I started slowly, but it was hard to keep a firm grip on the square
bars caked with rust and flaking paint. I’d never make it unless I built
up a rhythm and let my weight swing me from one to the other. Once I
got going, the momentum made it seem easy and I felt propelled by an
immense exhilaration as I approached the safety of the other side. I gave
what must have sounded like a Tarzan yawp of triumph and began to climb
down. That’s when I heard Buster’s absurdly military command.
“Halt! You ain’t ‘nitiated yet, pal. Yuh gotta jump down, inta dat
pile o coal.” The flunkeys laughed and nodded their heads. I hung there,
my arms shivering with exertion, my fingers and palms bruised raw, my
knees weak, and tried to gauge how much force it would take to launch
myself out far enough to land in the rice coal that looked like a hill of black
sand. But they had built a fire out of discarded newspaper, old brown bags,
and small sticks about half way up. I’d have to land well above that, or get
burned. The coal pile stood under the bridge between the two columns.
There was no way I could reach the other side of the fire from where I
was dangling from the column’s iron gridwork. I climbed back up, pulled
myself onto the bridge, and crossed the tracks to the other side. I heard
shouts from below. They hadn’t counted on this, but they never said I had
to jump from where I was and I slipped through the railing, swung a few
times and let go, angling back toward the dune that glittered with sharp
edged particles in a shaft of sun as I dropped like a stone, praying that the
coal would cushion my fall enough to keep me from breaking anything.
I sank up to my knees and waded awkwardly down to where Buster and
the others were crouched around the dying flames. Buster reached behind
him and tugged a curved silver flask from his back pocket. “Yuh done
good!” he said, loosening the cap that dangled from a short chain as he
took a long pull then handed it over. The whisky burned all the way down
and fumes got up my nose. I thought I’d choke and look stupid, but when
the fire hit my stomach it spread out and softened and I managed to grin
and hand back the flask. Buster capped it and put it back in his pocket.
Once again I thought the ritual was over and I waited for some
indication that I was now a Blue Daemon, but it never came. Instead,
Buster walked through the crisp shadow of the bridge and out to a flat
grassy space in the sun. The gang broke roughly in half and formed into
two long lines that stretched from where I stood to the open ground where
Buster was grinning at me.
Mayanaam
vequinox
Manolis 