Zip-Gun Boys On a Caper

I'm up on the Roof and it's raining. It's raining so hard you can smell it. That mean rainy smell. I don't like it. I don't like the roof either. It's too high and I'm not. I ain't had no charge for three days. I'm a snake-mean stud when it's raining like this and I'm up on the roof and I ain't had no charge.

I stop peeking in windows and look down on the street. Liver ain't nowhere in view. He's a crazy cat, Liver. They call him Liver because he's no longer got one; some chick cut it out with a shiv. But he gets along without it all right. He don't smoke or drink. He's a good clean liver.

While I'm waiting for Liver to show, I get restless. When I'm up on the roof and get restless, I got to get some kicks. I got to walk the edge of the roof. It's about six inches narrow. I hop along on (continued on page 53)Zip-Gun Boys(continued from page 37) one foot, my eyes closed. A couple times I almost go over but it ain't no good. Tonight it don't give me no kicks. I wonder what's the matter with me tonight.

I go down the fire escape. I stop and look into the window of the witch who lives on the top floor. The fat one who gives me the big smile, yesterday. Yeah, the one with the wino husband who gets caught every winter siphoning anti-freeze from car radiators. The one don't even use any rubber hose when he does that. He just get under the car, open the petcock and let that anti-freeze run right into his mouth. Straight. He's a mean stud.

The fat witch is looking right at the window and sees me. She shouldn't be doing that. I don't like it. That cat she lives with don't like it, either. He belts her with the fat end of a pool cue. She don't like that a little bit. She sticks a can opener into his neck. She's a mean witch, this one. They two of a kind. They fight all the time like that. He's got more scars on his neck, though, than she's got lumps on her head. I figure she must win more. I shrug and go down another flight on the escape.

I look into another window. I don't see nothing inside. This worries me until I remember this is an empty flat.

Then I hear a whistle. Like a screech owl. I go down the rest of the fire stairs fast. I know it's Liver. He waiting for me in the alley.

This Liver, he got eyes look right through you. Make you feel like you paper-thin. When he gets tired looking through me, this time, he says:

"You got anything on tonight?"

"Sure," I say. "You can see. I'm dressed like always."

"Don't be a funky stud," Liver says. "With the corny jokes. You know what I mean. You gonna kill anybody tonight?"

I tell him I don't know. I try to remember what day it is and then I do. It's Thursday. I shake my head, then. "No," I say. "You know what day it is. I take Thursdays off. You better line up some other cat."

"Sure," he says. "I can get Three-Gun. I can get Slicer, Shiv, Forty-Four, Chink, Limey, Looey, Luger, Lifty, Leechee, Lingo, Jingo or Bingo. I can get a thousand other studs. I don't want 'em. I want you. You cool. You cool as cat's eyes."

"All right," I say. "You put it that way. What you got in mind?"

He looks up the alley, down the alley. He says, softly: "Come here?" I don't get it. I'm right there. Then he pulls out a zip-gun. He flashes it quick and puts it back under his coat.

"You see that?" Liver says.

"I see it."

"You know what it is?"

"I know what it is."

He grabs me by the lapels. I get more wrinkled lapels that way. He says: "Then, quick, tell me. What is it? I got to know. I don't dig these new-fangled contraptions."

I tell him. He says: "Oh?"

Then I say: "Psssssst!" I jerk my head toward a dark doorway. We huddle there like two courtin' cats. Out of my back pocket I whip out that crazy knife I find. I touch a button and out jumps a blade. Liver jumps, too. I say:

"See this?"

"Yeah," he say.

"Know what it is?"

"I Know what it is."

I grab him by the shirt tabs. I say real fast: "Tell me. What is it?"

His eyes are watching the knife. This stud Liver's eyes go crazy when he sees a knife. They spin. Like pinwheels. The pupils needlepoint.

Hoarsely, he says: "A switchblade. Man, a real pointy switchblade. That's sharp. It's the real end -- for somebody."

"You tellin' me," I tell him. "Let's go."

We drag out of the alley. The street's deserted. No cops in sight and that's good. It's better without cops, you got to conk out some cat. We hustle down Hundred Thirty Seventh, up Hundred Thirty Eighth, cross Amsterdam, cross Seventh. We're at The Park. I don't even know how. We're like moving through a cloud. Then I see we been walking behind a street sprinkler. It's not raining no more. But we don't know that until we get out from behind that punky sprinkler.

We find three Bloopers sittin' on a park bench. These Bloopers look real funky. Three of them; three mean cats. And only two of us. But we got equipment; we got armament, man. We ain't spooked. We look at them. They look at us. Nobody says anything. We got nothing to say. I look at Liver. He looks at me. Then one of those Bloopers flips. He calls Liver by his right name. He says: "Hey, Liverachee, play us a tune! Man, dig that ivory-ticklin' cornball!"

That does it. Out comes Liver's zip-gun. Out comes the switchblade. There's like thunder. That's the zip-gun. There's like a Swish-shlizzzt! That's the switchblade. We look down at the cement in front of the park bench. No more Bloopers. I get a little sick to the (concluded on page 60)Zip-Gun Boys(continued from page 53) sometimes. Especially dead Bloopers. I don't even like those Blooper studs when they're dead.

A whistle blows. Another. Dark forms rise up from behind the shrubbery all around us. I look at Liver. He looks at me. We know what digs, now. It's a trap. I look down at the dead Bloopers again and see now they ain't for real. They're clothing store dummies dressed up like Bloopers. Man, these corny cop studs and their funky tricks.

We run. Liver, he zips one. I switch another. Blam! And swish-shlizzzt! No more cops. We make time out of that whole area.

A few minutes and we're forty blocks away. Now we slow down. We walk the mean dark streets, real casual; in fact very cool. We're just a couple of cats, prowlin', now. Nobody bothers us. Except the rats scuttling around the garbage cans. Some stud drops a flower pot off a roof. It just misses Liver. We don't even look up. We don't let it bother us. We're so cool now you can see our breath steamin'.

After awhile, Liver say: "So what else is new? What do we do now? I'm gettin' a trifle bored. You dig?"

I say: "Uh-huh." I say: "You don't know what comes next, you square stud?"

He say: "No."

I say: "Man, didn't you ever dig that Hal Ellson cat? You never read Duke, Tomboy, The Golden Spike, Summer Street? Where you been at, Man?" I say. "You know what come next."

But I see he don't. He look blank. Can that Liver stud ever look blank! So I tell him and we go do it. We go to a secret pad. We light up. We take on a big charge. Then we use the switchblade. We cut each other's jugulars. Then we fuse 'em together with Scotch Tape. All the blood out of me flows into Liver. All the blood out of Liver flows into me. It was a cool connection, you know? Kind of like an initiation or something. So now we real blood brothers.

Then real quick like I don't feel so good. I look at Liver. He don't look so good, too. Right away I know what's happened. We ain't got the same blood types.

We lay down together there in the dark, stinking dirty pad and we die together. Pretty soon we're cool, man, real cool.

Editorial Note: If you've enjoyed this fine, wholesome, stimulating Zip-Gun Boys story, you won't want to miss the others in this exciting series: Zip-Gun Boys On A Ranch, Zip-Gun Boys Go To College, Zip-Gun Boys On A Treasure Hunt, Zip-Gun Boys In The Navy, Zip-Gun Boys' Good Deed, Zip-Gun Boys In Darkest Somaliland, to be published at a much later date in some other publication.