[sneakers are vital; as far as Badou is concerned, they are the difference between being able to run away and ending up in somebody's dumpster. he's always heard that gangsters -- not the chumps in his neighborhood, but the ones that made headlines and constantly outwitted the cops -- always made you take off your shoes before you died (well, before they killed you). Badou has fought tooth and nail (tooth and Nails) to keep a hold of his, and in a sense that smells vaguely like mouldy shoes, they're a part of him as much as the thickening scar across his hand]
[but there's no one here to hurt, there's no one here to kill, there's no one for miles and he knows that because he can see everything; until this moment, he's thought 'vantage point' was a place snipers went before picking off victims (duck, duck, splat)]
[so he does kick his shoes off and it doesn't take much effort; the grime-and-blood spattered red converse knock-offs are falling apart at the seams, a stiff sea breeze could have taken them away (and maybe that pointlessness of holding them so dear says something about Badou). he leaves them behind (they're already full of sand, Carol) and digs those angular, awkward boys' feet into the grains like shitty plastic shovels until he comes to the water's edge]
[when he drops to his haunches there, he's out of breath, which is unlike him, and he can feel his pulse throbbing uncomfortably in the place he used to have a right eye (street fatigue and infection have made a gambit out of his vitality, but he'll recover -- Nails men only ever went violently). the salty air burns and bites his cuts this close, and the push and movement of the water before him feels like a pressure of sorts -- not a bad one, like city smog or bookie debts, but something huge and important; like how the bearing stone of a building must feel]
Re: action
[but there's no one here to hurt, there's no one here to kill, there's no one for miles and he knows that because he can see everything; until this moment, he's thought 'vantage point' was a place snipers went before picking off victims (duck, duck, splat)]
[so he does kick his shoes off and it doesn't take much effort; the grime-and-blood spattered red converse knock-offs are falling apart at the seams, a stiff sea breeze could have taken them away (and maybe that pointlessness of holding them so dear says something about Badou). he leaves them behind (they're already full of sand, Carol) and digs those angular, awkward boys' feet into the grains like shitty plastic shovels until he comes to the water's edge]
[when he drops to his haunches there, he's out of breath, which is unlike him, and he can feel his pulse throbbing uncomfortably in the place he used to have a right eye (street fatigue and infection have made a gambit out of his vitality, but he'll recover -- Nails men only ever went violently). the salty air burns and bites his cuts this close, and the push and movement of the water before him feels like a pressure of sorts -- not a bad one, like city smog or bookie debts, but something huge and important; like how the bearing stone of a building must feel]
[his voice may or may not carry]
Where the hell does it stop...?
[he's never see anything that didn't end]