Chapter Text
Three men walked through the backwoods of Kentucky. Two brothers in front, locals, utterly incomprehensible to yanks and both white as snow were babbling on about a new still. The man following was a shadow and a big one at that. His whole body was pitchy except for his yellow eyes and a hooked shaped scar that ran from the tip of his nose down his right cheek. “This still’s pretty far from the road” the shadow said “don’t know ‘bout y’all but I don’t wanna hall the booze a quarter mile every week”
The brothers came to a halt and looked at each other and started whispering. He slid his hands into his pockets “Fellas.” The brothers looked back at him. One on the left spoke up “Edison we know you've been” that's all he could get out before Edison drew a small knife from his pocket. He planted the blade in the neck of the brother on his right and in the same motion football tackled the other. The man tried to grab at Edison’s face but it was no use, Edison landed a punch on his throat. He gasped for air and none came. Edison’s hands slowly tightened around the man's neck. After a lifetime worth of struggling and constricting he let go. The woods were uncharacteristically quiet except for the gurgling of the knifed brother “I didn’t like the name Edison anyways.” He pulled the cigarettes from the dying man’s jacket “I hear St. Louis is nice.”
Levi was sat on the train back to East St. Louis. The only thing grayer than his fur was his mood. Well that and the hat on the lap of the man three seats ahead, Levi had noticed it when he got on. He’s been noticing a lot of things since he got back to the states. His head almost exploded when he landed in New York. Yeah, exploding heads.
It took the darkness of a tunnel to bring him back to consciousness. In that darkness he heard everything; the woman one row behind shifted in her seat, the man with the hat coughed, the man in the last seat left side dropped something and the man in front of him had a watch that was a quarter second slow. Soon the train would reach St. Louis and he would be home. Hopefully able to rest. Hopefully it would be quiet.
John watched the striking workers. Holding signs, singing, screaming slogans and thinking it could happen here. He knew that it wouldn’t happen here, not with these people. If he learned anything in that frozen hell it was that Americans were no longer capable of revolution. That would be proved in a few minutes when the strike breakers came, he was sure of it. If he—a man in total support of the bolos—could so easily pull the trigger against the revolution and steal their gloves, boots, knives, et cetera et cetera. Then an army of opposition could only be worse. He couldn’t stand this city anymore. The labors were only getting more and more agitated with every passing week. He had to go to a place the struggle had died or was dying.
Cars flew past him and groups of men burst out carrying various blunt objects. Strike breakers right on que. The fight was barely started when the cops came to reinforce the breakers. Blood, teeth, spit all fall onto the street. Hands, feet, faces collide, he can’t keep looking. He knows that if told to do so, he too would slam a table leg into a poor man's head.
Proposition had been active for two years and Davey had only drunk his way across half the country. Now three deep, half way through rant, riding shotgun in a smuggling truck westbound for St. Louis. Windows open of course. “That’s what makes America the greatest country on God's green earth, and the red and those puritanical bitiches in the temperance union won’t take that way from us.” He raises the bottle to his lips and sticks his head out the window. There he sees a pair of headlights coming up behind, then he hears a crack and something wiz by his head.
Quickly getting back in the car he looks to the driver “hold that thought and drive straight.” He grabs the MP 18 from the floorboard and sits on the window. Being more than half soaked didn’t affect his aim much. He’d been gassed and shelled so he wouldn’t allow some wanna be prairie pirates shake him. The position was awkward and one bump would mean falling out so he had to make it quick. When the car came around to his side he opened fire. Thirty rounds fly through the windshield, Davey watches the car hit the ditch and stop. Satisfied with his shooting he returns to his original position in the passenger seat. Through heavy breaths he says “they ‘ought to make a picture about me. You think this gets me the job?”