Elliot and his little brother, henceforth referred to as It due to horrible and inhuman crimes committed (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 then by those lofty lions of the spirit world, Team Yellow Submachine-Gun, one for every cardinal direction, fine as a mist but impassable.
The four (or to be more specific and as we will see four minus one) sun-colored kingfishers of the Team Submachine are: Mathius the Entrepreneur who even as he keeps a stern watch leads tours wooly with wide-eyed rubberneckers (“Please wear lifejackets and helmets and for goodness sake hang on – this isn’t the Coliseum”); Lucius the Schoolteacher chalking figures on the blackboard, eyes in the back of his head; Marcius the Architect, who at times entertains the heretical wisp of a 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; Jonius the Maudlin, who sulks.
It’s a stirring chase. The chief of police is maybe not doing his best work however, as intrusively thoughts of his wife cloud his vision, wondering if she’s taken a shine to the strongman who moved next door only last week – as he himself in fact has taken a shine as well to said strongman’s girlfriend, frequently sequined if not in leopard print. Greedy possessive nature trumps lust in this particular card game so he doesn’t have a pleasant thought in his head even one, no matter how adorned it might be with dapples.
But maybe it’s not his (or his worried wandering eye’s) fault at all, instead that the yellow coated stormtroopers are as a group being confounded by the pretty patterns made by the Great Musical Mother sashaying across the beach of their collective sub-concio, ticker tape and laser lightshow only one dollar and twenty five cents for a whole four minutes all at once. Plunking out cowboy music a battered ukulele.
Suddenly, his assistant gets a sudden glimmer of the Goddess and her flowing garments like a taxi line outside the opera, Yellow and Green and Checkered ribbons, headlights, every accent that’s ever been in English and, taking careful aim, (although distracted by a sudden movement behind her shoulder) fires six slugs, point blank. Misses the barn. Perhaps he saw himself for that further subdivided fraction of the already split second, looking over her grass skirt back at himself.
But these illusions aren’t without a price, as it was Jonias the Maudlin (skin stained blue from the blood of the heinous crime allegedly committed by It – and who here is really the instigator of any action they are represented as responsible for, be honest) swooping down to show him (Assistant Policeman Dan) the himself in herself, abandoned his designated drawbridge. Many make a run for it (not so Elliot and It however who are knee deep in alligators heading toward Lucius anyway in the other direction sensing he’s asleep as if a Yellow Submachine-Gun sleeps ever and even if he did then there’s his unblinking student teacher patriotic assistant on the side earning credits for college to be accounted for).
Well. The yellowshirts and the Team Yellow Submachine and also the Yellow Rose of Texas with her four strings and hula stomp step after some further confusion converge and reconstruct the safehouse. Stragglers are rounded up and put away in the appropriate compartments. Jonias is admonished, reinforcing his suspicion that everyone else is the favorite except for him of either mom, dad, or the two in counterpoint. He retreats to his room full of mean thoughts about all of them.
Because deep down aren’t Rose and the bike cop collective just doing a liquored up prom-dance in anticipation of the lake house afterwards and whatever other monetized wonders the adult world might offer – perhaps the whole thing has been orchestrated from the first to distract the jailers (although that’s their job also, self deception is the first step to recovery) and make a getaway, or at least in part. Poor Elliot and It are soon to be captured but not so the Chief of Police, who slips out the side door and to a new and splendid life.
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