A Tiny Teddie and Emerson Story
“We should go on a road trip and be bandits,” Teddie said.
“Bandits?”
“We could be like Zero and Blind Terry.”
At the same time, they both said, “I’ll be Zero, you’ll be—” Teddie laughed first, then Emerson.
“I think Terry is the girl,” Emerson said. “Zero, the boy.”
Teddie smiled coyly. “I’m okay with a little gender reversal.”
“But I’m not blind,” Emerson said.
“I think it’s a metaphor,” Teddie replied. “Terry was blinded by her love of Zero.”
“So where are we going for our road trip?”
“We should drive down to New Mexico and turn off on one of those old dusty back roads. And get completely lost.”
“We’ll make sure the car has plenty of gas,” Emerson said.
“No,” Teddie said. “We run out of gas. And we find a secluded cabin filled with young hipsters or old hippies. Or maybe both.”
“Do we rob them?”
“No,” Teddie replied. “We’re moral bandits.”
Emerson smiled.
“We stay with them for awhile,” Teddie said. “The women are nature goddesses, and the men are robust. They have several wild and curious children. The cabin is filled with rustic assemblages, serene landscape paintings, and lots of stringed instruments, like guitars and mandolins. They play us old Bob Dylan songs, then ask us to jam with them. You plunk on an upright bass while I bang on things.”
“Maybe we should practice before we go,” Emerson said. “Since we only know one David Bowie song and part of a Lou Reed song.”
Ignoring him, Teddie said, “Of course they like us and want us to stay. They fall for our fairy charm. They feed us and give us gas.”
“Of course.”
“People who live in secluded New Mexico cabins love visits from fairy children like us.”
“Moral Bandits” is an excerpt from “The Spirit Garden,” a story by Joe Beine © 2015
