Escape from Dolphin Street

by David Sharp

  “No, I’ll never be your boy.”

  “That’s what Adam said.” Liev struck first blindsiding Jason with a blow to the face.

  Jason reeled from the impact and swung back around, missing. Why can’t I hit him? Liev was on him with three more punches. Jason vainly swung again and again. The last one made brief contact. Why am I so weak? Jason exerted himself with impudent fury. Jason felt the sweat pour and moaned at the physicality. This is so hard. Even though his mouth was dry he spat on the floor. The fire was growing hotter.

  Liev boxed like the street punk he was. Every jab was to toy with his prey. The ones he connected with were strong, but not enough to take down Jason. The smile slid on his face easily. He was enjoying the game. “Is that the best you got?”

  “You bastard,” Jason said and swung with all his might and missed again.

  Liev took the open space and punched Jason in the gut doubling him over. He slammed his fists down on him till Jason lay at his feet. “I told you… your ass is mine.”

  “No.” Jason panted and tried to rise. Liev’s boot pressed down on his shoulder beside his face.

  “Lick the boot, Jason, and we can go.” Liev pressed his foot down harder.

  Jason felt the pressure holding him back. From the corner of his eye, he saw the flames press closer to Adam. He looked up at Liev. How did I ever think he was hot? Jason carefully raised his hands and touched the dirty combat boot. He caught Liev’s eye with his and stuck out his tongue gliding it across the leather.

  “Awe, that’s it. I knew you would.”

  Jason twisted his hands and turned Liev’s foot around as roughly as he could until her heard a dim sounding crack. Liev fell down hard. There is more than skin to people. Jason got on top and hit the punk over and over.

  Liev laughed at him and said, “That’s the spirit.”

  “Don’t you laugh at me,” Jason said infuriated. The anger flowed through him and he hit harder and harder. He wanted nothing more than to shut Liev up.

  “Finally,” Liev said and trailed off into unconsciousness.

  Jason kept hitting him. Once freed of his own fears he could not stop. Something blocked his arm. He turned his rage on the interloper.

  Adam stared at him with big eyes. “No, no more.”

  “Adam,” Jason said panting. He swallowed and took a look at his work. Liev was bloodied and ruined by his hand, but still breathing.

  “We should go.” Adam lifted Jason up to stand amidst the flames.

  “Go where?” Jason wanted to understand.

  “Away, from here,” Adam said.

  “You let this happen.” Jason seethed.

  “I know.” Adam looked away to the raging fire.

  “They’re all dead, why?” Strangely, Jason had no tears.

  “I didn’t know. How far gone they were.” Adam paused, returned his hazel eyes to Jason, and continued, “I… I tried to warn you.”

  “What about my brother?”

  Adam tilted his head. “You don’t remember what Trevor looked like do you?”

  “No.” Jason felt an emptiness open up inside him. A breach in his soul.

  “Take a good look.” Adam drug Liev away from the flames.

  “No way. That can’t be.” Jason was appalled.

  Liev stirred slightly, moaning something under his breath.

  “The picture you had was from years ago… right?”

  “It’s not true. He wouldn’t have done that stuff.”

  “But he did. He wanted to destroy everything of his old life including you.” Adam gained confidence in the insanity of it all.

  “His name is Liev for fuck’s sake.”

  “No one uses their real name on the streets.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Doesn’t matter. I am Adam now.”

  Jason looked on in shock to his brother on the floor. Now I know what happened.

  “The thing is, I couldn’t let him kill you,” Adam said.

  “You should have.” Jason swung and hit Adam’s chest.

  Adam took it and let himself be hit again. “You wanted me to come with you, well here I am.”

  “No, this is wrong.” Jason stopped fighting.

  “Right, it is all wrong.” Adam moved in.

  Jason let Adam come closer until their lips touched. The rough kiss was magnetic and stirred his flesh, safety forgotten. Jason lay back on the floor, the fire drawing near. Hands explored and their sweaty bodies collided. Adam took him in the flames. This is wrong, but it feels so right. The fire burned into an inferno.

  Jason was flooded with all the thoughts and dreams he had of Adam. The times he thought of him alone in his room in suburbia sprang to mind. Suburbia is lost. All the things he had imagined had been done from the first not so innocent touch in the car to the sex in the cold shower that had changed him. The surreal dream moment that mirrored this one in the fire came to him and everything felt all right.

  The tragedy of the night was hard to push aside. There is no going back. Jason fought the horrific images away. The crawlspace, the psychotic punks, the blue lightning of the stun gun, the suffocating plastic, Hound and his parlor of dolls flashed in his mind.

  Let the fire take all of it.

  The house on Dolphin Street burned. The fire spread up the wall and took over the ceiling. The inferno was complete. The rest was a blur. Adam did not stop, but licked his lips and kept going. Each thrust took Jason further away. I can never go home again. In a climax surrounded by flame, the heat was almost unbearable — the moment insane. The fire was an end and a beginning.

  There is no future, except the one I make.

  Coda

  X

  Punks milled about the urban streets of the Montrose. Grey daylight brought into focus the colorful graffiti and trash strewn about. Ineffective neon buzzed over the patio of the Taco Shack. Jason was sitting with Adam at a worn wooden table. Carefully, he tore out an article from the free press. The title of the story was: Homeless Youth Die in Fire. The black and white pictures showed body bags being pulled from the charred remaining structure of the house on Dolphin Street.

  Jason looked into Adam’s haunted hazel eyes and folded the article shoving it into a pocket of his backpack. “Is it over?”

  “Yeah, it is.” Adam looked like he wanted to say more.

  Jason slid a Greyhound bus ticket across the table and watched Adam pocket it as he did the same with another. “What do we do now?”

  “I guess we find a place to crash, in the next town.” Adam glanced nervously to a skinhead talking to a punk with a mohawk in the street.

  Wordlessly, Jason rose, slid his skateboard through the straps, and shouldered his heavy pack. Adam fell into step with him as he walked. Casually, the warmth of Adam’s hand filled his and he knew it was right even though it hurt.

  I never knew what happened to Hound or my brother, Liev. I guess they are still out there. Everybody else is gone. I feel sad about it sometimes, yet I am not alone. I have all that I ever wanted, Adam and my skateboard.

  THE END

  Welcome to the other side of the nightmare world of DOLPHIN STREET. If you liked the twisted horror within ESCAPE, write a review of this book and tell your friends.

  QUEER PUNKS

  HARDENED COWBOYS

  TROUBLED YOUTH

  LOST BOYS

  THRILL SEEKERS

  REBELS

  TAKE THE JOURNEY:

  info@davidsharpwriter.com

  davidsharpwriter.com

  COMING SOON:

  What was it like to live in the summer of 1973 in the Houston Heights with a serial killer in your midst? DARK JOURNEY 1973 (AKA THE JOURNEY OF LANE BOWDEN) takes on a true crime backdrop in this coming of age novel.

  www.davidsharpwriter.com

  ESCAPE FROM DOLPHIN STREET

  started life as a short screenplay (2005), followed by a short story in dARK LANDS (2010), that was converted to a feature length screenplay (2010), reworked
as novel (2015), and revised extensively for the current version (2017).

  In honor of the evolution of a story, the original short, DOLPHIN STREET is included below.

  DOLPHIN STREET

  On the streets there are sharks and dolphins. The sharks are hustlers of different sorts, dangerous and aggressive in form. The dolphins are runaways who play in the street surf — carefree and unaware that sometimes sharks eat dolphins.

  *

  The wind blows through the backyard trees slamming the wooden shutters of the two story cottage open and closed. A storm is coming whirling up the ghosts of the night. A solid off white quilt dries on the lone clothesline in the inky blackness.

  Usually Kelly feels older than her sixteen years but not tonight. She has reverted to the little girl who is afraid of the dark. Lightening flashes momentarily strobing the room in white. The shutters bang again causing Kelly to sit up with the blanket wrapped around her and hands clasped in prayer.

  “Now I lay myself down…” Commotion echoes from downstairs. “…too sleep,” Kelly shudders. “I pray to God…” Something breaks and the din of despair sounds closer. “…my soul to keep” The noise stops with a hard thud. “If I die…” Heavy determined footsteps pound slowly up the stairs. “…before I wake,” she shivers in fear. “I pray to God…” The steps stop very close as the wind blows rattling the shutters on their hinges. Kelly whispers the rest. “…my soul to keep.”

  The door slams open into the wall and Kelly screams. A hulking shadowed figure lunges towards her supine body. Kelly struggles getting tangled in the sheets. Rough hands tear the fabric for a hold on her. Kelly claws a bedside lamp off the nightstand, it briefly lights up and shatters in sparks followed by a deeper darkness as it hits the floor. The strong hands rip at her nightgown reaching underneath. The rage filled eyes of her attacker fill all of her vision. Desperately she screams anew but they are cut off by a blow to the face.

  Enjoying the inflicted pain, the shadow triumphs over her and speaks in a deep soft voice. “Your mine, Kelly.” He wipes away the tears and takes control.

  *

  Three teenagers are standing at the precipice of a train trellis whose tracks cross a gulf that divides their chosen path. Kelly, red hair flowing back and a store bought pseudo punk look, stares down at the bayou. Greenish brown water flows in its banks below. Tanya, mulatto skinned with a redone ‘Valley Girl’ style twirls a lock of her red streaked hair. Moving the bleach blonde bangs away from his eyes, Jason nervously cops a look at stoic Kelly in his confused but gay way.

  “There is no other way.” Kelly says sure of leaving her past life behind.

  Tanya who is always at her side with questions and comforts steps up in the gravel. “Are you sure?”

  “Come on.” Jason acts tough. Tired of waiting, he leads them. “Let’s do this.” He walks out onto the tracks giving Tanya a daring look.

  Kelly delicately follows looking down into the yawning abyss. “It is going to be alright,” Kelly tries reassuring herself.

  Tanya is right after them step by step on the old rail boards and looking down hears Kelly’s warning.

  “Don’t look down.”

  “Now she tells me.” Tanya stumbles. “Oh shit!”

  “Look straight ahead to the other side hooker.” Jason laughs. “And it will be okay.”

  Kelly walks closer to Jason catching his leg almost pulling him off balance.

  “Watch it girl, you’ll take us both down.”

  A pebble skips out from underfoot to falling off the bridge far below it plops into the murky water.

  “Sorry, just keep going.” Kelly nudges Jason along.

  Tanya watches her feet and the empty space between the slats. “I am going to get that little faggot.”

  Jason wobbles but keeps his balance. “I heard that muff licker.”

  “Chill out the both of you.” Kelly concentrates on her footing. “I am trying to walk over here.”

  There is a momentary peace as they cross over. The safety of solid ground is a welcome feeling at the end of the passage. Like deer caught on the road they all look back at once as the melancholy sound of a train whistle blows from afar.

  *

  On the outskirts of the Fourth Ward the landscape changes to be littered with 1930’s style depression row houses built literally a foot apart.

  Tanya engages conversation to not think about the truth and lies of this side of town brought to life nightly by the evening news. “That’s a nice shiner you there honey.”

  Kelly gingerly touches her face. “That’s why we’re here in this paradise.” She motions around.

  “And to think I ditched English for this,” Jason deadpans.

  “No one asked you to come,” says Tanya, eyes closing to slits.

  “I am glad both of you are here.”

  Sheepishly Jason mumbles, “Thanks,” and stares at his feet.

  Tanya puts her arm around Kelly. “You know I would do anything for you girl.”

  “I had to go…I couldn’t take it anymore.”

  Tanya shakes her head and lightens the conversation. “How come we didn’t take the bus cause this is crazy?”

  “I don’t know about ya’ll but I don’t have that much money.” Kelly sighs.

  “Jason looks up slyly smiling. “I stole fifty from my dad.”

  “Punk ass bitch,” Tanya intones under her breath.

  “What! What was that?”

  “Nothing.” She glares at him.

  “Seriously guys, what are we going to do when we run out of money?” Kelly lets the words hang heavy in the air between them.

  They walk in silence contemplating their rash plans and teenage existence. There is subtle movement from within and around the close set houses on either side of the cracked street. Nothing definite can be made out but vague shadows and shapes that are unnerving. Curtains flutter in windows, deceptively empty.

  Kelly walks faster and speaks again, “This place is kind of creepy.”

  “Don’t start,” Tanya picks up the pace more with Kelly in tow.

  Jason sees a shadow quickly move behind a building out of the corner of his eye. He thinks of mentioning it but looks at Tanya hardened visage and changes his mind. The vibe of being watched slowly eases up.

  *

  The three of them walk at a leisurely pace pounding the hot pavement as the surroundings turn decidedly more urban. Ill prepared for the journey, only Jason sports a knapsack. The girls carry all in tote size purses more suited for a night over at a friend’s house. The fiery red sun lowers in the sky while they skirt the city, entering the Montrose. Suburbia left behind, they wonder at the new sights. The street Elgin turns into Westheimer changing dramatically. Strip centers and lofts abut old houses turned bars, resale shops and tattoo parlors.

  Kelly feels excited by the prospect of a new start and even relaxed for the first time since leaving home that morning. “What club is that?” She points out a gray stoned building with black doors and white running lights that beckon with a grungy pull.

  “That is the Cabaret Voltaire,” Jason says knowingly, but it is second hand information.

  “How would you know?” Tanya asks looking away, entranced by the many layers and types of graffiti spray painted on every smooth surface.

  Jason sighs and with a longing of all the times he has been left behind replies, “My brother goes there when he sneaks the car out.”

  A broad shouldered woman in heels and a low cut dress crosses their path.

  “Is that a man?” Kelly looks the person up and down trying to get a sense of gender.

  In a lower voice Jason whispers, “It’s a transsexual.”

  “Freak,” Tanya mumbles, “you would know.”

  Kelly cocks her head to the side then gets it, eyes widening.

  The denizens are colorful with hustlers, street kids, bums, and people just looking for their next drink of the evening. A hustler boy whistles at their approach. It is answered
from somewhere up ahead. A bum pushing a shopping cart is almost hit by oncoming traffic.

  “Wow,” Tanya exclaims at the myriad of activity.

  “I can’t believe we are really here.” Kelly nudges her.

  “This is cool.” Jason smiles at the sights of the coming night feeling free from the nagging insecurities in his head.

  Kelly looks at them and smiles genuinely for the first time in a long while. “Let’s get a bite to eat somewhere where we can sit down.”

  Tanya nudges back. “Good idea, my feet are killing me.”

  “Glad something is,” Jason mumbles going unheard for the ruckus of the street.

  *

  Street lights automatically turn on and neon washes the strip in a seedy glow. A rundown Mexican fast food restaurant invites. Next door lies a sex shop conjoined with a small tattoo parlor marked with an airbrushed Giger styled mural on its side. Two street girls sit below on the pavement, one with a crew cut, jeans and wife-beater shirt and the other, dressed loose and black, flicks back her dark stringy hair to stare at them with wild eyes. A small low gated patio adorns the front entrance of the aptly named ‘Taco Corner’.

  Passing the rusted arch Tanya grabs Kelly’s arm. “Come on, Kelly, let’s grab the table over there.”

  “Get us something cheap.” Kelly breaks Jason’s daze by handing him some ones.

  The exchange does not go unnoticed as they are raptly watched. Jason shuffles past the other dirty tables and goes inside.

  Tanya disdainfully pushes aside a crumpled napkin on their chosen resting spot. “I’m a little worried.”

  “Bout what,” Kelly inquires sitting on the wooden bench across from Tanya.

  “Where are we going to stay tonight?” Tanya asks in an urgent manor.

  “I don’t know.” Kelly mirthfully adds, “Maybe in a park or something.”

  Tanya gives her a decidedly perturbed look but decides to keep her mouth shut on the subject for now. In the distance lightening flickers and the wind picks up cooling things off and blow trash lazily around.

  *

  Jason pays for the order, over the high counter, in the cramped dining area. Putting away the loose change, he angles for the restroom. The door seems stuck and is hard to push, but he manages to shove it open. Jason takes in the visual of the exchange in an instant. A scarred skinhead trades a bag of some white powder for cash from a black man with bleached blonde hair.