THE LION KING: MY NAME
The Lion King: My Name Epilogue: A World to Win (This is My Name--there will be darkness and there will be swearing. But no more delays, fellas--read on.) "All I need you to do, sir, is to fill out this form--then I can leave." "And trust me--I want out of here a whole Helluva lot more than you want me out." "Shit suckin'-ass, bitch-ass... gimme that--" Grumbled, incomprehensible swearing rapidly dissolved into glaring and sneering, but he was used to it. It wasn't that he'd had worse--but he'd experienced behavior like that on an almost daily basis for months. "You lucky that the cops out there, motherfucker. I'd smoke your ass, bitch." That comment made him grin. "I don't think so, sir. I really, really don't..." He'd stepped forward, then, with alarming alacrity--in about a second his face was right in front of the other man's, and although he had to angle his head upward uncomfortably to make eye contact, he saw fear, raw and blatant on the other man's face. And so he stayed there, for a moment, with a hand flickering at the side of his waist--and then he stepped back again. "Have a nice day." At some point, he'd taken the papers from the man's hand. Now, he reviewed them, briefly, before simply turning and walking out the front door. If a parting insult or threat was thrown after him, he didn't hear it--and so he simply entered the cold landscape outside and zipped up his jacket. A brief nod to the squad car parked at the curb let the two officers inside know that everything was alright. They would have left, then, but as they started to pull into the road he held up a hand and approached. It started to rain, then. His jacket had no hood, so he simply upturned the collar and hid the papers under the sheer nylon cloth, next to his body and walked more rapidly. A minute later, he was leaning over and speaking calmly, but urgently to the two older men inside. "Tell the Sarge to leave me alone; I can handle myself. And there are a lot more important things for you guys to do--I saw the news this morning about a shootout at the projects... Took the department twenty minutes to respond--what's going on?" The responses were predictable: excuses and highfalutin explanations of procedures and rules and regulations that had to be followed, et cetera, et cetera ad infinitum. In the end, he simply shook his head and waved them off. By then, it was raining quite heavily--and they were in a neighborhood known widely as one of the worst in the area--but he wasn't offered a ride. He was left to walk home alone--but he wouldn't have had it any other way. After all, this was his city. He wouldn't be scared into altering his life decisions by criminals. And so he started to walk. It would take him at least an hour to get back, by his calculations--he could have taken the sub or a bus, of course, but that just wasn't his thing. Being in a vehicle had never felt quite right, not since... a long time ago, anyway. He might have to make an exception pretty soon, though. It was starting to rain hard--whereas previously it had been easy to navigate the area, in just moments, visibility had dropped to twenty yards at best. He couldn't hear much, either--the white noise of a thousand drops of water striking the ground and the buildings all around him drowned everything else out, and that was without the wind. Powerful gusts kicked up every few seconds, forcing him to stay still, at times, or risk being knocked off his feet. He winced, then--placed a hand at the side of his head. Even after so much time, that self-inflicted injury still acted up... He grinned. Times had changed, hadn't they? Just a few years ago, he'd been at the bottom of the barrel... but now, he felt like a person again. It was true that he was still alone, in many ways--he had no real friends, for example, and he certainly had no girlfriend--but he could go around the city with a smile on his face for however needed one. And now that he thought of it--he had made a few of his dreams come true. He had his own place, now, in a decent part of town, and he was doing with his life precisely what he'd wanted to every coherent moment of his childhood. Most people would never understand him, but that was okay. He had justified his existence to himself, and that was all he needed to do. Life was satisfying, for the most part. But there were times--like then, when he was walking home in the rain with just darkness and old memories for company--that he longed for existence in the Pride Lands again. The rolling plains, the towering trees... the little rivers... He missed the Pride Lands. He really did, even though there was a certain beauty to the city itself. Although many buildings weren't built to be aesthetically pleasing, as time wore on, the owners and customers and residents did do their share to make their homes and businesses presentable. Apart from that, he was always struck by the amount of cooperation it took to make everything happen. Violence was a problem, and so was a slow decline in business ethics. There were other problems, too, but he had to prioritize--and violence and dishonesty were, in his opinion, the greatest threats to the fabric of civilization at that point in time. Without trusting the other guy not to stab you in the back, literally or figuratively, you cannot get anywhere--you simply can't. Without honesty and safety, nothing was possible. He'd done his level best to bring both necessities back to the bleakest, worst parts of the cities. He'd had his successes... and he'd had plenty of failures. Were his efforts anything more than a drop in the bucket?... now that he considered that, he had to admit it to himself: he was probably accomplishing almost nothing. He breathed in, slow and deep, and then exhaled just as heavily. Then he blinked--and looked around without seeing anything except for grayness of varying shades. Silhouettes of buildings were possible to discern, barely, and the black before him and to the sides suggested that he was at an intersection--but apart from that, he had no idea where he was. He wasn't familiar with that part of town and there were no signs anywhere that he could see. He was starting to get soaked through his jacket. He held his papers a little tighter against him, for all the good that would do--and gritted his teeth. Cellphones these days universally had GPSs. He really ought to have invested in one... months ago. Even more useful than the GPS feature, of course, was the ability to make calls on foot--calls to anyone. Coworkers, superiors, pizza joints for when he was just too damn tired to cook--and, of course, 911. He'd never needed the cops before, but that afternoon he just might. The squeal of four tires locking into place and grinding against the tar underneath them made him turn, on the ball of his foot, while his hand dropped to the side of his waist. A van raced by him, then, before stopping at the far side of the intersection--he forced himself to squint through the rain and make out that the brake lights were on; the bright red haze cut through the rain and wind just enough to blot out his ability to see anything else, like who or how many were getting out and moving toward him. GLOCK 19--that was what he carried. It was what he'd carried ever since that fateful day, years ago. He carried it mostly to remind him how far he could fall if he wasn't careful--but there was also the slight benefit that it had the ability to save his life if he needed to. He was no longer an eight foot tall killing machine--his pistol was the most violent weapon system that he had. But it had its limits. It only held fifteen shots, and thugs in that part of town had, of late, taken to wearing body armor that a normal 9mm load couldn't quite crack through. Normally, he could adapt and use a failure drill, or simply go for head shots right off the bat--but it was raining far, far too hard for any human being to be able to hit a small, moving target at a distance with just a pistol. This wasn't good. This wasn't good at all. He drew his gun and prepared to fight for his life--when, through the rain and the wind, he heard his name being called. He lowered his automatic, then, and blinked. Then he answered, with a one-word response: "Yeah?" There was laughter, then, and perhaps some conversation--he didn't get a word of it. In a heartbeat, though, he was in fight-or-flight mode again as a tall, broad-shouldered figure approached him at a rapid stride. He raised his weapon and lined up for a shot. Calming his breathing, he considered what would happen after he fired--he'd probably take fire from some other angle, from some unseen foe, which meant that his best bet was to pick a direction and run as fast as he could. The other man's head danced past the sights of his automatic--and then he froze. "Sam? Is that you?" "Damn right that's me--Sam Jackson!" In a second, his gun was at his side. Then, it was tucked away, safely back in its holster just in time for the distance between the two men to close. And when they were close enough to see one another clearly, his face split in two with a smile. The other man was a year or so older than him, but they couldn't be further apart in terms of appearance. While he was an inch or two shy of six feet in height, with pale skin and a slim build, Sam was at least six-seven and dark, and at least three hundred and sixty pounds of overlapping muscle and fat. Just then, however, neither man saw differences--each saw himself in the other, and that's why for a full two minutes they stood there, in the rain, shaking hands and rapidly asking and answering any number of questions--how are you, what have you been doing, what are you doing out here in the rain in such a dangerous part of town? He was soon offered a ride--gladly, he accepted that, and a moment later he was in the back passenger seat of an old-model Ford minivan. Sam got in the driver's seat, of course--but the passenger's was occupied by a woman that he did not recognize. But she too was smiling, and shortly extended a hand out toward him. "Jake... I've heard so much about you. It's nice to finally meet the man behind the legend." He grinned, of course, somewhat sheepishly. He was not what could be called antisocial, and yet, he still didn't quite know how to react to people he didn't yet know. Sam quickly turned around, however, positively beaming--and introduced the unfamiliar woman as his wife. This was surprising news--especially for Jake. He'd known Sam, and the last time he'd seen him those years ago, he'd been struggling to fight off charges for multiple murders and armed robbery. That was tough for anyone to do these days, considering the new, stiff-faced prosecutors that the city had hired--but a man with previous convictions for assault and battery, drug possession, weapons violations, and any number of misdemeanors had zero chance of walking out of the legal system under the age of ninety. And yet here Sam was--in a suit and tie, in a vehicle that he'd bought and paid for, with a woman that he would neither sell nor send away the next morning. Jake's highest expectations hadn't placed Sam anywhere near this level of achievement--not even close. "How long has it been, brother? Five years?" Sam asked. A few seconds of quick recollection later, and Jake nodded. "Just about, yeah. You look like you've done okay for yourself, sir--congratulations." The response Jake received, then, was not verbal. Sam simply smiled, before turning forward and getting onto the road again. The conditions were absolutely terrible--visibility had reduced further still, and if Jake had been outside, just then, he would have been soaked through his jacket, completely. "Damn, Jake, seeing you made me realize... I don't know how I got here," Sam admitted, as they slowly drove onward. "That's not good. I'm new to this area, and I don't have a GPS--" "Naw, man--I mean here, in life, not this neighborhood." "Ahh..." Sam's wife grinned, then, although neither her husband nor Jake did. An inability to recognize certain forms of humor was something they shared apart from difficult pasts. "Like I was saying... I don't know how I've done it. I got off all those charges... don't ask how. It's a long story. Point is, I walked out of the courtroom--broke, no job, no contacts, and with a thick rap sheet. I didn't know where to go, or what to do--I got about two minutes from robbing a bank, when I got to thinking about you." He stiffened in his seat at that. It wasn't that he'd told Sam how he'd hit his epiphany, immediately after committing suicide--that was a secret he'd take to the grave--but he grew concerned by nature. One of the lessons he'd taken home from the Pride Lands, after all, was that everyone was--or could become--a threat. "That point in my life, right then... it was the lowest, that's for damn sure. I thought I'd had it hard before, but..." Sam just shook his head. He seemed to have a tough time continuing to speak--but then his wife reached across the brief distance between them and set a hand on his shoulder. "I thought about you... how you said that when you hit rock bottom, you realized that you could only improve from there--and the only thing stopping you before was you. You said stuff like that to me a lot, back in those days--but it didn't really sink in until I was where you were. "I got myself pulled together. Went off of drugs and drinking cold turkey... I had to check into a rehab clinic, and it was Hell on Earth, but it was worth it. After that, I wandered around for a couple days... then I started to work a little, part-time shift at Goodwill. After that, every day was a struggle, but I did it--and now I have a job as a bouncer for Café 42 in Manhattan... I got my own car, my own apartment, and my own snookums." Like many of the Lion Sheikh's readers, Jake winced at that final word. Pet-names... he'd never understood them at all, and that one was particularly mushy-gushy. At least by wincing, he didn't have to see Sam and his wife share an Eskimo kiss--all right, I'll stop now. "I'm glad to hear you've done so well for yourself--" "No, no, no, no, man. I didn't--I got myself together because of you. If I hadn't met you, bro, I'd be in a gutter somewhere... or jail, or a cemetery." That was probably true. Members of Sam's demographic in the area were plagued with short lifespans of crime and unimaginable poverty--Jake had only seen so much of it after years as a social worker, and it sickened him to the core. "I'm... glad to have helped. Really," he replied, sincerely. "I don't get to talk to old cases much... but it's nice to see that you're standing on your own two feet, Sam. It... I don't know why. But it means a lot to me." Sam nodded in an understanding manner--after that, there was a moment of companionable silence. The rain was letting up, somewhat, and that gave Jake the opportunity to see that they were approaching a major road. From there on out, he could find his way home without trouble. "So what about you, bro? You told me you were in your dream job--so I know better than to ask what you're doing these days. But... how are you? I'm sorry--I gotta know. I was a kid back then, and dumb, crazy--but I could see something in you, bro. I ain't sure if it's fixed yet... so you tell me. How are you doing?" This was a question that Jake had never been asked--not even by himself. It shocked him into silence--he looked away, a terse expression spreading across his features. How was he doing?... he didn't know, exactly, but he did know that he wasn't anywhere close to achieving the level of happiness that Sam had. He was still almost brutally alone, and brief bouts of depression and near-suicidal thoughts struck from time to time. And yet, he too was standing on his own feet--shakily and tenuously, at times, but he was still his own man. He was still stable, and he still remembered his responsibilities as a living, thinking person. He'd gone for a few moments without answering, he realized. And so he turned to Sam, slowly--and smiled. That was all he trusted himself to do. Anything more than that... he might give himself away. People might be able to forgive him for trying to kill himself, and intending, for a very long period of time, to take many of them down with him--but if he ever said a word about his second existence in the Pride Lands, someone would come and take him away. "I'm glad I got to see you, Sam. I got a hard job... I almost never know if I'm doing it right or not. I guess I did right by you... I'm this stop." That wasn't exactly true. He was still miles from home and it was still raining hard, but he had to go. He didn't know why, but he just had to. It couldn't be that he was jealous of his old case--that couldn't be it at all. "All right, brother..." Sam said that skeptically, but he pulled over. Jake made to leave, but before he did, Sam reached back to shake his hand again--and this time, they maintained contact long enough for Jake to look into Sam's eyes for a long moment. He hated doing that. He wasn't sure why, but it just unnerved him--and so, shortly, he looked away again. "You stay safe, brother... and keep your head up. I don't know too much about you, but I know enough--you can do anything you set your mind to, man. Just... realize that, and it'll all be good. That's how it was for me." "Yeah." Jake's expression was almost fierce by then. He realized it--and decided that he couldn't explain that, nor respond to any questions or statements made from this point on. He opened the van door. Stepped out. After a moment, he turned over his shoulder and said goodbye to Sam and his wife. Then he walked off in the rain, alone again. He was cold and he was hungry and in some ways, he was still a little sick. But he was standing on his own two feet--and he was walking. Maybe someday he'd learn to lift his head up and look at the world not with a sense of something to live up to, but with a sense of satisfaction and achievement. He carried nothing from the Pride Lands but lessons. In time, he'd have to forget about the past and seek justice for himself. When he didn't like the truths of the world he inhabited, he'd have to change them. And whenever he felt alone, really, truly, completely alone, all he had to do was to remember that he never really was. There was one another, and then another again, just, exactly, the same as he was. (If you haven't read the epilogue to Freak, then I suggest getting to that posthaste. If you have, well, I said everything that I had to there. Look for future work from me in the future--even now, I've got another somethin'-somethin' cooking up that should be released relatively soon. Apart from that, I hope you enjoy my Christmas present to you, and take a few moments to remember a great thing that happened in the Middle East a long time ago that's celebrated today. And so, for the last time in The Lion King: My Name... this is the Lion Sheikh of fanfiction, formerly known as -Mujahid... see you next chapter!)
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