Part 86
Epilogue Part 4
The Persephone I remember would have been just as unhappy to see me. “You have to get out of here!” Persephone says, shooing us toward the garage. If anyone, she’s responsible for the Doom City Riot. She was in a radical hardcore straight-edge vegan youth posse known around town as Triple R. They talked tough, but I never thought they’d really pick up guns.
“Wait! Wait! Wait!” Kara pleads, waving her hands madly to ward off Persephone’s grabs. “We need to make one phone call. An extraction team will have us out in five minutes.”
Seph stares at her hard. “Fine.” She pulls a cordless phone off the charger to her left and tosses it to Kara. “If they aren’t here in five minutes, you’re waiting in the street.”
If Triple R joined with Lapis, the Regime of the Party Mayor could be over by now. Triple R used the riot as an excuse to prowl the streets being thugs. Dressing gay members and females in skimpy costumes and parading them down dark city streets, Triple R would brutalize any drunk with an untoward look. For them, the riot became an all-out war on all drug dealers, even the good ones.
Kara turns on the phone. ”Don’t worry,” she says. She dials, listens a moment, and turns it off. “We’ll be out of your hair in no time.” She hands the phone back to Persephone and stretches. “Can I use your bathroom, Seph, I’ve got to pee like mad.”
Persephone waves over her shoulder while continuing to stare at me. “Yeah, yeah, go ahead.” She waits until a door slams before taking a deep breath. “The infamous Dr. Filth,” she says, sucking the bitterness off every word. “Not here on cryptozoologist business, I can assume.”
I keep smiling. “Nice place you’ve got here, Seph.”
“Did you know that man is the only animal that smiles as a sign of friendship?” she coos.
“I’ve heard that somewhere.” I break gaze and look around the room. In high school, she was the fashion-punk princess wearing plastic wings that became a popular Alternatron accessory a few years later. Seph dogged our every step and fucked every superhero in our school. “I guess I didn’t really expect to see this.”
“Oh come on, Filthy, I can’t wear black T-shirts and have hairy legs forever! We all have to grow up some time.” She takes a deep breath through her nose. She’s a fraud, an actor, an apologetic racist. When she sang punk songs in dirty basements, none was more vocal on the equality of all, except for straight white men. Us poor, afflicted white men, of course, were expected to suck it up and refrain from calling her a hypocrite. “You can’t be some dumb punk kid forever,” she scolds. The rift between us was legendary, written up in every photocopied fanzine across the nation. The frivolities of youth.
“You’re married?” I ask.
“I met someone I love very much...”
"Is it true dykes lined up outside the wedding to protest?" I ask.
"They prefer anything but dyke,” Seph says as Kara returns.
“You teaching those kids men are evil?” I ask.
“Can we worry about more important things?” Kara asks.
“I don’t think that’s necessarily true any more,” Persephone says.
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