(’Chernobyl Sparrow’ by LewSethics)

Kamikaze

Grampa was going out tonight.

Grampa was a ‘GEEZER’, a “Global Eccentric Easygoing Zealous Elder Rocker”,

Grampa was going out to his rendezvous with the “Shakies”, the local branch of G.E.E.Z.E.R., a front organization for baby boomer activities.

“So, are you going to take the Broadway bus to the McDominick’s for the meeting?  Or the Union bus to Duke-of-Burger?”

Grampa shrugged into the overcoat, lined with c-4 explosive, and said nothing.  After all, the meeting was secret, dammit, in spite of the fact there would be dozens of Shakies there, wearing their colors, and representing.

Representing what, you say?

Representing a bunch of old people that weren’t going to take no shit from a world that had gone astray, and that world now needed their guiding hand to come back to what they saw as normalcy.

All deals were off with the Shakies.  Shakie lawyers took care of Shakie business.  Shakie Private Investigators took care of Shakie dirtywork.  And terminal Shakies terminated Shakie enemies.

Grampa was terminal, with only weeks to live.  No telling how long his strength would hold up, so strike while the iron was still hot.

All he needed was a mission, and he would be given that at the meeting tonight.

Once Grampa left the house he ceased to be Grampa and became “B’Wana Don.”

“B’Wana Don, served in ‘Nam, now he is a walking bomb” mumbled B’Wana Don, marching to the cadence of his chant, lost in memories, lost in the now, feeling generally lost.

Two shapes had separated themselves from the shadows and approached him, their familiar gait soothing to his eyes, the familiar sound of their steps lifting his spirit.  How many million steps have these old legs taken together?

“We are vandals, tried and true!”  one of the shadows yelled.

“Let us do our yell for you!” laughed B’Wana Don, and three voices merged in a cacophony of idiotic verbalizations designed to evoke vandal berserker cheerleading, practiced together since prepuberty, and a true work of art, until they couldn’t take it anymore and they laughed like they were in their twenties and could do anything.