YAY! NEW Jester Knives chapter. I'm not sure how I feel about the direction this chapter takes things but, hey, it's finished.
Previous chapters here if you need to recap:
Chapter 1: My Own Fault
Chapter 2: Fight at the Moondrop
Chapter 3: Tea and what was that all about
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I lay on the couch and replayed the previous evenings events. My head hurt and between sips of tea I rested the warm mug on my forehead. It helped a little. I kept coming back to lying on my back in the grass of someone's backyard. It was cool and quiet and I felt safe and strangely at peace. It was nice.
My first thoughts were of Sabrina waiting for me at the Moondrop, which led to thinking about Sabrina in general. I was working with Wu Han at the smithy when we first met. She came in to see if we could make a sheath for The Sword. There are no qualifications to make when I say that she is a beautiful woman. She is about two inches taller than me, around 5'9” with sharp, high but surprisingly wide cheekbones. Her hair is black like a winter night. There is a strange mistiness so that when you look at it directly your eyes slip off. Yet light reflects off of it like stars,small distinct points of brightness, and your eyes are drawn back, trying to focus on it. But what I noticed most those five years ago were her eyes. Slightly almond shaped and colored. It's hard to explain the intenseness of eyes so warm and comforting, like hot chocolate and yet so biting. Later I would find the green and yellow flecks in them that could render me speechless.
That first day I just stared at her for at least a full minute before I tried my flirting routine. She just looked at me with that judgmental look of hers. She was judging but not condemning. It's a look that most people misinterpret and take offense to, I know I did on that day.
After that I continued to see her around. For about three months I would try to get her in bed but she wasn't having it. Eventually, I gave up and just started talking to her. Turns out we had much in common and many differences. We both lost a parent young, her mother at 8, my father at 10. We both became separated from the other parent shortly after that, her father at 13, my mother at 12. We both became reacquainted with that parent later in life, her father at 20, my mother at 18. But while my mother continued to be a part of my life Sabrina no longer knew where her father was.
Because of our early losses we both had a quick and rough upbringing However, while I grew up on the streets I had a rather extensive and supportive network. Sabrina was truly on her own. This difference had a lot to do with some of our more extreme differences. Shortly after the first bar fight we had ever been in together we compared notes and she revealed that the entire time she had to resist drawing The Sword and resist crippling and killing blows. I revealed that I had to resist running. I filed that away and it wasn't until I read a bootleg copy of Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage by Walter Cannon that I understood that her inclination was to turn to the fight side of the fight or flight dichotomy while I leaned toward the flight side. It wasn't until a year or so later while reading another bootleg book (don't remember which one) that I connected it to our upbringing. I had safe havens to which I could escape, she did not. And so, I was outwardly gregarious while she was reserved and yet my relationships were rarely very intense, hers were for life and to the death.
It turns out another thing we had in common was fighting. We were both very good at it. Having started at young ages and having been blessed with exceptional teachers we had become deadly capable. And while I relished a good bar fight now and then (provided no one was permanently maimed) neither of us truly enjoyed fighting. Unless you're a psychopath killing or maiming was never easy, but sometimes it was you or the other guy. Unfortunately, for both of us, as much as we tried, sometimes it was impossible to avoid those situations.
Shortly after that first bar fight we thought it would be a good idea to start our own crew, we had dreams of becoming the mid-Atlantic triad. At first it went well, with my connections and our combined badassedness we were well on our way. But then it fell apart. And not because of the usual reasons: money, love or pride. It was more idealistic. The underdog phenomenon. I always root for the underdog because of the drama, Sabrina for the righteousness. We got into a situation where my sense of drama did not equal her sense of doing right. Sounds silly now but at the time this situation became polarized in our minds. So much so that we drew on each other. Her, The Sword, me, my knives. We fought to kill. It lasted for about an hour before the rest of our crew arrived to break it up. We said some truly evil things to each other.
For about three months after we continued to try to kill each other. Then six months later, during the tail end of a hurricane, she was attacked by Shaymous McGougles entire crew. Initially, after seeing who they were fighting I continued walking past the alley. But then I took ten steps and fell to my knees. As the downpour intensified I asked forgiveness of all that is holy. Then I sprinted into the alley, catapulted myself off a trash dumpster and into the center of the ring surrounding her.
“I think I love you,” I said to Sabrina.
“I know,” she replied, “and we need to talk about that.” Blood dripped from The Sword as I looked in her eyes. I could tell from her stance she was unsure what to do, ready for an attack from Shaymous McGougles' crew behind her but concentrated on me. I turned my back to her and drew my knives.
We killed more than we wanted to that night but fewer than we probably should have. In the days nursing ourselves back to health we discussed what was admitted and said. After three days of rest and Wu Han's ministrations we were able to walk around, which resulted in us discussing the meaning of love while pulling books off my shelves and engaging in a quote-off. I won the quote-off but lost the argument. She did not love me according to my definition. She did not have a definition. And I'm not sure that my definition was valid. We left it at that.
But I do know this, I would willingly die for some women and some men, but there are very few I would kill for. My mother, my sisters, Wu Han, and Sabrina.
Sabrina is the only one for whom I would have no questions.
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Next Chapter is half finished, so next Saturday, Nov. 17
The Inconsequential Stuff I thought about while lying on my back in the grass, Part II: The History of the Fall of the United States of America
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