double a, part 1

when i was young i was full of fire wild women were my desire to buy them flowers and perfume night after night i played with doom but i was not always so wild before that i was god's child and i stood in the shadow of the steeple in the fleeting shadow of the steeple reverend mason, the mildest of men told me when i was only ten that god had marked me for his own and my soul would never turn to stone the light that falls through schoolhouse walls is the light through which eternity crawls i had no thought of other fate what could i but sit and wait? my mother was a woman good and always did the best she could her eyeballs had a hunted look through the smoke of all the meals she cooked my father wore a hat of gray and never had very much to say his posture was a little slack he went to work and always came back but madness bubbled in my brain and violence whistled through my veins through walls and windows closed so tight i heard the call of laughing night the night - a dark and throbbing ocean but floating in perpetual motion upon is surface - old town square the playground of the brave and fair where swaggering dudes and slinky dames with reputations and magic names a hundred stories in each face defied the law-abiding human race the night on which my life began and i decided to be a man out the window and down the tree nothing on earth was stopping me there on the corner, the very first was harry jensen, the worst of the worst and johnny black, the coolest of the cool i walked right into them like a fool i halted my progress none too soon beneath the full and smiling moon johnny turned, as smooth as ice his voice was soft as clicking dice "kid, you're out a little late" into his eyes i looked quite straight "i'm on my way to do a job" harry horselaughed - the stupid slob the laugh seared through me like a knife he was my enemy for life we might pull jobs together, yet deep down i never would forget but johnny's gaze was cool and gray i stood and did not look away "that's very interesting", he said "we were going home to bed" "and i still am" said harry rudely but johnny turned on him quite moodily "you never know what we might find tell us, kid, what's on your mind" these guys didn't look so tough in innocence i tried a bluff "why should i let you in on this? this job's a snap - it just can't miss." "have it your way", johnny said as harry yawned and scratched his head "and yet i find it kind of hard you couldn't use a man on guard" "why don't you let us come along? if it's as easy as a song no need to split the take with us i'm just a little curious." harry laughed again - the jerk one day i'd make of him short work "go on." he said, it's not my game i've got a date with a swell dame," "dame. dame," - at just the word my heart hammered and my eyeballs blurred then swift as lightning in the rain a plan jumped full into my brain