TCOTNK 5 Five
TCOTNK 5 Five
Late afternoon, drizzly, gloomy and muddy, three girls arrived loudly with a flowery caravan pulled by a cabriolet with a broken exhaust.
Five
It rained for three days.
Michelangelo and Charlotte spend their time interrogating each other, making plans for the dragongate, being amazed at how little difference an age gap of almost forty years made, and being silent. They were good at sharing silence. During meals, forest walks, and the morning dive they left a lot of room for not talking.
They had complementary perspectives. Like they filled each other's blind spots about the world. Sharing a deep discontent on the current course of events. Past the anger. Beyond the protesting. Not wanting to battle against. That’s where the silence fitted in. A growing inner space that widened the view. The outside world was a hopeless discussion you only ended by going to do something else.
Not by coincidence, that something was a creative endeavour.
Juice Carton Laminate. Plasticized cardboard. A rejected batch. A not-too-tiny half-a-mile roll. Shiny gold on one side, blue on the other. “King’s blue”, according to Michelangelo. Yes, the shade of his swimming pool, Charlotte suggested. Cut into scales and stapled together with plastic rivets it would be the skin of the dragon. Two towers with a high bridge connecting them. On top a sleek wildling lowering its head to the crowd below. To the right a ship-sized monster-dragon curled up and offering several counters for coins and merch. And further up a small stage in the open beak. The sculpture that kept them busy came to the left. A goddess. Or at least a woman. She had the climbing dragon on a leash. Or a chain. Or she threatened the creature with a spear. Or a bow? They talked and talked. The drawings were marvelous. Tough and sexy. But all of them suggested conflict. The slaying of the dragon. And both agreed these legends were too beautiful to let them be killed or domesticated or conquered. Time for a new storyline. The pile of sketches grew steadily. They were rousing each other.
By Saturday the project had grown into an operation for twenty volunteers. Who weren’t there yet. Friday night, in the pouring rain, two guys from the north came walking in, half asleep. Ionathan and Pedr had spent four months on the road and only wished to sleep. Saturday, launching day for the first phase, nobody came.
Late afternoon, drizzly, gloomy and muddy, three girls arrived loudly with a flowery caravan pulled by a cabriolet with a broken exhaust. Cheerful trailer, moody soaked chicks busy pissing each other off. A whispering Michelangelo baptized them the three bitches. Joe received them, wide eyed and resigned. There was a pot of nettle-soup and sandwiches for about fifty people in the striped tent. They turned up their noses at it. They changed into dry clothes, bickering, calling a cab meanwhile and then left to find something edible in the nearest town.
Joe, Scarlotte and Michelangelo were sat round the fire - by now their new names were simply their names - in between improvised washing lines draped with socks and panties, spooning their steaming semi-medieval soup, when James arrived.
The hybrid bolide came straight out of a dust free showroom. A guy like a tree in an accountant’s suit stepped out of the vehicle. The all white, very expensive car was a hair away from the entrance, blocking it, and allowing its passenger to enter the muddy tent unscathed and squeaky clean.
Joe jumped up and flew into the arms of James. What followed was a ritual dance. A fierce mock fight with soil spoiling the soup and rendering the expensive suit ready for the charity shop. Then they stroked each other's cheek ever so gently and started digging up memories on two decades of building festivals.
James came for the script, “the needle of the record player” as he called it, “it’s nothing, but you can’t do without.” It felt as if the captain had signed on. The dragon team assigned the provisional name Captain James Cook to the very welcome addition.
Suddenly James became conscious of his surroundings.
“Where the fuck is everybody, Joe? Shouldn’t there be at least a hundred smelly volunteers hanging out here exhibiting their utter uselessness?”
As if the extras had waited for this sign from backstage, a racket became audible. Women’s voices. Scarlotte slipped into her new second-hand rubber boots and left the tent, curious. Twilight neared and winds were picking up. At least it was dry.
At the end of the puddled driveway stood the returned taxicab of the three bitches. All doors open. Five women circled the car screaming at each other. Indecipherable and pretty far gone. It was the woman of the first night, whose name Scarlotte didn’t remember, again with her phone drawn. A not-so-happy short-legged female taxi driver who demanded to get paid. But the lead actors in this skirmish were the three girls of the little flower-painted caravan.
Michelangelo, Joe and James came out to witness the spectacle.
“Ha, first night fireworks!”, said James.
“Sshhtt,” said Joe. It was a bit halfway between shit and shush.
The most filthy-mouthed chick had two braided pigtails. She kicked closed the car door and left cursing. The cab woman wouldn’t have that and went for a tackle and a proper scuffle. Phonewoman intervened, waving her mobile. What she said was inaudible but had a calming effect, so it was probably about money.
Pigtails arrived, in a hurry, and totally ignoring the onlookers. She entered the tent with her thunder aura, pulled her clothing off the washing line and dragged two heavy suitcases outside. They hadn’t been closed properly. Just outside, their contents spilled into the mud and were scattered by a well timed gust of wind. Now the child was really angry. Not rescuing the contents but trampling them furiously. To Scarlotte it seemed the girl was producing a rising high pitched beep that filled the surrounding air. A second before pigtails would detonate it stopped because she discovered her ‘friends’ drawing near. Her eyes went slitty. She drew in a breath. Swearing between her teeth she searched the pockets of her linen pants, found the car keys and sprinted towards the cabrio. Without opening the door she jumped in. The remaining two bitches started screaming and running when the car started with a roar and drove away. The tires screeching. Turning its thundering behind and spraying dirt over the merry mobile home and then covering the chasing wrath goddesses in dark splats of barren earth. The waiting cabwoman tried to keep her stoic arms-crossed-stance but took an unflattering last second nosedive to not be scooped. One of the girls, wearing a long braid and a dress, gave up the pursuit and stumbled back to the circus tent, sobbing and very dirty. The other one was throwing stones and sticks at the leaving cabrio as if possessed. Somehow that caused the driving fury to brake massively and open the door on the passenger side. The stoning one, looked back for a split second at the girlfriend she was going to abandon, then ran to the growling roofless vehicle waiting for her. She was just about able to get there before the driver launched the vessel again. They disappeared drifting round the bend.
In the meantime phonewoman had arrived at the spectator stand. A one person tank-division initiating a close-quarters meeting with Joe. She switched off her apparatus demonstratively, smiled like a stressed squirrel at the closing melody before stuffing it heavy-handed into his breast pocket.
“Now you do the jerking yourself, Joe-King, no-king! You want it your way? Well, here you go, have it your way. It is dead. It has died. And it will not be me trying to revive your flaccid little circus thingy. I am out. Did you hear? Are you listening?’
Scarlotte wasn’t sure Joe was still present in the waxy statue vaguely smiling. Phonewoman sniffed. Pinched and rubbed her nose. Unsure how to finish the job.
“Well, biute!”, she said to the gray sky, “That’s sorted then! No rules, no festival!”
She strode away in the direction of the taxicab, swaying her ass emphatically. The cabby, clearly relieved, jumped in, turned and met her fare halfway. Then drove off groaning, carrying the former festival secretary out of sight.
“Phew,” said James Cook, “nettle-soup, anyone?”
Joe hugged the new girl. As if nothing unusual had happened and she wasn’t covered head to toe in mud and shaking with anger and sadness. Scarlotte collected the scattered garments - with the two gentlemen helping. The newcomer girl changed again, ate three bowls of soup and a garrison of bread. It turned out her name was Rose. The left-behind caravan was hers. She knew the other two from the internet. They had made a deal on transport. Rose paid for fuel and helped get the two brats closer to their summer hotspot.
“Won’t they come back for their luggage?” James asked. Rose shook her head, sighed, started loosening her thick braid and slowly approached the pile of dirty clothes.
“These are my suitcases. They didn’t fit in the caravan. The flowerpod was full already. This is my work, you know, my capital. I just love making clothes, there were several good dresses still in the trunk of the car, and they stole my speaker too” she said bitterly and held her head to the floor to comb the strands with her fingers.
“Look,” she said to Scarlotte and swung her hair back, “I have the same hair as you, and the same figure. This would fit you, don’t you think?”