The Sons of Liberty

by James Tow

held up a wad of cash. “We’ll give her right back. I promise.”

  Alyse threw him a middle finger.

  “Why don’t you stick that somewhere?” he responded.

  Disrespectful punks. I could only ignore him—I didn’t want to push them. I looked in my rear-view mirror to see the others, from the rice rockets, messing with Chris.

  With the kid still hanging from his window, he shot us a middle finger, and drove next to Gabriel. I saw him taunting him as well—never a good idea. Through the back window of the GTO, I saw Gabriel grab a pistol from the floorboard. He stuck it out the window, aiming at the kid’s face. The kid threw himself back in the car, and the Honda swerved several times before Gabriel aimed at its front right tire and shot. Sparks sprung from the car’s rim as it rolled along the asphalt. The Honda started to pull over, and I saw the old pick-up swerve left to hit the Supra next to him—it lost control in the grass. The rest of their gang pulled over with the Honda and the spun out Supra. I looked back to see them throwing a fit in our direction—Alyse laughed. I grabbed the radio.

  “Was that really necessary?”

  “Hell yeah!” Chris said. “They wouldn’t shut up. What better way to stop them?”

  “He has a point,” Alyse added.

  “Same side, remember?” I argued through the radio.

  “All assholes deserve the same,” Gabriel said.

  I saw the traffic getting off at the next off ramp and it hit me. We didn’t know where in Austin they were holding this thing. Apparently, the rest of the crew was on the same page.

  “So, where are we going exactly?” Toni asked through the radio.

  “We are just going to follow the crowd,” Gabriel responded.

  Through a series of ‘stop-and-go’ driving, we finally made it to the Western side of Austin—Texas Hill Country—where the herd slowly migrated to. To my astonishment, most of the trees in the area were intact—preserving the beautiful scenery. Large tents were scattered throughout the hill cluttered landscape—with several large tents, and one massive tent in the distance.

  We followed the slow moving crowd onto a dirt trail that averted off from the side of the road. Alyse and I surveyed the area and its population of tents and roaming people. The cars we followed turned off the main dirt trail onto sister trails that lead throughout the Hill Country.

  Gabriel took a sharp and sudden turn onto another one of the sister trails that cut in front of several tents, and followed it. We coasted through until we couldn’t see any more tents—which took ten minutes.

  “This looks like home for the next couple of weeks,” Gabriel said as we all got out of our vehicles.

  “What about a tent? I am not going to sleep in the truck,” Toni said, stretching her legs.

  “Almost all the tents are the same. Someone has to be selling them around here,” Chris said.

  “He’s right,” I agreed and turned to Gabriel, “But I’m more worried about how we sign up for The Games. I doubt we can just waltz in there and compete.”

  Gabriel nodded in agreement. “Chris, take your crew and find us a tent,” he ordered—handing him a wad of money from his pocket. “Paul and I will figure out how to sign up.”

  Chris, and a few others, jumped into one of the Humvees and drove back down the sister trail in search of a tent. Gabriel and I started walking when Alyse walked up.

  “When he says, ‘Paul and I’ he also meant me,” she said smiling.

  “Of course he did,” I smiled back.

  We continued to walk through the heart of the city of tents, and the diversity amazed me. We were surrounded by people from various origins. Alyse and I started to play a game of ‘who can hear the most different kinds of languages.’ She was destroying me with fourteen different languages while I only picked up on seven—so I announced her winner.

  “Hey Alyse,” Gabriel said pointing at a tent with three guys standing outside talking—they wore jeans that were skin tight. Gross. “If you need some pants, you know where to go.”

  “Those are too tight for my taste,” she said with a disgruntled look. “They look like a boy band,” she added.

  “Would you rather be in a band? Or would you rather be an actor?” I asked.

  “What kind of band? And what actor would I compare to?” he asked, contemplating before he answered.

  “A band like Avenged Sevenfold and an actor like Adam Sandler,” I told him.

  “Easy. Band,” he said and explained, “I didn’t really like Avenged Sevenfold to begin with, but their later music was amazing. And Adam Sandler was pretty good with his first few movies, but then he just got irritating.”

  “Who is Adam Sandler?” Alyse asked. Gabriel and I just laughed. “Don’t laugh at me,” she said and punched my arm.

  Then Gabriel asked, “Would you rather be in a movie with John Wayne or Bruce Willis?”

  That’s a tough one, “I’d have to go with Bruce Willis.”

  Gabriel turned around, “What?!” he exclaimed, while walking backwards.

  “If you were in a movie with John Wayne, you wouldn’t get any attention. His movies are about how he kicks ass, and about his leading lady—you don’t hear too much about the co-stars,” I explained. “Plus, Bruce Willis is just as good.”

  Gabriel pointed at me and said, “Blasphemy. Don’t compare The Duke to other actors.”

  Him and John Wayne, what the hell? I could never get into his movies. I remember when my father and Gabriel would spend their Friday nights watching John Wayne flicks. I always fell asleep halfway through the first one they played.

  “What George Lucas series would you rather be in, Indiana Jones or Star Wars?” Alyse asked.

  “Star Wars!” I yelled with my fist in the air like an idiot.

  “That would depend,” Gabriel started. “What kind of character would I be in Star Wars? Because if I’m not wielding a light saber, then it’s not worth it.”

  “You would be like Han Solo or Indiana’s trusty sidekick,” Alyse said.

  “Damn. I guess I’d stick with Star Wars. Forgot about Solo,” Gabriel said.

  “How can you forget about Han?” I asked. “He was king of cool. And he deserved the light saber over Luke’s bitch-ass.”

  “I like Luke!” Alyse shrieked.

  Gabriel stopped, and looked around. “I have no idea what I’m looking for,” he said. I pointed toward one of the large tents, about two hundred yards in front of us, that peered over the trees.

  “Let’s walk that way.” We continued our trek toward the tent, and Gabriel started singing Walk this Way by Aerosmith.

  “Alright, if you were in a movie—any kind of movie—who would you want as the leading actress in that movie?” Alyse asked.

  “In a horror movie with Cameron Diaz…so I can kill Cameron Diaz,” Gabriel quickly responded. Alyse and I laughed.

  “So you would be the killer in this horror flick?” I asked him.

  “Oh yeah,” he replied.

  “I really don’t know. It would have to depend on the movie I suppose,” I said.

  “Then what kind of movie?” Alyse asked.

  “Probably something I’ve written myself. It would be about something significant in my past. Like about my first job as a cashier at a drug store,” I explained. “I don’t know what genre it would fall under—it has a bit of everything. Or just a movie based around cars.”

  “Didn’t you hate that cashier job?” Gabriel asked.

  “I didn’t really hate the job—just some of the customers,” then I went into a rant of the annoying ignorance I constantly encountered. “People would throw fits because something cost $5.89 but it rang up at $5.99—and it ended up being that they looked at a price tag that wasn’t even on the same shelf as the item they wanted. This one guy got mad at me because he brought in a calculator that ‘didn’t work’ when all I did was hit the ‘on button.’ And another time when a lady filed a complaint against me because we didn’t have the brand of tissues she wa
nted. Ok…I hated it,” I added and they both laughed.

  “You write stories?” Alyse asked curiously—thankfully changing the subject.

  “It’s a sort of hobby,” I confessed. “But what about you? Who would you want as your ‘opposite’ in a movie you starred in?” I asked her.

  “Tom Cruise,” she said.

  Gabriel and I stopped in our tracks. “What the hell?” we exclaimed in unison—glaring at her with disbelief.

  “He’s a good looking man!” she shouted.

  “We can’t be seen together in public,” I told her and walked several steps in front of her.

  “Alright! I’ll change it to Dwayne Johnson,” she said and ran back to my side.

  “You can’t change answers,” Gabriel said, “But that’s much better.”

  “And you agreeing with her isn’t gay at all,” I joked.

  There were numerous long lines leading to the entrance of the tent when we arrived. Stretching across the opening were several long wooden tables with three people to each table facing the lines writing down the information that each person in line told them. There were computers, copy machines, printers, everywhere within the tent, and there were more people, stammering around busy with something incoherent. All of them wore the same clothes: white collared shirts with blue jeans.

  Alyse walked up to the last guy in line and asked, “Is this where we register our team?”

  “Yeah,” the scruffy man said. “Just give them your leader’s name, team name, and all the members competing.”

  We got in line behind the man and I wondered who exactly sat behind the tables taking down our information.

  “Are those guys