“Well,” said Erwin, finally sitting up and taking the last sip of his honey wine. “We cannot do it alone. The job requires a third. And a third of some abundance of skill, and no small amount of magical power. We are both thinking the same thing, of this I am sure. So let me be the first to give it voice.”
I had nearly forgotten about the picture, had come so terribly close to letting it slip away from my memory forever. Weeks would go by before the amber-red flames would dance and roil in my mind’s eye once again.
On Friday and then again on Saturday evening, I drove south to the Sarasota Contemporary Dance studio for the first installment of what turned out to be a fantastic collaboration. My friend and world-class cellist Natalie Helm came up with the idea: Bach Immersion Concerts, a one-of-a-kind exploration of Johann Sebastian Bach's Six Suites for Solo Cello. The idea is to present "a multi-sensory interactive live performance," and that's exactly what happened.
He puts the cigarette in his mouth and lights it with a match, letting the match burn as he continues speaking, “I didn’t even give you a name, Inspector. What could you possibly arrest me for that I won’t deny by the time we walk out of this office?”
The Mercury pulled into the station with a sigh of the brakes and a dramatic release of white steam. Again, Ned Billows joined the men on the platform in low hats and denim shirts and set to moving sacks, pallets, and barrels to and fro. It was here that the small crew -- the engineer, the fireman, and Ned Billows the brakeman -- took their lunch. It was also the first time the crew of the Mercury saw the gunmen of the armored car.
The Great Northern had left Grand Forks before the dry, yellow prairie was touched with the sun’s first light. By mid-day, the whistle was crying long and loud as the train chuffed out of the weathered Sioux Falls station, heading southbound towards Wichita across the dismal plain.
“Whatever it is,” Jim says. “It can’t be bad enough for you to want to get it through who knows what the hell past the Black Line.”
It’s true. The strong kid, laser beam girl, iron-skin guy -- they have all been rumors for so long. Took better than a dozen years, but I finally got a source on the inside. No one too high-up, no one special. But I got blurry pictures and some details out of it. Once that was out there, my site blew up. Just a matter of time before there was a knock on the door.
The place, though, isn’t as bad as the noises I can hear on the other side of the wall in the first stall. I wouldn’t admit this to just anyone but it would give me nightmares. If I slept.
benjamin j kirby 