex restaurants, and he made sure the view was nice. Partly in case she came, and partly in case she didn’t. At least he’d have a good view of the ocean for his solitary drink.

The smell of grilling fish and meat drifted out of the bar’s kitchen, overpowering the smell of salt water for a moment.

Heels clicking alerted him to someone’s approach, and he cringed at the thought that the second girl might have seen him and followed him. He turned, and today’s couch-mate approached. She was still biting her lip.

“One drink,” she said as she put her bag on the tall table and sat opposite him.

“On me.” Wes said.

“Not again,” she said.

Wes laughed, “Well, I can be clumsy.” He extended his hand over the top of the table. “I’m Wes.”

She hesitated, then put her hand into his. It was soft, a reprieve from the thick hot humid air surrounding them. How something so warm could be so refreshing, Wes didn’t know.

“I, uh, I’m Tracey.” she slid her hand out of his.

“Right, what are you having? I’ll grab a server for us.”

“A margarita for me.”

Wes got a man’s attention and placed her order, then ordered a bottle of Anchor Steam for himself. When he looked back at Tracey, she had her head a little to one side, looking at him with with her lips pressed together in silent concentration. Wes imagined that this was her expression for hammering in nails and hanging pictures, too.

“Two questions for you,” she said.

Wes leaned back in his tall bar chair and lifted his sunglasses onto the top of his head. “What would you like to know?”

“First, did you know that the shuttle launch is happening soon, just across the water?”

“Really? No, it’s a lucky coincidence, but they happen often enough, right? It’s not exactly a rarity here.”

She put her purse off the table and onto her lap. “Yeah, but this is a big one. A new space station is going up tonight. It’s the biggest launch since the Apollo missions.”

“Seriously? I must have missed that on the news.” The drinks arrived, and Wes put the cold bottle to his lips and drank.

“Second question…”

“Shoot.”

“Did you really spill a hot drink on yourself just to talk to me?” she smiled a little. It was the first time she had smiled at him, and it was hesitant, like it was in spite of herself.

Wes held his hands up. “I won’t say either way, but some things are definitely worth enduring for good company.” He smiled back.

“Hmm” she said conspiratorially, and sipped her margarita.

They looked out over the water, the sun behind them and the humid Florida sky ahead of them.

“It’s very like humanity to launch on an evening like this,” Wes said over the open bottle before taking another drink.

“How so?”

Wes looked down at the label on his bottle, “There is plenty of beauty around here…” he looked up at Tracey, “Yet human-kind feels the need to compete. Why not just enjoy the view instead of cluttering it up?”

She smiled, “Smooth. You sure you didn’t know about the launch?”

“Honest. And I’m being serious. It damn near ruins a perfect night.”

Tracey leaned forward. “I disagree. You only enjoy this view because of the ‘clutterings’ of people. There would be no bar here, the beach would be a lot less groomed, and you’d be sucking on coconut milk instead of that bottle, and that’s if you hadn’t died of smallpox or something at the age of two. Essentially, you live on the backs of tinkerers and complain for the movement beneath you.”

Wes laughed. “Smooth.” He raised his bottle. She raised her wide conical glass. They drank.

“I appreciate where we are as a culture,” Wes said. “but we’ve really only gotten where we are between killing each other. Tinkering is the hobby. Killing is the full-time job. So forgive me for not trusting the hobbies of the mad,” he shifted in his tex-mex bar chair, “comfortable as they are.”

She drained her glass. “Basically, you’d say this is half-empty, and I’d call it half-full.”

“Tracey, I’d call that completely empty, but that’s not cynicism; you’ve finished your glass. I’m going to get another for myself. Can I order you anything?”

A light like a camera flash, brighter that the evening sun and coming from the opposite direction, shone from across the waters. Wes and Tracey both stared at the launch in progress. The super-bright flame grew obscured by plumes of smokey steam like a ground-based thunderhead expanding slowly and massively. Gathering. Wes sat back down and watched the ocean reflecting the artificial sunrise. The gigantic bulky rocket looked misshapen, like it was the wrong shape to be attempting to escape the earth’s forces. It disappeared behind the low and fluffy Florida clouds.

“I’m surprised they aren’t constructing it in space rather than launching it whole.” Wes said.

Thunder clapped in their ears then, and rumbled in continually. The sound of the blasting engines had finally reached them across the water. Then the projectile reappeared. It had arced back toward them, but it appeared joined, tethered to the earth by the plumes pouring out behind it, culminating at the mass of launch smoke hanging above and around the rocket’s original position. The plumes had scattered north and south, two pyroclastic bulges forming threateningly on either side of the arced thick rocket trail.

A server set a bottle down in front of him and a glass opposite, in front of Tracey. His eyes met hers; he realised that she had bought a round and was staying for another drink. She smiled and raised her glass. The thunder and opposing lighting from God’s sun and man’s met at Tracey, this beautiful thing with a sideways smile, raising her drink casually at the place where rebellion met diety. The two suns illuminated her cheeks and left a shadow in the middle, down her forehead, nose, and centre of her lips. The darkness there contrasted perfectly, highlighting the curves of her face. It was beautiful, though the light on one side was flickering.

Wes smiled back, lifted his second Anchor Steam to his lips, and tilted his head back.

With his head back, Wes saw it. The rocket wasn’t straight. And it didn’t appear to be rising any more.

“Wes?” Tracey asked. He didn’t hear her.

The giant bullet was no longer being propelled directly by the plumes and flame. Like a water hose-pipe partially blocked, the blasting engines seemed to be spouting out to one side, and the satellite was now pointed upward, despite the fact that it was flying parallel to the horizon. And it was crossing the water.

And then the sound changed. A crack reached them, and the thunder began to grow.

A glass shattered. Tex-mex chairs scooted on the concrete. Car keys jangled. The sounds of panic began to fill the evening air.

Like a fireworks display, the flagging rocket bloomed into flame, upward and out, first blinding everyone below, then cooling into a hundred thousand fireflies. Like the rocket had somehow asexually reproduced, its many tiny children now seeking to return to earth, each leaving their own trail of smoke and flame hanging in the humid air. They seemed to drift so slowly down, but then faster, and closer, until they were no longer fireflies, but shooting stars, then fireballs, then suns, each clouding the sky behind them, all falling toward the seat that Wes occupied.

Wes jumped out of the chair, throwing it back into the table behind him, and went around the table. Tracey was looking at the falling sky, jaw hanging open, the glass in her hand half-empty.

He grabbed her arm above the elbow and pulled her out of the chair and onto her feet. She didn’t struggle, but she looked at Wes with wide eyes and open mouth. Her purse fell out of her lap and onto the cement. She bent to pick up the spilled contents.

Wes jerked her upright and pulled her out of the seating area, through the low fence gate and into the parking lot.

Sun met earth where they had been sitting, and tonnes of rocket fuel rained on the city around them. Wes pushed Tracey into his Honda and got into the driver’s seat.

She was screaming, “Go, go, go, go GO!”

Wes started the car and pulled out of the parking spot. There were half a dozen stationary cars just outside the parking lot on the street, but he swerved around them and drove against traffic on the opposite side of the road, dodging oncoming cars. Fire rained, and the air burned. A car coming toward them was hit and disappeared in a liquid spash of white-hot golden disaster. Wes yanked the wheel to the right to dodge it, and crossed back into his own lane. He tried to correct the wheel, but he couldn’t straighten it quickly enough and he hopped the curb and struck a lamp post with the passenger side of the car. Tracey screamed.

The sound of metal on concrete grated on Wes’s ears. He had blown a tire on the passenger side. He drove on, half on the curb, half off, until a piece of flaming debris crashed onto the sidewalk a hundred yards ahead.

He stopped the car, went around to Tracey’s side, and yanked open her door. She threw herself out of the car and began sprinting down the street. Her heels clicked for two steps, and her left ankle bent outward, carrying her tumbling to the ground. Wes leapt after her and lifted her arm around his neck, supporting her weight. He looked for a clear bit of sky, saw some to the west, toward the setting sun, away from what had been the outdoor bar seating, and set off between the buildings down side streets.

*

“Can we slow down, please? My foot really hurts.”

Wes kept his pace.

“Are you listening? I said my foot fucking hurts!”

They stopped. “I am listening, yes. But I don’t think you realise the situation we’re in, Tracey.”

“Oh is that it? I just don’t understand? You have got to be kidding me. There is no power, everything is on fire, all we’ve seen of people are looters, and we’re lost in what appears to be the ghetto part of town. What don’t I understand!”

Wes pulled her arm down from his neck and stood facing her while she leaned all of her weight onto her good ankle. “What you don’t understand, Tracey, is that there are good people, and bad people. And most people are bad. Some are bad enough to be bad when everything is peachy, but some pretend to be good until no one’s looking.”

He took both of her hands. “And in case you hadn’t noticed, no one is looking! Who have we seen? What did you say? What is everyone that we’ve seen doing, Tracey?”

She bit her lip and made her concentration face. A tear appeared at the corner of her eye. “Looting.”

“That’s right. And those are just the careless ones, Tracey. God knows what the careful ones are up to right now.”

She shivered. Wes gently pulled her arm around his neck again, and the set off down the dark humid street.

*

“Shh, I heard something around that corner. Let’s turn around.” Wes steered himself and Tracey to his right instead of straight ahead. They were leaving the street and crossing into a building site.

“Careful.” Wes told her.

“I hate it when people say that,” Tracey whispered. “Who isn’t careful? Everyone’s careful. You don’t make someone more careful by telling them that. You just annoy them.”

“I suppose so,” he breathed. “How’s this? Watch those heels.” He grinned where she could see.

“Smooth.”

A bag of nails fell behind them, knocked over by someone unseen.

“Hello?” Tracey said.

“Shh” Wes told her with a finger to his lips.

“Let her go,” a man said from behind them. Wes turned around and saw a dark shape across the construction site.

“It’s okay, he’s helping me.” Tracey told the shape.

“Let her go and we’ll leave you alone,” the dark shape said to Wes.

“We?” Wes said. He was hoping it was just the one. He could handle just the one.

“We.” another man’s voice said to his right. Another one coughed to his left. And another behind them, where he had been walking.

“Run” Wes said simply, and picked up a two-by-four from a pile. It would be the last thing he would ever say to her, but he didn’t know it.

He charged the man who had spoken and saw movement to his right. He pivoted and swung the plank like a baseball bat, connecting with the man’s skull and sending a meaty crack echoing off the unfinished building surfaces. In swinging, though, he had thrown his weight into it and lost his balance. He fell next to his limp bleeding attacker. A gunshot rang in their ears, and everyone dropped. Everyone but Tracey, who was limping away from the construction site, her heels clicking unevenly with each step. Another gunshot exploded an upright piece of the wooden skeleton, then a third sounded. The unconscious attacker next to Wes convulsed.

“Shit,” the first man said, “that you, Peck?”

“What?” a voice shouted from a few yards away. “My ears are ringing, I can’t hear shit!”

“Who told you to shoot?”

“What? Shoot who?”

Wes raised to his knees and dove with his plank at the leader voice. Another gunshot exploded the night air and the bullet ricocheted off the cement foundation and splintered another supporting beam. Wes landed just short of the dark shape in front of him and swiped out with the plank, connected with the squatting man’s ankle with a crack, and pulled the plank back to himself. A sound like yawning filled the site, and tools began to rain from the top scaffolding as the frame of the building shifted.

*

“Go, go, go,” Tracey breathed to herself. She had heard more gunshots behind her as she clicked away, then shouting, but when she looked over her shoulder, all she saw was the wooden frame and scaffolding collapsing.

Sirens met her ears, then, and she took off her heels and began to cry as she limpingly ran toward them.