Eric Shaw Quinn

He liked the King Tut headdress best.  He thought it gave him a regal air.  The jester’s hat had bells for festive occasions.  The pith helmet connoted authority.  And the jockey’s cap was the perfect compliment for his velvet riding livery.  But the purple and gold striped pharaoh’s nemes spoke his authority best.  Tut paused to admire his reflection in the dusty plate glass window of the cleaners just as the woman folded back the iron accordion metal grating for another day of dry cleaning to the stars. They exchanged a looked filled with unspoken meaning.  Their relationship over the years was rich and storied

“Don’t come in here again or I call the police,” she said, her harsh Korean English spoken as though she was perpetually angry.

“We are not amused, bitch,” Tut said grandly.  “I could crush you with a thought if I wanted to, my child.  But I have mercy.  Forgive them father for they know not what they do,” he shouted to the heavens.

The Korean woman spit, gave him the eye and turned to go begin her day.  “Don’t come in again.”

Pulling himself up, he took up his place on the bus bench.  Tut liked to comment on the Insect People as he took in the morning sun on the north side of Santa Monica Boulevard.  He could see who they really were.  The business suits and school clothes might deceive lesser mortals like the dry cleaner bitch, but he knew.

As he waited amidst the insects, he let them know that he was not like the others.

“I see your antennae,” he told a young woman, who was communicating to her hive through one of the hand held communicators they’d flooded the world with so that they might conduct their affairs openly.  “Tell the queen that I am still here and her days are numbered.  Time and space are no barrier to the league.  It is written.”

The young woman saw his lips moving, but her ear buds protected her from his words.

“Hey King Tut.”

Tut looked away from his Insecta prey at the bus stop to see who called to him so profanely.  The man stood across the boulevard in the shadow of West Hollywood City Hall.  Tut recognized the thick Russian accent, the Salvador Dali mustache and the crazed face of the man.  It was Tut’s nemesis and, he suspected, an insect sympathizer sent by the queen to torment him.

“You got my shit?” Salvadorsky demanded, waving his fist at Tut over the heads of the west bound bus commuters milling around the impossible bench on the south side of the street.  Salvadorsky hated that bench almost as much as he hated Tut.  The bench had been designed to prevent anyone lying on it.  More and more benches were being remade to reject people, to command them, to force them to sit the way the bench wanted.  Benches had become more important than people like Salvadorsky and he knew it.

He despised the tyrannical benches, but his hate for Tut was special.  When the battle visions were upon Sal and he could do nothing to stop him, Tut had stolen his cart with all his things.  But there were no visions that morning.  Sal would have his revenge.

“I’ll kill you, Tut,” Salvadorsky said waving his fist.

The horns bloomed in the morning sun as Salvadorsky ran into slow moving rush hour traffic.

Tut decided that it would be unwise to allow his true power to be seen by the insect invaders.  So, instead of destroying the traitor Salvadorsky with his mind, he opted to leap over the back of the bench and run east down the boulevard.  The light at Sweetzer was in Tut’s favor and he was well down the next block of Santa Monica before Salvadorsky could wade through traffic and give chase.  Tut caught a glimpse of the alien collaborator over his shoulder.  The light at Sweetzer had changed to green and Sal was once again fighting against traffic.

Tut heard the horns in the distance.  Using his mind, and the cross walk button, he caused the light to change at La Jolla and made his way south across Santa Monica.  The horns caught Tut’s attention.  He looked west and saw his adversary crossing through traffic at mid-block, narrowing the distance between them.  His advantage lost, Tut fled down La Jolla past the displays of wicked mansex, leather wear, dildos and greeting cards in the show windows of the Circus of Books Adult Bookstore and Apartments.

Checking behind to be sure he wasn’t seen, Tut doubled back, heading west down Vaseline Alley.

The narrow paved alleyway separated the businesses on the boulevard from the residences just to the south.  Famed as a convenient venue for impromptu assignations, there was what you’d expect to find in an alley.  Some business parking, dumpsters, some residential parking that opened onto the alleyway and Markie kneeling in the shadows behind the still shuttered Bark/Williams pet spa.  He was blowing one last client before making his way home to the motel room off Sunset he shared with a half dozen associates.

Tut saw him squatted in the shade of a ficus tree exchanging life forces with the unsuspecting human. “I see you, little cockroach,” Tut shouted as he passed them.

“I gotta go,” the client say, pushing Markie away and zipping up.

Markie tried to catch himself on his hands but only succeeding in twisting his wrist before falling into the dirt.

“Wait,” he called after the client.  “You forgot my forty dollars.  Goddamnit it, Tut!”

Crazy PTSD Russian Guy raced by.

“Run Tut, run,” Markie shouted after them.  He rose, vainly dusting off the borrowed jeans he was going get a beating for soiling.  “Goddamn it.”  No money for rock or rent in someone else’s stolen jeans, he really couldn’t go home.  Frustrated, he joined the chase.  There might be rock or a few bucks for stampeding his trick.  He could hang out at the Los Tacos by the Laundromat and get something to eat while he waited on the jeans to run through the wash cycle.

Markie looked west and saw Tut turn back up Sweetzer behind Hamburger Mary’s and race north.  Crazy Russsian Guy followed.  Markie lit out after them.

As he followed up Sweetzer, Markie remembered the street but wasn’t sure why.

The light changed just in time to save Tut’s skinny neck for another block at least.  The two ran through.  Markie made it across on yellow, the flashing red hand waving him safe as he hit the curb.  The chase continued past the early morning sidewalk diners at Joey’s and north up Sweetzer.

“Come back here you crazy thief,” Salvadorsky shouted as they continued up the tree shrouded avenue.  The disturbance attracted the attention of the off duty West Hollywood Sherriff’s Deputies guarding the perimeter of the Sisters shoot.  Heavily armed with strong coffee in paper Starbucks containers and loaded breakfast sandwiches, they kept the shoot secure and in compliance with city film commission crowd control and traffic requirements.

With amused disinterest they watched Twitchy Twink and Ratty Rasputin pursue Pharaoh north up Sweetzer.

“Give me my shit or I’ll kill you,” Sal screamed.

“Run, Tut!” one of the Deputies shouted throwing a punch in the air.

“Five says Tut goes down,” the other Sherriff said, munching ruminatively on her pastry.

But before the bet could be made, Milan and her entourage emerged from the entry archway of Sweetzer Court.  Tut missed Cat but hit Milan.  Both went down in a haze of headdresses, hair extensions and screaming.  Cat stepped in to assist, just in time to get taken out by the charging Salvadorsky.  The two fell on the struggling Milan and Tut.   Cody stood texting, ear buds in, oblivious.

The film crew and the three obligatory paparazzo who’d been awaiting Milan’s arrival sprang to life and joined the deputies rushing onto the scene.

Badges and cameras flashed as the little group became a big deal.

“I think my arm is broken,” Milan mugged for the cameras.  “Call an ambulance.”

“Where’s my cart, you thieving little pharaoh?”

“It’s the arthropod police,” Tut screamed as one of the deputies tried to cuff him.  “Watch out for their stingers.  Don’t let them tag you.  This was not in the prophesy.”

Dolph, headed to Gelson’s with his black cloth shopping bag, emerged from the building and stumbled into the mayhem on his stoop.  At first he was stunned silent, but when he spotted the cameras he screamed in terror.

Everyone froze for an instant, uncertain.

“Shoo, shoo,” Dolph shrieked, holding his hat over his face.  “You’ve no permit to film here.  Move on.  You may not photograph here.”

Mindful of the shot and concerned about permits, the second AD tried to get everyone to restage across the street.  “Okay, everyone, let’s just take this up in front of the condo.  Try to remember what you said so we have something to edit to.”

Dolph hurried off down the street shielding his face with the shopping bag.

Markie walked up just as things in front of the court were quieting down.

“Hey Cody,” he said, pausing.  “What’s going on? You partying or working?”

 

. . . to be continued