The Adventures of Stagger Li

Chapter 3
Zelda

Waxahachee is certainly not the center of the universe, Zelda thought, as she prepared for the
pre-dawn onslaught of construction workers, cops, and hitting-the-road-early tourists and
travelling salesmen. She made three pots of strong black coffee, totally ignoring the decaf which
all pre-dawners spurned. The honey-buns, cinnamon rolls, and jelly doughnuts in their sticky
glueness were ready in the clear plastic case, and the cheese burrito makings sat solidly by the
microwave.

A small town near the Interstate that funneled Yankee traffic (Yankee by local standards included
anything north of the Florida state line, especially those Georgians who were so smug in their
magnolia ethic), its only claim to fame as a speed trap for the unsuspecting and rambunctious
had disappeared when its two-lane road had been supplanted by the humming highway. If no
turn-off had been built, Waxahachee would have surely disappeared.

Zelda was a wild child by local and any other standards. She had read most of the books in the
local library and taken most of the courses at the Junior College, but through her outspoken
questioning and consequent revealing of the instructors’ realms off ignorance was not welcome
there anymore. She used to be in hip-hop, hitching rides to Gainesville for that scene, but had
now opened to a new style of party dancing (of which she was the only practitioner) she called
mish-mash.

When the strangely attractive man staggered into the Pic and Run, she thought at first he was an
extra from the movie shoot down the road, costumed and made up early for the day. He
approached and asked for water and she immediately fell in love, fell into his deep blue eyes, fell
like a sack of potatoes from a farm truck, fell like Lucifer from heaven shouting I Will! all the
way. She gave him water. Their fingers touched and the next thing she knew they were so
intertwined her libidinal brain fluttered into the awareness that slow-motion orgasm could be a
way of life.

“Wait, wait!” she gasped, stumbling and staggering backwards to the Pic and Run office. Lifting
her onto the desk, he gently entered her pulsing eagerness and the two spun off into nirvana.
Days, decades, eons later, for time had melted and disappeared, she heard the chime that sounded
from the opening of the Pic and Run door. They disengaged but their souls would never be apart.

“What is your name?” she breathed.

“Stagger Li. And I see your name is Zelda.” he said, glancing at her Pic and Run badge while
drinking her in lovingly and deeply with his eyes.

“Zelda! Where are you?” called Horace, the local cop, who was almost as sweet on Zelda as the
doughnut jelly was on his chin.
Stagger I and Zelda emerged from the office. Horace was startled, his brain slow to put one and
one together, but when it did his synapses fired and so too did his gun. But his gun reflexes were
as slow as his brain that told him that this strange man was the saboteur described in the All
Points Bulletin.

Stagger Li sailed right past Horace knocking his gun hand aside and Horace to the floor. He
looked back at Zelda with love and frustration as he headed toward the door. “Stagger, wait!”
She tossed him a silver necklace holding the coin, the infamous coin by which Stagger Li could
be manipulated and trapped. They smiled.

Stagger Li went out the door and into the night, pausing only to slice the patrol car in two with
one swipe of the vorpal blade.