Red Black White Blue (1)

7/27/2019 Red Black White Blue (1)

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RED

BLACK

WHITE

BLUE

BYCASSIDYMOON

Red

I guess it all started when the regional manager came to town. We was all workin' in the

same chain superstore. Well, they was workin'. Fuckin' weirdos didn' want to fuck the store's


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manager, which was too bad, 'cause he wasn't too bad a lay, and would let you get away with

anythin' for juss a little sweetness. I don' think that his wife waas treatin' him right at home.

Anyways, there I am, ridin' the store manager like he's my prize pony and it's Kentucky

Derby time, and in walks the regional manager, no knock, no nothin'. An' he does thisjustas the

store manager is cuming. So, he's waltzed in like he owns the place, and he's seeing me fuckin'

his fatso, balding underling,. The store manager is moanin' with pleasure, I'm moanin' with fake

pleasure and also boredom, and the regional manager is just starin'; this is pretty weird, cause'

he's the odd man out, y'know? But don't you worry, he started moaning with embarrassment,

horror, and disgust pretty soon.

The regional manager eventually gets a hold of his vocal cords and says Holy shit! Holy

fucking shit! You're fired! You're both fired!

And I say Ah, c'mon, honey, don't be like that! You can join in! And here, I smiled

coyly, which was really hard to do while half-naked with a third parties semen trickling out me

and his cock inside me. But hey! My mama didn't raise no fool. I'm a proper lady, and a proper

lady can be coy while wearing half a work uniform and leaking spunk. That's just how a proper

lady works.

Proper lady or not, that fuckin' manager wasn't goin' for it, which was how I knew he was

a faggot. What het-man could resist this? Which I guess makes the moral of this story that you

should always check to see if your boss's boss is faggot before trying to fuck him into-

But ma'am, he's married! He's married with childr-

Yes! Faggot children! And... and... an' a faggot wife. They call 'em beards 'cause they all

grow beards even the wom-

That's not tru-

SHUT UP! JUST SHUT YOUR MOUTH!

...Fine... please, just continue with your statement, ma'am.


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Anyways, he's yelling at me an' him, he'syelling at him, etcetera, etcetera... theres a big

hubub, lots of noise. So I take advantage of the confusion, and get up and get my clothes all the

way back on while they're too distracted with eachother to turn on little old me. Niether of 'em

notice me till I'm already at the door, clothes on, and what are they really going to do? I've

broken no law... which brings me to the next bit.

So I go out into the main area of the store, yeah? And I take one last mournful look at the

store as an employee, cause I figure that I'm not gonna have a job tomorrow, yeah? And while

I'm thinkin' this, I realize that I'm gonna need another way to get money, other than whorin',

which is real hard in a small town like that. So I clear out all the cash registers that I can open.

And then I look at the money, and I think, well, I'm a thief anyways, yeah? So I steal a tablet

from the electronics department... and a pistol from the sporting goods department... and a rifle...

and a shotgun... and another pistol... and some ammo... y'know, I was on a roll, so it just seemed

silly to stop small. Anyways, I went home after that, I'm sure.

Black

My story, at least as far as you're concerned, begins in some nameless town. Really, it

starts much earlier than that, with my birth; but you don't care about all that? You'd rather see us

as something less than people, huh? Is that how you sleep at night, enforcing the rules of the

system of society like you do? Or do you tell yourself it's for our own fucking good, and not for

your rich and hidden masters? Or do you just not give two shits?

Whatever. You don't care, I can see it written all over your face. Door number three all

the way, baby. Anyways. Town. Call it Nameless, Nameless. The shithole so horrific I'm

refusing to name it twice. All of us worked at the one big-box store in the middle of town, as

much as you could even call it that. Town, I mean it was pretty much the only place that could

sell most of the goods that we all needed to survive, and the biggest employer in the town by a


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slim margin. Most of the other incomes came from restaurants, oil-rigs miles and miles from

town, out in the middle of nowhere, really; but you gotta spend that money somewhere. Gotta

eat, gotta sleep. It never fuckin' ends, does it? Where was I? Anyways, yeah. Incomes.

Restaurants, oil-rigs, and what mom-n-pops that damn store hadn't strangled to death by

lowering it's prices; course, they raised them right up again after they had killed off all the

competition they could. It's not a unique story, but it was our story, or at least the long end of our

story. Damn big-box store... fuckin' killed that damn shithole of a town.

Sir? Your statement?

Yeah, yeah, I'm getting to it. Just got a little sidetracked. Jeez.

Anyways, yeah, it started when Red got her dumb ass fired for fucking the management

rather than putting in an honest day's work like the rest of us. She was always pulling shit like

that; can you believe that she would tell the other girls to do the same? Like the world fucking

worked that way. Even if that corrupt fuck had taken them all up on the offer, how the hell would

the store have even kept running with over half it's workforce doing nothing but screwin' the

boss? As it was, we were effectively perpetually understaffed; we all had to do her job, split

between us, as well as our own. She was always doing that sort of shit; always such a drag on

Blue and all of us... I wish she would just let her go. Blue... How is she? Can you tell me? Is she

alright? I haven't been able to see her. You lot haven't let me.

I am not authorized to give you that information.

Yeah, yeah... speaking of Blue, me and her were stocking clothes together when we saw

that douchebag of a regional manager for the first time. He came up to us and told us we were

under investigation, that the entire store was under investigation. The store was failing, just like

the town that it was killing, and they wanted to blame us; they wanted to say we were all stealing

or slacking or some shit. Anything to avoid admitting what they had done, what the real problem

was.


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Next time me and Blue took a break together, we talked it over, and figured that we were

gonna get fired no matter what. Didn't help that the both of us we really had been skimming from

the till... just enough to make ends meet, y'know...? But, uh, keep in mind that I was the one who

actually took all the money. So, anyways, we figured we were screwed no matter how it all

shook out; so, we did the only logical thing, and decided to go out in a blaze of glory... I cleaned

out the till and took a navigation system from the electronics department, and she took some

guns from the sporting goods department. We met up in the parking lot to split the loot, and then

we went our separate ways... both towards home, whatever that was for us.

WhiteOnce upon a time, there were four friends who lived in a small town in the middle of a

stretch of plains, beneath an endless and vibrant sky. In summer, the sky was the bluest of blues

and the sun was scorching hot and beat down upon the plain and everything on it; in winter, the

sky was a grayish-white and the sun was a pale and shimmering white on the rare occasions that

it was seen. These four friends lived in the same trailer park, and worked at the same store. They

had known eachother since the foggily remembered days of early childhood, and expected that

they would know eachother until they began to die, one by one, in the half-experienced days of

their winter years. In our tale, we shall see whether this bittersweet future is still to hold.

Get to the damn point already. This is a police statement, not some sophomoric novel!

Ahem. As I was saying, we all lived and worked together in that town; until the

unfortunate incident, that is. The incident of which I speak began Red, Black, and Blue all

quitting out of fear of being fired; there was an investigation ongoing, you see. Something about

losses from the store; sometimes, all a corporation cares about is it's profits. If they had simply

given us more time, I'm sure we would have pulled up; still, what's gone is forever gone, and it

does not do to linger in the past.


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For several days after the others left en masse, I worked several times as hard as normal

to keep the store running, but it was simply no use; a Sisyphean task. The store went to seed, and

my morale began flagging. At home, Black, my wise and ever-struggling brother... how is he, by

the way? I have neither seen nor spoken to him.

I am not authorized to give you that information.

Hm. Of course not; how very silly of me to ask...

Sir?

Yes, yes. I'll be getting on with it. In any case, my morale was flagging; at home, my

brother was encouraging me to quit. He said he had some sort of new business venture in mind,

though he would not tell me what it was; that lovely fool insisted that it was better that I not

know. As though I would not have... as though I would not followed him to ends of the earth; I

did not know what it was at the time, but I regret nothing. I have known great platonic love. I

have lived. If you should imprison me for ten years, I should count it a good trade.

As you well know, I followed his advice, and quit that job; it had always been beneath

me, in any case. And that is the end of the very beginning, for me and for us.

And... sir? Who stole the money from the cash register?

B-... I did. I stole that money.

Oh? And why would you do something like that?

...I assumed that seed money would be needed, whatever it was we were doing. Don't

smile like that. It's... creepy. It's creepy.

Right.

Blue

My statement, my statement. What did I say I was going to say? What did I say I was

going to say?


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Oh.

Yes.

It started to us when that regional manager came to town, and set the web of lies we lived

in on fire. It was a good web, y'know. Kept us all together. Kept us all safe and fed and sheltered.

I'd been weaving it ever since we were kids. I always used to think of it like a house, or a great

system of laws and regulations. Not like a web. But houses don't fall apart when someone

touches them; the symbol failed as the thing failed. But hey, maybe it wasa house; houses rot,

which I guess would go along with the whole store was failing and I did nothing to stop it

because it never occurred to me to check, because I was not the manager, and the manager never

gave any indication that it was failing but, y'know, whatever. Analogies are funny like that.

Anyways, once I'd finished panicking after learning all this from that regional manager...

I came up with a plan, the plan of a lifetime; I still say that the start and middle parts were good

and solid. Maybe slightly criminal, but hey. It was a living. Step one of the plan was to get Black

to buy into it, which weren't hard. That damn fool boy was always sweet on me. I always thought

he could do better, but hey. Guess not, after all.

Step two was to steal all the money, electronics, and guns we'd need. That was the easy

part. Just a skip down to the sporting goods section, a hop over to the electronics department, a

jump over to the cash registers, and a jot home before anyone knew what had hit them.

Step three was the hardest, really; a two parter. I set Black to convincin' his brother of the

plan, and I set out to get Red to come along too.

But... why would you want Red to come? Didn't she start the whole thing by having...

relations... with your boss?

Yes, but she was still one of mine. She was of the group, and the group stays together.

The group?

Yeah, the group. We'd been together since childhood, and I wanted... still want... us to all


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stay together forever. I want us to be rich, but I'll settle for fed, sheltered, and loved. Y'know. My

group? A lot of people don't get the group thing, which confuses me. How do they live? What

are they even doing, if they don't have a group?

Anyways, yeah, I got her to come along. I told her that we were all leaving, and that there

wasn't going to be any work for her here, anyways. I suggested that she could follow along with

us and do sex work in the towns we came to; she'd done it before, but got arrested for it because

she was the only prostitute in the town, and she weren't exactly subtle.

White took a little longer, but his brother wore him down eventually. No real surprise

there. He always did follow Black blindly; even so, he had unanswered questions... but I shut

him up by giving him some of the money I stole out of the registers.

Seriously. What do you even hope to get out of having ever-single-fucking-one of you

tell the same lies? We don't even really give a shit about the cash registers! We care about the

murders, the grand theft auto, the transportation of massive amounts of cocaine across state

lines... these are things that you should be worried about. Look, I get that you got your 'group' to

all tell the same lie, at least so far. It's very impressive, especially considering that one of you

could get off relatively easy by telling a different and more believable set of lies, one close

enough to the truth to be backed up by evidence and non-hostile witnesses. The courts would just

believe that person, and assume all the others were lying. Now, I'll throw you a real bone. None

of the others have cracked yet. Your plan is working... so far.

So you're saying that I'm not going to charged with theft for the registers?

...What? No! You're definitely going to be charged for that. We're charging you with

fucking everything, and seeing if it sticks.

Oh. That's too bad, I guess.

Take her back to her fucking cell.


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Red

So, after leaving that store, I sat at home for a night and a day, watchin' the worst-and-

best television. Korean and Spanish soap opera, mostly. Now, I know what you're thinking. 'But

Red, you don't speak no Korean nor no Spanish' and you're right: I don't. I ab-see-lute-ly do not,

not a single word. But here's the great thing about soap opera. You don't need to speak any

language but Soapish to understand them. They emote so much, and the plots are so simple, that

you can just sort of sit there and let it soak in. In fact, sittin' there and doing just that, soakin' in

the soapin', is how I learned Spanish and Korean.

...You literally just said that you didn't speak those languages.

...I'm pretty sure I didn't.

Yes. Yes you totally did.

Well, tomato, potato.

Those are NOT the same thing!

Eh, whatever. Where was I? Oh, yeah! Anyways, so after my day and night of soap, Blue

showed up at my trailer. She said she had a plan for how we could all keep ourselves fed and

clothed and in the money, so on and so forth She went on about her and Black and White.

Something about, like, raiding the plains? Like car-vikings? I don't really remember; I was

mostly thinking about the adventures of Jin-Soo and Jose and also whether it was possible to just

eat coffee beans whole. Think of how much time you could save!

Eventually she starts talking about things that actually matter, and I perk up. She says that

she's gonna let me tag along and work my preferred trade, and I'm all, 'kick fuckin' ass!'. But then

I think a bit, and then I'm all 'but what's the catch, bitch?', because with Blue, there is always a

catch. And then Blue explains that I have to put my earnings into the pool for whatever they're

gonna be road-trippin' for, and then we all split out the total four ways. So, I'm all 'Wow, honey,

that's not a bad deal. It'll even me all out a bit... a lot harder to fall on my face.' and she's all 'Glad


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you feel that way, I'm still gonna be snooty-ass bitch though, because I think I'm such hot leadery

shit. Anyways, pack your stuff, I'll be back later.' And then she stomped off in those blue

sneakers of hers... I should steal those sometime... I wonder if we're the same shoe size...

Anyways! I go back inside, and I pack all my clothing an' jewlery an' laptop an' money

an' phone into bags and put 'em outside, and then I take all the gas from the neighbors' cars and

soak everything inside in it. And then I stole some propane from the neighbor's grill, and put it

inside that trailer and then I open the nozzle. And then I found one of smoking neighborhood

kids, an' I punch him in the gut and take his zippo... and then I wait. Soon enough, Blue pulls up

in that red hatchback, and it's fuckin' time, motherfucka'! You get what I mean? YOU GET

WHAT I MEAN?

Yes! Sure! Why not! Stop shouting, please...

Well, I flick that lighter open, and I watch the flame dance. Pretty, pretty, pretty. Course,

she interrupts me, all 'what the fuck are you doing, oh god no, please god no, not again' and I just

laugh, long and hard and high. I fucking love it when they call me God. She starts to get out,

right? Thinking she can stop me? Which is fucking ridiculous, cause I'm a god right then. So I

pitch my arm back and spin, letting go at just the right point, like a discus thrower... and it goes

through the window right by that rinky-dink door with that good ol' magical tinkle-crash and it's

like I'm a kid again, like I'm fuckin' reborn as I watch that stupid fuckin' trailer go up in flames

like the life I'm abandoning, like the town I'm abandoning. It feels good; better than all the sex in

all the world.

And while she's screaming at me and crying I load my things in the trunk. When we go, I

drive. She's being a pussy about it all, talking some shit about me 'ruining her plan'... whatever,

Bitch. Whatever.

Black


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So, there I am. Waiting for Blue to pick me up. I had wanted this, but under different

circumstances, different context... context is everything, isn't it? She'd called me up, told me to

pack my bags. We were getting O-U-T out of this dump, and I was fucking thrilled. I took my

clothes, sold my shit out on my front lawn, and convinced my brother to come with. I was non-

specific as to what we were going to go and do with ourselves, but hey. I didn't really know, and

I didn't really care. Blue was coming to take me all away from this! Once again, not how I had

wanted... but fuck it! I was excited, and my excitement lent my words conviction... and that

conviction convinced my little brother to come along on an adventure that would ultimate get

him arrested. But, hey. Things that are done for love are beyond good and evil, right?

Anyways, it was probably best for him, really. Sure I had to sort-of-lie by omission, but it

wasn't the first or last time that I had to trick White into doing what was best for him. From

getting out there more and standing up to bullies less in elementary, to getting him to actually

take that big-box-store job after highschool, I'd looked after him pretty well. So, y'know, law of

averages. Law of averages.

Ahem. Rambling, rambling, rambling... sorry. Where was I before all that?

Waiting for Blue.

Right well, anyways, she shows up, right? And Red is already with her, and they've

pretty obviously been arguing Blue is all upset and won't look at Red, and Red looks like a cat

who's tail you stepped on ten minutes ago; pissy, but can't remember why. I swear she's got some

sort of condition I heard from my parents that her ma drank and smoked while she was

preggers with her, so maybe that's it. Whatever. Condition or no condition, Red and Blue are in a

black hummer that I had never seen before, their stuff's already in the back this is happening.

This is happening right the fuck now, I'm thinking. Very real. A lot less romantic. But then Blue

looks over and smiles just a little bit; she tells me to get in, and I open the back door and throw

my bags in the third row of seats. I make Red sit in back, too, one seat ahead of all our stuff.


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Blue is silent as I argue Red into sitting in back; she doesn't put up much of fight. She probably

cared more about not having to move, more than anything else. But when I get in next to Blue, I

swear I catch another one of those mini-smiles. Not for me this time, I don't think she realizes

I'm looking. Just for her.

I have a thought, and I turn to Blue to see if I can get her to go along with it. I tell her that

it's the 3rd or maybe the 4th. One of those days. I forget which. She looks confused and says

'so?' and then I tell her that everyone's just payed their rents. And we've got guns. And we're

gonna be criminals anyways. And that if I'm not wrong, we already are. I knock meaningfully on

the dash and raise an eyebrow to her. She winces and nods. She says that we'll do it, but we have

to get White first. This is where I object, rather more strongly than I intend to. She nods. I guess

she figures she's involved him enough, at that point, what with the car and all.

When we show up at the super's trailer, he's out front in his dirty fucking wifebeater

wifebeater why the hell would we call any piece of clothing that? It's fucking horrific.

Anyways, we show up right in front of him and all slide out of one side. I have to vault

over the drivers seat to get out of there, but it's totally worth it. It looks fucking badass. I've got

the rifle, Blue's got the shotgun, and Red's doublefisting both the pistols. Which was maybe a

mistake, to give 'em to her, I mean; she kept ranting in a what I can only assume she thought was

ebonics, talking about how she was 'gonna fuck up some bitches', and shouting 'yippy-kay-yay,

motherfucker!' at random intervals. The. Entire. Ride. Over. It was horrible. This appeared to end

when we all had our guns pointed in his face, though. So that was good. What was not good? Our

plan had several holes in it. For example, we all shouted in his face. Red shouted 'Ya betta

done give me tha' scratch, nukka!', I shouted 'Hands up! This is a robbery!', and Blue shouts

'Give us the money and you live! Resist and you die!'. He of course just stares at us, white and

frozen. I'd never really knew what 'frozen with fear' looked like until that moment. Finally, Blue

spoke up, and told him to get up with his hands with his head, and show us where the cash from


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the rent was. He complied, and led us inside. He opened a drawer, and me and Blue started

stuffing our pockets. It was more than I'd ever seen in one place. It was magical, it was glorious;

it was a promise of future happiness made corporeal. I held some to my face and sniffed, and it

smelled like capitalism. It smelled like success. I could buy my dreams, I could buy love. Fuck

every single liar who said I couldn't I started to turn to Blue, to start a money fight, and that's

when I heard Red say 'You have outlived your usefulness', followed by the sound of deafness.

Gunshots sound really fucking loud in closed spaces. Like really fucking loud. I can't even

fucking describe it. I spent some uncountable and agonizing time on the floor curled in a ball,

eyes shut tight, till I eventually realized I was lying in a pool of blood. This cleared my head

right fast. I patted myself over, and found nothing but bits of what I would later discover to be

brains. Blue was up at this point, and she was saying something that I could barely make out, but

involved the word 'why' a lot. After enough time for my hearing to return somewhat, Red placed

her hand over Blue's mouth and pointed out that the super had seen our faces. We couldn't let

him live. She told us to take all the cash, and get in the car. She talked about destroying the

evidence, but I don't think either of us got what she meant until we had a demonstration: her

standing in front of the trailer, gas can in hand-though I'll be damned if I know where she got it-

and flames creeping out of the opened windows. She got in, and we went off to pick up my

brother.

White

When that white sedan pulled up in front of my trailer, I knew that it was finally time.

The thing that I had been waiting for my entire life was finally happening; I was already out

front. My bags were packed and by my side. My rapier was in it's sheath, laying across my

nervously twitching legs. It was time for me to become what I had always been. Black had only

told me that we were leaving, and leaving for good, the morning that we did; but it was fine, I


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had never kept much around that I couldn't move, and move fast. I only ever allowed myself as

much clothing as I could pack in the bags that I kept in the bottom drawer of my dresser, and I

only ever owned tablets; good for reading, and even more portable than a laptop. It all fit neatly

into the allotted fourth of space in the car. There were some things that I had to leave behind, and

I stared at the door to the trailer, thinking of my bed and my knickknacks, my fridge and it's

contents, my custom drapes and inherited table, all my useless material things. It wasn't needed

anymore; it never had been.

In a flash of inspiration, I thought of a plan of how to get rid of it all. I told them I needed

a second, and they looked impatient. Black and Blue both tried to stop me, but I ignored them. I

got a sharpie from inside, and wrote 'All inside is free to whomever should desire it. The

previous occupant renounces all ownership of the contents of this trailer', and then I threw the

sharpie in the dust and walked to car, opening the back door and getting in next to Red. I could

feel her thigh pressing against mine in the confines of the car. She told Blue to wait for just a bit,

for her, too. Blue shouted at her, but didn't drive off. Red leaned across me to read what I had

written, and my nose filled with the scent strawberry from her hair and my heart sped up. She

opened her door and got out, walking around till she leaned on my side. She asked me if it

applied to her, too. I told her that it did, though I didn't intend it to. She walked inside, and came

out with a dishtowel and a bottle of vodka that I had been savi- er, holding for my brother.

Because he left it there. She broke the bottle on the side of the trailer, stuffed the rag in, and lit it

with her lighter. She opened the door and tossed it in, and jogged to her side before getting in.

She told her sister to drive, and swore at her, and then told her to drive again. Blue drove, and I

looked back to see my former life begin to burn. Lot of books, lot of cloth, lot of wood.

Carpeting, too. I guess that explains what came next.

I asked her why she did what she did, and she turned to me and smiled this flirtatious

smile, like she was about to laugh at one of my jokes or tell me I was being silly; and then she


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patted my cheek twice, and told me something I'll never forget: 'Sweetheart, you're still thinking

that you're with society and law and light. But you're not. The moment you agreed to come, you

slipped out of that, slipped through the cracks and went among night and made friends with the

nightmares of civilized folk. You're never going to get back.' and then she winked and smiled

and closed her eyes, leaning back like she was gonna try and go to sleep. It was the middle of the

day, and she said that to me, and then she went off to doze. I'll never forget that.

Blue

So, I guess you're going to tell me some OTHER story about how Red set the fire that

destroyed that trailer park. Why?

Because I don't want you to know how or why, and they remember what they've been

told.

We can check, you know. We have forensics.

Arson wasn't suspected originally, and the fire killed enough people enough time ago that

you're going to have too small a witness pool to really get an accurate read on where anything

was, especially with rot and other disturbances.

Is that so?

Oh? Smiling, huh? Smug, smug smiler. How many can you find? How many will be

willing to go back with you, and take time out of their lives for it? They're scattered, scattered to

the four winds.

Well. Some. Justice will be served.

It's good that you believe that. Well. Good for you, I mean.

What were you even trying to hide, Blue? You all admitted that Red started it.

No, we saidthat Red started it. And I'm not going to tell you that.


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What? You gonna tell the guard to take me back to my cell, yet? Huh? Huh?

Fine. Whatever. Spend some more time in solitary, if that's what you want.

Alright. It's fun in there. I like it there.

Oh?

Yes. It is the very fucking best. I've figured out a way to communicate with my group,

and you will never ever figure out how.

Tapping on the walls.

What?

You've been tapping on the walls.

You know! You know? You know... But you don't know the code that I taught them

when we were kids!

Sure, sure. Only... doesn't really matter, does it?

What?

Well, you see, you're not in the same cell block as any of your friends.

Why would you tell me an obviously false lie? I can hear them tapping back.

No. I really don't think you can. Take her back to her cell.

Red

I fell asleep on the drive out of that place, and when I woke up, I was in another town,

one somewhat larger than the one we'd come from. It was named Seskitchaway or some other

bullshit Native name, probably. We were still driving as I first started to stretch out and blink my

eyes, but we passed through and pulled up in front of a motel. We piled out, and Blue told us to

bring our bags inside, and that we'd be staying for a couple of days, something about looking for

places to steal from. I didn't get what she was talking about; still don't, really. If I want to steal

something, I just fuckin' take it, y'know-what-I'm-sayin'?


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Anyways, so I take my bags inside and I select a red mini-skirt and a red bikini-top and

some earings, and take 'em to the bathroom before any of those other losers can claim it. That

shit is fucking mine. In the wild, the biggest and baddest animal in the pack eats first, and that's

what they need to remember, that I'm the biggest and baddest animal; demonstrations are

important for those god-damed illiterate masses.

When I finish my everything in that bathroom, I look fuckin' fantastic. I'm ready for

work. Time to find a corner. Unfortunately, Blue won't give me the keys to the hatchback, and

the others won't look away long enough for me to ransack the room for them. That bitch

probably kept them in her dry-ass cooter, anyways. So I have to wait.

One by one, they each come out of the bathroom. Took fuckin' forever. Finally, Blue

comes out, and tells us to get our shit together and pile in again. They drop me off on a corner in

the tiny downtown, as the sun is going down. I did okay business for most of the night, even

fucked a cop right in the back of his squad-car, which was some real delicious irony, right there.

I even used his handcuffs on him, and pocketed them when he wasn't looking, after. Which I

thought was just fuckin' hilarious: what's he going to do, arrest me when he figures it out? I'll be

gone and he'll hafta explain how the hell I got that close in the first place. What's that look for,

sweetie? You want some of this? Hmm... I'll think about it.

...Ma'am, I can tell you right now that under no circumstances will we have any sort of

sexual interaction, with or without an additional economic element.

I'm pretty sure that's up to me to decide, sweetness. Anyways, where was I? Oh, yeah.

Towards the end of the night, a big fancy car pulls up, and a smoky window rolls down. A man

pokes his head out, and says he hasn't see me around before. I tell him that I'm just passing

through, and then I apologize if I'm taking a corner that's claimed by one of his girls. I'm not

really sorry, but you know how pimps are.

No, ma'am, I do not.


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Oh? Never worked vice? You always just stay inside, just workin' on the crim-in-als after

they come in? Oh-ho-ho, well, ain't you just a barrel of little bits of fun. Yes-sir-ee, you're gonna

be. Well, darlin', let me tell you how pimps is. Pimps think they're on top of the world, and they

need to keep thinking that, or else they get violent. They get violent, and then they fall apart. You

see, pimps are slave-owners. That's what a pimp's ho is. She ain't a prostitute, like me. She's a

fuckin' slave, and one too stupid to be free in a land where her condition is illegal, and freedom is

as easy as leaving in the middle of the night. So, a ho is des-pic-a-ble; but so's a pimp. Pimp

deals with his ho-slaves as much as he can, till he gets used to dealin' with slaves, and forgets

that people are wild and free. And so, if you don't treat him like he's your master, he's gonna fuck

you the fuck up, because he doesn't see a free-woman. He sees a slave that's actin' up. So you got

to be sly.

I was sly with that pimp, and so he told me to get in, and he'd pay me well to sample the

talent-passing-through. He took me back to his place, and we fucked long and hard. He lived in a

house on the outskirts of town, one with drugs and shit art strewn about, all haphazard, and I

think some of his slaves in back. Dumb cunts.

After, he paid me and gave me a bag of coke. Now, I'm not talking something that polar

bears drink, here, just to be clear. Though... can you fuckin' imagine? I know what I'm doing next

time I'm in a zoo. High five?

No. Absolutely not. I will NOT condone even thinking of that.

Fine, ya snooty-little-cop

Anyways, so I call Blue afterwards, and I'm braggin' about my night. She says some

stupid shit about stealin' or watchin' or some other fuckin' thin', but I think even she knows that

she's not really worth shit, 'cause she doesn't really perk up till I tell her about what I'm been up

to, pimp wise. She keeps going on about drugs, makes me show her mine, even trys to get me to

sell it to her. I'm not having none of that shit. That's my fuckin' coke, right there. I'm gonna give


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it to elementary schoolers or some shit. She just stares at me, all open-mouthed like a gold-fish

you're killing for fun, and then we spend the rest of the drive in silence, which is totally good

with me. Annoying little bitch.

Black

On the ride out of Nameless, me and Blue talked. Not about anything important; I didn't

say any of the things that I'd wanted to say for years. Not then, not like 'we talked' implies. But

still, we talked. About the weather, about the future, about the plains spreading out around us. It

was August, then, so the sun beat down on the land just enough that I was glad to have the air

conditioning. Red slept slouching in back, her head tilting to the side. She slept the sleep of the

guiltless, like a child or an animal. She did not appear to dream, or otherwise stir. I would have

told you that she was dead, if you'd asked me, but her chest moved. It was slow enough that I had

to watch her for a bit to make sure that it actually wasmoving. I told myself that was why White

was watching her; just making sure she was breathing and alive; a part of me, a large part of me,

knew that I was lying, though. I watched him, he watched her, and she slept. Blue spoke,

distracting me from the event in the back seat.

She said that we'd start small, try and get our nerves up and iron out any kinks. It wasn't

like any of us hadn't stolen before. Or, for various reasons, done violence to another person. But

it was different on these sorts of scales. Well. We thought it would be different; Blue said she

did, and I know I did. Blue was wrong, I was wrong; Turns out it's more or less the same for

everything: do it enough times, and it becomes your little piece of normal. She said that we'd

work our way up to banks and armored cars and long-haul truckers. She said that we'd lay low

after big ones, and live off of a combo of Red and the money from each of them; I remember that

very clearly. Those words I mean. Big ones. Like we were going to be people that you'd read

about in the paper, that at least part of you would not just know about, but root for. It was a


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phrase that made promises.

Once we got to that town I think it was called some yuppie "we intentionally built this

in a couple of years during the mid-80's" type of name Feathermeadows? Anyways, Blue

chose it because it was the closest thing to a hub nearby Nameless, we drove through it in an

aimless and rambling way. So she could get it a feel for it, she said. We drove past bright lights

and shittily-done mom-pop connivence store fronts and fast food joints one after the other, never

repeating; it was the farthest I'd ever been from Nameless, and my sureness that everywhere

mustbe better than there was slightly shaken. It wasn't bad, don't get me wrong. It wasn't worse.

Just a lot more strange than I had imagine; in hindsight, this should have been obvious. Obvious

and expected.

We eventually wandered out to the outskirts of Feathermeadows and came to a motel.

Blue parked the car in front and then took some of our money and rented a single room; we

couldn't afford better. Plus, I don't really think that Blue wanted to share a space with Red alone

anymore than she had to. She told us to go inside and unpack, and for me and White to 'dress for

theft' she told Red to dress 'however it is you do when you do your thing'. I had to keep

myself from laughing at the contrast; she just seemed so serious, I don't think she would have

taken it well.

Red took to the shower first, and White kept watching the door until she came out

dressed in even less, hair dripping. We each descended on the bathroom in our own turn. I came

out wearing black jeans and black sweater, with a ski-mask in my satchel. Once we were all

ready and dressed, Blue told us to get into the car. We dropped Red on a corner that she claimed

looked promising, and went off into the residential districts. We drove back and forth, through

poor neighborhoods and rich ones, till eventually she parked the car in a neighborhood that was

somewhere in-between, leaning towards poor. She killed the engine, and pressed a finger to her

lips. Me and White both nodded. She opened her door, and we opened ours. She passed out the


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bags that we had emptied of our clothes back at the motel. She grabbed the shotgun from the

back, I grabbed the rifle, and White belted on his sword and a pistol. The sword was, of course,

on his left side; and no, White is not left handed. Fucking romantic idiot.

We walked along the block, me and my brother trailing behind her like criminal

ducklings. She stopped in front of a house with a driveway empty of cars and a front step full of

newspapers. She walked up the step with sure and measured steps, and knocked on the door. She

waited. I held my breath, and I think White and Blue did too; but it was dark, and I could not tell

you for sure. After a period that seemed very long, but I'm am sure wasn't, she walked away from

the front step, picked up a rock from a pile tastefully arranged on the lawn, and threw it through

the front window with a tinkle and a crash. She took another rock, and slid it along the bottom of

the sill, clearing away the shards of glass that remained. She then smiled broad, winked, took a

bow, and gestured us in, as though she were an old-timey servant, like on the TV. I went over

first; White followed, Blue took up the rear. I waved my gun around, but I had no idea what I

was doing. My father had taught me how to load, unload, and operate the safety of a gun when I

was child, but I was even less of a marksman then than I am now. Blue pushed my barrel down

slowly, and went about the house, ransacking bedrooms and the living room. I think she had the

idea in her head that we would do the same, and split up, but we ended up just following her and

carrying what she handed back to us. We left there with a TV carried between me and White, a

desktop computer's tower in my bag, some valuable looking candlesticks in White's, and assorted

jewelry in Blue's bag.

She took us back to the motel, and then waited, pacing back and forth. She kept glancing

at her phone. Tried calling Red a couple of times. She kept getting the machine. After the second

time or so, she stopped leaving messages when the dialtone ended, and just hung up. Eventually,

her phone did ring, and she almost dropped her phone in her hurry to answer it. She quickly

jotted something down on her hand with the motel room's pen, and ran out to car. She came back


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half an hour later with a vaguely angry expression and Red. One tends to accompany the other,

so this wasn't too surprising. What was surprising, however, was that she was saying something

to Blue as they walked in about how the baggie-with-white-powder in the bag in her hand was

'her cocaine' and 'not you nor your man-bitches are allowed to touch it'. I was surprised because I

had never in my life known Red to do drugs. In fact, they were about the only vice she didn't

have.

She looked at our faces and just laughed. 'My cocaine, losers', she said. My cocaine. Blue

told us to leave it, and that she had dealt with already. Not wanting to actually attempt to deal

with Red, we accepted this readily. She put the cocaine in a drawer, and went to sleep with

thoughts of pawnshops dancing through our heads.

Red Black White Blue (1)

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