Bohemian Zen

When Rodney Met Dickie Part 1
by Chad Boudreau

Rodney Wimpy was so excited he was vibrating. The steady physical tremor was clearly noticeable even though slight because his drooping, meaty jowls rippled and his loose fitting slacks quivered. He stood just outside the double doors of Bingo Palace, eyes squinted to peer through his own reflection and the aged glass, seeking signs of life within the murky interior. He was early. The door was locked. He wore a huge unwavering grin that would have been unsettling to young children had there been any present. As far as Rodney could tell there was no one present, but that wasn’t true. Rodney couldn’t see Dickie but Dickie could see him.

Rodney had gotten very little sleep the night before. After supper, he asked to be excused from the family’s regular Thursday night of cards with Nanny and Papa. Behind his closed bedroom door and with Bach playing quietly in the background, he ironed his uniform with utmost care. Having found the iron’s steam inadequate he employed a small spray bottle of warm water. He spritzed the air above the clothes, letting the mist fall naturally onto the fabrics. He waited until the last of the droplets settled before applying the iron. Hunched over the ironing board, he felt the steam on his face. His tongue poked between his lips. It always did when he was deep in concentration.

He hung the pressed uniform with care, flicking at dust and cat hairs that clung to its cotton surface. Satisfied, he immersed himself in his bedtime routine— bubble bath, pajamas, bowl of cereal and a glass of apple juice, dental care, feed the fish, ten minutes of playtime with the cat, kisses from Mom and Dad and then prayers. He had lain awake well into the early hours of the morning, a fictional account of how the day would unfold playing on a loop in his head. If everything went as planned, he would be awarded the Community Service Merit Badge at the next Den meeting.

Rodney Wimpy was a Wombat.

A Wombat’s uniform was a Wombat’s responsibility. A Wombat had many responsibilities. Rodney knew them all. He rhymed them off to the bus driver. “Be ever ready.” “Be kind.” “Be helpful to others.” “Be considerate of those less fortunate than you.” “Be brave in the face of adversity.” “Be open to new ideas.” “Be polite.” “Be a good influence.” “Eat your vegetables.” On and on they rolled off Rodney’s tongue in a rapid-fire litany. At first, the bus driver had been openly interested and enthusiastic, but as the words continued to wash over him in Rodney’s nasal and crackling voice, vocal acknowledgement was replaced by nods. Ten minutes into the trip, even the head bobs were gone. Five minutes later, the bus driver’s eyes glazed over, a pinched look on his face. Two minutes beyond and he developed a twitch at the corner of his right eye. It kept the beat of Rodney’s words.

Rodney sat at the front of the bus. The exhaustive details of the Wombat Code of Conduct coming out of him had been committed to memory so soundly that the recital was a reflex. As such, much of his brain was free to take in the details of the trip itself, his first solo excursion. His familiar lower middle class neighborhood with its bungalow style homes and manicured lawns gave way to a business district. The buildings became less tall and the shops less quaint as the trip continued. Warehouses followed, operational at first and then broken and forgotten husks. A tunnel next—blackness punctured by dirty orange light—and then back aboveground but not into light. It was as if the sun had decided to stay behind, back at the other end of the tunnel. Rodney glimpsed a welcome sign but it was so full of holes he could only make out one word: “Zone”.

The bus came to a stop with a hiss, a slight shudder and a jerk. Rodney clomped down the steps. He had just put feet to sidewalk when the door snapped closed behind him. The bus peeled away in an unsafe manner. Rodney had never heard a bus squeal its tires before. He could have sworn he caught the sound of passengers cheering but it was difficult to tell over the roar of the large engine. The smell of exhaust was cloying. Rodney coughed and wiped his eyes.

When he was clear of the black smoke, Rodney found himself in startling close proximity to a disheveled man. Rodney could see the dirt that had settled in the creases of his weather worn face. Dried mud covered his long coat like thin armor. His hair was a greasy waterfall. In sharp contrast to the rest of his appearance, the man’s eyes were a clear and crisp blue, like the color of pool water.

“The end is near,” said the man in a sharp, barking tone that made Rodney start. “Be prepared.”

“A Wombat is always prepared,” replied Rodney with a beaming smile. “Here’s a nickel,” he continued, having fished one out of his pants pocket. “Don’t spend it on alcohol or drugs.”  And then he walked away, content in the knowledge that he was a good and true Wombat.

At that moment, five blocks away, Dickie arrived at Bingo Palace. He entered through the back, not the front where ten minutes later Rodney would be standing. Dickie had the key on a ring, which in turn was secured to his pants by a long, thin chain. He didn’t like much about his job. He didn’t like much of anything. But he did like the rattle of that chain. He often toyed with it during moments of idleness, long fingers playing along its length, an absentminded behavior but his mind always aware of the satisfying clinks.

Dickie didn’t know what a Wombat was. Organizations such as that weren’t a part of his life. They, in fact, didn’t exist in the Tax Free Zone. Had he found himself in Rodney’s lower middle class neighborhood, he would have hunched his shoulders, dropped low and scrambled for cover, feeling dangerously exposed among the aged yet tidy homes, quiet streets and clipped lawns. He would have marveled at so much green, so much color variety. His world was a palette of bleakness, of grays and browns and blacks and splashes of deep red– a world of decay, both internal and external. His senses and reflexes had been tuned by sixteen years of poverty and harsh living. He never even spared a thought for what life might be like beyond the tunnel. That was how far removed it was.

Rodney, on the other hand, strolled down the pitted sidewalks of the Tax Free Zone as if he was walking to school. His head swiveled left to right as he took in the details. He was aware this neighborhood was so very different from his own, but that made it exciting. Rodney smiled at everything and everyone. He was oblivious to the dangers that lurked within every shadowed alley, the threat every man and woman posed to his well being. He was oblivious because he had known nothing but safety and peace for the full fourteen years of his life. He had not learned danger. He had not learned about the horrors of the wider world. He smiled and waved at people he passed. He ooh-ed and aah-ed and pointed at things he’d never seen before. And in doing so he unsettled the thieves, pedophiles, cannibals, squirrels and all other manner of nastiness that populated the Tax Free Zone. Happiness was an unknown here and thus was seen as a threat, a sign of the deepest and surely most unstable sort of madness.

Dickie stared at Rodney. He knew the boy couldn’t see him. He had not yet turned on the interior lighting. Dickie was cloaked in shadow. The boy was shaking slightly, smiling broadly. His face was flushed. He wore a round cloth hat too small for his head with a beak too short to be useful. His sweater was brown, the boy’s roundness accentuated by its tight fit. The sleeves of the sweater were spotted with small badges, the details of which Dickie couldn’t discern from a distance. The boy’s pants were black and baggy. Dickie had never seen clothing so void of wrinkles. He had never seen the likes of Rodney. The sight of him had stopped him in his tracks. He studied him for a few minutes.

A sense of a routine disrupted got Dickie moving again.

Dickie flicked on the lights, watched Rodney’s reaction, the boy’s smile impossibly becoming broader. He hopped from foot to foot as Dickie unlocked the door. Rodney began speaking immediately, a flood of information with only a rare breath taken. Dickie caught only bits, but his mind was quick and he managed to piece together the fat boy’s story. He was here to help with the bingo, a form of community service that would win him another badge for his sweater. Dickie nodded a lot and went about his business, flicking on more lights, setting out chairs and straightening tables. Rodney trailed after him, chattering incessantly, leaping forward to help with this and that, either not aware of Dickie’s growing grumpiness and steely glares or simply immune.

The players began to arrive—in singles and pairs and groups, queuing up for their cards, taking their places, the chatter a low hum. Dickie gave Rodney things to do, simple things to keep the boy away and busy. Dickie would be about his business and would feel an itch between his shoulders. Sure enough he’d look and Rodney would be watching him across the distance, waving and smiling. It struck Dickie as odd, this bond this boy had formed with him. It gave him the chills.

And so it was that Dickie met Rodney– two very different boys from two very different worlds, brought together in Bingo Palace. This would be the last time bingo was played within those walls. The burning husk of the city block would be plastered across television stations later that same morning. The death toll wouldn’t be known until the next day, the cause known only to but never talked about by the handful of survivors. 

In the midst of all that would transpire neither Dickie nor Rodney prayed, though both were known to seek guidance from higher powers—Rodney openly and Dickie quietly and ashamedly. They didn’t because it was obvious prayer wasn’t going to work in Bingo Palace that day. Evil held sway, a terrible, ancient evil that spoke the words that got the bingo game started. It was an old lady’s voice. The words came like a shadow cast into a room by a lightning flash: “Caller, shake your balls and let’s play bingo.”

[continued]

When Rodney Met Dickie Part 2
by Chad Boudreau

The words came like a shadow cast into a room by a lightning flash: “Caller, shake your balls and let’s play bingo.”

Rodney was positioned near the front door. Dickie had sent the boy there to get as much distance as possible between he and Rodney’s seemingly nonsensical chatter. Ever positive, Rodney quickly realized he could greet the patrons when they arrived. He squeaked in eager anticipation when the door creaked, but his cheery salutation staggered on his tongue, stumbled across his teeth and pitched out of his mouth like a failing aircraft when he saw the antediluvian matron in her aluminum chariot.

The wheelchair was ordinary– a model found in any hospital—with the exception of two oxygen tanks strapped to its back. Snaking tubes were attached to a breathing apparatus covering the mouth of the wheelchair’s passenger. The frailness of her body brought sadness to Rodney’s eyes. Her thin legs hung limp. Her sneakered feet barely reached the footrests and knocked together as she was rolled into the building. Her hands, which rested on the homemade quilt in which she was swathed, were dotted with liver spots, the flesh pale grey and paper thin. Her fingernails were long and painted a striking blue. Her breathing was labored and wet, each inhalation a slow sucking sound, each exhalation a rattle that made her flesh draped throat jiggle like a turkey’s wattle. 

The chair stopped beside Rodney. The stir of air brought the smell of cinnamon. Underneath that spice was the sharp smell of mildew.

“Caller, shake your balls and let’s play bingo.” Every geriatric neck that could still swivel without causing unbearable pain turned to the sound of that voice. It was a lot stronger than anyone in the room would have expected, with the exception of three elderly ladies seated together immediately in front of the raised stage.

Dickie was on that stage. He finished dumping a drum of colored and numbered balls into the bingo machine. He thumbed on the power and the balls began their dance, driven by combating funnels of air.  The Caller, Daniel, a middle-aged man and former auctioneer, appeared and started fiddling with the microphone. It whined in protest. Somewhere in the crowd, a gaffer cursed and turned down his hearing aid.

 “Boy, take us to our seats.”

Rodney smiled. This elderly lady was obviously very ill and needed his assistance. He was a Wombat. Helping others was not a chore. It was a pleasure.

“Sure, Ma’am,” he said cheerfully. The wheelchair was being pushed by a short and sallow fellow wearing a leather jacket and tight jeans. His hair was black as pitch and combed into an impressive wave that defied gravity. He gnawed like a rat on a toothpick. Rodney led the way.

There was a third person too, a squat old lady in a faded moo-moo. “My, what lovely manners you have,” she said. She had a kind voice. It reminded Rodney of his sweet great-grandmother. She lived in a seniors’ home not far from his school. He visited her every Sunday. He fed her lunch. “You learn those at home or in your Den of Wombats?” asked the woman in the moo-moo.

Rodney flushed with pride. “A little of both, Ma’am,” he replied. “My mamma and daddy raised me right. And I live by the Wombat Code of Conduct. My name is Rodney.”

“Nice to meet you, Rodney,” she said, smiling at him. “I’m Myrtle.” She motioned toward the young man pushing the wheelchair. “That is Switch. And this is Tulip, my dear friend.” She placed a hand on the head of the seated woman. She stroked the wispy white hair tenderly.

Rodney looked over his shoulder at that ancient face and what he saw made his heart ache. The pupils of her eyes were obscured by the milky film of cataracts. Her empty gaze was fixed straight ahead. Rodney concluded she must be blind but then her arm snapped up and a crooked finger pointed toward the front of the room. “There, boy”, Tulip said, her voice as sharp as the blue fingernail stabbing the way.

Rodney stopped and smiled. “I’m sorry but there are no empty chairs there,” he said.

“Over there,” Tulip repeated. Myrtle’s kind smile never wavered. The male attendant sneered.

Rodney nodded and started walking. He didn’t know what else to do. There weren’t any open chairs but surely if everyone was willing to slide over a little bit room could be made for Tulip and Myrtle.

Their approach did not go unnoticed. The three elderly ladies that were not surprised by the strength of Tulip’s voice were watching. Two were whispering into the ear of the third until she waved them away.

Daniel finished his mic check. He positioned himself behind the glass enclosed box in which the bingo balls whirled. He placed his hand, open palm down, above the transparent, cylindrical tube on top of the box. As if that were a cue, the first ball shot up the tube. It continued to spin at the top of the enclosure. The crowd cheered weakly.

Rodney stopped. There were six people around the table. Tulip’s white gaze was fixed on the back of an old man hunched over his four bingo cards. “You have to pee,” she said. “Go to the bathroom and don’t come back.” The chair scraped loudly as the man rose. He left his bingo dabber behind. Those opaque eyes shifted. “You left the stove on. Go home.” Another scrape of a chair; a woman shuffled away. There were tennis balls on the feet of her walker. Once more those seemingly dead orbs slid in their sockets. “Go or you will miss your bus.” A third octogenarian wobbled away.

Rodney’s brain tried to process what he had just witnessed but failed. He chased wisps of memory, but they were like tendrils of a dream that faded upon waking. Lacking comprehension, he smiled instead, happy that a place at the table had been made for Tulip and Myrtle.

The male attendant pushed one of the empty chairs aside and wheeled Tulip into place. He then took the seat to her right. Myrtle eased her bulk into the remaining chair. The three elderly ladies on the opposite side of the table were sitting as upright as their old bones and tired muscles would allow. Their faces were defiant. Myrtle addressed each one in turn, saying their names in a curt tone that chilled Rodney.

“Griselda.”

“Eunice.”

“Margaret.”

The three didn’t reply but the one in the middle, Eunice, nodded her head, a terse, wordless greeting. She was thin and tall, and possessed a face that was regal despite its many wrinkles.

Everyone else in the room was watching Daniel, waiting for him to pluck the first ball from the tube. He was toying with them, a big grin on his face. The more energetic seniors thumped the tabletops with open hands, enjoying Daniel’s tease but eager to get down to business. Dickie was still on stage, off to one side, leaning against the wall, looking bored, fiddling with the chain clipped to his pants.

Tulip leaned forward. The leather seat of her wheelchair creaked. She placed her hands on the table, her fingernails clacking unpleasantly. Her white eyes darted back and forth, probing the three women. “I found you. I have you each in my sight,” she said. “You will come willingly back into the fold or you shall be destroyed.”

“All the fours!” cried Daniel suddenly, causing Rodney to jump. “44 is the first number! N 44!” And with that the final game began.

[continued]

“All the fours!” cried Daniel suddenly, causing Rodney to jump. “44 is the first number! N 44!” And with that the final game began.

Margaret started to whither, but regained her resolve when Eunice placed a hand on her forearm. “You were always one for dramatics, Tulip,” said Eunice. She popped the top off her dabber with a practiced motion and blotted the number 44 on her card.

Margaret and Griselda didn’t have the number. Myrtle looked at the cards that had been left behind but didn’t have it either. There was a card in front of Tulip. She didn’t look at it. Rodney did. There was no 44. Switch was digging underneath one of his fingernails with the pointy end of his half-chewed toothpick. Two more numbers followed quickly on the heels of the first. Margaret had both. No one else at the table marked a card. Daniel paused now to let the geriatric players catch up. 

Tulip took a deep breath. It sounded like dirty dish water struggling down a half-clogged drain. “No dramatics, Eunice. Not this time. Truth is what I bring to you today.”

“You want truths,” barked Margret, “here’s a truth for you. Your days are coming to end, Tulip. Griselda had a vision.”

“Lucky seven,” announced Daniel. “B 7.” Eunice and Margaret marked their card.
 
“Griselda had a stroke,” shot Myrtle.

Eunice shook her head. “Not just her. Morag too. Same day. I was with her when it happened. We were having lunch—sandwiches, egg salad, I think—she went stiff, and started speaking. She said change was needed. That change was coming—“

“Dark times on the horizon,” interrupted Griselda. Her flesh was pale. She was sensitive to sunlight. “The end times are coming. We must be strong.” Her voice was flat, hollow, speaking from memory the words she had uttered when she had her stroke. She had been at aquacise. Damn near drowned.

“We are strong!” Tulip’s voice got shrill when it got loud.

“Bah,” snorted Eunice. “If that were true then this wouldn’t be happening.” She waved her hand over the cards in front of her, Margaret and Griselda.

Myrtle sucked air between her teeth as if she had been kicked in the stomach. “What is the meaning of this? How is this possible?” Tulip demanded, her white eyes spinning in their sockets.

Rodney was a bright boy. He wasn’t the smartest kid in class, but he wasn’t the paste eater either. He had identified eight ways fractions could be useful in the ‘real world’. He knew thirty-six important historical dates. His poetry assignments didn’t rhyme. But he was a simple boy. A naïve boy. When he looked at those five elderly ladies he saw only sweet, feeble grannies, and he wanted to assist them—offer a steady arm, pull out a chair, get something off the top shelf. Even something as simple as a few words of kindness would comfort them in their golden years.  That’s what he believed; but, what he saw was the façade. He wasn’t the only one. These women and their ilk, though aged on the outside, possessed at their core a loathing of everything, hatred hardened by their own bodies’ betrayals and having to watch undeserving youth take what they believed was still rightfully theirs— life and all its pleasures and pains. And so this brood preyed upon the sympathy of others, these youth they scorned, and their enmity increased even as they feasted, and though Rodney was oblivious to this reality, as were so many others, some part of him registered the wrongness of what was occurring that day at Bingo Palace. He started to sweat. He suddenly felt uncomfortable in his own clothes, the Wombat garb that defined him. He tugged at the short beak of his hat. He shifted his considerable weight from foot to foot.

Dickie looked up. He felt that something was not right. He lacked formal education. He had learned alone, and much of what he had learned had been how to survive. As such, much of his brain still worked on a primitive level. He could sense danger like a deer catching the scent of a wolf on the wind. Something was going on at that table in front of the stage. That fat kid was there—Rodney—dancing from foot to foot, plucking at his hat and tugging on his sweater. The old crones around the table were in the midst of an argument— those three against the other two that had the greaser at their beck and call. Dickie started forward, still toying with the lengthy key chain attached to his pants.

“This is not possible!” shrieked Tulip. Daniel faltered, the next ball clutched in his hand.

“But it is happening,” goaded Margaret.

“How?” Myrtle’s voice was very close to pleading.

With a nod from Eunice, Griselda and Margaret bent over and reached into their handbags. They straightened and with thumps placed items on the table. Margaret had a small army of short plastic dolls. Each was naked with peach colored ‘flesh’. The noses were bulbous, the eyes lidless. The only distinguishing characteristic was the hair. Each doll had unique, brightly colored hair that stood on end as if the tension between the women was producing an electrical charge. In front of Griselda now sat a half dozen small beanbag animals.

Myrtle recoiled as if slapped. Tulip jerked upright. She clutched the arms of her wheelchair. Her knuckles cracked. She started to laugh. The sound was that of bones rattling in a rotten coffin.

“You abandoned your Sisters for this? For luck?” Tulip laughed again, shaking her head. “Stupid bitches. Luck is a crutch for the weak, like hope. What I possess is stronger than luck.” And with that, she rose. Her thin legs shook as she did so.

“New caller!” she yelled.

Daniel realized he still had a ball in his hand. He looked at it. “Two little fleas,” he announced. “N 33.”

Margaret, Eunice and Griselda dabbed their card.

“New caller!” Tulip’s white eyes were bugging. Rodney covered his ears. Dickie had used the stairs to get off the stage and was now making his way toward the table.

Daniel plucked another ball from the tube. “O 66. Clickety click.”

Three dabbers left three wet circles on three cards.

“You’re finished,” sneered Margaret.

“NEW CALLER!”

Griselda went stiff. “She’s coming.” It was little more than a whisper.

Myrtle leaned across the table, looking at Griselda. “What was that?”
 
“NEEEEWWW CAAALLLLLER!”

Rodney closed his eyes. A tear squirted out. No one in the room was playing now, no one except the five women at the table directly in front of the stage. Dickie was close, his approach causing Switch to stop picking his fingernails. His chair toppled with a clatter as he rose.

Griselda jerked forward violently. Her hand started to spasm. It rose and fell, rose and fell. The dabber clutched tightly in her fist struck her bingo card so forcefully that it cracked. Blue ink splashed with each successive pump like arterial spray.

“She’s coming!” moaned Griselda. “You might prevail here but your time is coming!”

“Who?” demanded Myrtle, desperate.

“NEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWW CALLLLLLLLLLLLLER!”

Rodney sobbed and wished he was at home, safe and comfortable.

Griselda went rigid. All motion stopped. “Grandma,” she croaked, literally, dead from a hemorrhagic stroke. 

Daniel dropped the next ball.

Dickie stepped in front of Rodney. “What the fuck is the problem here—“.

Switch made his move. His hand shot under his leather jacket. A flick of the wrist, a click and a blade was in his hand. Dickie saw it. Switch slashed at Dickie. Dickie took an instinctual step back. The blade cut only air, but Dickie bumped into Rodney. There would be no where to go this time. Switch drew back his arm, the beginning of a low stab intended for Dickie’s guts. Dickie whipped his chain, striking Switch across the hand. The stab stopped. Dickie yanked the chain to its full length, spinning it as he did so. The key at the end hummed during its flight. A flick of Dickie’s wrist and the key tore a bloody strip across Switch’s face. The greaser howled and spun into the side of Tulip’s wheelchair. He toppled. One hand tried to hold the flesh of his face together. The other grabbed blindly and found the oxygen tanks. The wheelchair slid. Switch slid too, falling. His hand gripped plastic tubing. His weight was too much. The tubes tore away from the oxygen tanks. There was a hiss of escaping gas, and the blade Switch had dropped struck one of the tanks. Metal on metal caused a spark.

There was a great whoosh and a hot slap in the face that knocked Dickie and Rodney off their feet. Dickie fell onto the younger, heavier boy. Dickie watched in absolute disbelief as Tulip was propelled across the table by the blast of the exploding oxygen tanks. She went quilt and all, her legs in the air, blown clear out of her sneakers. The back of her dress was ablaze. As she sailed over the head of a wide-eyed Eunice, Tulip reached down with hands like claws and took hold of the woman’s hair. Eunice’s neck snapped like a twig as Tulip’s flight continued, fire tongues and smoke trailing her like a cape.

Dickie rolled off Rodney, and in doing so exposed the younger boy to the horrible sights that now filled the room. There was a mass of flame stumbling around, knocking over seniors trying to flee or too stunned to move. It was Switch, lit up in the explosion, dying horribly, spreading the fire. Daniel was on his knees, clutching his throat, red flowing between his fingers. A piece of flying metal had sliced his neck, plucking his jugular like a pick on a guitar string.

And Tulip–

Tulip skipped across a table on her belly like a flat stone on water. The oxygen mask was still attached to her face, remnants of the plastic tubing streaming behind her like pigtails.  She hit a stack of chairs at the far side of the room. The clatter could be heard even over the screams of the terrified and the dying.

Dickie’s instincts had saved him from Switch. His instincts were sharp and even now were telling him to run. He knew Bingo Palace better than anyone. He could find a way out. He had to hurry. It was time to go. The flames were spreading. And that crippled, half-burned crone was unbelievably rising. Her hands came first, emerging out of the jumble of chairs, tight fists filled with clumps of Eunice’s gray-white hair. Then the arms, and then the head with its hair melted by the heat of the flame that had licked her back right down to the bone, and as she rose she laughed her awful laugh.

Dickie scrambled to his feet. This was a hundred times worse than the most horrible shit he had ever experienced. He spared a glance to where Rodney lay on the floor. He wasn’t going to take the boy with him. That thought never crossed his mind. Instincts wouldn’t allow such altruistic action. And yet he spared a glance, and what he saw brought him to a sliding halt.

Until a few moments ago, Rodney had known nothing but good. He was a true innocent, and so the onslaught of horror he witnessed and could not escape had not only instantly turned his hair completely white but had also aged him physically by sixty years, a transformation that was particularly hard on his heart, thus provoking a massive heart attack that struck him dead.

Rodney was heavy but Dickie was strong, wiry muscle stretched over a thin frame. He grabbed Rodney under the arms and hauled him through Bingo Palace, eventually dragging him clear of the burning building. He had been ready to abandon Rodney when he thought the boy was alive, but when he saw the boy laying dead Dickie remembered Rodney talking about the mother and father he had, and Dickie thought that man and woman should have their son returned to them. Letting Rodney’s remains burn up in the fire would have been cruel. Dickie was many things, but he wasn’t cruel. Dickie left Rodney in an alley across the street. A crowd started to gather. Fearing discovery, Dickie slinked deeper into the shadows of the alley and was gone.

No fire trucks came. There were no fire stations, firefighters or fire trucks in the Tax Free Zone. It did have media though—radio stations and newspapers that had reporters, though they were as crooked as anything in that sprawling urban nightmare. The fire had turned into an inferno by the time the television folk arrived with their video cameras. The sky opened up soon after. The downpour eventually doused the flames, but not before the whole city block had been consumed. Footage of the fire played on a loop for days.

On the other side of the tunnel where the sun shone and children visited their great-grandmothers in care homes, there was no news of the fire. Most of these people would live the full duration of their lives without sparing a thought for the Tax Free Zone, but one family would think about it for the remainder of their days—the Wimpy family.

When Rodney didn’t come home for lunch, his mother called her neighborhood police station. She explained that her son had never been late, for anything, ever. The constable on the other end of the phone listened and said things meant to calm down over-reacting mothers.  Later that evening, right at the end of his shift, Rodney’s mom stormed into the station and demanded a search be started. She wouldn’t leave until he consented.

It took time and considerable effort—the full details of which were never disclosed to the family—but the constable located the boy. Rodney’s mother wept uncontrollably when she was taken into the quiet, dimly lit room to identify the body. The face looking up at her was her son’s, though much older, an old man, a mirror image of her departed grandfather, but the body was that of a boy, her boy, her Rodney. She tried with her hands to smooth the wrinkles in his Wombat sweater.

Rodney Wimpy was laid to rest two days later. There was a large turnout. The baffling circumstances of his death had generated a lot of gossip in the neighborhood. The curious turned out in droves, crowding the cemetery. They stood elbow to elbow, talking in whispers before and after the service but respectfully silent throughout.

Breaking form, it didn’t rain that day, but the weather wasn’t the only non-traditional element of Rodney’s service. At the family’s request, the chaplain explained in a loud, clear voice how Rodney had been a good and true Wombat, and how leaders of the Den to which Rodney had belonged had decided to posthumously award him the Community Service Merit Badge.

The chaplain concluded the service with a reading of the Wombat Code of Conduct.

[the end]

After much delay, the story of Rodney Wimpy and Dickie continues here on bohemian-zen.com. The first part in this serialized fiction was posted in July 2009. I went on holidays in August but came back to a shitty job situation that consumed a lot of my time. The stress and frustration of that personal situation choked my creativity so Rodney and Dickie’s story was put on hold. At the beginning of October, I decided to leave my job. My last day was October 30. The stress went away and the creativity came back. It took me a couple tries to find the narrative voice again but I did and so I am happy to say “When Rodney Met Dickie” is now complete.

Part 1 can be found at http://www.bohemian-zen.com/?p=672.

Part 2 is at http://www.bohemian-zen.com/?p=879.

Part 3rd and final installment can be found at http://www.bohemian-zen.com/?p=899.