Dating : Tiny White Devils In Hot Summer Nights

The shallow waters of an ornamental fountain covered in pigeon shit sufficed. Damien imagined the clearest lagoon as he rubbed the filth from his armpits with the marginally less filthy water from the fountain. It was another hot evening, not unlike the one which had brought JHAP into existence.He kept his mask on and even dared to verbally abuse the homeless man who asked about his “Puerto Rican shower” for the evident cultural and racial insensitivity of the remark.

That report came handy when the JHAP leaders convened a meeting around the empty pedestal where the man on horseback formerly stood. The JHAP Triumvirate was now spearhead by Tariq, a strapping and vivacious young man with a contagious energy that tinged his every public intervention. In his former life, Damien took him under his wing, grooming him for command ever since he realised his potential. Naturally, with Damien now gone, Tariq stepped up to the occasion under Roxy and Dylan’s watch.

“Comrades,” Tariq began, “before we can distribute today’s rations, there’s a serious matter we must address. Yes, we are pioneers in advancing social, racial, economic, gender, and sexual justice. Everyone here has played a role in accomplishing that, and for that, I’d salute you if the very act of saluting wasn’t so steeped in toxic masculinity and fascism.”

Hundreds of fingers took to the air, snapping in quick bursts to signal the approval of the orator’s preamble without the aggressive and triggering effect of clapping. “All that notwithstanding, we all need to ask ourselves how we can be better and do more to exterminate whiteness and eradicate privilege.” Another sea of snapping fingers went up in Justice Hill Park under the moonlight.

“White allies, now is your turn to speak up against white supremacy,” Roxy interjected. “Let’s go around the assembly. Comrade Tiny Whitey, you go first.”

Damien froze. Under the gaze of his comrades, he adjusted his mask and sunglasses to ensure his face remained hidden. He then told them about how he had corrected homeless man which led Dylan to snap their fingers. The assembly moved onto the next ally as a double epiphany struck Damien: his voice was different and the face he feared was one which his comrades didn’t recognise. He slipped into this new anonymity like into a smooth silk robe. After he wolfed down a can of red kidney beans, Damien forgot his troubles and joined one of the JHAP’s multiple looting parties.

The nickname Tiny Whitey did not bother him. This body wasn’t his. Neither was his previous one. The cause was the superordinate value, the will which he had long agreed to submit to. As the roving masked party cracked windows and looted a block of small businesses, convenience stores, dry cleaners, and the like, Damien exorcised his shame at letting his peculiar metamorphosis distract him from Justice and Progress.

Hot tears bathed his freckles as he walked past the pet store which was the crib of their Revolution. Damien kneeled next to the rotting patch of chameleon guts. The corpse was an indistinct mass which the pigeons had picked apart. A bulbous eye remained. The air in the shop was somehow less fetid than in his tent. He looked for the sharp rock he had used on that fateful evening. Unsure whether he wanted it for a souvenir or a repurposed weapon, he rummaged through the rubble of shards and plywood, but came up shot.

“Tiny! There’s a guy with a baseball bat outside the watch repair store and it’s untouched! We need to get there before everyone else. Rolex, comrade!” one of his masked companions said.

Damien’s hand reflexively reached into the rubble and pulled a clean red brick. He held it against the pale moonlight — Excalibur reforged — and ran into the encroaching darkness.

One by one, the street lamps dimmed until only a bare incandescent filament shone in Justice Hill. Underneath them, in the urban jungle, a sea of shadows advanced towards a lonesome figure with a baseball bat. There were light taunts and snarled threats. One dry thump, followed quickly by a loud crack, and the night hung silent for a while. There was a cacophony of shattering glass, victorious sneering, and triumphant kicks, but it too died down. Then, only the store’s alarm punctuated the soundless evening, like a distress signal in a hopelessly desolate land, a beacon calling for help that would never come.