Silver City Stories.
An IronAge.Media Prompt - The lounge.
04:18am, Sept 20th, 1939.
I sit in a moody corner of the ‘Silver Spittoon’, a dive where I drink my evenings away, half in self-pity, the other because the state my liver is in makes it prime for retelling old stories. Stories of the street, of the ‘fuck off’, ‘kick em in the teeth’, glory days, before the ‘supers’ came down from ‘Olympus’ and brought real change.
We thought, what we were doing was justice. Putting em behind bars, catch and release. But the supers, they ignored every law and some say we’re better off for it. Some say. No more bank robberies, muggings, murder, they all but put a stop to that. Now it’s a Pleasantville type of mundane where polite smiles are the only masks we wear now.
Because that’s all we can do, our masks we once wore in secret have been replaced by a paranoia befitting the asylum, when they put the new laws into place. Because, see, stopping street crime isn’t the only thing they did, they sought out corruption all the way to the top. Mayors, governors…
The Presidency.
They said we couldn’t be trusted to watch our own flock, so they were the new shepherds.
More like wolves.
They go about now, most reserving their power. But I seen once lift a automobile over their heads with ease. Shoot Lasers from their eyes. The kids love em, playing power fantasy, they’re fresh out of the funny books.
But there’s seldom any laughter anymore, and everything is dolled out by them, piecemeal.
We’re assigned a social score; lord knows how gods determine such a thing for mortals. But it’s basically good behaviour and keeping your mouth shut. Our words are muted, next will come our thoughts.
Sipping on the liquid amber evening after evening I think to look up some old acquaintances, but most have either conformed or left town. ‘The Silver Spittoon’ was the old hangout after a night on the streets, one of the few places left before they bring down strict prohibition.
That’s how it starts, they don’t completely take away freedom in on fell swoop like you’d think. They casually, gradually erode our sense of what’s normal and acceptable, until we change before society does, then the rest follows.
Not me though. I ain’t going down like that.
See, to me the new sheriff in town ain’t nothing but the new school bully.
And I don’t like bullies.
If I can’t kick in the teeth of street heavies and thugs, I’d sooner put out the call for resistance.
One thread alone is weak, but many are strong. And together form the fibre of the muscle in the arm of the old school wanting to take back what they took.
It wasn’t perfect, but we were free.
-SS- Sept 20th, 1939.
C/O: Midnight.