081518 ran thru themis like streets as city got (like shadow walking) more and more rough, citylike, ragged, sheets hanging, alleys, holes in walls, curled-under chain link fences, two guys on motorcycles in a dead end alley playing "war" which meant that they circled around each in ever tighter circles on their bikes until they got tangled together and whoever fell down first lost. they were alughing. but i couldn't keep going that way so i backed out to fins a different way eventually got the the waterfront and so i couldn't flee anymore. there was a dumpy looking but solid enough looking sort of big beefy boat like one of those tour boats but a little more bowl-like and substantial looking. like it could actually go out if need be, you know? walked right up to the rail, because the nature of the dock was such that it was moored literally right beside the concrete, sideways, asked--there was two main people there that looked like they were in charge. a man and a woman. middle aged. lean, just ever so slightly craggy, in a sort of tan floridian way but a certain hard bright intelligence in the eyes, especially the woman, who was wearing white, and had cropped hair like a bob only a little more severe, yellow blond. sardonic smile hovering around the corners of her lips at almost all times. the guy was closer and i said to him what do you have to know how to do to work here, and he shrugged and said, "stuff" or something like that. I was like, well I can do stuff, and hoisted myself up and over the rail onto the deck. he smiled with just a drop of ruefulness and gestured that i was ok, that i could stay, as the boat started to pull away from the dock, slow as a train leaving a station inside i was among the youngest. when they started grouping us up, i was put with the other teens and young adults. most of them had already been there. but just as we were leaving another new person came in. girl. looked more worldly, cynical than i was. looked like she had been in some trouble, maybe drug related? maybe not, maybe I was just assuming because i'd lived a sheltered life, up to a point. she did already know someone there, a boy that I kind of liked already, and she muttered "I hope i don't get stuck with ___" but of course she did because we were all in the same main group, the young ones. there was pretty much every age group. it was dark like a nostalgic living room in there. you could barely feel the sea, but then again we had just barely left the city waterfront, and there was plenty of breakwaters and stuff still to be passed through the reason i had been running? It was kind of dumb, really. Someone had given me a car, but it turned out to be a cop car, and as I was driving it I passed a cop, and saw him turn around in my rear view, so i booked it home as fast as possible and hid the car in the garage, but felt like they were still going to show up for some reason, so started walking. met up with my buddy (tae basically, let's call him Tru) and walked some more, over wooden plankways and rickety stairs thru the restaurant sector. for some reason we needed to go into someone's nice house, we had seen them walking a dog maybe? for some reason we needed to steal a washing machine?? wheeled it out and were about to go down the flagstone broad steps under oaks and concrete flower pots and nice broad old regal street lamps, but the (a) dog was at the bottom of the steps. Barking, a challenge, but not vicious so i sweet talked him with the washer in between me and him, and he was cool. about ready to go and get the hell out of there when tru stops and says, hey, this rubber hose isn't ours, it isn't right we should take it, and he fucking stops on the stairs and starts fumbling with the hose! I'm like.... Dude, we have to go! but he wouldn't, and so i felt kind of bad--actually at the moment i just felt survival because i saw or heard the people about to be coming home from around the sidewalk corner (boulevard of trees) but i ditched him. i tried repeatedly to get some sense into him but he wouldn't budge, and i just couldn't get caught so i ditched. i wanted to saw i felt bad but what i really meant was i knew that later there would come a quiet time when i would have to time to sit and think about whether or not i should feel bad, and i knew that at least partly i would feel bad, cuz i ditched my friend. but i mean come on. so as the boat was gliding away smooth as a billiard ball in the deepening felt of twilight, i was starting to figure out that this was a slave ship (that doesn't mean *exactly* what you might think), and i was strangely OK with that. a little excited. i looked around at my group again. it was like being in the back seat of the bus all over again. about to get to know people that you wouldn’t otherwise get to know. associating with the trash of society. rough people, the kids who got in trouble, the kids who did stuff like drink and smoke and dip and chew and didn’t care if it was wrong but didn’t glorify it as being wrong, they just did it. kids who talked, who knew how to have conversations without making excuses. about the real world. life, alleyways, people getting beat up, crimes, and they weren’t afraid of the night world as i had always been. they didn’t seem very smart, they didn’t know all the literature references--but then again sometimes they would surprise you. the more you listened, the more it seemed like maybe they were at least as smart as you after all, even though they’r mostly dropped outta school, and then you can’t help wondering a little bit about where actual ingtelligence comes from. you can’t help it; you sidle in; you slide in; you start to get to know them.