Friday Night Corridor: A Liberation Side-Story

(Originally posted on exploitedantonyms.wordpress.com as part of a writing assignment where I picked up the story of Kaylant, Florida. Look for the reference to Liberation: Chapter 4!)

The two of them stood there trembling, horrified… no, mortally shaken by the events they had witnessed there that night. James Ploindekker, a businessman with a master’s degree from the University of Central Florida, and Jessica Fleighty, an artist who made her peanuts selling her paintings at various markets, flea and farmer alike, were experiencing what many could only describe as an atrocity dealt to the truly undeserving.
“Do you think it’s alright?” Jessica asked, fresh canvas underarm. James poked at it, examining it, trying to think about it from as many angles as he could, a habit he formed as a youth in grade school having spent most of his time after school behind a television set, video game controller in hand. “Sorry, but it’s gone, the pepperoni’s stuck to the pavement, you don’t want to even try.”
Jessica’s cheeks reddened and she crumpled the paper plate in her hand, tossing it into a nearby trashcan. She took James by the hand and led him around the corner, passing the bar on the corner where more than a handful of inebriated millenials were enjoying their first official night out on the town. James weaved in and out of the people standing on the sidewalk until he took his place standing behind her in a line outside a bar named Sky57. As a large man in a black t-shirt checked the ID’s of all entering the standard-sized door frame that was the entrance, cars glided by behind him, cells through their vessel. James fumbled for his wallet while Jessica did her best to balance her canvas while rifling through her purse for her ID. James pulled his out as Jessica walked through the doorway, walking up an illuminated flight of stairs without a moment of delay; he followed after her.
James walked by at least three pairs of people talking just inside the doorway of the blue and white-lit bar room, a fourth formed a mobile barrier that failed to prevent him from reaching his destination. James turned his body lengthwise as he slipped by the pair of young women talking about some new singer they heard on the radio and headed for the cold, aluminum handrail in pursuit of his partner for the evening. His search didn’t take long as he spotted her off to the side of the roof overlooking the street; her canvas was already being propped up into an angle proper for maintaining stability. James approached Jessica slowly, watching her as she pulled a single, yellow pencil out of her back pocket and stared down at the street scene playing out below her.
“Is this how you spend your weekends?” James asked, failing to avert her gaze. “Sometimes,” she replied, “most of the time I’m at home spying on the neighbors for inspiration.” She chuckled in an obvious manner, looking over at James, who was content with looking on as she went to work sketching the way that buildings met the street and the palm trees marked the edges of the park in the distance from where they stood. James could only stand and stare in disbelief at the speed at which she sketched out what permeated her field of vision. “How long have you been doing this?” James asked of Jessica. “You know, art in general,” he added. Jessica paused for a second to examine the height of a newspaper stand compared to its passersby and then answered his question. “Seventeen years now, well, seriously pursuing it anyways, I don’t really count what I drew as a child,” she said modestly. The truth of the matter is that even her early drawings as a child drew the attention of her school teachers. As she scribbled on, a bartender was walking around the rooftop with a tray of mixed drinks. James called her attention over, handed her a $10 bill, took two and told her to keep the change. “Could you hold on to that for me for just a minute? I’m almost done. “Almost done?” James thought, “it’s only been five minutes.”
Indeed, the quality of the sketch this girl had produced in under five minutes was astounding to James, who had at once considered entering into the art field, but if not for a rude awakening enacted on the part of his best friend falling into a crater of debt, he too would be holding an art utensil in his hands. This much was certain, she was much better at this than he could ever have been, James thought, patiently holding the glass of poisonous-looking whiskey-and-yellow-something drink for Jessica in his right hand while his left hand cared not much for appearances and slung a splash of the liquid past his lips and down his semi-parched throat. Almost as soon as he did, the canvas leaning on the short fence on the edge of the rooftop was removed from its position of authority and sent to rest against the wall.
James extended the hand holding Jessica’s drink and she eagerly took hold of it. As she sipped the suspicious, yellow drink, her lips came untied, “so I used to do this thing where I would go to the roofs of this one building and try to paint some of the offices with open windows. I figured it would be this opportunity to try something new, but one day someone called security and now they not only lock the doors, but I’m no longer allowed to go into the building.” She laughed while James pressed himself to come up with a response.
“Did you get any good pieces out of it?”
“I did manage to get a few good ones. They never made it past the sketching stage but I’m still getting around to them,” Jessica said, crossing her right arm across her torso. “Why did you choose to pursue business?”
James replied candidly, “because it lets me be myself. I’m not the kind of person who can sit behind a desk and work 9-5, so I specialized in the selling aspects of business and now I go from business to business selling consulting services.” Jessica looked at him with a curious expression, the tinge of red in her cheeks still lingered from the pizza incident just prior.
—-
Forty minutes later, James and Jessica found themselves in the bar room below sitting on a couch with a man in a wrinkled, white double-breasted coat with matching khakis and a grey fedora who was sipping from a glass on the opposite end. James was sitting halfway on the armrest, glass half-full of the same noxious yellow liquid from the rooftop, each successive one lost a little more of its pineapple-and-grenadine accents in exchange for decreasingly subtle hints of its Tennessee heritage.
The night ended for the two with Jessica walking out of the bar at last call, telling James that she would see him again and marching off into the night to walk a dog she claimed was in desperate need of a walk. James decided against settling in for another yellow drink, settled his tab, and walked back outside into the street long blocked off to traffic as the masses mixed and ebbed into the fishbowl of Kaylant, Florida’s downtown scene. Half-buzzed and aimless, James walked down the south-bound sidewalk, passing Burt’s Cafe au Lait & Coffee Bar on his right, watching as a man and a woman smoked cigarettes off to the side of the door. As he passed them, the distinct clatter of a car striking a lamp post and the squeal of tires of pavement sliced through the air from behind James, urging him to turn around and watch whatever scene was playing out behind him.
From where he was standing, James could see what appeared to be the corner of a street barricade poking into the street that was supposed to remain unoccupied by motor vehicles. James walked closer and found the barricade’s accomplice, the front end of a red sports car that was firmly planted against the shiny, metallic base of a street light. The tires squealed once more as the driver attempted to dislodge his car from its overly-conspicuous prison. More onlookers took notice of the scene and stared on as if in a state of disbelief. A police officer poked his head around the corner from the doorway of a night club that was steadily releasing its occupants to their fates, leaving his post in favor of what he thought could become a DUI arrest.
The officer shot a reassuring glance at James, who assumed it was a nonverbal clue that everything was under control. As the officer approached the vehicle, its occupants fell deathly prone and couldn’t help but stare at the approaching man in uniform. The driver broke his stare and turned to his passenger, who threw his arms into the air as if declaring his inability to answer whatever question the driver posed. The officer’s eyes were trained on the occupants as he approached the front door and stood there looking at the driver, who rolled down the window with the hopes that his cooperation might make things go better for him.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” the officer said in a tone that brought together elements of authority and an intentionally lackadaisical approach. The driver of the pinned vehicle replied to his gesture with a courteous response, calmly explaining that he and the passenger had been arguing over an issue and in his confusion, his foot unintentionally pressed on the accelerator, which brought them to their current predicament. The driver’s words were as articulate and smooth as the blends of coffee served in the very coffee bar behind James, who was following the unfolding of the scene along with the three other onlookers, all of whom held a different reaction. The driver exited the vehicle and walked over to the side of the officer who was already facing the barricade. Together, the two lifted and moved it aside, partially freeing the little, red sports car. The passenger began to move to the driver’s seat, who was quickly reprimanded by the driver, who was having a word with the officer before climbing into it himself. The officer got the driver’s attention once again, but as soon as the officer began approaching the car once more, a woman’s scream issued forth from the night club the officer was just watching. The officer’s attention shifted and the occupants of the red sports car threw it into reverse gear and backed around the left corner before speeding off.
The officer’s full attention came to the bar when the sound of two gunshots rang out into the main drag. Pulling out his walkie talkie, the officer alerted his fellow officers of the situation while drawing his Glock .45 and holding it close to his side. The officer approached the front door of the club, forcing his way into the building amidst the tide of fleeing occupants. James, who was just coming out of shock, gathered his wits together and began running away from the scene, crossing to the other side of the street and taking off at full speed.
James kept running until his brain shouted at him to stop, telling him that he was far enough away from the danger to allow himself the courtesy of catching his breath. As he did so, he took in his surroundings: there were far fewer street lights than there were previously, ten-foot high evergreen trees lined his side of the street. From the looks of things, he had found his way to Treasure Hill Park, James thought as he couldn’t recall how he’d run over half a mile. He thought about his decision to decline joining his college track team while he was still a student months prior, but that was neither here nor there.
Contemplating how he would make it back to his car, he figured that the best way would be to walk down one street and make his way back to the end of the street, where he would find his car and be able to finally go home. With this in mind, James took the cross street that formed the outer boundary of the park halfway to the next street when he heard the sound of a small dog barking furiously. James turned and could see a one-foot tall black-and-brown puff running back and forth barking at a tall figure in a dark jacket. James squatted down and shifted to the left, poking around a bush and catching a full glimpse of the scene playing out. The tall figure was holding a girl to a tree by the mouth while trying to wrestle a purse out of her hands. James recognized that person as Jessica, the girl he had been on a date with less than an hour ago. She was resisting him and he kept his hand on her mouth, a measure the attacker had hoped would keep her from crying out for help. When this failed, the attacker grabbed the purse with both hands, tore it from her grasp, and bolted in the direction towards the exit gate.
James, who had been watching the scene, quickly stood up and tried grabbing the purse from the man in the dark jacket, but this didn’t go how James expected as the attacker struck him with his shoulder and knocked him off his feet. From where he was lying, James watched as the man ran off down a dark street, prize in hand. Picking himself up, James walked over to the tree Jessica was sitting and while he startled her for a moment, she let her guard down when she recognized him and started sobbing. James picked her up off the ground and she wrapped her arms around him and the dog now started barking at him, not knowing friend from foe.
When the tears stopped, Jessica looked at James and smiled, laughing through the tears. James took her by the hand and said to her, “you look like you could use that slice of pizza now.”