One

   Chapter One:

         Finnley Janson rode fast and loud through the night past Arizonan bats and cacti, scowling cyotes and curious hawks. Once or twice, the star-worn sky revealed flying bodies or muted shrieks, but that only intrigued her. Being a lone 16 year-old on a black and silver Triumph of tough wheels in the middle of the night was lucky enough Now, there might be more than a few questions ticking in your thoughtful consiousness like 'How the heck can she drive a motorcycle at sixteen?' and 'How the heck did she get a Triumph motorcycle in relatively good conndition in the first place?' or 'Does she have money or something 'cause sooner or later the gas is gonna give out.'

But first, let me answer all these flashbacks with events that happened only a couple days earlier, ones than Finnley was still blaring in her mind continuously anyhow as she rode steadily and fiercly through Arizona.

 

          It was a sun-lit afternoon, but Finnley did not enjoy or resent a ray of it because all her attention was inconspiciously focused on the body across from her. It was probably the most roomy place to sit in Sam's Wagon, a bar and lunch-house, as it was the only booth in the whole joint. But this did not matter, because how ever large or small, pleasant or unpleasant the space, an eternal amount of menace was locked inbetween the two individuals, the unintroduced one of the two being McArthur Jr. 

           Mc Arthur Jr. wore a baige suit with various red and yellow stains, a bright green tie, and a long butterscotch gotee that really enhanced the sight of the very large cigarette burn on his nose. Around his neck, over the tie swung a fat key, one to a motorcycle in the garage, one that he some friend had given him. But back to his burned nose. That story involved him watching sports and smoking a cigarette. See, his life involved smoking a great deal but not nearly as great as much he slept on a regular basis. He was watching a very boring basketball game between two teams in Chicago, when his routine take-over of sleep dome insued, but not before he had raised his arm to smoke. He had ended up leaving it on his forehead, the cigarette still in his hand, which had turned to a wierd enough angle that it burned the left side of his nose. But that incident was, apparently, not one he had wanted to discuss with Finnley in Sam's Wagon. Actually, he hadn't set up the meeting. Infact, his step-daughter had, and his face showed a devil's worth of annoyance about it.

            "So, what do want to talk about, now little witchy?" The b*****d had asked.

            "About moving in with my real father," Finnley replied. Her face was covered by the brim of her black velvet wide-brimmed hat, one of the reasons Mr. Arthur Jr.  had called her 'witchy'. And in the sudden silence that followed, her gaze rested on her ripped jeans that revealed her striped green and black stockings and the part of her white-button up-shirt that edged her waist. 'This is it,' I finally said it. It will all be ok now. I don't have to see this cigarrette burn-of-a-face again,' she thought with a hurricane's worth of enthusiasm, but this dimmed the second Arthur Jr. clobbered the scene with his choky laughter.

             "I have been writing him letters since the second Mom left him, four years ago, and all this time, he has been waiting to get himself together. Well, he has, for three months, since he offered me to move in with him in Canada." she said, all through his laughter, her head still bowed. This was weird. She had just informed him that part of the reason he made rent was leaving. She had been making jewelry, cleaning, house-sitting and baby-sitting to do it ever since her mom had died three years after marrying him. Why was he laughing? Then, his laughter shrunk into a chuckle, and he spoke.

              "What he has written doesn't mean squat missy because he died two and a half months ago in an plane crash, just like your mother. It was on the way here. But it crashed, and now I get the motorcycle he left you, the big wheels in the garage that have been there for weeks? Damn, ain't that a win for me, huh?" said he.

Two days later, when he was taking a shower, she swiped the motorcycle's keys from his night-stand, a stack of money that she had saved throughout his demand through rent-paying, a picture of her mother, and her favorite stockings, dress, and hat. Then, she was on her way to nowhere.