Chapter Eleven: Legal Counsel — Part 6

The party ends with Blake and Joe asleep on the couch, Jon and Teri slouched in a corner, George and Jude nowhere in sight, and three of the foursome upstairs on layers of blankets that pass for a bed. ChoCho had been the last person awake, having waited for Arpie to wake up enough to head home to his own house, kindly showing the man to the door and without intentional discourtesy, locking him out. He then heads upstairs to wonder what his three best friends are up to in the wee hours of the night, and is surprised to find them all more or less asleep. He settles down with them, thinking of how good it feels to be so close to three people. Kevin cuddles up against him, squeezing tightly. ChoCho knows it will be hard to fall asleep, but he figures he can at least enjoy their company while he tries.

While Kevin and ChoCho have become fast friends, Daria has been her usual self, cunning, curious, secretive, and subtly assertive. She is working on a suspicion that the real key to power is inquiry, controlled suggestion, and a sort of detachment to the motivations of others. She has Jynx to thank for the time needed to consider such things. Because she really isn’t in charge of the day-to-day operatons, she can focus on her own pet project — one she has spent most of the day creating. The same time spent by the boys talking to the Sheriff had been spent by her making a sign, painted on basswood with bold but transluscent comic book masters ink, that she intends to set up in the center of the park, near where everybody passes by during their travels to and from the fields. Once ChoCho has settled in and she thinks the others are asleep, Daria untangles herself from the mass. Daria grabs the piece of wood she has painted the sign on, and carefully opens the window, sliding out onto the stair grating. The sign slides through the window noiselessly.

Under the words are five triangles. She had carefully taped off each triangle so she could paint them cleanly. The far left one is pink, the far right one purple, and the middle one bleeding from a sort of aquamarine to an exhausted red. These three triangles are set aggressively, with their points up. On each side of the center triangle Daria has painted a passive triangle. The one to the right is solid black, while the one on the left has seven colors. Daria knows she is speaking in code and cypher, but she isn’t particularly in the mood to concern herself with clarity. She can only hope that those who know the colors and their meanings will arrive. ChoCho wakes up momentarily, staring at the sign, and Daria realizes that she has possibly been caught trying to sneak out. ChoCho pulls himself free of Kevin, and crawls over to her, leaning out the window so he can see the sign more clearly.

“The sign looks nice.” ChoCho carefully whispers in her ear.

“Gotta enjoy the Martin’s while we have it.” Daria says.

“You want me to come with? I’d prefer to give you some company, rather than lay here with my mind racing.” ChoCho’s words are quiet, even considerate, both in sense of tone and volume, and in choice of phrase.

Daria feels something catch in her brain as he speaks, realizing, but not knowing why, just how important ChoCho’s opinion of her has suddenly become. “If you think it will be all right with Jynx.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” ChoCho says, somewhat aggressively.

Daria nods understandingly, and the two are off through the window, down the exit stairs, walking quickly through dim light and sporadic mist to the park at the center of the grounds. ChoCho still has his cane, but he’s moving as fast as Daria despite it. Daria had seen in her previous excursions a massive, slightly warped iron pike shoved into the ground where a fence had once been before the storm slagged the metal crossbars and bitten at the pike, causing it to bend under the stress. She lets her eyes focus intently on the post until she can see what she remembered from before. About half way up the scarred and oxidized pike is a charred spine of metal, looking like a thorn, though it was probably a nail before the lightning bit it. It probably was once meant to hold a fence post in place, given that there are charcoal remains running a short length and vanishing suddenly where a wash of water has broken away one of the other metal pikes. She takes the sign and pushes it onto the spine until it is flush with the post, then pushes back the spine until it bends to keep the sign from falling.

Daria and ChoCho head back to home quickly, talking quietly as they move. “You think anybody will get it?”

“I just wonder if anybody will come.” ChoCho says.

“Let’s hope so.” Daria says.

“Let’s also hope that nobody tears it down.” ChoCho’s starting to shiver from the cold, and Daria instinctively puts an arm around him, bringing him in closer to keep him warm.

“Thanks for coming with me.” She says, kissing him on the cheek.

“Uh, you’re welcome.” ChoCho says, not wanting to say that he really just came along because he wasn’t tired enough to sleep.

It takes them only a moment to get undressed enough to crawl back into bed with Jynx and Kevin, who both pull away from the cold, damp bodies of their otherwise close friends with a certain bit of repulsion. Daria feels sleep hit her almost instantly, but ChoCho remains awake until his feet are finally warm enough for Jynx to cuddle up to him. He hopes the sign won’t draw the wrong kind of attention, but knows better. When he finally does fall asleep, he dreams of people standing around him, shouting at him, calling him names. He suspects it is because he is wearing a skirt, or because his skin isn’t one of their seven distinct rainbow colors, or maybe because he doesn’t speak their language all that well. Perhaps it is the opposite, perhaps they are yelling at him because none of these things actually apply. ChoCho can’t know, because it is, after all, just some distracting dream.

It wakes him, just the same, and he rises from bed, feeling unclean. It is morning when the dream has ended, so he decides to get up and take a shower to wash away all the thoughts of the night before. The sun has barely risen when he stops to grab a towel and some shampoo, and decides that maybe all he needs is a hot shower and some time to figure out his thoughts. He can still smell Kevin, the musky maleness of him lingering in his nostrils, mixing with the more distinct and pronounced scent of both Jynx and Daria, and their scent seems to grow more distinct to him as he leaves them to their slumber.

Dr. Ph. Martin’s Inks are an awesome ink for watercolor work. They have great color and tone, and have a vivid transluscency. If only they made inks for tattoo . . .