A/N: This is the 2nd chapter of my story "God's Forgottens" The first chapter has moved on. I turned it into a "real" story and published it on Amazon for Kindle. It's still called God's Forgottens and it's under my real name Lougen.

Godzilla.

Ain't no crowd big enough not to notice him standing square in the middle of it.

I was at the flea market. Fire trap, the old woman calls it, on account'a it's got forty thousand square feet of looking around and not but one way of get the hell out. So she won't go. I go. First time there I got the name of my old old lady tattooed over so's my now old lady only knows I only got a damn 8-Ball inked on my shoulder blade. Another time risking my life here, I found an actual working eight track tape player. I don't go often, but I go.

This day of any day I coulda been there, I run across Godzilla.

Might not've recognized him if looking at him didn't take my eyes halfway up the ceiling. He was as clean as his Soccer Dad friend was that night he marched himself right in and marched Godzilla right back out again. Clean clothes and not a single rip or cut or bloodstain anywhere in 'em. Good boots, not the broken-so-bad-ain't-water-gettin'-in? pair he had himself when he was haunting my bar. Fact was, he was clean and so shining bright, I double-took myself a couple times wondering if I ought maybe shouldn't bother him. Godzilla clean is still Godzilla. Mercy still don't cross him and Godzilla ain't even there no more to be crossed.

So I give myself a minute while I give him a look-see over once.

He was admiring at a bunch of books, old books, older'n me anyway, and that's old. He was running his finger along the spines like he could tell just by the feel of them did he need them up close and personal or not and I was getting my first look-see of him with knuckles not busted open on some other hard head that got too close, with his back not married to the wall to not be blindsided.

And I double took again to wonder should I maybe keep going or was him being that relaxed okay to bust in on? Been near a year since Soccer Dad washed him outta my place, could be he wouldn't know me no more. Wasn't like we ever busted our gums together anyhow. Was mostly money put down and whiskey picked up. 'Cause my Grandma used to say 'sow the wind, reap the wild wind, ' and no way was I ever risking reaping Godzilla's wildwind.

Being fair though, he got niceness in him. He's never mean to somebody wasn't mean first. A person nice to him got nice given back, sometimes outta two hands. One time he asked was I ok after the old woman laid me open with a beer bottle. He done even put the stitches in and took 'em out again n'wouldn't even take a drink on the house for it neither. But them's combat conditions. This weren't.

Still – I got me a wanting to know how things were with him. Might be whatever had him pinned to my bar had let him up and got left behind. If that were it, I sure wanted to know what up and done it for him 'cause I sure needed me a tall glass of that.

I just about decided I'd take me the chance and 'hallo' him when he took him a look over the bookshelf he was at and barked at somebody I couldn't see.

"You want it so bad, carry it yourself."

I had to think on was that was the most I'd ever heard him say all in one breath. Might be it coulda been.

"But Sammy – c'mon." Whoever he was barking at was doing some barking back.

And then there was Soccer Dad, coming up from around the bookshelf. He was looking at Godzilla and he was talking to Godzilla which was meaning that he was calling Godzilla Sammy.

Didn't that take me two bits of a minute to wrangle the sense out of it. Godzilla's name's Sammy? Well, let the dog piss out the fire 'cause this hootenanny is over. Me, I was thinking he'd be named 'Rock' or 'Iron' or 'Widow Maker'. Not Sammy. The only Sammy I known about's the old woman's niece's grandbaby. No way I ain't never expected eight feet of granite to be called Sammy.

I guess I musta snickered on it or something and it brought Soccer Dad's squares down on me. I saw him go stiff and pissed and his eyes demanding why I was staring at Sammy. Like I been thinking when I laid my squares on him that once and forever, he might be all shined up pretty, but damn if I didn't see deadly in that look what were trying to scour the back of my skull out through my eyeballs.

Godzilla saw the change in Soccer Dad, and he drove his squares just the same at me, fixed, cold, and murderous right here right now.

There ain't been a lot in my life that give me chills. Them two settin' their squares on me done it. I was three yards from them and my everlastin' reward, and the place's single get the hell out was clear the other side of the building. I could run or I could die. Or I could do both.

Then Godzilla's face opened right up.

"Hey!" He smacked Soccer Dad on the arm with the back of his hand and pointed me. "Hey – it's Pete."

He broke the distance between me and him in two steps practical and looked like he was getting set to meet up with his best friend. I couldn't bring my mind to remember even once me telling him my name and he was all up and acting like him and me was old, good acquaintances.

"Pete?" Soccer Dad was asking at Godzilla, walking closer to me but to the side, taking a kind of flank position on me.

"From the bar you found me at. Hey! Hi! How are you?"

I gotta tell you, I'd been expecting a nod, a grunt, maybe a knuckle punch if Godzilla'd been in a real outgoing mood. Weren't no way I was expecting – this. I was so outta ever having this that I weren't exact sure what name this oughtta be wearing.

"Still wearing my own skin. Reckon that's a win."

He grinned when I said it. Grinned. And ten-fifteen years just up and ran off his face. Ever'body ever set up shop in my place is all the same age – too old. Even Godzilla too. Seen too much, done too much, lived too much, too old. But here he was turning all over into a Baby Godzilla he was all of a sudden looking so blamed young.

"Hey, this is my brother, Dean. Dean this is Pete. He kinda watched out for me when I first got to his place."

Watched out for him? I recollected that first drizzlin' night a'him settin' his butt on my bar stool, and me puttin' a coffee down by his hand after the twenty minutes he spent staring down his third whiskey, not drinking it, only trying to boil it with his eyes seemed like maybe. And that one night later he come in busted up and drinking hard and muttering he's doing the right thing not letting somebody know something, and when he couldn't tell was he on the floor or was he on the ceiling, I pushed him onto the mattress in the back room to let him 'Z' where wouldn't nobody die by bothering him.

Was that 'watching out for him'?

Godzilla – no. Sammy? Sure did maybe seem like.

"Yeah, I kept the easy fish outta his way so's he'd always be sure of a challenge." Is the words come outta my mouth.

Godzilla kept grinning. He was all up and happy. Dean was taking his own sweet time though, looking ready to rumble. One thing scarier'n Godzilla sure gotta be Godzilla's big brother. And yeah don't tell me Dean ain't Sammy's BIG brother. That dead-on stare he was toastin' me with sure don't get stared by nobody ain't got thumping rights against whatever thinks to come up agin them and their own. I was being reckoned and I was reckoned owing.

"How's Eyeball?" Godzilla just kept on, like he didn't care a shake that what Rumble was cogitating on seemed to be 'how to do this fish a harm'.

"Still missin' his Mama. Spends more time out to her burying hole than to anyplace else." Which brought something else out to my mind. "You remember Trank? Liked to sharpen the points on the darts on his shoe? He done tried to check himself out. Was at a shelter, worker lady there found him hanging off a coat hook with the new socks she done just give him that morning. He's at County now, don't nothing work no more on him, he done too much damage to himself."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Godzilla said, even sounding like he meant it. So I told him some more.

"Knife got sent up. You 'member Shirl? His old woman Shirl? Said he caught her workin' when she swore him three sides outta two she done give that up. Maybe she did, maybe she didn't, won't be we'll ever know. But Knife, you know him loving those blades the way he done…well - took 'em near a week and a half to put all her parts back together, to be sure they had 'em all."

"Oh my God." Godzilla looked actual sick and hurt. His hands moved up his arms and down again – and agin - like he was feeling the blades all by his own. "She didn't deserve that. She didn't deserve to die that way. Oh God."

I gave a glance to Rumble, and he was giving Godzilla a look that woulda put even Eyeball's Mama to shame. He was hurting that Godzilla was hurting.

"Sammy?" and he put his hand out, laying it on between Godzilla's shoulder blades. I seen Godzilla put a guy into a wall for doing that to him once. This time though, you could see that hand was the wall and it was for sure near holding him up.

"Yeah. I – yeah. Yeah."

Guess I ought not'a told him. Didn't know it'd run him so raw.

"Well, you fellas're busy, don't mean to hold you here. I gotta get home to the old woman 'fore she signs another bottle with my name."

I near offered they should stop by the place for old times, but it'd be a mistake. Not that Godzilla wouldn't be ballyhooed by the regulars, not that Rumble couldn't hold his own, even without him. But it just didn't sit right somehow to have them there. The place was dark and dirt. People what showed up there, showed up 'cause they was lost. They come 'cause they was lost, they stayed 'cause they was angry, and they left 'cause they was dead. These fellas oughtta have more than that.

Turning and going was my next chore, but Godzilla took a step closer, dragging a scrap of paper outta his pocket and making Rumble the 'gimme a pencil' motion.

"Take my phone number. In case – in case you ever need anything."

He printed it out and handed it over and handed the pen back to Rumble who squared him with a look that said he done the right thing giving me it.

Might be I could leave 'em with one good thought.

"You 'member Harley?"

"Yeah…"

He drawed that answer out like he's afraid of what comes next.

"Couple days after you fellas pulled out, he gets to telling me he's got a baby brother down there to Florida. They ain't put squares on each other since Skylab fell I guess." Which was probably for sure before these fellas first seen the light of day. "One day he says he give him a call and next thing I knew, not two whole full days later, in he walks, the baby brother. He's a optician down there in Lazy Lakes, or wherever he lives. Optician, optomon, opt-something. He come looking to find Harley, and they done set and talk until you'd think there couldn't be no more talking to be done and then they done talk some more. By the week's end, Harley come in, looking good and spiffed and says his baby brother is taking home. Home, he says it like it was some holy thing. And off he went. And off he stays. He sends postcards, he come back for Shirl's service. Looking good, you know? Looking like he ain't waiting just to die no more."

Godzilla and Rumble both were looking at me like what I was talking meant more than I knew, more maybe than I was ever gonna know.

"Anyway – I think that all happened on account'a you fellas. Reminded him family don't wash out. Gave him hope, you know? And sure enough, God remembered him agin. You fellas done that."

So that got Godzilla to smiling again, Rumble too, and I felt as puffed as I ever remembered feeling.

"Well, you fellas keep close and take care a'yourselves."

"You too, Pete."

I commenced to find my way to the 'get the hell out', and getting there, I pulled my wallet out to put Godzilla's paper scrap safe away.

And my squares lit on the picture of my baby sister I kept there. Her high school grad picture that was a good thirty some years before and near the last time I squared her.

It made me hafta get to thinking.

Rumble come huntin' to find Godzilla. Baby Brother sure come flying to find Harley. Might be God don't forget us. Might be He just wants us to do some rememberin' of our own first.

I decided to find me a phone.

The End