The Sun rose above the Tomic,
sending sparkles across the frost of the mud flats. Luis sucked a leaf
joint and stamped his feet in the cold, hearing several small somethings
scurrying away. He considered what the creatures might be, but the thought
made him queasy, or rather queasier; so he took a pull from the flask of
cure-all: red hootch distilled in the tunnels under Reston infused with
gawd knew what-all by that crazy woman with all the chickens. He stood
on a piece of white marble that had once been part of the steps of the
Jefferson Memorial amid purple and green mist from the water treatment
facility in Coscha.
Looking to his right,
he saw Jose coming, paddling the plastic canoe that was his pride and joy.
The canoe scraped in the familiar place, right in front of Luis' feet,
and he placed hands on the gunwales, a foot on the floor, and shoved off
with the other foot in a routine grown graceful and then dull with repetition.
He produced a fresh joint and handed it to Jose in the back of the canoe,
twisting his hips on the seat without upsetting the balance of the canoe,
spun back again and began to paddle.
Jose eyeballed the
joint. Smelled it. Then he produced flint, striker, and a piece of
cotton cord with one end burned, and sliding through a brass tube. He held
the cord against the flint with his thumb in his left hand, and swung the
striker with his right three times before a spark fell on the charred end
of the cord. Taking the joint in his right hand, he blew on the little
ember till it filled the end of the cord, and then he lit the joint with
it.
Putting away his
tinderbox, Jose laid back on the back of the canoe and luxuriated in the
joint, watching the sun rise through his cracked sunglasses. Luis
paddled the canoe , generally keeping the shore on the left, until they
were in the cannal that led to the Library of Progress, where they both
worked.
Here they converged
with other young men, and a few women, mainly in various skiffs, row boats,
pirate rafts, but also hurrying along the tow path in their bare feet.