A Moth to Flame by Joe Clifford

Author:Joe Clifford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Joseph Clifford
Published: 2023-11-04T17:17:54+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

THEN, Morning of the Disappearance, Friday, March 15, 1991, 7:04 a.m.

By the time dawn broke, Shane Ellet had been let go. Dell Rawls was frustrated—for having his time wasted, but also, if he was being honest, there was an indignant outrage over the privilege Pasa Ardo families enjoyed. Change the color of their skin, drop them in South Central, and you have a different story, one that ends with more than slaps on wrists and threats of lawsuits from angry parents.

Dell had been gearing up for big charges against that little shit. The prosecutor had no interest in charging a lily-white suburban punk like Shane, whose parents had the same money as the rest of Pasa Ardo’s immoral majority, which afforded the kinds of lawyers with names and reputations that didn’t get pushed around. As Pearce had done, the Ellets had gone with the best: Carlson & Associates. Though Shane didn’t merit the great and powerful Susan Carlson herself. Instead, he got one of the associates. A greenhorn but good. Once the Feds backed off, they had nothing. Illegal tampering with public airwaves was their case. Either way, Ellet was going home.

But not before the little shit fired a parting shot, aimed squarely at Dell’s boy.

In the morning light, Dell headed home, big-headed orange sun peeking its crown above the pink horizon. Brilliant beams streamed through creosote and palm. Dell inhaled sage and tried to regain his cool. Ellet had been lying. That punk hadn’t seen a goddamn thing. Dell would ask Cam, point blank, and his son would assure him Ellet was lying, and then Dell could get some rest.

Dell entered the kitchen to find Cam standing shirtless by the sink, clutching his side.

Father and son stared at one another, till Dell broke the silence.

“What happened to your ribs?”

“I fell.” Cam narrowed his stare. “When you and the rest of the fascists showed up.”

Dell Rawls joined his son by the sink, accepting that his boy’s rage was misdirected. Dell’s anger was too. He could only be so pissed at Shane Ellet, a seventeen-year-old smart ass who, like so many before him, believed he was leading a revolution. Dell came of age in the ’60s, in a neighborhood and world where boys really did face the reality of being drafted, flown overseas, and dropped in a jungle, their chances of survival depending on which way the winds were blowing that day. A new war fueled this recent uprising. If Dell had learned one thing about American history: there was always a new war waiting to take the old one’s place. Country had been in existence over two hundred years, only a handful of them free from conflict. We spend millions upon millions a day on war. Forget produce or chicken, pork belly futures, gold or God—funding fighting, on both sides of the battlefield, was where the real profits were.

Dell Rawls wasn’t a social justice crusader. His first responsibility wasn’t even as a cop; it was as a dad.

“There are other ways to effect change,” Dell said.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.