Pale Beasts

By John Thrasher

Every culture tells tales of mystical white animals. Buffalo, elephant, owl, tiger, dragon, all are symbols whose coming means change. Good, bad, never indifferent, always complete, change.

In Central Park on the second longest day of the year, one of them shimmered into being with a message.

You are my chosen avatar.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Thrasher Books
• Release date: Feb 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781952062735

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Pale Beasts

John Thrasher

Copyright © 2020 by John Thrasher.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below through mail or email with the subject line Attention: Publication Permission.

This publication contains the opinions and ideas of its author. It is intended to provide helpful and informative material on the subjects addressed in the publication. The author and publisher specifically disclaim all responsibility for any liability, loss, or risk, personal or otherwise, which is incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of any of the contents of this book.

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ISBN (eBook): 978-1-952062-73-5

ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-952062-74-2

Contents

Chapter 1: And the name of him who sat on it was...

Chapter 2: The gateway is opened...

Chapter 3: You ever been on the Coney Island roller coaster?

Chapter 4: Am I a bad person?

Chapter 5: That’s gonna make cabs scarce.

Chapter 6: Why just one? Bust up a few, you know?

Chapter 7: ...people worry.

Chapter 8: Only the three pale beasts.

Chapter 9: We’re going dragon hunting.

Chapter 10: We have to disrupt order.

Chapter 11: Why do you oppose us?

Chapter 12: "...these things are never neat and easy.’

Chapter 13: Remember . . . Survive the night.

Chapter 14: I’ll take care of you.

Chapter 15: Curse the idea of Balance.

Chapter 16: I was hoping for a happy ending.

Chapter 1

And the name of him who sat on it was...

There seemed to be a crowd.

O.K., so, she worked at a popular place. But in all her years the Zoo crowd at this hour never pressed at the gate like this, they got free admission and usually remained patient and orderly. There was nothing new to see here, nothing to cause a press like this; His Majesty wouldn’t arrive until tomorrow and she and the team would not have him out of quarantine and ready for the public for at least a month after that. So why was there such a mob . . . ?

Jennifer Singleton had covered most of the blocks from her usual stop at 68th and Lexington in a slow amble rather than her usual brisk stride. It put her a trifle late but it was a gorgeous summer day in June, 2006, and she had needed a little calm and a little time after a subway ride into Hell. All those young men, that anger, that friction and suspicion, they gave her a scent that wasn’t helpful when she had to handle wildlife large enough to crush skulls. At 64th, across Fifth from the Park entrance, she had nearly a block to go now, plenty of time to put herself in a happier place, but half way across Fifth she could already see backs and found her feet picking up speed. Instead of veering away on her customary route to the clinic where her key card would bypass the main entrance and the usual crowd of tourists and gawkers, she rushed straight west within shouting distance of Fifth. She could see the tension that bound this crowd like steel strapping and she knew something was wrong. If anything had happened to one of her babies she would need to be where the action was. She wondered if her card would work on a milling, frightened mob the way it opened doors at the Central Park Zoo.

Nope. Nothing doing. But this milling mob was not frightened. No one jostled or pushed or even raised a voice. People simply stood, trying in vain to peer over or through their neighbors. What is it? Jen asked the air around her. What happened? The air didn’t answer and no one else seemed to hear. Like a fouling linebacker, Jen curled one shoulder and pushed into the crowd’s back. City dwellers simply moved like water around a boat, flowing out of her way and back again. She made progress, kept her ears and eyes open, searching. She heard and saw things.

What happened? A voice, nothing more, no moving mouth or body.

Dunno. Young businessman, stock broker maybe. They’ve got the bomb squad in. Above the heads she glimpsed colored lights reflecting off the piss yellow of a City truck. Move on.

Whazzup, bro’? Jen cringed. Here was a strong young black trailing the Halloween ribbons from her morning ride, almost inarticulate in his argot.

Summbuddy beat us to it, man, came another. They holdin’ Sabra.

A name. Push. Spoken with reverence. Shove. What would toughs like these revere?

She smelled dust. Something like she once had smelled after a truck had dumped a load of limestone gravel. No combustibles, no smoke. Just dust.

Push. The closer she got to the main Zoo gate, the quieter the crowd became. Presumably, the ones in front knew what happened and did not need to ask.

What happened? she asked them. Excuse me? What . . .

It was then that the crowd before her moved aside, a curtain waterfall before a prow, and she saw . . .

A dozen mounted NYPD patrolmen keeping the crowd back in a near perfect semicircle.

Beyond them, police cars - six or more - the one with its lights flashing framed a profile with its rear door window. Young, white, androgynous, with a nose flat as if pressed to the glass but otherwise fine featured, short hair as black as a tire. With eyes flashing red it turned as she looked to suggest a sneer like all those she had seen below ground, and it puzzled her to see the suspect had died the other side of his . . . her? . . . head a bright orange.

Yonder, a large yellow garbage type truck whose side proclaimed it to be the property of NYPD - Bomb Disposal Unit.

And finally, a twisted iron main gate beckoning to the Zoo with bent metal fingers. Beyond it the gift shop entrance had disappeared and the familiar first pathway had been blasted and scattered like bits of shell after a hatching. Jen felt the weight of the air on her shoulders, everything lay under a visible coating of powder, and the crowd stood in reverential awe. The awe was the worst part for all that it hinted, and indeed Jennifer found uniformed police officers working silently among orderly body bags. But when she recovered enough to remember her place she decided it was inside; she took a step past the face of the crowd to find her way blocked by a uniformed horseman.

Panicked, she looked up. "I’ve got to get in there!"

Stay back, ma’am.

But . . . I work there!

Stay back!

Let ‘er pass, Lu.

The voice was deep and dark as a pit, clear despite the distance. It came from a second mounted cop no more substantial than an anatomy skeleton draped in police blue. From where Jen stood, his eyes looked like obsidian marbles and Lu, whoever he was, jerked to feel them on him. At least the more distant horse was healthy, a magnificent Appaloosa, standing proud and ready.

Behold, a woman behind Jen murmured, a pale horse. And the name of him who sat on it was . . . The horse in question looked in that direction and the speaker fell silent on a gasp so loud it sounded like choking.

You see, Mother? a woman to Jen’s right snarled. A white horse. That must be what they’ve been seeing.

No. No rider. This was an older woman, speaking in awe and fear as the brown horse pivoted, opening Jen’s way. And no harness, no saddle. I seen it myself. In her first step forward Jen glanced back. She saw a woman maybe 30, a dozen years younger than her, and another maybe a dozen years older but looking older still, shrunk and bent from a lifetime’s labor. In moonlight, bright as day. Between matron and crone stood a silent, wide-eyed child of five. And it wasn’t no horse.

The matron snorted. Of course it was, she decreed. Horses don’t have horns.

Or golden hooves, the child said happily. But unicorns do.

Matron waggled tiny girlish hand. Don’t be absurd.

Jen turned as she finished that first step and looked a sharp look at the mounted cop who had stopped her. She dropped her eyes to send thanks to Deep Voice for interceding, but she winced to see the look of outrage and hate on that cadaverous face . . .

. . . directed at a wide-eyed child of five . . .

You’re late.

Stacey! Jennifer flinched at her own echo and glanced from the 20-something redhead to the huge white-faced clock that stood strict guard over the bustling clinic and its cavernous, freshly painted holding cell. 8:34. Half an hour. Maybe a little. It embarrassed Jen, to be caught by a junior team member. We’re basically just waiting for delivery, so . . . Especially on this team. She felt a dozen eyes like blunt prods.

Just waiting. Stacey heaved a carton up off a tended four-wheeled dolly. You’re going to just wait . . . The cords on her neck stood out, her eyes bulged, until the case hit the concrete with a thump and rattle. . . . while the rest of us log these drugs, prep the cell, keep tabs on His Majesty at sea, pass out the leuk shots in the predator house, check two Grizzlies for intestinal parasites and deal with the boils on Rhinoc’s cute ass, all by noon?

What’s left to be done with the cell?

Smells of fresh paint, said the dolly man in brown.

It’s not the paint, Stacey bit off, folding back a page on the shipping invoice. It’s the paint thinner. They used too much.

Well then. Eyes wide, the delivery man lifted the last crate off his dolly. It looks like I’ve done enough damage here for today. He had Stacey initial his log and pushed the dolly out.

Jen tilted her head just enough to glimpse the glint of reflected fluorescence on a side wall. We’ll get some hot lights in there, it needs to dry by dawn tomorrow.

As if you’d worry about white paint showing up on him?

Ya know . . . Jen stifled her sarcasm by lugging another case to the locker. I wouldn’t rag you until you’d been half an hour late the third time. I think I did pretty well, considering. Did you hear what happened?

Jennifer Singleton!

Here it came.

What!

Youthful Rambo Jefferson, tall and bald, broad and hard and dressed in white, shook his ebon finger at her. What did your mother say to you about lying?

What lie? I’m not lying.

You most certainly are! Dismissing her unspoken story with a waving of one limp hand, Rambo set his checklist down and flounced toward her, arms akimbo. No. Really. He flounced. It was the only word Jen had ever found that successfully described the way he walked. To suggest that a measly explosion and a crowd of good old Manhattan vultures would delay my boss in any way . . . Why, it’s an affront! I’m astonished. Frankly aghast! You don’t ever come through the main gate!

No. She hadn’t today, either. But I . . . She had finally given up on the crowd and gone around to her usual keyed entry. I didn’t hurry in.

Catch the 7:08? Stacey asked.

Always.

Rambo stroked his hairless chin, hiked one hairless brow. Well! Then you were right on time.

Jen shot another glance at the clock. Well, I would have been, but . . . There were these bullies . . .

Rambo clapped his hands, wove his fingers together and held them close under his chin, his face bright with hope. Ooooh! Do tell!

For the umpteenth time Jennifer had to remind herself that Rambo was not a derisive nickname. They were on the subway. The elder Jefferson had named his son for the movie hero to inspire future glory. There must have been a dozen of them, young black toughs, got on at the Number 5 platform. She wondered just how disappointed the father was. They couldn’t have been even 19, any of them, all dressed in black jeans and black boots and they all had these orange ribbons tied to their arms or around their heads . . .

Rambo snapped his fingers. Tigers!

What?

Tigers, Stacey said. It’s a street gang out of Harlem. The ribbons are their gang colors, they’re supposed to be tiger stripes.

Jen felt something drain out of her. Gang members?

Where you been, girl? Her black assistant, the only male on their team, made claws of his fingers and stalked her in a parody of menace. They’s gangs at work all over town!

What do you know about street gangs?

Only what the papers are sayin’. Exuding satisfaction, Rambo looked at his nails as if worried about visible brush strokes. They sayin’ it’s as bad as it’s been in forty years. Gangs are all over the place, wolves . . . The checked fingers covered his lips to stifle a giggle. Or Tigers. And the rest of us are just sheep.

Bad analogy, Jen said. Wolves respect sheep. These guys respect nothing, intimidating everyone and sneering at the weak. To them everything is contemptible. Except . . . for one name . . .

They respect their leader, Rambo said, as if he could read her mind. Guy name of Sabra. Means Tiger in Hindi, er Swahili er somethin’. The only black in Harlem with red hair.

They holdin’ Sabra, a tough had said. What? said Jen.

How could a black man have red hair? Stacey asked.

He’s an albino, Rambo said, glancing at an opened crate as if he might work while he gossiped. Like His Majesty. The only pigment in an albino is the iron in the blood, so albino blacks have rust colored hair. He dies half of it black, like a tiger’s stripes, a fashion statement, really, but they started calling him Sabra and he started the Tigers. But they all jes wolves, he assured the women, and then shivered. I can’t wait.

For what?

Why, to get eaten, of course!

Jen shook her head. "You want to get hurt?"

Rambo rolled his eyes in ecstatic anticipation. And you don’t? Hon, every day, twice a day, you ride the most dangerous public transit system in the world, and you can afford a car. Queens to Central Park and back every damn day, and you think you’re not asking for it?

Nobody drives in Manhattan.

Rambo pointed. She didn’t need to know the direction, they were surrounded. Then why is all the streets jammed?

All right, sensible people don’t drive.

Then a lot of sensible people are down underground, Stacey explained to her clipboard, hurting a lot of other sensible people for money. And credit cards. And shoes.

Jen frowned and shrugged. I never had a problem.

Really? Rambo said, honestly surprised.

Sure. I like the exercise, it’s just five blocks.

Rambo pressed four spread fingertips into his breast bone. "I am shocked! he mugged. Sweetheart! It’s gone be over a hunnert when we leave here. Wouldn’t you be happier in an air conditioned Caddy? You walk to and fro on the hottest days, the coldest, in the rain, even in the snow! From the R train! To Central Park! Alone!! And you’ve never been mugged!?"

I’ve lived in Queens all my life, Jen said. Forty-two years and counting, and I’ve never even been accosted rudely.

Yeah? Challenged, Rambo postured. I grew up on 125th Street, Sweetie, and I know Harlem. Let me tell you, gangs and muggers are real. She frowned in doubt; he whipped out a hand and snapped his fingers in her face. What chu watch for news, girl?

What do you mean?

What chu watch for news? What station? Who do you believe?

CNN. Did you hear about the second white buffalo calf?

I mean local! Local news, girl!

Oh, uh, I don’t . . . watch the local news. I work in Manhattan, the worst of it sort of seeps in on the air. That plainly didn’t satisfy him. Stacey? What do you watch here?

The snapping fingers whipped in Stacey’s direction; she turned on the little 13-inch set. Out of nothing evolved an earnest 30’s type with a microphone, standing in front of a wooden door as eddies of the curious looked in and passed on. The Channel 2 News logo appeared in the upper left under the bold words, Special Report, and Live from the Juvenile Courts wavered in on the lower right. We join our program already in pro-GRESS! sang Rambo.

Judge Harold Stone has dismissed all charges against young Richard Styvers, including incitement to violence, vigilantism, obstruction of justice and interference with an officer of the law. Ruling that the actions alleged in the information did not constitute a crime, Judge Stone issued a stern warning to the District Attorney’s Office for clogging the Court’s calendar with trivialities and politics. Styvers, aged 16, professes to be a Pure Witness, a member of the vigilante organization founded by Raphael Hinter-Kine last February. The doors behind the newsman burst open, ejecting a gaggle of boys and young men in tighter formation than a Boy Scout troop, every one in pressed khaki trousers, gum soled deserts boots and a taut white T, each and every one donning a white beret as he moved. Jen gasped. They were there too!

White gangs! Rambo crowed. I knew it!

They’re not a gang, Stacey interjected as the camera swerved vertiginously, following the reporter when he suddenly dodged into the knot, calling Mr. Kine! The camera steadied. Mr. Kine! A word, please!

A fit Italian-looking man in his 20’s ignored the camera but welcomed the reporter with the sort of smile a wanderer saves for home. Mr. Schuler! Of course. But it’s Hinter-Kine. Raff to my friends.

All right . . . Raff. Tell me. Your Witnesses have been in the news a lot lately, time after time one or more of you has been arrested for public disturbances.

The young man pursed his lips thoughtfully. What is your question?

Why should anyone trust or believe in you?

Because we never lie.

But you’re criminals . . .

Careful, Richard. Good reporters check their facts. We get arrested, charged, but we’re never convicted or even tried. A Fair Witness knows where the lines are drawn, and unlike the gangs we bear Witness against, we respect those lines.

But vigilantism is against the law.

The young face creased in a sad, wise smile. Is a good reporter vigilant?

Yes, of course, but . . .

Then you know, it is not a crime to be watchful. But does that make one a vigilante? Haven’t there been complaints about reporters who observe tragedies but do nothing to prevent them? In the same way, we are vigilant. None of us goes armed, none of us ever acts. We Witness.

What does that mean?

Evil prefers shadows, Richard. Where there is a Witness there is no shadow. I modeled our movement on the Fair Witnesses in Robert Heinlein’s book, ‘Stranger in a Strange Land,’ and we train our recruits to report precisely what they see, neither more nor less. All we do is watch, note, and remain ready to report. There is nothing illegal about that, as Judge Stone just told the DA. For the first time the Witness looked at Jen . . . no. Under those steady, dark, commanding eyes she had to remind herself that he merely looked at the camera. We remember Sliwa, said Hinter-Kine with suppressed heat. Founder of the Guardian Angels. We undertake where he left off. We are Pure Witnesses, we serve the truth, and we are unafraid. We watch all predators. He turned to the reporter. Soon, wherever a gang member walks, there too will be a younger man in white.

Chapter 2

The gateway is opened...

Ah, Geeze . . . Rambo grimaced, shaking his head. That’s all it comes down to? Gang versus gang, white against black?

Stacey squatted beside a crate. The Witnesses aren’t a gang, Ram.

Ram’s white teeth gleamed in a taunting smile. Sure they are, Honey!

No, they aren’t. She extracted a rattling box, offered it up to Jennifer. "My brother’s a cop, he’s on the task force, they don’t fit