The Mission

It was dark, the thunder rolled off in the distance and the threat of rain was real. The wind gusted at times; showing flashes of true might.  Despite the fact that the weather was threatening, it didn’t matter.  

Tonight was the night.

Jason Cameron was fifteen years old. There were three things he really cared about in life: his Fender Stratocaster, rock and roll and the badass motorcycle that sat in the garage awaiting a sixteenth birthday that was only two weeks away.

But, tonight, there was a mission. His entire universe had been rocked with the death of his favourite rock star, Jimmy Kist. He was the lead guitarist of the Steel Wings.  

There had been a lot of great rock and roll bands to come down the pipes in the past seventy years, but none had ever captured his imagination like the Steel Wings. It was because of Jimmy Kist.  

And, now he was dead.

There were many ways to pay tribute to his fallen hero. There had been many discussions and debates how to honour the man that had invented rock and roll guitar.  Of course, he had not truly invented rock and roll guitar. There had been dozens before Jimmy Kist arrived on the scene, but to Jason he was the greatest.

Jason, Izzy and Gator had decided to pay tribute to their hero in a special way. It was daring just like Jimmy Kist, rebellious and something that no one would ever do. That was the Jimmy Kist story in a nutshell.

Jason slipped out of the window and shimmied down the tree. He carried a backpack and an acoustic guitar. Just the act of getting caught was one thing; but to commit the ultimate act was super awesome. It was something Jimmy Kist would think was great.

He arrived at the end of the street and looked around. There was no sign of Izzy or Gator.

“Hey, where are you?” He whispered in the darkness.

There was thunder in the far distance.

“There could be a tornado or the worst storm ever recorded in history, but I’m still going to pay tribute to the man.”

There was a tap on his shoulder.

He almost screamed.

It was Izzy. He had long, curly dark hair that tumbled past his shoulders. He was tall, thin and had the greatest smirk in the world.

“Nervous?”

“No, just don’t do that again.”

“Where’s Gator?”

“I don’t know.”

Gator dropped from the tree that they were standing next to and made Jason scream again.

Gator was shorter and thicker than his two cohorts. He had the smile of a reptile.

“What is wrong with you two?”

“You seem a little nervous, tonight.”

“Come on and quit being jerks.”

Izzy and Gator looked at each other ready to burst out laughing and walked away.

They moved on.

II

It was really dark walking down the dark path that was across the park. The street lights were not working and the few that flickered on and off proved that the city fathers were truly lame. Someone had forgotten to pay the electricity bill.

The storm danced far away and seemed to be teasing them.

“Did you two bring everything you were asked to bring?”

“I did,” said Izzy as he sipped on a beer. He looked over at Gator.

“I got everything chief,” he said flashing that alligator smile that had managed him to be turned down by scores of girls.

“Good.  This is going to be so cool.”

“It is.”

“I can’t believe he’s gone,” said Izzy.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Jason.

“That’s kind of weird since like we are going to-

“I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

They walked in silence.

“Mary sent me a text today,” said Izzy.

The other two stopped and eyed him.

“Seriously,” they said in unison.

“You owe me a beer, slug bug,” said Gator as he punched Jason on the shoulder.

“You’re drinking it. Okay, Izzy spill it.”

“I am not sure if I want to divulge that information.” Izzy tried to be dignified.

“It seems rather juvenile, but we could tickle it out of him. After all, we’ve known his best ticklish spots since like the second grade.”

Izzy stopped and waved them off.

“No tickling allowed. After all, we are on a mission.”

“What did Mary have to say?”

Izzy winced.

“You aren’t going to like it.”

“Try us,” they said in unison again and this time Jason punched Gator before the latter could respond.

“You owe me a beer, dufus.”

“We’re even now.”

There was silence as the thunder all of a sudden seemed closer.

“Do you guys hear something?”

“Nice try, Izzy, but no you aren’t going to wiggle your way out of this one.”

“No, seriously, I heard something.”

They turned around.  Spice, one of the most notorious of the Red Spiders gang stood there with a machete in hand and the grin of the grim reaper.  

“I didn’t know the Red Spiders were going to be out tonight?  I thought they were in jail?”

“Well, it looks like they aren’t all in jail. Run!”

The three of them ran off and Spice gave chase.

“Damn, we aren’t going to outrun him at least not with all of this gear with us.”  Izzy was carrying his bass and Gator had a backpack full of percussion instruments.

“What do you want to do besides keep running?”

Jason stopped and the other ran into him. The three ended up on the ground. Spice stood over them with the machete and other gang members joined in on the fun.

Jason and his two buddies were up quickly.

“Hi guys.”

“Who said you could be in our territory?”  Spice didn’t look real impressed.

“It’s the shortest way to the wall.”

“The wall?” The gang members looked at each other.

“Yeah, the wall that runs along Dominion Avenue.”

“What about it?”

“You probably heard that Jimmy Kist passed away?”

Spice looked away.

“I was all broken up about it.”

“So was I. We are in a band and decided that we had to pay tribute and we are going to it on the wall along Dominion Street.”

“That is really nice, but that doesn’t give you any excuse to be in our territory.”

“Maybe you didn’t hear me right, but we are going to-

“I heard you right, punk.”

There were about a dozen gang members and they all carried machetes.  

“Maybe we cut their heads off and splatter their blood and guts on the wall. That would be a tribute nobody would forget.”  Red Dog laughed. He was a great big tall geezer with a huge crop of orange carrot hair.

Spice shrugged his shoulders.

“We’ll think about that one. Gimme your guitar.”

“Hey, no way, this is my guitar.”

Spice raised the machete.

“Do you want to live?”

“Yeah.”

Izzy poked him and Gator looked terrified.

“Give him the guitar.  Do you want my bass guitar too?”

Spice smiled and nodded his head.  

“Why don’t you guys just dump whatever is in those backpacks on the ground?”

Izzy nodded his head.

“Sure, right away, hang on a second.”  He took the backpack off his shoulder and unzipped it looking like he was going to actually dump everything on the ground as Spice had commanded him to do. Instead, he reached for a can of mace and peppered sprayed the leader of the Red Spiders hard and fast.

“Run, boys!”

Izzy took off and Gator wasn’t too far behind.  Jason was a little slower and one of the Red Spiders reached out for him and there was a struggle.

“Get ‘em,” screamed Spice.

Jason kicked the gang member who had a hold of him hard in the knee and then took off in a different direction.

They ran amok in the park hiding behind garbage cans and trees and bushes. The Red Spiders split up, but the three of them managed to avoid capture.

At one point, Izzy and Gator lost track of Jason. He had fled a different way.

Izzy and Gator made it to the wall. The threat of a storm had become a reality. The wind had picked up and the trees were dancing back and forth. The rain was only a few minutes away.

“Where did he go?” Izzy looked around.

“I don’t know. Maybe they caught him?”

“No way, why do you talk like that?” Izzy seemed disturbed. 

“How long are we going to stay?”

“Until he gets here.” Izzy leaned against the wall.

“I don’t want to be negative, but what if he never shows up?”

“He’ll show up, Gator.”

“I sure hope so. He’s the coolest guy we know.”

“Yeah, Jason is really cool.”

“Remember when we first met?”

“Yeah, in kindergarten, and we were ready to fight.”

“And, he broke it up and we became friends.”

The minutes ticked away and they grew impatient. There were a few drops of water falling and they looked up at the sky nervous and afraid they were going to get drenched.

Suddenly, Jason appeared from behind the wall scaring the other two enough they screamed.

“Aren’t paybacks fun?”

“I told you they didn’t get him.” Izzy shook his head.

“Wrong, partner. They got me and were ready to chop my head off, but the Blades showed up.  While they were beating the snots out of each other, I slipped away.”

“I told you he was cool.”

“Hey, I told you.”

“No way, I said it first.”

“Ladies are we through here? Do I have to break up another fight?”

They stopped and looked embarrassed.

“Let’s do this.”

Jason jumped over the wall and they set up their instruments quickly.  

“On three, boys,” and the three played ‘Steal Wings Flying’ the band’s greatest hit.

When they finished the cans of spray paint rolled out.  

“Let’s go before someone shows up.”

For the next hour they worked the many different coloured cans of paint and when they finished stood back.

“It’s beautiful,” said Gator. He had a tear in his eye.

The wall was adorned with guitars and stars and a very reasonable facsimile of Jimmy Kist. In bold black letters the words: ‘JIMMY KIST IS DEAD’ was spread across most of the wall.

The milky dew of the morning was trying to steal the last of the night intrusion. It had rained hard during their ‘art work’ but it didn’t matter. 

“We did it,” grinned Jason.

“We sure did.”

They walked away with all of the evidence tucked securely in their backpacks.

A car drove by and honked their horn.

Jason raised his fist and screamed: “Jimmy Kist Forever!”