thanksgiving "bray-train"

11/23/00

Later that night , Brayan could not help laughing to himself at the humor he found within the words to the tv commercial he had watched at family dinner that evening : "Thanksgiving , brought to you by the American Plastics Council -plastics make it possible..."

Almost giggling outloud with the mischief of a child , he added ," Plastic no longer means : cheap, worthless, piece of shit...it's in our homes , our clothing , our automobiles ,...it's the kevlar in the bulletproof vests we wear...stronger than steel ...plastics..."

He enjoyed his little ad-libed remarks , chuckling almost smugly to himself at his own cleverness . Most people never seemed to quite get his jokes as well as he did...to himself he was simply hilarious--it was others who failed to see the 'brillance '...

Brayan paused after reaching the stairs end . Ticket concealed within his closed left hand while awaiting the high-speed train's late evening arrival ,he was relieved to be alone . It seemed that no one else was on the platform , except for him . He was glad that it was cold enough that the other people preferred to wait inside for the due-to-arrive train .

Loabe sat down on the red-painted , wrought-iron bench that rested atop the clean, generously lighted , tan-grey , concrete railway platform . Momentarily , the bench color reminded him of the exact shade he eventually wanted the 67 convertible that he gradually was restoring , to be painted .

The halogen lamps that lined each side of the railway tracks cast an almost surreal , angelicly errie , bluish-white glow , reminiscent of halos in the night . After glancing for a third time , out of habit , in either exposed direction and finding the platform still empty, Brayan almost absentmindedly , slid his hand back and forth along the smooth , cold , glistening , dark , burgandy paint that covered the ferric hardness of the bench metal underneath.

He did not know why , and at times it really puzzled him , but it seemed that all his life , as far back as he could recall , he always enjoyed the cool , less-restricted energy of the night .The falling temperatures called for the heavy sweaters and jackets worn by the few other , soon to be passengers, waiting for their trains within the warmth of the brightly lit, glass enclosed booth .

Brayan was glad they stayed inside . He did not wish to be bothered with 'them' , and their noise .They were always noisy and he greatly appreciated the relative solitude afforded by the platform's outdoor bench at this time of season. To be alone with his thoughts seemed somehow to make them congeal and grow clearer , more vivid , more powerful . He could, like a sculptor examining a block of raw marble for the figure contained within , make vivid life-like images of his ideas and then rotate them as if on a pedestal, evaluating their merit from the vantage point of various angles .

He had always felt somewhat confined when indoors , especially when forced to share that indoors , with other people. The years of conditioning , the many lessons learned as a young child from his grandfather ,as well as the winter days as a young man spent alone camping in the wild , sleeping in snow burrows , foraging for food and bathing outdoors in cold water , had all "ruined" him for the more civilized environs .

He hated airless cubicles and 'temperature controlled' offices with windows designed to never open , shutting out life. These buildings , to him, were expensive aquariums , transparent cages designed by architects to purposely tease the inhabitants by providing the reassurance of a glance outside at the life they were missing during the workday spent within the towering glass saltmines .

Now safely preoccupied , his mind briefly began to drift away, across the pathways of distant memories ,returning to the earlier moments of his youth, recalling one of the many times that grandfather taught him the lessons that served him still.

"What's in your head can be your own best friend , or your own worst enemy...depends on who you let be the boss ", grandpa said . The old man looked intently at his grandson , peering for a while into the boy's small eyes searching for a glint of recognition . He was never sure with this child . "This kid's a strange one" , he had often thought , "Ain't all here , or there". Sometimes the boy seemed to catch on very quickly to what the old man was trying to teach him , so quickly that it often amazed the man . "Other times this kid don't know day from night . But with him , if he don't fall flat on his ass , you can never tell."

The old man quickly gathered dead twigs and small dry branches that had fallen to the ground from the birch and pine trees and had landed in the wide tan grassy area near the stream .The tall dried grasses bordered the deep leafy greens , bright yellows ,flaming reds and oranges of the woods . "Softwoods first ,hardwoods last , always makes a good fire fast" , the boy instinctively repeated the words he had heard the oldman tell him so many times . Brayan's small eyes shifted almost as if on cue ,watching his grandpa's every move , but without moving his head in order to follow him.

The boy pulled the heavy black and crimson woolen sweater over his head and then unbuttoned and removed his blue and yellow striped flannel shirt . He dropped his tee-shirt along with the other garments to the ground and then bent to pull off his sneakers, socks and thick denim overalls . He immediately shivered as the cold air struck all over his weather-ashen skin and almost at the same time , a twinge of fear entered his young mind.

Like water rushing downhill ,inevitably finding its own level , grandpa's 'lessons', practice and constant reminders seem to just mysteriously kick in and take over. "Fear is here. See his footprints . Hear his voice. Feel the chill of his breathing at your ear. His power is great , but yours is greater . Now who's the boss , you or the fear?" Knowing already, the answer by heart , the boy instincitively began counting internally, each time he exhaled . In the few moments that it took for the oldman to return to the stream's banks with the sticks , branches and twigs he had gathered , the child was ready.

"You sure about this ?" the oldman asked.

"I'm sure ", the boy replied distantly , as if safely speaking from a hidden place ,far away .

Grandpa had deftly assembled the thinnest of the sticks and twigs he had collected into a small pile .He easily snapped the larger branches into more usable sized pieces and stacked them closely around the outskirts of the first pile . He stood and removed from the frayed pocket of his red and white checkered flannel shirt a thick ,translucent ,rectangular plastic cigarette casing , yellowed and stained from useage.

Calloused ,and strong , but wrinkled hands and fingers removed the top half of the case revealing a red and white, more than half-empty, open pack of filterless camel cigarettes. Grandpa lit a cigarette , and without a further thought for the fire , dropped the lit match into the kindling pile he had assembled .

Within a few moments , the small fire was burning , steadily increasing in strength . Without a word between them ,as the breeze raised the branches on the trees like the ribs of a great, yawning man , the boy carefully stepped down the bank and into the cold smooth gravel coating the bed of the waist deep stream .

The oldman watching, sat upon one of several of the large , thick hardwood logs that had been left there months before . Logs they had used as chairs earlier that past summer ,when resting in the shade after picking some of the multitude of wild blackberries that grew on the fierce tangles of reddish brown thorns and briar bushes lining much of the way along the flowing stream .

Now , little more than three decades later ,in this modern day of 'progress' with its vanishing spaces , with its overcrowding and 'development' -- the briars and their sweet berries , the tall wild grasses waving in the breeze , the woods , the owls , pheasants and small birds , groundhog and the deer , chipmunk , raccoon and all the other animals are all no longer there.

But back then , across time , during a slower , simpler , less hectic , less confusing day , when each summer's wild blackberries were long anticipated and greatly appreciated , further up the pathway, upstream near the broader waters leading to the deep connective lakes , were the many generous tree shaded spots that the oldman and his grandson had diligently found and loved to fish for pike , and carp , sunnies , catties , trout and ,bass , pickerel and perch .

As the oldman that November morning , sat pretending at casually smoking his cigarette , he was instead , carefully watching his shivering grandson now hunched down- up to his neck- in the bonechilling water . A passing crow "cawed" from the background in answer to the whispering grass .The whine of a passing airplane echoed against the sky above . A small brown and white rabbit peered from the safety within a hole in the briars and chewed on dandelion stems.

In the distance that morning , birds chirpped their constant greeting to all who would listen , a few deer still grazed and the sun pressed its waning warmth down from the blue onto the earth below leaving no doubt that seasonal change was , as always, in full motion. The old man wondered if the boy would hold up ...He couldn't help wondering also if the kid saw that the oldman was pulling on the cigarette a little more frequently and a little harder than usual.

The boy's teeth chattered uncontrollably and his small body shook, yet he continued to faithfully count each exhalation as if giving each of his own future children its own face and name by repeating the numbers ...And like faithful children ,the product of each birth would of course, return to enhance its parents by providing individual strength of its own for its parents to oneday lean on.

Faster than the waters surrounding him , thoughts swirled within his mind. Surges of energy leaped upwards from the base of his spine . At times in that water, he had to restrain himself from laughing , from shouting and screaming out the war cry , the same sound that his father sometimes could not stop himself from making when boxing.

In the cold water , after a few minutes , it was his mind that was swimming . He felt like delriously shouting out that he was "the warrior". He never felt such strength, never knew such clarity of senses .Never realized that it all was within him dormant all these years awaiting the awakening , waiting to be released upon the world .

When the burning cigarette was almost down to his grandfather's rough , brown and yellowed fingertips the boy was horrified to suddenly remember that he had forgotten someting very important . He realized that he had forgotten part of his instructions and left out from his internal mental picture , the special image of the sun .

Grandpa had instruced him that while doing his breathing , he needed also focus in his mind the idea of waves upon waves of golden heat eminating from the noonday july sun and pouring down from the sky upon him . It would help him narrow his intent and help protect him from the chill. Even more importantly , it would protect him from the fear. "Fear and cold are cousins " , grandpa had often instructed . "Whip one and you got em both wrassled down ."


Despite his euphoria ,his heart began to rapidly sink down to the gravel beneath his barefeet as he wondered if grandpa had known that he had failed. When he looked up at the oldman smoking on the stream bank , grandpa seemed distracted by something --perhaps something up in the trees on the far side of the water . His jaw moved slightly up and down as if he were talking to himself , or quite possibly, chanting a certain old song , the words to which , he desired no one else to hear.

grandpa raised the unfiltered stub to his lips and took one last great draw of tobacco . As he exhaled the smoke , he finally made direct eye contact with the boy . He nodded to him ,noting the strange look on his grandson's face as the boy slipped quietly from the water and worked his way up the stream bank and over to the oldman and the warmth of the fire .

the oldman carefully extinguished what was left of the cigarette on a smooth rock that he had especially placed near the fire . He scattered to the wind , the tiny pile of all of the ashes from the cigarette he had dutifully collected in his free hand while smoking . Then he flicked the cigarette stub into the water almost exactly where his grandson had been and all the while his jaw continued its silent song moving up and down.

The oldman reached into the old canvas croaker sack that he had made the boy carry with them that morning and removed a large, torn ,rough
dry blue bath towel and a small brown woolen blanket . he handed the towel to the shivering boy and as he dried himself , the grandfather , turned agan to the croaker sack and produced an old silver thermos filled with hot coffee .

he unscrewed the red cap and stopper and poured into the container's drinking top, half a cup of warm , sweetened coffee that he had especially diluted with extra milk .

"drink this" , he told the boy while unable to hide the smile that had spread across his face. Grandpa took the towel and rubbed it gently but thoroughly on the boy's head as the kid's teeth chattered as the boy shivered, and drank .Then the grandfather quickly bent to dry the freezing boy's shoulders back and chest . He draped the woolen blanket around his grandson and then bent lower to dry the boy's legs and feet. Grandpa quickly added a thin oak log and the rest of the pine and birch branches to the soon roaring fire. He was a bustle of activity now after seeming almost lethargic when sitting and smoking while his grandson had shivered in the frigid water . "Hurry up boy, dry off and get your britches back on , that'll help get you warm again . Your middle is the part you always have to keep warm in the woods, that's where you lose the most heat first ."

Grandpa took the empty thermos cup and refilled it as the still shivering boy removed the wet cut off jeans that had served the previous summer as bathing suit and finished drying himself. grandpa sipped coffee as the boy dressed . The oldman moved another log-chair closer so they both could sit near the fire . From his jacket pocket, he brought out a new black folding pocket knife that he had gotten as a gift for the boy. the oldman could not hide his pride in the boy as they drank coffee , ate sandwiches and talked in front of the warm fire. the relieved boy, again proud of himself , smiling admiringly at his present , handed the partialy full cup back to his grandfather indicating that he could drink no more .

the old man lit another camel as he sipped on the rest of the coffee .He hummed an old down-home song and staring into the fire as his grandson nodding his head, kept time by slapping his hands across his thighs as smoke curled upward , melting into the sky . "Take me to where john henry fell dead ...he had him a woman her hair were red...beat it out boy"

One of the people on the train platform, in the warmth of the booth while waiting , pulled off her pink knit cap and vigorously shook her blonde hair as if trying to dislodge something caught up within her matted , stringy tresses. Her movement , automatically picked up by Loabe's peripheral vision , caused him to shift his eyes while barely turning his neck, so as not to be seen looking .

More importantly , as grandfather had taught him while stalking animals long ago ,"make too much noise and the deer might hear you...move your head too much looking and the deer might see you" . To look by shifting the eyes, instead of the normal reaction of moving the neck and head towards whatever motion caught one's attention, was done so as to not reveal what exactly it was that he was looking at. This too , was out of basic reflex , begun early , practiced and learned carefully over decades of time.

"aww shit ! whadu they want? " , he thought with a sense of annoyed resignation as the hair tossing blonde and her skinny brownskinned ,henna rinsed friend chattered their way out of the waiting booth and on to the platform .
They wandered , magnetically towards the bench where Loabe was sitting .

"Ignore em." he thought to himself. "And if that don't work ...just walk away ...down over there, near the far edge of the platform...they won't follow you all the way over there ...too easy to get snatched or mugged down that end " .

After four or five minutes , Brayan HAD to move away from their non-stop irritation . " Oh and did you just see how tacky her hair looked "...I can't believe she had the UNMITIGATED GALL to wear an outfit like that..."

" And did you see her just up and try to ignore me?"... "after i bothered to actually lower myself " ... "you saw that I tried to be nice to that little... BITCH" ..."I tell you , I was like absolutely pissed "...i'm still quite livid with her ... of course I try not to be rude , but i could just SLAP HER FACE ."

With other , much more serious problems to be faced and matters to consider , the noise from the two chattering women was simply more than Loabe could tolerate at the moment , especially when he soon realized that phrases like , " that little bitch" and the ambivalently veiled challenge of "...just up and try to ignore me" were directed not only at the dubious person being insulted in absentia.

He got up with a sudden abruptness that momentarily startled the two females hovering near his bench , surprising them into silence while still in mid-insult . He walked quickly away from them down towards the opposite direction from which the now for Loabe , eagerly awaited train , would hopefully , soon be arriving .

Loabe's train and the stops that it would be making , was finally announced over the station loud speaker.

They suddenly came from out of nowhere ...or so it might have seemed.

Lost in thought , he had failed to notice them lurking in the lair created by the pair of concrete support pylons near the stairs as he had come up. There were two of them , both tall , husky and in their late teens to early twenties . Their MO was short and simple . Quietly await a careless victim to wander within striking range . Hopefully , while the train was actually arriving , so that anyone else on the platform would be too distracted by the noise and activity, to notice them approach their isolated victim and quickly batter him or her until senseless . Then one assailant , holding the victim immoblie while the other rifling through the pockets for valuables.

Their escape relied upon speed , running down the steps , through the station , to the nearest street exit and to safety . Any valuables , along with the contents of the wallet or purse seized , would be carefully apraised and divided up .

Loabe was calm as he saw them approach . In his hurry to put distance between himself and the annoying woman and her red headed friend , he had unwittingly placed himself within the bandits' range and in serious jeopardy .

Normally , they would not resort to using their weapons, because brute strength , speed , surprise , and the natural terror inspired in the victim , were more than enough to easily gain for the bandits , in most situations , the upperhand . But not on this night.

As soon as they closed in on Loabe , the one in the lead , got a gut feeling that something was wrong but they had already reached the point of no return . Momentum and group psychology carried the two partners forward .

The lead mugger felt something that immediately put him on his guard . His partner only a half step behind him , as he locked eyes with the intended victim, saw a determined absence of fear that made him instinctively reach for the stainless steel folding knife with the five inch blade , that the youth kept in his coat pocket .

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With an opening push of the thumb and quick flick of the wrist , the blade was locked out and at the ready. Brayan instinctively recognized the meaning of the metallic , "click" sound that he heard . That and the obvious bad intentions gleaming from the bloodshot eyes of the two assailants, along with the faint but unmistakable smell of burnt ganja , that the air swept along with their rush towards him , triggered Loabe's own internal guardian predator to instantly respond .

He immediately leaped backwards and to his left circling behind the knife in his lead assailant's right hand . The speed with which the older man moved surprised the youths , but only firmed their resolve to win .

Once they had gone into action , Brayan knew that group psychology would drive them on until they had obtained something to show for their efforts . This group mentality would cause them to be significantly more dangerous and stronger together than either would ever have been alone .

Had either of the youths been acting alone that evening , it is highly likely that fear would have unnerved him enough to make him move on in search of easier pickings. But in the presence of a close "friend" ,to avoid losing the respect of the other partner in crime , neither would admit to fearing an 'oldman' , or fail to go through with the act of robbery, once begun . When they took that step forward towards Loabe , they both were aware that each had made an unspoken committment not to leave empty handed , even if it ultimately meant murder in order to get what they wanted .

The lead assailant quickly regained his equilibrium and spun knife-first , to his right rear , trying to reach Loabe with the extended blade . Loabe just as he had done in so many years of daily simulation, made a rapid dancelike skip step to his left. He was now semi-circled to a point 180 degrees from where he had started. He and his assailants had effectively exchanged positions , Loabe standing where they had begun the assault.

Loabe had by now, also reached and retrieved the palm-sized dual yellow cylinders from his coat pocket , sliding his little finger into the circle of black wiring that hung from a pin connected at one end of the device . He aimed the cylindrical weapon that was disguised to look like a key ring flashlight , and fired an almost silent round of mushroomed plastic , point blank onto the assailant's exposed wrist , that now , could no longer hold its blade .

A quick kick delivered with the heel of the foot and landing a little above the knee , buckled the youth . A short ,straight righthand to the nose sent him to the ground.

The second youth with a stunned expression , absorbed the weapon's next shot, directly to the face . His knife clinked down onto the pavement as he grasped at his broken nose with both hands while a torrent of blood gushed on to the front of his jacket .

The first youth , fallen weapon now switched to his uninjured hand , was already half way up from the concrete when Brayan closed the gap , led with a left hand okinawan kara-te snapping punch followed up with a boxer's straight righthand-left hook combination to the face, also breaking the nose of that stunned youth.

Loabe wheeled to his left and ran . He ran the way that a cat, who had used up his eighth life, would run from the path of a speeding truck . He ran as if he had no more tomorrows . He ran for the waiting train as if it were the last thing leaving hell ... his last chance for salvation . He felt a strange sense of freedom as he stretched his legs and pumped with everything he could muster. The cool moist air made the lining of his lungs shiver and ache as his chest , diaphragm and abdomen labored rapidly. The belt and tails of his black trench coat flew up with the wind created by the rapid movement of his feet as his shoes tap danced the pavement all the way to the waiting train and leaped him aboard.
11/24/00

The red headed friend of the hair-tossing , insult-hurling blonde , had seen it all while her companion's attention was still occupied in her purse's compact mirror and the task of repairing her makeup .She had seen the whole thing , the entire incident that had occurred between Brayan and the two would be assailants. What she saw had frightened her , outraged her , and left her shaken enough to also leave her sightly moist with perspiration and curiously excited . She knew exactly what she wanted and he was now boarding the train after surviving the encounter with the bandits .

Loabe went from car to car moving towards the back of the train until he found the relative privacy that he seemed always looking for. The car was much more empty than full and most of the passengers occupied the front of the compartment. Loabe noticed almost immediately the stale perfume mixed with perspiration smell that rushed to greet him as he sought the protection afforded by the familiar , worn , cheap grey fabric of the highbacked seats to be found on much of public transportation .

His common sense told him to be prepared just in case the two youths had managed to follow him aboard the train. He was almost certain that they would both be too occupied with their own injuries to be furthered bothered with injuring him .But to be ready for any eventuality , he positioned himself sideways in the seat on the far side of the train , away from the concrete platform , with his back against the window . If anyone had come into the car , he would be able to see them and still have enough time for his response .

When he was sure that no one was looking , Loabe quietly removed his 'response' from the inside breast pocket of his trench coat , held it down too low to be seen by the eyes of the uninvited as he slipped in the eight-shot clip and coughed again , several times loudly , to muffle the sound as he pulled back the slide and jacked a high velocity round into the chamber of the pocket-sized , chrome , 25 caliber semiautomatic pistol .

He slid the safety to the off position and placing the flesh of his thumb in front of the hammer to prevent discharge , released the trigger and carefully lowered the hammer slowly down back to its resting position . This way , if proverbial push came to shove , all he'd need to do to operate the weapon was to thumb back the hammer to the ready position , aim and squeeze the trigger.

Holding the weapon in his hand , he concealed them both in his trenchcoat pocket and awaited what was to come .