X — March the seventeenth
X
March the seventeenth. Thinking about the body guard: got shot. It was ten years ago in a sunny place in the desert; working as the muscle for a bike magazine. He used to come into the office and talk bikes with the staff. Real nice guy; size of a truck. Always wore a denim cut off and a beard. Long red beard. No tattoos. He reckoned tattoos just wouldn’t suit him. There’d never been anyone in his family he could recollect with tattoos. He got shot with a small caliber gun that made just a slight popping sound. You would hardly register it. Rodman sat back against the wall and began to die. Blood trickled out between his fingers, down his left side, started to pool around his left hand as he sat looking across the street at a blue motorcycle: a hard-tail with ape-hangers. Thinking about Dad. Where was mum? Who shot me? Same guy who played Joanie’s pocket? Joanie in her blue suede shorts and red-checked shirt; tied up above her bare midriff. Pushed her back on the green baize; sunlight picking up the dusty air. Never knew if it was a set up or just happened that way. Six men. Five of them watching. Waiting for a turn. Six pockets and Joanie and the green baize. Down the road an old man dusts his path. Down the road some more, a man looks across to the rails and sees the train coming down out the pass. Driver on the train talks to his mate, and points across to the edge of the small town they start through. Joanie turns her head and watches the train through the window. Bites her bottom lip to keep from shrieking. The man pushes into her again. The keys to a blue chopper drop from his hand on to the floor. Rodman died.
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