Troutdale Kingdom – 5 – Serialized Novel in Progress

Rawlings came to with a plainclothesman holding him down by the shoulders. The side of his head felt cold and wet. Nearby someone was moaning. Siren call grew louder. He tried to make out the plainclothesman nametag so he could order him to let go. The face was familiar. He’d seen it dozens of times, even been no more than two stools away in a company speakeasy. The name was wasn’t just gone but seemed to have never been there in the first place.
“Lemme go, P.C. … uh…uh…”
“Patterson, Sir. Hold still, Sir. Stop moving.”
“What…I’m not…”
Rawlings realized his legs were furiously cycling the air and Patterson was about to drop all decorum and straddle him.
“Keep still, Sir. Neck injuries. Precaution. Stop! Halt!”
Rawlings chuckled at the sideshow of his legs but could not stop them. In the microseconds before he passed out again he realized Seven Foot Slim hadn’t been wearing an over-sized big and tall men’s sweater but an armless standard-sized woman’s sweater dress. An unprecedented wave of profound and articulate sadness had washed over him as he touched the cold, wet spot now spreading over the side of his head. It had been the little sob he let out that made him to pass out.

His right eye was pulled open by a man wearing a yellow helmet.
“Tiger. My dog. Where is he?”
P.C. Patterson had been joined in the huddle above by two firemen whose names he at least couldn’t have forgotten since he’d never known them. Their blurred features were dark but for intermittent green-yellow flashing light. One of them had garlic breath. Patterson stood to give the firemen room to work. He did the talking.
“Taken to Dove Lewis, C.I. Rawlings. Lie still.”
“What happened?”
“No fatalities. Four injuries. Two serious; a woman and your dog.”
“How serious?”
“The woman will live. Your dog…who knows with animals, Sir. Dove Lewis is the best though. My cat Bonzi went there and-”
“Lemme up.”
He tried to swat away the arms of the firemen but was too weak. Looking into the airspace above the firemen he saw the banners pressed tight to Portland Episcopal by a westerly wind. Cold and wet spread down his left hip. The last thing he could remember was buying the curry coconut soup from his Thai local. He worked his hands a little. Neither held a doubled up to-go container of curry coconut soup. He flared his nostrils and sobbed.
“Christ, lemongrass must be the saddest smelling thing in the entire world.”
Patterson rubbed his chin with concern as the firemen attended to the man alternately clutching then patting down their jacket sleeves and sniffling.
“Concussed, boys…must be…forgive me.”
One cradled Rawlings’ head while he mumbled. The other fitted the neck brace.
“Freaking concussed for sure…”
Patterson’s mouth was moving but making no sound. He seemed to be speaking to someone outside the huddle. A now southwesterly wind ripped a banner from Portland Episcopal and buoyed it high into the sparkling and flashing night.
“…who knew it would be such an emotional experience.”

Rawlings’ dorm window is subdivided into 25 glass rectangles. White paint flakes from the water-warped wood between and around. An individual X or O made of blue packing tape occupies each of the bottom twenty rectangles. Rawlings obscures out the top five rectangles into the pre-dawn sky. But for the flashing red beacon lights crowning the civic and university buildings, and the oddfellow lonely glows in the higher floors, this swath of south downtown skyline is ambiently dark. If it were daytime and clear he would see the tip of the snow-tipped East County mountain in spiking through rectangles 4 and 5. He vaguely wonders if, in that cold and distant alpine dark, any likely animals, a fluffy snow-shoe rabbit or snowy fox, say, might be stirring in an anticipation of the dawn as he does. Or are they still burrowed into some warm subterranean clutch? He genuinely hoped for this for them. He wished the rabbit did not have to surface only to suffer the laser-gaze of the blamelessly ruthless predatory hawk. He mumbled a benediction for this hawk. He thought deeply about the fox’s undeservedly sinister reputation…Careful with the sobs again, Rawlings. Dove Lewis said Tiger’d be okay. Still too tender. Inside and out. Duty, Rawlings. Think of your duty.
Below, the dim eco-shimmer of South Parkblock streetlight is reflected back in blue and grey sheen. But for the miniature blue-flashing squad car and the one-man security p.c. detail keeping warm inside, the perimeter would be dark and neglected. Swafford had always been more of a door-to-door man than a clue hoarder. It was another area where budget constraints, in his Major’s brutally smug illogic, vindicated his preferred m.o. “Recycle those specimen jars already, will ya, Rawls. After all: Waste not want not, you derelict asshole, you. Bpff…bpfft buh-Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-harrrr!!! Whooo! ”
He hears gnawing sounds come from Tiger’s corner and before he remembers what happened he turns to look at the empty, fur-weaved mat in the half-kitchen. Must’ve been Barry The Communications Major rolling over in bed, he thinks.

Later…mid-morning…the crows congregated in the swaying oak branches clacking against his window. The first muffled electronic chirps of megaphones start in. Then the bells of Portland Episcopal. Someone pounds on an adjacent wall. Rawlings wakes in his recliner clutching his head. He’d sleep-medicated with whiskey since there’d been no order to the contrary from the e.r. doctor. Concussed or tipsy-doodle, he thought, what’s the freakin’ diff. After all, he’d been a diligent little Patient Rawlings and woken Barry Comm to ask him to pound on the wall on the fifteens ‘til noon to avoid what the e.r. doc had ominously referred to as “Narco-Concussive Syndrome.”
“Here’s some unlicensed to keep ya company, my boy,” Rawlings well into his tipsy by dawn. “I think you’re a big enough boy now to appreciate her…mmm…maturities.” And here Barry was on the dot with a sadistically loud pound-pound-pound and Rawlings’ jelly-armed reply leaving him predictably nauseous. He remembers he hasn’t had a morsel since the few spoonfuls of the bereaved curry-coconut and has to steel himself against another onset of the g-damn Concussive Emotionals.
“Drunk and hungry, Tige. A recipe for…”
But Tiger still isn’t on his mat.
He opens the window a finger and the chants of the dozen or so protesters or electioneers circling the police tape sneak under. The general gist of their call and response neither mourns nor even addresses the explosion or the injuries themselves. Instead, they indict a broad suite of vaguely interconnected abuses, perceived injustices, and zietgeistal happenstances which may as well have forced the bomber to stash and dash in the first place. By inference, it was a substanceless circum-ideology — immanent, viral and ever-advancing — which had crept through the perpetrator’s quiveringly vulnerable and blamelessly passive ear and shanghaied his nervous system into throwing the hapless lad onto the plunger and having him leg it deep into the bowels of Their underground movement.
It was difficult to tell if the protesters (or perhaps electioneers) were upset with the bombing or the hapless p.c. security detail surrounding the, at this point, only symbolically meaningful perimeter. For that matter it was difficult to tell if the sign-wavers were for or against the bombing itself. In fact, there seemed to be factions within the crowd; counter-protesters and affiliated protesters. Electioneering monitors in their pink vests. Police monitors in their yellow vests. All shoving and battling for position. The p.c.’s protecting themselves, the perimeter, and the protesters from each other. They would keep each other warm all morning with barked suggestions, pushing but not quite punching, and brunching on steaming coffees and hyper-vigilance of the p.c.’s nightstick trumpcard. There’s nothing like a little guerilla politics to make the less major concerns just melt away.
Rawlings startles to Barry Comm’s not unzealous pounding. Each impact causes plasmic orange pools to spread over his vision. Comm has the zeal or sadism of a true freshman, Rawlings thinks before lightly knocking his gratitude and shouting at the wall.
“We’re a.o.k. over here, Barry! Cease and desist on the knocking, buddy!”
“You got it Mr. Rawlings, Sir!”
Sincerity or sarcasm: Who could tell anymore and who cares. All that mattered was Young Barry Comm always kept up his end of the conversational bargain. Leave the guesswork in between words to the sensitives, idealists, and trendsetters who have the time to take everything personally. Guessing others’ intentions is about as useful as the traditional slog through the Oaks Bottom fens for the latest Ideaist Suicide. Let it rest, Citizens. They didn’t leap from the Sellwood Bridge to suffer the grappling hook. Their latest and last statement was meant to tangle in the swamp grass and bubble to the surface alongside the methane. The goodbye banner flapping from the bridge ledge is all we need to know. Leave the jumper and the indirect alike to their privacy. All we have each others’ words and actions, Rawlings. Words and actions. On the other hand, when you’re on the job, interpretation is impossible without evidence. You resist drawing conclusions from the banner. For all we know the jumper had overstepped a jealously guarded ideological boundary. We may find the telltale sap dent on the back of the head, provided by one of our city’s homicidally anti-social territorialists unwilling to cede a jot of their carefully fashioned scene to some pretender or poseur. Sure, join our ranks, pal, but leave your banner in the ashcan before knocking. ‘Your retro 99er jersey is quaint in that new-old hippy dippy way and, yeah man, back in the day we were on the same page or at least chapter in terms of agreeing on how broadly things, well, blew, and hey, well, we did a sprinkle of real quantifiable good there, didn’t we, pre-Roy that is, but we had mouths to feed, man, as in the port-side hootenanny may keep the fatcats’ grain elevators dry for a while but, again dude, earnestly need to eat something and so does my wife, best friend, and close neighbor and the only way I could see around was to establish my own brand, man, do a little small business-forward lobbying for myself to the tune of tricked out t-shirts, commie coffee shops, local-produce-only haute cuisine food carts, sustainable distilleries, etc., and co-op and unionize the holy Hell out of them man, let anyone who wants in in, but don’t dilute the brand, man, whatever you do. You’re beautiful, I mean that, but seriously, lose the banner.’ So they spam bomb and hack to protect patents, copyright, domain names, and their overall stylistic m.o. The D-town bombs may not be killing people, may just be a bit of muscle flexing to warn the wannabe’s with Monroe Doctrine egos not to squat too many floors of The Portland Building, not to buy up more food cart space on it’s perimeter, not to funk with our local weekly rag distribution by chaining down your own smear-printed broadside box in competitive perusal range of our own. Stay on your side of the line, man. Don’t think just because you’re getting play on Oregon Public Television’s Art Beat you’re immune from having your ass disappeared until suffering the bite of the grappling hook and coming up all pale and dimpled from the rocks and saps alike, and being unquestionably gill-choked, my man, unquestionably, so, well, you know, lose the jersey is what I’m driving at, yo.

“Said I’m good, Bare! Sober up will ya!”