Parallel To Water

And cut, said Abel, rising from the floor where he had been sitting Yoga-style pretending to peruse the Constitution of the United States. I think that will do nicely, don't you Ward.  Ward removed the Reagan Halloween mask, provided by Abel from the same sock drawer that held the sickle and seemed to consider at great length before simply saying, sure, I think so.  Abel, not so practiced at contortion, limped over to a small table set off in a nook across from the kitchen, and from a dish in the shape of a milky white pair of cupped hands removed a half burned stick of something.  This he put in his mouth and with a blue plastic lighter sitting next to the glass hands set the tip of it on fire.  He inhaled deeply.  My lawyer called last night to tell me he got my court date postponed.  Ward was staring out the front windows at a construction dumpster across the street and wondering about the treasures it might contain. A day not in court is a day worth celebrating, he said.  Exhaled puffs of smoke punctuated Abel's response, you speak the truth Mr. Ambler. Furthermore, I think you are the holder of many great secrets and a fellow seeker of hidden mysteries. Ward wondered if Abel was reading his mind, knew that he desired to know the contents of that dumpster. Abel exclaimed, oh, oh, and laid down on the floor, covering himself with the broken up pieces of sheetrock.  Ward, push the red button, I want to get a shot of this.  The camera ran for five minutes, during which Abel was inert, except for occasional outbursts of experimental dialogue between himself and the state. I have broken down your wall yet still I lay buried beneath your rubble. That's right. Why dost thou doest me this?  Because its easy. I mean you no harm.  What you mean is of little interest to me.  I seek only justice.  Good luck with that, Mr. Gardner.

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Jimmy let his passengers off at the dock around noon and after hosing everything down and storing his gear below deck went out to the Offshoot Marina parking lot and hooked up his Chevy Silverado to the small trailer carrying his 14 foot Smoker Craft jon boat, which he then backed down the ramp and into the water at the mouth of the Carman's River. After parking the trailer he headed north, running the 40 hp Evinrude at just above idle.  Osprey circled overhead.  One wrestled with a small tree limb in its beak, apparently off to maintain one of the giant, crudely constructed nests which lined the river. Some of these sat atop ancient dead trees and others on human constructed platforms erected to assist in repopulation after Osprey, drunk on DDT, were decimated in the sixties. There was this moment, after their intent yet casual search for fish below, after being parallel to water, then 45 degrees, then wings folded tight to a body pointed straight down, getting ready to fall like a cinder block from a skyscraper, where they don't fall but defy gravity and are a still shot in an otherwise moving picture, a moment that may have only existed in Jimmy's mind, for Jimmy knew that things which cannot be, cannot be, but it was that moment, where a bird without wings just hung in the sky for the merest fraction of a second, that shook his etch a sketch clean, erased all squiggly lined bullshit that was his mother losing her mind, and dumb assed frat boys, and even that dick bump just now, fishing from his kayak, who ignored him, just shook his head dismissively when all he had asked was are you seeing any bait.