Elliot and his little brother, (henceforth referred to as IT due to horrible and inhuman crimes committed by - certainly Elliot doesn’t believe it for a minute, but must be true – no name, no innocent until proven guilty that’s the rule) are making a frantic escape from the authorities, all roads blocked:
first by bike cops,
and subsequently by those lofty lions of the spirit world, Team Yellow Submachine-Gun, one for every cardinal direction, fine as a mist but impassable entirely.
The four (or to be more specific and as we will see four minus one) sun-colored kingfishers of the Team Submachine are:
1 - Mathius the Entrepreneur, who even as he keeps a stern watch leads tours wooly with wide-eyed rubberneckers (“Please wear life-jackets and helmets and for goodness sake hang on – this isn’t the Coliseum”);
2 - Lucius the Schoolteacher, chalking figures on the blackboard, eyes in the back of his head;
3 - Marcius the Architect, at times entertaining a heretical wisp of the thought that perhaps this whole chaotic spectacle is of his own creation, and underneath all the stuffing and glitter and costumes are wires he laid out to look like men
and 4 - Jonius the Maudlin, who sulks.
It’s a stirring chase. The chief of police is maybe not doing his best work. Intrusive thoughts of his second wife cloud his vision, he wondering if she’s maybe taken a shine to the strongman who moved next door only last week (as he, in fact, has taken to said strongman’s girlfriend, frequently sequined, if not entirely in leopard print). Greedy possessive nature trumps lust in this particular endeavor so he doesn’t have a pleasant thought in his head, even a one, no matter how adorned it might promise to be with dapples.
But maybe it’s not his (or his worried wandering eye's) fault at all, being instead that the yellow coated stormtroopers are, as a group, confounded by pretty patterns made from their Great Musical Mother sashaying across the beach of the collective sub-concio, ticker tape and laser lightshow of the mind, only one dollar and twenty five cents for a whole four minutes. Plunking out cowboy music on a battered ukulele.
Suddenly, Chief Chuck's assistant gets a glimmer of the Goddess and Her raiment like a taxi line outside the opera, Yellow and Green and Checkered streamers, halogen headlights, every accent that’s ever been in the English language. Taking careful aim, (although distracted by a sudden movement behind Her shoulder), he fires six slugs, point blank.
And misses the barn.
Perhaps for that fraction of a split-second, he saw himself, looking over Her grass skirt back at himself.
Now, the truth. It was 4 - Jonias the Maudlin, skin stained blue from the blood of the heinous crimes committed (allegedly) by IT, who has swooped down to show him (Assistant Policeman Dan) the himself in Herself, abandoned his designated drawbridge.
Many in the confusion make a run for it (not so Elliot and IT however, who are knee-deep in alligators and heading toward 2 - Lucius in the other direction, sensing he’s asleep, as if a Yellow Submachine-Gun sleeps ever, and even if he did, there’s his unblinking student-teacher-patriot-assistant on the side, earning credits for college, to be accounted for).
Well. The yellowshirts and the Team Yellow Submachine and also the Yellow Deity of Texarkana with her four strings and Hawaiian hula stomp-step, after some further confusion converge and reconstruct this safehouse against malignant waters. Stragglers are rounded up and put away into the appropriate compartments. 4 - Jonias is admonished, reinforcing his suspicion that everyone else is the favorite except for him. He retreats to his room full of mean thoughts and menace.
Because deep down aren’t Rose and the bike-cop collective and his siblings simply playing out a liquored-up prom night in anticipation of the lake house afterwards, preview to whatever monetized wonders the adult world will? Perhaps the whole thing has been orchestrated to demonstrate that five fingers make a fist. Self-deception is the first step to recovery. Poor Elliot and IT will soon be captured, but not so the Chief of Police, who slips out the side door and to a new and splendid life.
