Dragonfly by Jax Hill 

To no one’s surprise, the Dunker got arrested.

Some of his followers, the crew-cut surfer and skater punks, came to our park and told Torstein his cousin was in jail down by the shore. They said it was trumped up charges, vagrancy, illegal assembly, that sort of thing — and they couldn’t keep him in jail very long over that. But he’d sent them to ask Torstein: what was his plan? When was he going to make his move? Did he even plan to do anything decisive, or should the Dunkers be looking for someone else to get the message out?

Torstein invited the boys to stay a while with us in the park and report back to the Dunker what they saw and heard ... but you could tell Torstein was sad that his own cousin would even ask if he was doing anything decisive, anything important. Torstein seemed to think there was nothing more important than giving sunflower seeds to strangers and asking them to share their lives and stories with us. And somehow, the rest of us, when we were with him, felt the same way.

But you could see why the Dunker found it ineffective. He was the one who would walk fearlessly into the lion’s den and demand that they all file their teeth down! Torstein wanted to promote love. The Dunker wanted to defeat hatred. The two aims sounded complimentary, but they were actually quite far apart in approach.

When the Dunker got out of jail, he took to preaching in front of the police station when he wasn’t wading in the ocean. We heard about his sermons: he badgered the officers who had arrested him and accused them of doing the bidding of organized crime. He was an equal-opportunity haranguer though, and would also preach at the people who had been arrested as they were being taken into the police station.

Franz had checked it out and said that Duncan and his Dunkers were getting a bad rep now, not only with Nikolai, but with the police. Their continued public berating of anyone they deemed criminal (and possibly a user of air conditioning) was annoying to gangstas and to public safety officers as well. On the other hand, other people seemed to be enjoying it and a crowd would gather wherever the Dunker was, to listen to his preaching and watch what he might do.

“If you got any influence on him, Torstein, you should tell him to tone it down,” Franz said. “He’s gonna get himself and his little band of followers killed.”

Torstein’s response was vague:

“There’s no one like Duncan. He’s got the right idea. He’s doing all it’s in his power to do, to stop the violence, immorality and greed that he sees plaguing this generation. Who else was doing anything to stop it? No one else had the guts to stand up, to stand out, to start shouting along the shoreline: ‘Get right! Do right!’ He’s captured attention. He’s changed some lives. And yet everyone of you sitting here, if you stick by me to the end, you’ll make an even bigger impact than he has, his whole life’s work won’t compare to what yours will be.”

“He doesn’t seem to think so,” Ferdy said. “Sent his friends to ask you when you were going to make your move. When are you going to make your move, Torstein? What are we doing here? What are we accomplishing?”

Torstein grinned at Ferdy and handed him his sack of sunflower seeds.

“We’re sharing some sunflower seeds and reading some stories to kids in the park.”

“How’s that beat what the Dunker’s doing?” Ferdy asked. “At least he’s out there getting people riled up, trying to change things.”

“I know, and for what he’s doing, he’s the best. He’s alerting people that something big is coming. Something big is coming. It just isn’t here yet. He’s opening people’s hearts and minds — so that when the time is right, you’ll be able to share the truth with them.”

Ferdy took a few sunflower seeds and passed the bag back to Torstein.

“We’ll be able to?” he said. “You’ll be able to. You’re the one people respond to.”

“I won’t always be here, and I can’t be everywhere,” Torstein said. “Duncan won’t always be here, either, for that matter.”

“He won’t be here much longer at all if he doesn’t start pulling his punches,” Franz said. “Nikolai was pretty annoyed at that stunt he pulled during the gun show.”

“It was a thing of beauty,” Pete said. Bruiser laughed.

“Gonna get him killed,” Franz reiterated.

But I don’t think any of us believed it. Who could kill such a wild man? How could you kill someone who was ambidextrous at disarming opponents? It seemed impossible to us then that one day there would be a world without the Dunker — and especially without Torstein. The words he’d said ... “I won’t always be here” ... they rolled right off of us. He made it seem like this life we were living was the only one we’d ever had; the only one we’d ever want to have.