KRAPOW KRAPOWCHTZ

“Dang worn out piece of junk,” George cursed as the chain slipped off the Dyno while hopping the curb.
The frightened freestylist jumped and let out a yelp as a bolt of lightening struck the huge bronze statue of Andrew Jackson that adorned Jackson Square. The smell of stale beer and fried food that permeated the French Quarter mixed with an odor of arclight and brimstone while George watched a small patch of grass burn from the free flowing stream of electrons that had arced on the other side of the black iron fence. As George knelt down to survey the scourge of the cantankerous chain, a bellicose barrage of thunderheads crept over the city. A fell breeze leaped the levee and poured down Pirate’s Alley. Its intruding, icy fingers rippled the King with a gaggle of goosepimples. A landslide of lightening lent a light show that compounded goosepimple on top of goosepimple. An erie air, electric with energy, and a serried sting of rain began to assault George.
“Hey King, you aren’t smart enough to come in out of the rain?” called a voice, whose approaching steps were muffled by the rain.
“Timan Taz! What are you doing out here?”
“Trying to keep the paint from washing off.” Tinman Taz was one of the French Quarter’s indigenous icons. There was a book written about him and a even a statue of the Tinman on Canal Street in front of the historic Ritz Carlton hotel. Taz’s fame stems from his prolific performance art in which he paints his entire body silver – everything from his afro to his tennis shoes – and remains motionless for hours on end. He was the New Orleans version of a Windsor Castle guard. People would try anything from flashes of nudity to knock knock jokes, but he always remained still as stone. He was one of the best tipped street performers.
He was actually a third generation Tinman. The first Tinman died of pneumonia in the eighties and the second was a white man whose tenure was cut short by a ten year prison term for writing bad checks. Taz had grown up in the Quarter tap dancing for change wearing bottle caps glued to the bottom of his tennis shoes. He saw his opportunity for advancement in the early nineties and had been silver ever since.
George walked the broken bike under an antebellum awning created by a Pirate’s Alley balcony and noticed Rambo sitting in the shadows staring hypnotically at the pulsing puddles. Taz held out a bottle wrapped in a brown bag as an offering to George, but before the boy could decline, Rambo wrenched the rum from Taz. “Are you stupid? I’ll knock the paint off you for giving him that.”
“S’alright, ‘Bo. I don’t drink anyway,” George interjected.
Rambo muttered obscenities under his breath at Taz, chugged down some rum and took the bike from George. “Let’s see what’s wrong with it.” He inspected the sprocket, “Got a wrench?”
“I wish. I bet there’s a bunch in Buddha’s backpack.”
“Yeah,” Taz added, “I saw him and Spider the other day and Buddha had two cans of silver spray paint, a bottle of magic shave, and a cold compress in there. It’s like Bug’s Bunny’s tent. It must be bigger on the inside than the outside.”
Rambo ignored Taz, obviously still aggravated by offer of liquor to the boy, and spun the chain back on the sprocket. “That thing hardly has any teeth left.”
“Yeah, it’s a little worn out,” Buddha agreed. “I thought you were supposed to turn yourself in to Judge Waldrin.”
Rambo’s hair was disheveled, he wore a week’s growth of beard, and the old tank top under his overalls was stained a color not even resembling white. Lightening covered the sky and the lines in Rambo’s face betrayed a sense of gloom. Rambo took another swig from the bottle which he had stowed away in the bib pocket of his overalls and then handed it to Taz as a peace offering. “About that,” he continued, “what had happened was, I walked down to Tulane Avenue and I was standing right there in front of the courthouse. So I say to my legs, ‘Legs, let’s go in. We gotta go to jail’.” Another lightening bolt struck over the levee mauling the Mississippi and Rambo stared off into the night like his mind was a million miles from New Orleans.
When George realized it was not just a pause in the story he asked, “What happened, ‘Bo?”
Rambo snapped out of his daze and began to answer, but an inconsiderate crow landed on the black iron gate and began to caw.
“These legs…just didn’t want to go.” Rambo stood up and took a dazed step out into the icy rain wearing only his wifebeater and overalls.
“You all right, ‘Bo?” George called out.
“Uh.. Yeah. They say these things come to carry souls away.” He stared at the crow. “Wonder where they take ‘em to?”
“It’s just a bird, ‘Bo. Come out of the rain.”
The bird cawed one last time and Rambo muttered, “But they never bring any back.”
“Come on out of the rain,” Taz chimed in.
Rambo ignored them and walked down the road disappearing into the rain.
Taz swigged from the bottle again and said, “He’s sad. He’s crazy now, but he used to be somebody.”
“He’s always been somebody to us,” George snapped.
“Oh, I didn’t mean nothing. I just meant when Guillermo was still alive,” the silver man did the sign of the cross, “Rambo was different. He just seems lost now. A lost soul.”
“I gotta get back to the shop. It’s getting late.”
“Say hi to the crew for me!”
George peddled off quickly, like riding fast would put distance between him and the somber mood of Pirate’s Alley. Yet he knew somehow the strangeness of the cold rainy evening and the odd dementia of Rambo and Tinman had soaked into him with the rain.