Eyebrow guy: Um, can everyone just be nice? I'd prefer that this all
not go up in flames.
Scumbags, goths: Hurr hurr hurr, shuttup, look at those dumb cops,
ahahaha.
Cops: Grrrr.
Eyebrow: Oh, shit.
Four more cars pulled up. Now the shoulder was getting really crowded
and freeway traffic was slowing to a crawl.
More goths piled out. Family cars approached the snarl, slowed, then
sped up again, not wanting to risk the craziness. Maybe some of them
would get on the fucking turnpike and drive up to Orlando, where the
real fun was.
The four-lane road was down to about a lane and a half, and milling
crowds from the shantytown and the arriving cars were clogging what
remained of the thoroughfare. Now goths were parking their cars way
back at the intersection and walking over, carrying the objects they'd
planned to sacrifice to the ride and smoking clove cigarettes.
Sammy saw Death Waits before Death Waits turned his head, and so Sammy
had time to duck down before he was spotted. He giggled to himself and
chugged his coffee, crouched down below the window.
The situation was heating up now. Lots of people were asking questions
of the cops. People trying to drive through got shouted at by the
people in the road. Sometimes a goth would slam a fist down on a hood
and there'd be a little bit of back and forth. It was a powder-keg,
and Sammy decided to touch it off.
He swung his car out into the road and hit the horn and revved his
engine, driving through the crowd just a hair faster than was
safe. People slapped his car as it went by and he just leaned on the
horn, ploughing through, scattering people who knocked over vendors'
tables and stepped on their wares.
In his rear-view, he saw the chaos begin. Someone threw a punch,
someone slipped, someone knocked over a table of infringing
merch. Wa-hoo! Party time!
He hit the next left, then pointed his car at the freeway. He reached
back and snagged another can of coffee and went to work on it. As the
can hissed open, he couldn't help himself: he chuckled. Then he
laughed -- a full, loud belly-laugh.
#
Perry watched it happen as though it were all a dream: The crowds
thickening. The cops getting out of their cars and putting their hands
on their belts. A distant siren. More people milling around, hanging
out in the middle of the road, like idiots, *idiots*. Then that jerk
in the car -- what the hell was he thinking, he was going to kill
someone!
And then it all exploded. There was a knot of fighting bodies over by
the tables, and the knot was getting bigger. The cops were running for
them, batons out, pepper-spray out. Perry shouted something, but he
couldn't hear himself. In a second the crowd noises had gone from
friendly to an angry roar.
Perry spotted Suzanne watching it all through the viewfinder on her
phone, presumably streaming it live, then shouted again, an unheard
warning, as a combatant behind her swung wide and clocked her in the
head. She went down and he charged for her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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