Pool_1

These youngsters had never been in any room that wasn't pure squalor, except in the dark, with sacks for plunder. Here, they were guests - of the drummer? - in a secured secret back room of an old family restaurant. This former speak easy was way way way off bounds. No one in their right mind would intrude here. Folks didn't even inquire about this place. Definitely, out of bounds. Yet, here they were, guests, offered manhood. Fuckin A. Young Franklin-Roosevelt, perhaps just another fatherless black youngster, then again, perhaps more, found the offer impossible to dismiss. Anyway, they, the four of them, were a force of their own. They had carved a symbol of unity on their chests and pledged themselves to each other with fists held high. Touch one - touch all. They were "the Four Indivisibles" though no two of them said it quite the same way. Damn the world. Damn the cops. Damn everybody! The four! They were jive'n and high five'n when a chill was felt. It turned their heads with their arms still frozen overhead. One of the two large doors to this old room was slowly opened. The drummer nodded his head to the youngsters who immediately reassumed their sneering cocky attitudes, "Gentle-men," engaging each guest by eye in turn, "here is your future." A figure, a silhouette, a shadow from the shadows rose slowly as the drummer receded into the darkness beyond the doors. Glacial cold and searing fire hit at once as four mere children swooned recognition. Light headedness was all they could muster. In short, they shit their pants. Life, as they knew it, was over.