GOING

"Are you going?", she asks.

"Yea I'm going. When I'm done!"

Am I going? Damn straight! A thousand bucks for a damn owl? Shoot! That's a month's pay, for a bird! Damn rich people.

Ok. Got the fuel filter back on. Should crank now. Yea! Start her right up. Look at the gas I spilled though. Can't get more 'til next week, and the rationing reduced. Shoot! I remember grandpa telling me about how you could get gas whenever you wanted. Like turning on a faucet. Just had to pay for it. No ration cards. No long ass lines. Well, I'm going up to his old place to get that owl and I'll get me a sly gallon from Tucker for a hundred. That fatass won't need it.

"You got her running.", she says.

"'Course I got her running Betsy. I told you, just had to clean the fuel filter."

"Alright Clyde. Well don't waste gas idling, go on! Kids is wanting dinner."

"I'm going woman, damn."

"And watch out for them Pullet boys, you know they going to be around."

"Yea yea... Kiss the kids for me. Bye!"

Driving out of town the rear brakes start squealing again. Damn. One more damn thing. Least she's running. Doreen's car blew a gasket and Demarcus tried replacing it with an old towel. Whoosh! Man those flames wouldn't go out. Won't be enough from basic to replace all that. Damn shame. Least I got my job, shitty as it is.

Nearing grandpa's old place. Some of the last of the old woods since the blight started. Whole forest down around Pikesville gone. Just like that. But up here the pines have been resistant, and if there's any critters around that's where they'll be. And a barn owl too. My barn owl. My thousand bucks. And my crossbow and bowie knife for those Pullet boys if they cause me grief. Took half of Betsy's basic to get that crossbow. I will use it if I have to.

Here at grandpa's old place. Don't look so bad in the slanting light of sunset. Still burnt up from when those squatting assholes were cooking up their black and caught the place on fire. Glad they died in it. I remember that last little explosion. Blam! Whoosh! Some of it got on that firewoman, what's her name, Wilhelmina, Mina, something like that. She's fine. Garcia's ex-second-wife I think. Good people. Helped me and Betsy fix our roof.

Ok. Got my crossbow and knife and the big net me and Betsy and the kids made from a bunch of old clothes. Cut into thin strips and tied up tight. Broken toys for weights at the corners. Nice. Better than paying thirty for that decorative fishnet thing. Thirty I don't have.

Now. Pullet boys or not, where you at owl? I remember you were here not long ago. Back when grandpa was alive and telling his stories. I remember he told me ---

"Stop right there!", a little voice says.

"What?". I turn and look and it's a girl, stepping out of shadow. A little girl maybe no more than twelve or so. Tiny thing holding a bigass --- "Shotgun! Where in hell you get a shotgun?"

"Just stay right there and I won't have to use it."

"Where in hell you get a shotgun?"

"Don't matter where. It's loaded and pointing right at your balls so don't twitch. What you doing here?"

"I've never seen a shotgun. Not in person. In a flick on the feed of course. Not in person.Does it work?"

"You can go ask them two boys that was here. One of them might lose a leg."

"The Pullet boys? They was here already?"

"Don't know don't care. Why you here? Looking for the owl?"

"Yea. That why you here?"

"Sort of."

"You seen it?"

"Yea. And you're not going to get it."

"What? You going for it? With that? They want that bird alive."

"I know what they want it for. It's why I'm here. To keep people like you from getting it."

"What?"

"You heard me. Now get back in that truck of yours and be gone."

"Wait a minute. We could split the money. Yea? Half and half. Be easier to catch it with two. What you say?"

"I say get back in your truck and be gone."

"Now - now hold on! This was my grandpa's place. That bird is here on my grandpa's place in that old shed there. So I got rights."

"You can't have it.", as she takes a step closer.

Why the nerve of this little girl. Big gun. "You can't have it neither. I got a right to it you don't."

"I don't want it and noone's going to have it. It belongs here left in peace."

What? "What? What you mean?"

"They want this owl so they can take it away. Up into space, to the Oaktree Station or Lunacity or wherever. I know they want to breed more out there, and meanwhile they're taking from here and leaving shit behind."

"What the hell...?"

"Look around you idiot! This planet is sick and full of sicker people getting sicker still. This my daddy's shotgun. He died last week from the flux and now ---"

"You got the flux! Holy shit! Stay away! Stay right there!"

"You see! You see now? They got us down in fear and filth but they could fix it. Oh yea they could fix, but they run, they take it all to space, they keep it themselves and leave us nothing, living in luxury up there and us dying. My daddy said so and my daddy said we got to keep what we can. So this owl stays!"

She's shaking. Holding that shotgun on me. But damn I need that thousand. That thousand could fix my Bert's little lungs. Could fix the heat in my house. Could fix things damnit! She's crying. Damn she looks like my little Darcy. Damnit don't cry.

"Maybe, maybe there's more than one owl here, ok? We can work some kind of deal. We ---"

"No! There's only one. I checked. Now get in your truck and go."

She's still shaking. Maybe if I rush her? Grab the shotgun and ---"

Blam!

I never heard such noise. She shot a blast into the air right by me. Yea that shotgun works.

"Go!", she screams.

And just then, might've been frightened by the noise, the barn owl comes out of the shed and lifts into the air. The last bit of daylight showing up its pale wings beating. It's beautiful! Like something I remember when I was a kid. Or Betsy in her wedding dress, when she took my breath away.

And it goes. Off into the woods. Lost in the pines.

"Are you going?", she asks.

" Yea, I'm going."

We'll figure something out.