Dissimulants

Published July 10, 2009

Busted

Parks was out of the house, on the street, on his own; it felt good. Since they’d started the Reveal, he’d been around Geli and Finn most of the time. With few exceptions, the three were seldom alone. They were almost always going out together, or with each other in their flat. To Parks, it seemed that Finn was teaching them at all times; and usually, he didn’t mind it much. It was more like hanging out with friends than going to school. But at times, it could be just as frustrating as school. Geli already knew many of the things that were just lost on Parks—making him feel like the big loser when he couldn’t do it and she could. Nothing tweaked Finn though; he just kept them at it until Parks got it—or faked it well enough for Finn to think he did. But today, when Finn said he had to go out and Geli said she wanted to nap, Parks grabbed his board and hauled ass out—he desperately needed a skate session.

The DMV parking lot was definitely out. Even with the office closed, Parks wasn’t willing to risk it. The last session at the DMV lot was the night the black and white donut shop rolled in and chased all the skateboarders into the Haight; not long after that, the Crown Vic found him and tried to run him down. They had to have been watching him. They must’ve known the DMV was one of his spots. For today’s session, Parks needed somewhere no one had ever seen him before. He coasted down the asphalt toward Panhandle Park, blowing stop signs and switching back and forth through the neighborhood streets just off Haight. He avoided Haight Street itself, touching the heavily populated street only once—to cross it at Clayton. There were always too many Crown Vics in the Haight—cabs and cops. The cop-Vics were still a problem, but they weren’t his main concern.

The Panhandle was an eight block long by one block wide strip of park, split in two by the nasty traffic on Masonic Street. Hanging in the Panhandle, were mostly locals; the park’s never much for tourists except on their way to the Haight, or Golden Gate Park. The east side of Panhandle had people reading in the grass, tossing balls to dogs, or sharing a picnic—normal park stuff. The west was public bathrooms, basketball courts, dopers, homeless gangs, and skaters—mostly young ones. He didn’t mind a few grommits—everyone had to start skating somewhere—but Parks decided against stopping. He didn’t want to be out in the open. He wanted somewhere set back from the street—preferably behind a fence. If the cops or anyone else showed up, a fence buys time for an exit. Parks skated past the Panhandle and headed toward Franklin Pierce Middle School.

Schools were a great skate: lots of rails, steps, ramps, and walls—even water fountains for when you got thirsty. The only problem was that schools weren’t supposed to be for fun—they’re schools. It was possible to grab maybe an hour session before someone in the neighborhood called the cops to chase everyone out.

He cleared the fence, tossing his board into a bush before dropping himself onto the cement. For guys like Parks, fences were protection more than deterrents. If the cops did roll-up on the street, everyone could fade away before the bacon-in-blue got past the gate to write tickets. There were about twelve locals there already; one was looking through a video camera mounted on a tripod. He had the camera lens trained on a handrail. The guy grinding the rail for the camera was late twenties—and pretty damned good. It wasn’t a particularly tricky rail, but he had some style. San Francisco had a lot of old school guys like that. He may have been pro, but Parks didn’t recognize him.

Not wanting his mug showing up on some web video, Parks stayed clear of the lens. The ten not posing for the camera, worked a little nine-set coming down from the school entrance. It was the mirror staircase to the set and rail with the camera. Parks dropped his board and rolled to the back of the rotation, offering his fist to each of the others as he passed. He recognized two of them, but gave them all a fist bump of respect. This was their place; Parks always gave props to the locals at a new spot. The session lasted twenty minutes.

When the cops showed up Parks would’ve done better to take them head-on. The two of them weren’t in much shape and he had a chance if he took them for a run. Instead, like everyone else, he headed for the back of the school and left the cops to get over the fence. Parks didn’t know the exit, but he figured the locals had something in mind—they seemed to know where they were going.

“Shit,” the guy with the camera yelled.

They’d made it into the faculty parking lot. The gate to the closed school was swinging fully open. Standing alongside their black and white cruisers were four of the biggest, badass cops Parks had seen since leaving Virginia. They were the kind of cops that didn’t look comfortable unless they had their clubs out. These four looked comfortable. No one moved.

“Gentlemen, you are trespassing,” said one of the cops. Using his club to indicate, he said, “If you will all kindly step over there and line up along the fence, my fellow officers and I will take care of processing your city paperwork.”

Tickets sucked, but most cops didn’t bother with them. They’d usually harass a little, and then chase everyone off. These cops had planned it differently. The two out front were supposed to chase everyone into the trap—they probably didn’t even try to get through the fence. This was a ticket trap. They weren’t common, but they happened.

Parks fell in line behind the older guy. He felt sorry for him; cops always gave the older skaters more crap. He just kept quiet; nobody spoke. Silence is normally the best way to deal with the police. The cops already knew exactly what everyone in the line was thinking. One by one, the cops pulled a skateboarder to the side, checked their I.D., and wrote out a ticket.

“I don’t have I.D.,” Parks said when it was his turn. “I don’t drive—bad for the environment.”

“Good for you, Mr. Solid Citizen. It might be a good idea though for you to get a California I.D, especially if you’re planning to continue trespassing and destroying public property.”

“Thanks. But you know what? I’ve already applied at the DMV; I just forgot.” Parks just wanted to get the ticket and get moving. He didn’t want to take any chances by drawing attention by being a smart-ass, even if it wasn’t going on his record.

“What about school I.D.?”

“Sorry, left it at home.”

The cop took a notebook and pen out of his shirt pocket. “Okay, what’s your name?”

“Greg Riley.”

“Address?”

“1351 Fell Street, S-F-C-A 94117.”

“Alright Mr. Riley, you have a seat while I make a quick call.” The cop waited until Parks sat down where he’d indicated. Another cop moved over to keep an eye on Parks, while the first one walked over to his black and white. He didn’t use a radio in the cruiser. Instead, he turned his back toward Parks and spoke into the microphone that hung from his shirt. Whatever the radio exchange had been, the cop didn’t give anything away. He walked up to Parks, motioned him to stand up and reached for his arm. He turned Parks’ arm to expose the underside of his wrist and the small identifiable scar.

“Mr. Riley—you’re under arrest.”

Continued »

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Chapter Three | The Reveal

Published July 3, 2009

Beach House

Parks stared in amazement.

It was larger, but in some ways the strange little beach house resembled a tool shed: four flat walls, a simple slant roof, no rain gutters—a very simple shape and design. There were also ways in which it didn’t resemble a tool shed. Those were most interesting.

Lined side-by-side, vertical wood slats comprised the front wall. All were in various colors, shades, and hues. He tried to fix a stare directly on the building façade, but the discord of color produced an optical illusion that resulted in making Parks dizzy. It appeared as though the slats of the wall were moving; shifting in and out, they rose and fell in mathematical rhythm. They were multicolor waves, hypnotically undulating in a vertical ocean. It was making Parks sick. To avoid passing out as he tried to look the building over, Parks took sideways glances, and then only for seconds at a time.

Off-center to the left, squeezed in among several tiny windows, a squat, and very narrow door faced the street. Dark purple material covered all the windows, blocking any chance of a peek at the interior from the outside. From the street, the door looked to be about four feet tall and no more than one foot wide. Actually, the house, the windows, the doors could’ve been any size; the strange perspective from the street made it hard to judge accurately.

Several bizarre, elongated symbols—seemingly painted at random—were in several places along the slats. The straight and curvy lines of the symbols combined and intersected with each other; many symbols included dots at various places within and around these lines. The colors, condition and style of each symbol differed from the others, which made it seem likely that numerous people had added them to the wall over time. They weren’t tags, but something about them was similar to graffiti. It was more to do with arrangement, rather than design and shape. The symbols, like a similarity in the characters of a foreign language, had a sense of a connection between them. He could tell they gave a message, or were at least part of a message. There was an odd familiarity to them; he felt he should know what they mean. Despite this gut-instinct, the message meant nothing to him.

Covered in well-worn, dry, shake shingles, the roof of the tiny place looked at risk for the first hint of a spark to burst it into flame. A huge weather vane, the tarnished green-copper figure of an enormous sea bird—a heron—stuck several feet up from the roof. The heron bucked wildly in the wind, lifting several of the roof’s shingles with each strong gust. Heron, shingles, and house managed to stay attached to one another, despite the attempts of the ocean gale to tear them apart.

All the fantastic colors and adornments made the house an amazing sight. In comparison to the yard, it seemed visually mundane. In his life, Parks had seen mostly normal yards: grass—long, short or dead—trees, flowerbeds, and maybe some shrubs. The landscaping—if that was the word—would not be found in a normal, or even a normal-freaky yard.

This was the first time he’d ever seen a miniature Japanese maple tree surrounded at the base by fifty or more black and purple dahlias. A thick ring of various-sized, smooth-polished, turquoise stones encircled the tree and flowers. Then, an even thicker ring of polished black stones surrounded the turquoise. White stones, arranged within the black stones, formed symbols similar to the indecipherable ones painted on the house.

Suspended from the numerous branches of a ghost-creepy, white tree—hundreds of cooking pots and pans hung from macramé nets. The tree reminded Parks of the kind in a fantasy movie; something that would reach out and grab at people as they passed. Each piece of the cookware in the tree was home to several unique flowering vines. Bold, mixed colors cascaded—almost poured—from the pots, into a shimmering pool of crystal-clear beads on the ground.

Not a blade of grass was visible anywhere in the yard. Instead, thousands of plants growing from hundreds of planters took up almost every square inch of available space in the under-sized yard. Planters were stacked on top of each other, others packed tightly side by side, and many more hung overhead: from rusted hooks and nails, weathered wood beams, the remaining pole from an old clothesline. Apparently, someone made use of anything capable of supporting twenty-pound hanging bowls of dirt for just that purpose. Flowering plants and vines ruled the yard.

Packed so densely, that any of the plants and flowers should’ve grown successfully didn’t seem possible. The haphazard landscaping made nothing appear well planned, or particularly cared for. But in spite of, or maybe because of the competitive nature in the garden, a very hearty environment had formed. Everything looked amazingly healthy. This vibrant garden overflowed with color and life.

Not just living things filled the area. As if oblivious to the complete lack of available space, every kind of cheesy garden object imaginable somehow squeezed a way in. The number of objects on display was so vast that it seemed to Parks someone would’ve required many life times to collect them all. Moreover, their decayed condition would’ve needed more than an equal number of years to achieve. Ranging from modern objects to the medieval—stone, glass, plastic, ceramic, wood, copper and iron overcrowded the little remaining space not occupied by plants.

A large waterfall, surrounded by golden poppies, presented a disturbing water scene. The water, pouring from a craggy white boulder suspended high in the air, spilled violently into an old wooden trough on the ground. The suspended boulder seemed supported only by its own tower of water, which it simultaneously created and rested upon. At least from the angle he was looking, Parks saw no visible structure to the waterfall other than a floating white boulder, a steady stream of water, and a leaky wooden trough. Disturbing for Parks was that for an instant, if he kept a soft focus out of the corner of his eyes, the white rock appeared to have a face. It was a tired face; droopy eyes stared directly at Parks every time he would sneak a look.

Then, there were the painted garden gnomes. One, with an unsettling grin, rested—lantern in hand—at the foot of an orange-red stone sundial. The lantern aimed into the darkness, casting its light in Parks and Geli’s direction. Parks imagined that if the little gnome was alive, if the grin was real and not painted, the face could equally be showing fear in their approach, or self-satisfaction at having lured them in. The more Parks looked—in the patches of tulips, the shadowed dirt surrounding the heirloom rose bushes, peaking over the tops of crates and buckets—the more of these little clowns of the garden he found. They appeared paused in action, all magically stopped in mid-motion by the arrival of Parks and Geli. It was ridiculous. Parks couldn’t shake the feeling that the little ceramic figures were moving; going about their gnomish chores in extreme slo-mo when he wasn’t looking. But they weren’t moving. They were painted ceramic garden gnomes. It was just another odd feeling that this place gave him. The gnomes were definitely not moving.

Seven handmade windmills spiked from various locations around the yard. They were not real windmills, just very large versions of cheap plastic twirlers; ones every kid knows, and has probably owned at least once in their life. The twelve muslin-covered blades on the windmills all had an identical painted outline of a white rose. The blades spun, stopped, and reversed direction at varying speeds, according to the wind and the windmill’s position in the yard. Oddly, even when the blades were in motion, the outline of a rose stayed; a single white rose that seemed to hover in place at the top, while the blades moved independently in the background. Despite the whimsical nature of the optical illusion, these windmill displays also had disturbing elements to them. A miniature barbed wire fence wrapped the base of each windmill. The gray dirt inside these fences was dry and barren. The windmills twirled over the only spots in the yard where nothing seemed to be capable of living.

If Parks were to describe the place, he would say it looked like a cooking store, garden center, German fairytale and eighteenth century circus had gathered, exploded, and then taken root for a decade or two. When Parks turned to look at Geli, he was surprised to see that her grin was almost at the edge of her face. She seemed to get genuine pleasure from looking at this yard. For the most part, Parks only felt discomfort from looking at the clutter. Clutter was the only description he had for the stuff in this place.

Continued »

Posted in Original Episodes | 2 Comments »

This novel is about Parks, a teenager who rides skateboards, plays video games and drinks soda.

The story is also about Geli, who turns eighteen years old in a few months. She's a smart kid, who likes to read books, study for school and plans to change the world.

The real story is how these two teenagers became friends and became involved in an adventure to save their world.

Two young people, who meet in San Francisco and discover that they have a common destiny. They have special abilities, not unlike their favorite heroes in books or movies.

Skateboards, video games, super heroes and characters in a novel; are all put away as the the two teens begin a real stuggle for survival in a changing world.

Afterall, being a kid in an adult world was never easy. Maybe with a few supernatual talents, the playing field can be leveled.

Dissimulants

Chapter One | Waking Up

Chapter Two | The Big Bang

Chapter Three | The Reveal

Chapter Four | Open Options

Chapter Three | The Reveal

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DISSIMULANTS
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This novel is about Parks, a teenager who rides skateboards, plays video games and drinks soda.

The story is also about Geli, who turns eighteen years old in a few months. She's a smart kid, who likes to read books, study for school and plans to change the world.

The real story is how these two teenagers became friends and became involved in an adventure to save their world.

Two young people, who meet in San Francisco and discover that they have a common destiny. They have special abilities, not unlike their favorite heroes in books or movies.

Skateboards, video games, super heroes and characters in a novel; are all put away as the the two teens begin a real stuggle for survival in a changing world.

Afterall, being a kid in an adult world was never easy. Maybe with a few supernatual talents, the playing field can be leveled.

Dissimulants

Chapter One | Waking Up

Chapter Two | The Big Bang

Chapter Three | The Reveal

Chapter Four | Open Options

Chapter Three | The Reveal

Recent Comments on Dissimulants:

Recent Comments:

REGISTER NOW Open Access Is Ending

DISSIMULANTSSearch the Site

Published Chapters:

Pages

Book Fansites

More to Read

REGISTER NOW
Open Access Is Ending

DISSIMULANTS
Search the Site