ftp.ee.pdx.edu/2014.02.ftp.ee.pdx.edu.tar/ftp.ee.pdx.edu/pub/frp/Archives/749

Internet Message Format | 1994-11-12 | 8KB

Path: usenet.ee.pdx.edu!cs.uoregon.edu!reuter.cse.ogi.edu!uwm.edu!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!uunet!not-for-mail
From: [e-mail] (Jason D Corley)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.archives
Subject: STORY: On The Street
Followup-To: rec.games.frp.misc
Date: 11 Nov 1994 16:44:01 -0500
Organization: UUNET Technologies Inc, Falls Church, VA, USA
Lines: 174
Sender: [e-mail]
Approved: [e-mail]
Message-ID: <3a0oj1$[e-mail]>
NNTP-Posting-Host: rodan.uu.net



[This is a little story I wrote for our local LARP newsletter.
 It has become clear over the last few games that my character,
 an amnesiac Malkavian, has a great deal of control over the
 streets of Tucson.  People ask "He's a psychotic---how does he
 manage that?"  I replied by giving them this story.]




    Iceman was a large black bearded man with dark sunglasses
and tinted windows on his low-slung car.  Mario was a lean Hispanic
kid with knots of muscles on his skinny frame and a long amateurish
tattoo running down his arm.  Iceman was older than Mario, and badder,
and so when Iceman pulled up and told Mario to come on for a ride,
Mario jumped right in.
    The huge speakers of the car were oddly silent.  The car
rumbled down the street, tremendous engine growling contentedly.
Mario shouted out the window at the girls walking past the car,
until he got tired of it.  "Where we goin', Ice?" he asked.
"I gotta get back and get me some of that..."
    Iceman grinned and lit a cigarette.  "Fuck 'em 'til they
can't walk straight, huh?"
    "You know it."  They slapped hands.
    Iceman blew a cloud of smoke across the windshield.  "We're
going to see someone important."  He paused.  "You been doin' pretty
good, neh?"
    "Fuckin' A, pretty good.  We're the best."
    "Your square, what is it now, all the way over to Santa Cecilia?"
    "Further, man."
    Iceman nodded and smiled around the cigarette.  "You're gonna
go a long way, you keep playin' by the rules."
    "Rules?  Hey, nigger, I don't play by no fuckin' rules, you
know that."
    "You don't play by rules."
    "Only rule down here is what comes out of a goddamn nine-mil,
you know that, Ice."
    "No rules."
    "None."
    "So tell me." Iceman said, pointing at a passing 7-11.  "You
and your boys jump one of those and there's this wino sittin' there.
You pop him?"
    "Hell, no."
    "He might bust ya."
    "Nah.  They don't tell nobody nothin'."
    "Rule one."
    "What?"
    Iceman sighed.  "That's rule one--don't fuck with the crazies.
See, you do have rules."
    "Screw that, that's just common sense, man."
    "All right, let's say you run downtown to grab some food
and right in front of you is the shit who been scammin' off you.
Nobody else around.  Sunday afternoon in July.  120 degrees, no cars
or people or nobody.  Do you knife him?"
    "No."
    "Why not?"
    "I don't play downtown.  He sets foot in the hood, though..."
    "Yeah, yeah, your boys will get him good.  But not downtown."
    "Right."
    Iceman grinned.  "Rule two.  You play the game in particular
areas at a particular time."
    "That ain't a rule...that's just stupid."
    "Why is it stupid?"
    "See, I knife the guy downtown and some motherfuckin' old
lady comes along and has a heart attack or somehthing and next thing
you know the whole town is going apeshit with cops and newspapers
and maybe even the federales.  Nobody wins."
    "So what you do is secret until you do it."
    "Yeah."
    "That's Rule three.  The masquerade."
    "The what?"
    "Masquerade.  That's what he calls it."
    "Who?"
    "El Potencia."
    "Who the hell?"
    "We got these rules, right?"
    "Yeah."
    Iceman looked over at Mario.  "Who do you think writes the
rules?"
    The car travels on in silence.  Somewhere, a siren is
screaming.
    "You know that wacko white guy with the blond hair and the
plastic rings?"
    "Oh, yeah, Harold, I met that dude.  Weird."
    "Let me guess." Iceman said.  "He turns up at a meeting only
you and your boys knew about.  He dumped some ideas out that sounded
totally bizarre.  He wanders off.  And later on you find that his
ideas are the only ones that worked."
    Mario stared at Iceman.  "You have got to be shitting me."
    Iceman shook his head.  "Harold...El Potencia...set this
whole system up."
    "There's no fuckin' way."
    "It don't matter whether you believe it or not.  What does
matter is whether you play by his rules or not."
    "And what if I don't?"
    "Remember Garcia?"
    "Yeah, didn't he get capped?"
    "Capped and buried.  You want to know why?"
    "Why?"
    "Because he iced some civilians."
    "You're saying Harold, the guy wandering around having
convulsions and talking to himself, ordered a hit on Garcia?"
    "He didn't have to.  Someone else did it for him.  And
now you're in Garcia's place."
    The car moved slowly along the streets of South Tucson,
past the adobe storefronts and the neon signs that said "Liquor".
Iceman fiddled with the radio until the digits lit up: 91.3.
Extremely loud accordion music filled the air and the voice of
Clifton Chenier blasted out from the huge speakers.  Mario
didn't say anything.
    Iceman said "You must be doing pretty good if El Potencia
wants to see you."
    Mario nodded, and then froze as Harold appeared out of a
small doorway.  He had tangled blond hair and was dressed in cast-
off clothes.  He walked slowly across to the car, his lips moving
as if talking to someone.  He had a long coat thrown over one arm.
    Iceman leaned back and opened the back door.  Harold got
in.  Mario turned around to look at him as Iceman pulled away
from the curb.  Harold's blue eyes were staring frankly at him.
Harold unwrapped the coat to reveal a large automatic rifle.
    "Do you want this?" Harold said.  His voice was soft and
kind.  He pulled out the clip and passed it up to Mario.  "It's
quiet.  He tried to hurt me.  He touched the ground."
    The gun had a laser sight and a silencer and was the most
expensive gun Mario had ever seen.  "Uhh...thanks." he said.
    Harold turned to Iceman.  "Who are you?"
    "I'm Ice.  This is Mario...you wanted to talk to him?"
    "Okay.  How are you, Mario?"
    "Uh, good."
    "You really think so?"
    Mario stammered.  Harold nodded gently.  "What's your job,
Mario?"
    "Uhh...I guess I don't have one."
    Harold looked disappointed.  "Mmm.  Well."  He suddenly
pointed up at a particular street corner.  "Let me out there.
Where they..."  He trailed off.
    Mario shifted uncomfortably in his seat.  Harold took a
crumpled envelope frm his pocket and gave it to Mario. "Take this.
It's butter."
    "Okay," Mario said.  "Thanks."
    Harold got out.  Two prostitutes squealed his name in
recognition and linked their malnourished arms into his elbows.
He leaned back down to the car.  "If you need anything, just yell.
Careful is the word.  Please is another, one that I hear all the
time time time."
    Iceman turned off the radio as Harold sauntered away, and
pulled the car away from the curb.  Mario opened the envelope,
which was marked with a bizarre sigil, a sign.  Inside was a map
to an address in South Tucson.  Underneath it, someone had scrawled
in orange crayon: "9 PM, 12-3, 6 kilos, 4 men with handguns."
    Mario said "6 kilos..." softly.
    Iceman laughed.  "A good tip?  See...He knows."
    "Yeah." Mario said.  "Right in our own territory..."
    "Want a beer?" Iceman said.  "In the cooler."
    Mario grabbed two beers from the cooler behind the seat
and handed one to Iceman.  The can was cold in his hand and hissed
like a snake when he opened it.  Iceman turned on the radio: blasting
bass music thumped out of the car.
    "To the Masquerade." he said.
    "Yeah."
    "Say it."
    Mario said "To the Masquerade."
    They drank.




--
******************************************************************************
"History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have
 exhausted all other alternatives."    -----Abba Eban
Jason "[e-mail]" Corley can't come to the phone right now