RADU-CHAPTER XIII (A Novel by Patrick Kelley)

AUTHOR'S NOTE-This is my favorite Chapter so far (along with Seven, Eight, Ten, and Eleven)so I just decided to go ahead and post it now. I think from here on out I'm going to post one chapter a week, at the beginning of the week, and do other blog posts over the weekend. Feel free to comment-remember, this is basically a first draft. Once it's completed, I'll put the whole thing together from beginning to end as a final draft.

PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS:

PROLOGUE AND CHAPTERS I-X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

RADU-CHAPTER XIII (A Novel by Patrick Kelley)
(21 pages approximate)

Just when Grace needed an automobile almost more than she ever had, Grady came through for her. Sure, it was seven years old, but it ran good, was reasonably quiet, and got respectable mileage. She made certain the transmission was in good shape, as well as the brakes and tires, because where she was going, she knew she could not depend on Phelps’ old Chevy van. The 2000 Impala would not exactly have been her car of choice for a trip out into the Virginia countryside, but at least she knew it could get her there and hopefully back again, without being stuck in the mud, or forced off one of the long, narrow, winding roads in the hilly wooded area to where they were going.

Phelps offered to drive. In fact, he almost insisted, but Grace would have none of that. For one thing, her insurance only covered herself, and for another, she missed driving, more than she ever thought she would.

“This is bullshit, Grace”, he said. “I’ve had that van all over the place. I bet there ain’t a square mile of any part of West Virginia or Kentucky I haven’t taken it, with no problems. Can you think of any?”

“Well, it’s noisier than a locomotive, so it sure would be handy in case we wanted to be sure people heard us coming around the curves, I’ll give you that”, she replied. “That’s just it. I don’t want people to hear us coming-or going.”

“Why the hell not?” he demanded. “I thought you said this place we’re going is out in the middle of nowhere, at least ten miles from the nearest neighbor, and it was supposed to be deserted.”

“Not a living soul”, Grace replied.

“Then why all the worry about noise?” he persisted.

“We don’t want to disturb the cattle”, she replied. “It might curdle the milk”. She was starting to tire of his questions.

“Fine, if you don’t want to tell me, don’t then”, he said, feeling somewhat peevish now himself. “As long as I get paid, it doesn’t matter to me. I just don’t see what you think the Explorer would find so interesting about an old abandoned farm in Virginia.”

“If I tell you, will you shut up?’ she asked. When he agreed, she bit her lip, as she finally made the turn off the highway onto what was to be the first of many roads of increasingly narrowing widths. If she had her directions written down correctly, the fourth turnoff would be onto a gravel road. This would turn off onto yet one more paved road, which would be the last such one before turning off onto yet another gravel road, and finally, one that was mostly dirt, probably muddy in a good many places.

“I’m waiting”, he said.

“It’s a UFO landing strip”, she said.

“Fuck you, Grace”, he said. “If you get me out here in the middle of some kind of bullshit-“

“You bring your gun?” she asked.

“Yeah”, he said, but now his eyes expressed real worry in response to this question. It was getting dark, and by the time they made it to the first of the gravel roads, night had fallen completely. In all this time, they saw little traffic, but now, at the worse possible time, they found themselves behind an old dilapidated looking truck hauling a load of lumber. It would be next to impossible to pass him, and he was barely going thirty-five, if that.

“I’m tempted to use the motherfucker now”, Phelps said, his temper starting to manifest.

“Yeah, that would be brilliant”, Grace replied. “Cause him to skid off the road and maybe send all those fucking logs careening down around us and on top of us. Be sure you save a bullet for the next gas tanker that gets in our way, all right?”

Grace knew of course that Phelps was half joking, but it was the other half she was worried about. She remembered the time Phelps had been assigned to follow a politician who was engaged in a dalliance with a Baltimore socialite, and when the man approached Phelps’ van to confront him, the photographer actually pulled his gun on him. Had the politician typically not wanted publicity and the resultant scandal of his affair with a married woman that would have surely followed, both he and The Explorer would have gotten into an expensive legal battle. The Explorer would have survived, but Phelps might not have turned out so well.

Still, he was a hothead, and given to emotional displays of aggression, which was why it was next to impossible for him to secure employment in a more mainstream press position. All the same, he was good, and she could not have imagined making the trip with any other photographer or, for that matter, anybody else. She would have almost as soon made the trip by herself, in fact. No other reporter would even think about making a trip such as this with no idea what they were going for. That was in fact the whole problem. She could not afford to tell anybody.

Finally, the truck turned off onto a road, and out of their way.

“Whew, that’s a relief”, she said. “I was scared to death that fucker was going to end up in front of us the whole trip.”

“Fuck that, I was worried about those fucking logs”, he said. “The way they were stacked it wouldn’t have taken a lot to cause the entire load to come down around us. I’m not in that big a hurry to get there anyway.”

“Well, you might have changed your mind if he made the same turn-off we were heading for.”

“You mean we have another turn-off?’ he asked.

“Four more, to be exact”, she said.

“So how in the hell did it ever turn out with that one story you were investigating, the one about the old Priest?” Phelps asked after a number of minutes of silence.

“The old priest”, Grace repeated, as though trying to remember, though she knew full well what he was talking about.

“Yeah, you know, he was supposed to be a communist spy or something”, Phelps said.

“Turned out to be just a rumor”, she replied.

“You’re kidding”, he said. “You seemed pretty sure at the time. Didn’t some man accuse him of causing his father to be killed by Securitate agents from the Romanian embassy? Right outside their own house?”

“He was throwing a block party to celebrate the Romanian dictators’ death”, Grace replied, tiring of the questions and becoming slightly uncomfortable at Phelps’ persistence.

“Yeah, I remember that, right at Christmas a bunch of years ago”, the photographer continued.

“Not that one, this was years before that”, she replied. “You weren’t even born then. Neither was I. There was nothing to it. The Priest had nothing to do with it.”

They finally made the next turn-off, and Phelps noted with relief they were now back on a paved road.

“I still don’t see why we couldn’t have taken the van”, he said.

“Well, at the rate we’re going now, I’m guessing you will see why in about ten minutes.”

“So anyway, didn’t you say this Priest was responsible for a lot of people in Romania being arrested, that a lot of them just vanished?”

“A lot of people vanished in Romania, Phelps, they probably still do”, Grace said, starting to become ever more irritated at his persistence. “I should know, I’m one of them. Nothing is ever as cut-and-dried as it seems. Let’s just concentrate on the subject at hand, all right?”

“Hell, I would be glad to if I knew what the fucking subject at hand was”, he snapped. “Can we at least listen to some fucking music?”

“Sure”, Grace replied, “but none of that fucking fag shit you listen to”.

“Hey, I’m not gay, I don’t know what the fuck you’re implying”, Phelps said defensively.

“Well, I’ll put it this way”, Grace explained. “If you listen to an entire CD of Celine Dionne more than once and you’re a man, you’ve probably had more dick in your mouth or ass in a month than I’ll have in my whole life.”

“Ha ha, very funny”, he replied. “At least the music I listen to can’t be classified as psychotic.”

Grace now reached into the pocket of her jacket and extracted a CD, then instructed Phelps to put it in the player. He did so, warily noting the name on the cover.

“The Mocktones?” he said. “Who the hell are they? I’ve never heard of them.”

“They’re a death metal band, sort of”, she said. “There is one song in particular I want you to hear. It’s the fourth song on the disc. But I want you to listen to the first three as well, so just wait for it.”

The first song was just finishing up as they made the next turn, onto the narrowest road yet, one unpaved, though covered with gravel.

“That shit was awful”, Phelps said. “Who are those people? You are not going to review them, are you? If that’s the opening song on the CD you know the rest can’t be worth a fuck.”

“Well, unfortunately, like the roads ahead of us, the rest just get only worse, more or less”, she assured him.

“Then what’s so special about the fourth one?” he said. “I know it couldn’t be good, but is it at least just not quite so bad?”

“I want you to note the distinction between it and the rest”, Grace explained. “It’s quite interesting. By the way, reach into my pocket and find a piece of paper.”

Phelps did so as the discordant noise of the band became ever more unbearable. The song now playing was “You Slay Me, Dandelion”. It was by now about halfway through, having followed the earlier atrocity “Cromwell Heights”. He looked with a wary eye at the title of the third one, which would be the next one-“Hung Up Wet And Crucified Dry”. He would be ecstatically happy when they got to the fourth one. He noticed that it was listed as fourth on the handwritten page, and was both circled and, as if to make sure the person for whom it was intended got the point, double underlined as well.

“Are you sure this is the right one?” Phelps asked sarcastically. “He forgot to put exclamation marks after the title.”

“She forgot”, Grace replied. “Her name is Sierra Lawson. She’s the groups lead singer. She wrote some of the songs too, and co-wrote some of them.”

Phelps looked at the picture of the somewhat cute, twenty-ish something girl with the pink hairdo, easily the youngest of the group, all of whom seemed to be in their late twenties, though one bald guy with a nose ring seemed to easily be in his mid-thirties. At the same time, they were so freakish it was hard to tell with any degree of certainty. They were all pretty much a bunch of stoners or otherwise losers on a quick road to nowhere. They probably didn’t really take themselves seriously.

“Good, it finally stopped, thank God”, Phelps now observed as the second song stopped-and then started right back up again at an even more maddening tempo. By the time the third one finally started, he felt the title was quite appropriate.

“Well, at least the drummer ain’t too bad”, he said.

“That’s the older bald guy, he’s the brother of the guitarist, who’s the leader of the group”, Grace explained.

“Yeah, we’ll he’s fucking terrible, nothing but fucking power chords, the same three over and over, and out of tune and off tempo at that. Not one legitimate riff so far. God, why don’t somebody just shoot these guys and save the world from more misery? Do these guys really think they’re good?”

“I think it’s a hobby more than anything”, Grace explained.

“Then why bother to”-but before Phelps could finish his thought he was reminded of the presence of the groups bass player, who suddenly came in overly loud and, true to the groups signature sound, vaguely out of tune and tempo. “Holy shit, what the fuck was that?”

Prior to this, the bass player was so far into the background his notes barely registered, but now he blared out in all his glory.

“That does it”, he said. “That drummer is pretty fucking bad after all. I just realize he sounds good in comparison to the others. That fucking girl sounds sick, does she have a flu or laryngitis? I see now why we are coming out here in the middle of nowhere. You want to bury this shit somewhere where nobody will ever find it, right?”

“Just be patient, Phelps, the good part is coming here in just a couple of minutes”, she said. It was now also time for the next to the last turnoff, onto the last of the paved roads, yet still a road even more narrow, more curvy, and surrounded by more forested overgrowth than the previous ones.

As they continued, Phelps looked once more at the circled and double underlined title of the upcoming song in question-“Sweet Sixteen (Leaving Home)”. He noticed then that the song was listed as having been written by “Sierra Lawson and Debbie Leighton”. So, there was another chick involved with this atrocity. It was only then that he turned the paper over and saw the song lyrics copied out by hand, in a flowing style artistic script. Sierra Lawson had signed it, but even more interesting than that was an address, which was written down. In fact, it seemed to have been hurriedly scribbled.

P.O. Box 478 Route 7
Bedford Virginia

Ominously, there was a map, which Phelps noted seemed to coincide up until now with the route taken by Grace.

Then, the song started.

“Rest in pieces, mommy dearest
Burn in hell, daddy, fuck you
Let me carve my initials
On the hands with which you hit me
Let me drain your blood and
Drink
Slice my knife across your throat
Watch me laugh, your pride and joy
As she sends you to your death

“Holy shit, that’s’-oh, fucking God, that is actually. Hell, that’s actually quite fucking good”, Phelps said, more than a little surprised.

“Yes, it is, ain’t it?’ Grace agreed. “Too bad everything else on the CD is more like the shit that came before it.”

Phelps actually found himself struggling to refrain from singing the chorus.

“I’m coming home-sweet sixteen
Coming home-for the last time
Oh but it’s time to say
Goodbye forever
To sweet sixteen-she’s leaving home”

“Shit that guitar player is actually good in this song. Listen to that. What did he do, record this on two tracks?”

“Sierra is playing the lead on that”, Grace explained. “The rest of the band is actually inspired by her, it seems. You’re right, they’re quite good here. Listen to the words of the song. It’s about a teenage girl who murders her parents, evidently in a very brutal way and with the help of some friends. Then, they just leave them there alone-unburied, and unmourned.”

Suddenly, Phelps eyes widened with the dawn of realization.

“Ohhh, shit!” he said. “Grace what the fuck are you doing? If you know something, spill it.”

“Nothing to spill” Grace replied as she made the final turnoff onto what would be the final road. “I met Sierra Lawson at The Crypt and she handed me that CD, and that note. She did not ask me to review it, just listen to it. She gave me the note at the same time. If I’m right, it explains something else she told me.”

“And that would be?” Phelps asked warily.

“She asked me not to tell anyone that she talked to me”, she explained.

“So this is a true story”, Phelps observed, as the final song ended with a merging of discordant noises that some might even consider stylistically creative. There seemed to be voices talking and laughing, and as the song ended, a man’s voice mooed like a cow.

“That is exactly what I’m wondering”, Grace said. “I did a little research into the area where we’re headed. According to the last census, one of the families in this remote area is the Leightons. At the time of the census, they had a nine year old daughter by the name Debbie.”

“The song’s co-writer”, Phelps observed. “Grace this is some scary shit. Is this band involved somehow in-“

“No”, she replied. “I don’t think so, anyway. Like I said, this band is just a hobby to them, they are really quite ordinary people, though Goths, contradictory though that might sound. I think their connection with Sierra is more sexual than work or music. The band is just an excuse for a bunch of married guys to get high and fuck with a teenager. In that sense, she is more an object of pity, being used by older, more mature men. At least, that is what I thought when I first met her. Now, though, I’m not so sure.”

The song now finished, Phelps removed the CD from the player and replaced it in the cover. He carefully returned it to Grace’s jacket pocket. He was glad to put it away. He was almost wary of touching it, as though it were now a polluted object.

Soon, they passed the last house in silence as they continued on the increasingly narrow and muddy road for up to forty minutes. Suddenly, and inexplicably, Grace pulled off the road and into a field, past some bushes, until she angled the car between two large and overgrown blackberry bushes.

“What the hell are you pulling off in here for”? Phelps demanded.

“This is the Leighton’s property”, Grace explained. “The car will be alright here. No one will see it, or should. We can walk the rest of the way. It’s about twenty minutes, by my calculations. Be sure and bring the camera.”

Phelps extracted his equipment from the trunk of the car, as Grace surveyed the surrounding landscape, which seemed totally surrounded by trees and bushes.

“Holy shit, when you said we were out in the middle of nowhere you weren’t fucking kidding, were you?” Phelps asked.

“To tell you the truth, even I didn’t realize how remote this place was”, Grace replied as they started walking a path that lead at first into a small clearing completely surrounded by thickets.

“Perfect place to hide a dead body or two”, she continued as they surveyed the thorn covered bushes.

“Shit, why bother?” he asked. “You could put them on a rooftop and nobody would ever find them here. Not that I want to find out.”

“You want this trip to be worthwhile don’t you”? Grace asked. She finally settled on a tentative path out of their surroundings.

“I didn’t ask you to come out here with your camera to have pictures for your scrapbook”, she continued. “Let’s try this way.”

After about seven feet, they finally cleared the bushes, but Grace cursed when she realized her windbreaker had been slightly torn on a particularly stubborn set of bushes.

“I’m glad I didn’t drop anything in that shit”, Phelps remarked. “It would probably be lost forever.”

“I’m sure that’s the worse of it”, Grace said, but Phelps was more focused on the many unnerving sounds of the surrounding forest.

“I think there’s something following us”, he said. “What kind of varmints are out here anyway? Wolves? Coyotes? Bears?”

Grace now thought she heard the sound of footfalls, slight ones, as though whatever it might be stalked them cautiously.

“Let’s hope its coyotes”, she said. “They’re not quite as dangerous to two adults. Just make sure you keep your gun at the ready.”

“Yeah, I’m supposed to lug all this shit and still be able to draw, aim, and accurately fire a gun in the space of two or three seconds”, he observed as they hastened their pace toward a larger clearing. “Who the hell do you think I am, Billy The Kid?”

“Who is that?” Grace asked.

“Never mind, Grace, let’s just hurry, alright? On top of everything else it’s cold out here”.

As they continued on, they came across a barbed wire fence that was down and, judging by the height of the weeds grown up around where the top lay almost to the ground, it had been down for some time. Grace pointed a flashlight over toward the area on the other side of the downed fence, and noted the horrific site of a long dead cow that looked as though fed upon by wild animals. At the sound of tromping through the grass, she pointed the light to see two other cows, both of them looking to be underfed and badly malnourished. One of them mooed pitifully, while the other seemed to barely be able to stand. A recently dead calf lay at its feet.

“I think curdled milk is the least of the worries here”, Phelps observed. He found himself profoundly moved at the saddening site.

“I think this settles the question of whether the people here are alive or dead”, Grace observed. “No responsible farmer would allow their farm and livestock to degenerate to such deplorable conditions as these.”

At that moment, they both reacted to the sound of growling, which sounded as though it came from no more than twenty feet from where they stood. Almost as though in response, Grace noted the sound of an automobile up in the distance. She then saw that Phelps had taken out his gun.

“What are you doing?” she demanded. “You can’t fire that gun. You will give us away for sure.”

“I can’t stand to see them suffer like that”, he said. “Those wolves, or coyotes, or whatever they are-”

“Phelps, those cattle are beyond help”, she explained. “Letting them be torn by wolves would be more merciful than letting them continue starving while being gnawed by vermin. What do you think you are going to do anyway, kill every wolf that lunges at them? Or us? The longer we stand here the longer we risk the wolves seeing us as competitors. Besides, a car just pulled up somewhere.”

She started to move on, and soon came to the edge of the forest, and the clearing that lead the way to the old dilapidated looking farmhouse. Grace noted immediately that the house looked to be in need of a new paint job, to say nothing of a new roof. More importantly, she noted the presence of the Saturn that had just pulled into the driveway of the house, beside what appeared to be a 96 New Yorker.

A man climbed out of the Saturn, and looked at the New Yorker curiously. He seemed to be carrying some object which he pointed in different directions, as he slowly turned in a circle. Grace retrieved a set of binoculars and trained them on the figure of the average height though heavyset man, and saw then that he also seemed to be carrying a gun.

She looked back, but Phelps had lagged behind. She was growing agitated at him, for she could not address him loudly, she feared, without the man hearing her. Therefore, she picked up a rock and lugged it at him. He jumped in reaction, and almost dropped his camera. When he saw it was her, she waved him over. He had been pissing, in fact, so he hurriedly zipped up his fly and proceeded to join her.

“Keep your mind on business, Phelps”, she hissed in a whisper. “See that man there? He has a gun. Get his picture.”

Phelps trained his lens on the man, about one hundred yards in the distance, as the individual in question proceeded somewhat cautiously up the front porch steps of the house, from which a lone light shined from the back. Suddenly, Phelps turned.

“Hey, I’ve seen that fucker before”, he said. “I’ve seen him twice, in fact. Once yesterday in The Explorer building, and earlier today at the fucking gas station, right before we crossed into Virginia. What the fuck is this, Grace?”

“You sure it’s him?” Grace said.

“Hell yes”, Phelps replied. “I remember the fucking Saturn from the gas station. The reason I remembered him was that I caught him eyeing us as we was leaving The Explorer building yesterday. I didn’t think that much of it, until now.”

“You don’t know who he is”, she asked? Right about that time the man was loudly addressing the occupants of the house, but Grace could not make out what he was saying. Neither, unfortunately, could Phelps. Nevertheless, he did note that, as the front door swung open, the man had his gun hidden behind his back. He feverishly resumed taking pictures as the man seemed to be ushered into the house.

“Did you see who let him in”, she asked.

“No, but shouldn’t we do something”, he replied?

She looked at him incredulously.

“Yes”, she finally replied. “We sit here, and we wait.”

After just a little more than two minutes, the silence of their vigil was shattered by the distant sound of a gunshot. In just under five minutes, a figure appeared at the door, and Phelps resumed his work. He seemed suddenly to become animated.

“Oh shit, it just doesn’t get any better than this”, he said with a gleam in his eyes.

“What do you mean”, Grace asked.

“I know that fucking crazy bitch”, he said. “Larceny Adams. Whoever that motherfucker was, he had better hope he’s dead.

“Who is she”, Grace asked as the seemingly bald woman dressed in black leather looked over the Saturn.

“She’s an S&M hooker, and a Satanist, and on top of that, just one cold hearted bitch in general. She loves to torture people. It’s how she makes her living. There’s a rumor that if she thinks a client has a whole lot of money, she kidnaps them and tortures all their banking account information out of them, then makes them sign everything over to her. She will keep them alive just long enough to verify the transactions, and then keep them going for several months just in case somebody really gets suspicious. After awhile, she disposes of them piece by piece.”

“Sounds like a lot of exaggeration to me”, Grace said.

“Could be”, Phelps agreed. “On the other hand, I’ve heard she likes to see just how long she can keep them alive after she starts chopping them up. Her goal is to eventually keep a mans head and heart alive and connected to each other, while disposing of every damned thing else.”

“Sounds to me like somebody is trying to scare business away from her,” Grace said. “After all, anybody that can afford a S&M prostitute has a lot of money to begin with. On the other hand, I have to admit-“

She suddenly stopped, and looked curiously at Phelps.

“Those people could be alive”, she said.

“What do you mean?” Phelps replied.

“The Leightons”, Grace explained as Larceny Adams finally went back inside. “They might still be in there, being tortured.”

“That kind of contradicts the song, doesn’t it?’ Phelps reminded her. “Or have you forgotten?”

“Yeah, you’re right”, Grace said. “I’m surprised I haven’t heard of this person, what with the connections I have at The Crypt. By the way, how is it you know so much about her?”

“The Explorer was doing a story about the American Neo-Nazi movement and its connections to the occult. It was mostly a shit piece, but she came up somewhere in the course of researching the story. She ended up edited out, though, because Jennings did not want to risk a lawsuit over something-

Just then, a blood-curdling scream emanated from the direction of the house, one so horrific it made Phelps’s hair feel like it was standing on end. He shivered uncontrollably.

“Over something that couldn’t be proven”, he continued.

“Look, we need to try to get closer to the house”, she said.

“How closer?” he asked suspiciously.

“Like close enough to look in the window and take pictures of whoever that is in there”, she replied. “We still haven’t found out what we came here to find out. Let’s try to go toward one of the side windows. Just be careful-and quiet”.

Grace led the way as they stayed close to the edge of the woods, but suddenly they heard a door opening, and then going shut as if left to do so on it’s own. They ducked back into the brush, and waited. Suddenly, a male figure appeared, a short, stocky, muscular looking man, wearing nothing but shorts and a dark t-shirt with some kind of writing on it. He seemed young, with his hair done in a buzz cut. They followed him quietly, as he appeared headed towards what looked to be an old barn.

By the time he made it about halfway there, they heard the front door shut, and a woman appeared from around the corner.

“Rhino, you watch things here. I’ll be back,” she said.

“You taking the Saturn?” he asked.

“No, but what difference does it make?” she asked.

“It don’t but I want to take it for a spin when you get back.”

“We aren’t going to be here that much longer,” she said.

“So? I’ll drive it home. Fuck it, he ain’t going to be needing it.”

The woman was now walking seemingly right toward where she and Phelps hid in the bushes, and Grace was suddenly wary. The woman carried a gun, and she saw for the first time that not only was she shaved completely bald, but strangely enough seemed to have a thin moustache and a goatee. It was not until she got within about twenty feet of them that Grace could see by the illumination of the floodlights from the barn, that these appeared to be tattoos.

As Larceny Adams drew closer, Grace fought off the absurd urge to shut her eyes, as though this might prevent her from seeing her. Suddenly, Larceny veered off to her left and continued toward Rhino.

“We can’t take that car, sweetie, its dangerous”, the woman said, as though talking to a young child. “What if they find him here, then find out you have his car.?”

“Well, we could bury the motherfucker”, Rhino said. “Just because he’s not dead yet ain’t no reason to not go ahead and get rid of him. He sure ain’t making it out of here, whoever he is. We ought to bury those other people too. It’s stupid to just leave them out like that.”

“You better not ever let Joseph here you talk like that”, the woman warned her partner. “He says the more they are left out the easier they will be to get rid of.”

“Yeah, he also said as long as we pay the bills and make sure the mail is collected nobody will ever find them”, the short stocky man said somewhat petulantly. “So who the fuck is that guy-and who is that fucking woman reporter he’s looking for, that he was supposed to have tracked here? Grace somebody.”

Grace and Phelps shot each other a look, yet the photographer noted that Grace did not seem very surprise. Moreover, she actually did not seem the least bit perturbed. In fact, she actually looked somewhat pleased. They cautiously drew closer to the two people, enough so that Grace and Phelps could hear their conversation, which seemed to suggest that Rhino thought that whoever Grace was, the man had unknowingly passed her up in the process of tracking her.

“She’s probably at one of the neighbors houses”, he said.

“No, the nearest one is ten miles from here”, Larceny reminded him. “Nobody with a tracking system like he has would overshoot the mark by that much. She is here somewhere, here on this property. She’s just got the damn car hidden. She could be anywhere the fuck around here.”

“You stay here and stand lookout and stop worrying about these fucking cattle, you’ve already fed them anyway. Keep an eye on the house. If she really is a reporter, she might be on to something. Spanky, or that stupid fucking crack head Milo, has probably said the wrong thing to the wrong person, or people. If so, we have to do something about it. We might have to dispose of these bodies after all. First, we have to take care of whoever this Grace bitch is.”

Then, Larceny Adams proceeded back toward the house, but then suddenly veered off to her left, onto a path where Grace and Phelps had just been no more than ten minutes previously.

“She’ll find the car, and when she does we’re in trouble”, Grace whispered.

“Then let’s get back there before she finds it and get the hell out of here”, Phelps insisted.

However, Grace was adamant as she shook her head in denial of Phelps’s seemingly reasonable suggestion.

“We can’t leave yet”, she said. “I have to find out who that guy is. He’s still alive, and-”

Suddenly, Grace heard the sound of a car starting, and wondered if the unfortunate man had somehow managed to free himself, or was not quite badly as injured as the his two captors thought.

“That woman is a professional at doling out pain”, Phelps assured her. “If that’s him he’s probably spent the last ten minutes crawling to the car, and I doubt he makes it out of the driveway.”

However, it turned out that Larceny Adams had merely doubled back and started up the New Yorker.

“Shit, she probably knows about where the car is and she’ll just drive right to it”, she said. “Come on, while that fucker is mulling around by the barn lets head to the house while we have the chance.”

Warily, Phelps followed along behind her, careful to stay to the shadows as much as possible while keeping his eyes peeled toward the man. They made it just around the corner of the house to the blind side from Rhino, and watched him cautiously as they checked the back door. Suddenly, they froze at the sound of what seemed to be at first a loud moaning sound. Rhino was mooing at the cattle.

They proceeded into the house by way of the back door into the kitchen, and were automatically greeted by the most horrific sight Phelps the tabloid photographer had ever seen in his life. There, sitting at the kitchen table, covered with dining bibs that draped down from their necks and covered their chests, and seemed to extend to their laps, were Mildred and John Leighton.

They were obviously mummified, and Phelps gasped loudly.

“Oh-my fucking God”, he declared.

The two were not merely dead, they had obviously been butchered and mutilated, the horrific expression on their mummified faces a mute testament to the horror they had undergone. Old man Leighton had an apple sticking from his wide-open mouth, as did Mildred, and both of them had what appeared to be forks dangling from their now skeletal hands. The plates set in front of them held what looked to be parts of their intestines. Phelps stifled a sickening feeling, and despite being unable to refrain from gagging, took some pictures of the sickening tableau.

Phelps fought back tears, and shook uncontrollably. He had to turn away from the ghastly sight. Grace tried to comfort and reassure him, then tried to force him to pull himself together.

“This is the worse possible time to lose your nerve”, she informed him. “Those two won’t be away from the house for long. Come with me now.”

However, Phelps, rather than following her, started taking yet more photos of the two individuals whom he calculated to have been dead for at least the last three months, maybe longer than that, as Grace proceeded to the living room. There was the man, the newcomer, so badly beaten and cut up, so bloodied, that they did not even consider it worth the time to tie him up. He was almost dead. Still, amazingly enough, he was yet conscious. Grace approached him cautiously. When she bent down over him, she could see the terror in his eyes.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” she said. “I’m here to help. What happened?”

“Girl-tied up”, he said, then struggled to breathe. “Man swore he-not do it. She tricked me-stabbed me when I went to help her. They-“

Then he started crying, and started begging Grace to help him.

“Who sent you to follow me out here”, she asked. “And why? If you want me to help you then you must tell me the truth, the whole story.”

The man then looked and seemed to have realized for the first time that it was Grace to whom he was talking.

“Morrison”, he said. “Congressman Morrison. Grady Desmond-he works for him and bugged your car. Please-help me I beg you.”

Grace soaked this bit of news in with no emotion, and regarded the man coldly.

“Morrison is dead, he was killed in a plane crash in India”, she said.

“That was-Congressman’s father. Luke is his son”, the man said, now struggling to pronounce every syllable, obviously in ever more pain with the passing of each second. He was obviously going to die shortly. He would have no reason to lie.

“Should I call somebody?” Phelps asked, now having rejoined Grace.

“No-not for the time being”, she replied.

Please-help”, the man said, but then suddenly he drew in one last, deep breath, then exhaled, as his eyes then went back in his head.

Suddenly, the two reacted to the sound of the back door opening, then closing, as they quickly yet quietly backed up toward one of the bedrooms. They heard the sound of the refrigerator opening, as someone was obviously perusing the contents. Taking advantage of the opportunity, they made their way to one of the back rooms, and found themselves in a small bedroom that had obviously at one time been that used by the Leighton’s only child, Debbie.

While Phelps listened at the door for any sign from whichever one of the pair it was that had returned to the house, Grace shined her flashlight around the room, now piled up with boxes and bags. Most of them had what looked to be nametags written on masking tape in black marker ink. She gave them only passing, cursory looks, until she noted one in particular that captured her immediate interest. One large box, near the corner by the closet door had written on it the name “Marlowe Krovell”.

As Phelps listened at the door, Grace opened the box, noting it appeared to contain jars of embalming fluid. She then saw a large backpack likewise marked with Marlowe’s name. She quickly looked inside to see nothing but some clothing, but in the side compartment, she noticed papers, along with what seemed to be discs. Most of them were metal bands, but one caught her immediate attention. It was a DVD marked by handwriting “Family Photos And Movies-Private”.

As she stuffed it into her windbreaker’s pocket, she heard a voice. A man was speaking, but seemingly not to anyone in the house. He was asking to speak to someone named Billy.

“He’s called someone on the Leighton’s telephone”, Grace said, amazed at such brazen stupidity.

Suddenly, Rhino sounded ecstatic.

“Damn, thanks Billy, I really appreciate that”, he said. “And I promise you, I won’t let you down.”

“We’ve got to get the hell out of here, Grace”, Phelps said now.

“We can’t leave until they do”, Grace insisted. “She’s probably found our car by now. If not, she will. She probably took our unfortunate followers hand-held tracking device wherever she went, so it should not take her long. I do not think she is quite as stupid as this guy.”

“Great”, he said. “So what the hell are we going to do?”

“Just hope I can remember how to hotwire a car, and hope they leave us one”, she replied. “Otherwise-well, it’s a long walk.”

When Larceny finally returned, Rhino quickly gave her the good news.

“I get to try out for The Blackbirds day after tomorrow”, he said, obviously well pleased.

“You didn’t just call somebody from here”, she said.

“Hell, just Billy”, he replied, “and he won’t say nothing.”

“Rhino, you fucking idiot, I thought I explained this shit to you, three times in fact.”

Rhino was non-responsive. Larceny was obviously very pissed off, and her partner realized that, on some level, he had just badly fucked up.

“Have you been keeping an eye on the house like I fucking told you, at least?” she demanded.

“Yeah, I come back here as soon as you left. There’s nobody around here. That guy just got it wrong. He’s dead now. You really did a number on the guy.”

“He didn’t get it wrong, either,” Larceny replied. “I found the fucking car he told us about, so she’s around this property somewhere.”

“Great”, Rhino moaned. “So now what the fuck are we going to do?”

“Only thing we can do”, she said. “Make sure there’s nothing here for her to find. So come on, let’s get busy.”

Grace and Phelps then heard the pair walking into a distant room.

“They are going to bury the bodies, probably take them off somewhere”, Phelps observed. “Shit, who knows how long we’re going to be here.”

“Maybe not long”, she said. “But we’d better try to find a place to hide, in case they come for something in here”.

They decided their best bet was to hide on the far side of the bed against the wall. There were clothes and pictures piled up under the bed, which Grace hoped would hide them sufficiently were someone to look under the box springs. It was a tight fit, and quite uncomfortable, but Grace figured that made it that much better as a hiding spot.

Sure enough, soon Rhino came into the room, and proceeded toward the closet, where Larceny told him to pick up the box marked “Marlowe Krovell”.

“Just the box with the embalming fluid though, leave the other shit”, Larceny instructed him.

“I still want to kill that motherfucker, because he fucked Raven”, Rhino complained. “The fucking bitch. Some fucking girlfriend she was. I want to kill the fucking bitch that’s snooping around here too. So much for getting this farm. That’s been fucked all to hell.”

“No, it hasn’t”, Larceny assured him. “As soon as Debbie turns eighteen we have the Leighton’s sign it over to her, and then she’ll sign it over to us, just like Joseph promised. Sierra isn’t quite as good a forger yet as Spiral was, but she’s good enough that by the time another two years go by, she should do the job well enough for people to believe the Leighton’s have retired and decided to see the country.”

“Hell, anything can happen in two years”, Rhino said, as Grace could not help but observe that this was probably the most profound thought this young man had ever entertained. “Okay, I found it here.”

“Yeah, it took your slow ass long enough,”:Larceny complained. “Come on, we’ve got to hurry the fuck out of here.”

“So when do I get my new punching bag?” Rhino asked. “If I’m going to be a Raven I have to make sure I stay in shape.”

“I told you I’d find you somebody, you just have to not be so rough on the next one”, Larceny replied. “I think you ruptured Julio’s spleen the last session.”

“Fuck him, he’s wore out anyway, I want one with some muscle the next time around.”

Soon, Grace noted the sound of a car’s engine starting, and after a couple of minutes, it could be heard pulling out.

“What the fuck kind of people are these”, Phelps asked. “Are these even human beings?”

“Did you get any pictures?” Grace asked.

“I got a few of that moron, and the dead guy in there, and Larceny, and the Leighton’s, yeah why? Did I fucking miss something?”

Suddenly, Grace was filled with a sense of dawning realization.

“They didn’t move them”, she said.

“What are you talking about?” Phelps demanded.

“They left too quickly”, she explained. “They left that guy dead in the living room, and the Leighton’s as well. And I’ll tell you something else”.

“What?”

“I smell smoke”.

Within a couple of minutes, smoke started streaming throughout the house, and into the small bedroom where they remained behind the bed.

“We have to get out of here”, Grace said. “With all this shit in here, it will go up fast. But we have to be careful.”

She pulled herself up and made it to the window just in time to see two automobiles going up the road and away from the house.

“Great, they took both the New Yorker and the Saturn”, she said. She continued watching as the two cars stopped up in the distance, probably looking back to survey their handiwork.

“Grace, this window here, this is the quickest way out of this”, Phelps shouted, obviously growing increasingly concerned.

She followed him out, thankfully noting that they were on the blind side of the house from where the two automobiles waited. They started making their way up toward the barn. Once they made it there, they headed for the blind side.

“We have to let the cattle out”, Phelps said. “The way that fire is blazing, the heat is liable to ignite the hay in there.”

“Phelps, we don’t have time for that”, she said. However, Phelps ignored her and headed for the back of the barn, where he opened the back door. The cattle, sensing the heat, began hurriedly piling out. Phelps came close to being trampled in the process, as Grace warily looked up toward the road, just in time to see both automobiles pulling away. She then realized they were headed in the opposite direction from where her car was hidden.

Phelps was obviously distraught. In fact, he seemed to be at the end of his rope, and when Grace advised him they should return to the car, he was dumbstruck.

“They’ve probably flattened the tires, or stolen the carburetor or the battery”, he said.

“I don’t think so”, she said. “Remember, she is thinking we never came to the house, which is why she set the house on fire. She is hoping it will look like the Leightons died alongside an unknown guest in the course of an accidental house fire. She would not bother with that if she thought we saw the bodies. Plus, since she thinks we never made it there, she might be hoping that after we see the house burning, we will just leave and forget about it. She couldn’t expect us to leave if she sabotaged the car, right?”

“Are you sure those two are that damned smart?” Phelps asked skeptically.

“She is, I think”, Grace assured him. “Maybe not as smart as she thinks she is, but hopefully enough to not want us to have to call for outside help to get away from here.”

Phelps mumbled something unintelligible as Grace silently assured herself that she might be right. It made a degree of sense, but as they made their way to the clearing, Phelps suddenly started coughing, and went down on his knees. He was vomiting. He had never spent such a horrific night.

“It’s back to church for me next Sunday,” he said. “I promised God I would and I intend to keep that promise.”

“Good for you”, Grace responded. “So why are you throwing up?”

“Just shut up Grace”, he replied. “Aren’t you just a bit affected by the fact that two people were savagely murdered and left to rot in their own kitchen, and another man was beaten and stabbed so badly he died in horrible agony right in front of our eyes? That kind of thing tends to make us common people just a little on the queasy side.”

“Yeah, I know”, she said simply. “So, what do you say you pull yourself together and let’s get the fuck out of here, before they come back to make sure they did the job right.”

Phelps looked back through the clearing, and saw the frame of the house was barely visible through the blinding flames that engulfed it.

“If they had caught us there, that’s where we might be right now”, he reminded her. “Who knows if I could have drawn my gun in time? But to hell with that, who needs to carry their gun when they have pictures to take, right?”

“Well, if you can’t make a living, why bother to stay alive?” she retorted. “Stop complaining, and let’s get out of here.”

They finally made their way up the same path from whence they came to the house, Grace leading the way, as she heard Phelps mumbling, breathing erratically, and at one point, she thought, crying. They eventually made it back to where they had earlier noted the emaciated cattle, along with the dead one. Grace saw yet another one, a calf, had joined the ranks of the bovine dead, as a large black vulture, having noted the development, now feasted upon the carcass. The calf’s mother stood helplessly by, almost too weak to move. What happened, she wondered, to cause these strays to get so far beyond the others, only to become so weak they could seemingly not make it back?

Perhaps, she decided, there had been a considerable period of time when the outlaw gang had not fed the herd, resulting in a scarcity of available feed and grass, which was scarce at any rate throughout the passing winter.

She had to piss at this point, and so she lowered her jeans and squatted down. Phelps was the shy sort who ordinarily would have automatically turned upon seeing this, but he was now too distraught to give it any thought. She noticed that he had put down his camera and retrieved his pistol. She warned him seriously not to shoot, assuming he meant to kill the vulture whose gaze now met her own as she squatted down there at just about it’s eye level.

It looked at her in an attitude of suspicion, and called out an ungodly sound.

“I’m not worried about the vulture”, he said. “There’s something behind you.”

She turned on her haunches and was met by the gaze of what seemed to be a wolf, some twenty feet from her. It looked at her with a questioning, wary gaze from which she did not flinch. The piss continued to flow from her system, and she felt relieved, finally, to rid herself of the burden, which previously she had not noticed due to necessity of staying focused upon the more pressing issues of the night.

Finally, she finished, and she rose carefully, pulling up her pants after wiping herself with a Kleenex. She looked once more upon the big black bird that had by now seemingly forgot her presence, as he continued his feast upon the carrion that he himself may probably have hastened unto death.

By this time, Phelps had moved some distance from her, but seemed undecided as to the direction they should go. She joined him at his side, as she could yet hear the curious footfalls that seemed to follow behind her. She pointed the way to Phelps, and then proceeded to lead the way. After another ten minutes, they found the car, seemingly unmolested. She checked the tires, the battery, the carburetor, and the plugs. Everything seemed to be in place.

“What if those fuckers are hiding around here waiting for us to come to this car”, Phelps asked.

“No, I doubt that the woman would take the chance that we might have called for help by now”, she said. “I’m sure they’re gone. Lucky thing for you, as I don’t think you would last long as a human punching bag.”

Phelps ignored the taunt and walked to the road. Looking all around, he saw no sign of anybody, as Grace started the ignition. It started without a hitch. She realized she would have to ditch the automobile. At least she had accomplished one thing this night. She had discovered proof of her suspicions as to Grady’s complicity with the Russian mafia and its Romanian branch, and in particular with its fellow American travelers. Moreover, as an extra bonus, she knew now that Luke Morrison was involved. It just kept getting better and better. She had special plans for that son-of-a-bitch.

The trip back home was a long one, but it was still early in the morning, well before dawn, when they arrived at Grace’s house.

“Oh, so now on top of everything else, I don’t even get a ride home”, Phelps said as they pulled up to her apartment.

“You don’t want a piece of pussy, fine with me”, she said. I was going to let you fuck me before we left the farm, but I knew you were too afraid to stay around there any more. I thought you’d have yourself together by now.”

“Well, I’m broke”, Phelps said.

“No charge”, she said. “You’ve been a big help. I want something from you though. I want you to hold off on this story for a few days, until I can do a little fact checking on these two people. I also want to dig a little into our late lamented follower. Just for a few days, I promise, and then you can do the story. We, actually, can do the story. My by-line, your pictures. Is it a deal?”

Phelps laughed. He was astounded at Grace, in her obvious opinion of her desirability. Of course, she was a great fuck, going by just the one time he had her before.

“Okay, agreed”, he said. “No more than a week, though-two at the most”.

Grace agreed, whereupon they went up to her apartment. She took a quick shower, whereupon Phelps decided he most definitely needed one as well. While he was cleaning himself thoroughly of the mental garbage, as much as the physical dirt that had this past night assaulted every fiber of his senses, Grace started her computer and, lighting up a cigarette, she extracted the disc of family photos and home movies that had been the possession of the Krovell family.

She had almost forgotten the strange, balding, overweight man she had met at the John Hopkins University Hospital Emergency Room, but now there he was, in a series of photos, some with other members of the family. There was a young man who was obviously Marlowe. There were two more-a man and woman she thought were his parents. Yes, that was who they were, she decided, as she remembered seeing their photos from the story of their deaths that the Sun had covered months earlier. In these photos, they were considerably younger.

Then, something strange happened. There was a series of photos of what appeared to be cadavers. All of them were either grown women, or young girls. She actually recognized the last one, a girl by the name of Mary Evans, who had died just recently, had drowned in her family’s heated pool because of a drug overdose. This had occurred a few weeks after the deaths of the Krovells, and shortly before Grace had met Brad Marlowe at the hospital emergency room.

She sat back and watched in unsurprised curiosity, and almost some whimsy, as Brad began engaging in sex with her and, as the show unfolded, with many more corpses as well. Someone was obviously photographing him doing so. This took up a great deal of the DVD, and after a while Grace found it monotonous, and so started speeding through it.

Then she saw something altogether unexpected. There was young Marlowe, at about the age of twelve it seemed, hovering over the body of a dead girl of about his age. Brad was there as well, as was Richard Krovell. For the first time, there was more than just background noise, as Richard insisted that Marlowe had to learn to put his feelings away, and do his job. Brad seemed somewhat perturbed, even sympathetic, but offered no objection, even though Marlowe looked more than just a little distraught at the prospect of engaging in work on the body of this girl.

He proceeded to his work, and actually conducted the majority of it. From time to time, his father would appear and take over briefly, after which Marlowe would then resume. At one point he was actually left alone to work on the body of the dead girl. Grace noted now how the camera had remained fixed in place and not followed any of the people around, a circumstance that often caused their removal from the range of the camera. Still, at one point she thought she could hear sobbing.

After a couple of minutes, the sobbing stopped, and young Marlowe walked back into camera range. He suddenly seemed to be addressing the corpse.

“What?” he asked. “Linda, I’m sorry”

Then, he started once again, crying loudly. In a couple of minutes, he pulled himself together. Grace found herself so engrossed in what she was seeing, she watched him continue with his work for more than twenty minutes. Incredibly, when his father once more returned and offered to take over for him, Marlowe actually refused. The entire procedure went on for some time, while Grace started to wonder what was keeping Phelps so long. She checked on him, only to find that he was on the commode.

“I’m feeling pretty sick”, he explained. “Do you have anything for nerves, an upset stomach, and for a headache?”

“All of that?’ she said. “I have Tylenol and Pepto-Bismol. That is about it. Maybe you should just lie down and rest for a while.”

As she said this she returned to the DVD, and the long ago drama still playing out on her computer screen. Marlowe was now standing once more alone beside Linda, the dead girl, and told her he loved her. Interesting, she thought. What must that be like, to perform an in-depth embalming and preparation process on the body of a young girl, and you yourself a young man who felt, as this young man obviously did, a great deal of emotional attachment toward the object of your work? Had his parents been aware of this? Obviously, if not at the time, they would quickly have learned of it. At least somebody would have.

Phelps was now throwing up, and seemed to be very sick. He would not likely be engaging in sex tonight. Therefore, Grace would have to come up with some other enticement to insure he kept the nights information between the two of them for a week or two. He was not only sick, but he was still very upset. In fact, Grace was certain he was crying, though evidently trying to contain himself. She continued watching as Brad returned to Marlowe’s side.

“Beat it, kid”, he said. “I’ll finish up here.”

Marlowe left, and Brad turned at the sound of the upstairs door shutting, looking as though to make sure Marlowe had actually left. He then, as Grace expected, began having sex with the body of the young girl, beginning as he most often did by the performance of cunnilingus, augmented by a series of groping various body parts, and finally ending in fornication. He seemed far more turned on, Grace noted, with his ordinary sexual proclivities, than by his one profoundly distasteful and quickly concluded incident with her at the motel.

She wanted to kick herself when she realized that she should have offered him a blowjob, something she doubted Mr. Brad Marlowe had ever experienced. That would be something few corpses could hope to compete with, she mused, as the DVD went blank, only to resume with yet another of Brads many “conquests”.

Quickly tiring of this, she fast-forwarded the DVD closer toward the end. There was Brad Marlowe again, even younger this time, and there was the likewise younger Krovell couple, as Grace realized that the further the DVD went toward the end, the further back in time it went. Brad almost looked handsome, though still overweight and even at this relatively young age showing signs of balding. He also looked somewhat morose, and almost even fragile. Ah, and there was Marlowe, who at this point could not have been any older than somewhere between eight and ten. She magnified the time stamp on the lower right hand corner of her screen. July 1993. Yes, Marlowe would have been eight years old.

Phelps now came back out of the bathroom.

“Finally”, she said. “I was starting to think I was going to have to piss in a pot.”

“You could have said something, you know”, he said, as she put the home movie on pause, and made her way toward the toilet.

“Who is this?” he asked.

“The Krovell family”, she said. “Remember that mortician that was killed by his wife in some kind of murder suicide incident a few months ago? Them.”

“What were those people doing with it?” he asked. “They have something to do with it?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out”, she said, as she sat there pissing with the door open, looking at him with a smile. He turned away. Yep, he’s starting to be his old self again, she thought. She finally finished, and then returned to the living room where Phelps awaited. Hopefully, he would not want to watch any of the video. He had obviously seen all he could stand to process for one night.

“I piss once tonight while a black vulture and a wolf is staring at me, only to piss a second time to see two-in-one wanting to leer at me but ashamed to do so”, she teased. “So, are you ready for me, scavenger?”

“There’ll never be another like you, Grace,” he said, with a bemused smile and a swing of the head. “I think I need to call it off for tonight. I just am not in the mood for anything. Don’t’ worry, I’ll keep your secret. For one week, that’s it. Maybe two, if you come through later. Right now, I just want to sleep, and I want to stay here tonight. I just am not in the mood to make the nine-mile drive home. Who knows, maybe tomorrow I’ll be more in the mood.”

“That’s fine, Phelps”, she said. “So, why not take your jacket off and stay awhile?”

“I need to walk around a little, get some fresh air”, he said. “Besides, I need to get a pack of smokes. I have seen what the shit you smoke, and I need something with a kick to it, now more than ever. Like a non-filtered kick. Can I get you anything?”

“Come to think of it I can use a pack of Winston”, she said. “Light, please”.

“Got’cha covered”, Phelps said. “The fresh air will do me some good anyway. It’s a seven block walk, but this is a pretty safe neighborhood, ain’t it?”

“I hope for somebody carrying a gun it is”, she answered.

“After what I’ve been through tonight, I think nothing around here could ever scare me”, he replied. “Be back in a few,”

“Wait, I’ll tell you what”, Grace said. “I’ll make out a check, and you pick us up a twelve-pack of beer too. I could use some beer right now anyway, and I’m sure you can. That’s the least I can do for you. If there is anything else you want, go ahead and get it-within reason, of course.”

Grace hurriedly made out the check, and then handed it to him.

“Don’t be gone too long now”, she said, though she actually hoped he would take his time.

Grace smiled a polite smile of acknowledgement as he blew her a kiss. What a cornball, she thought, as she resumed the playing of the DVD.

Brad and Marlowe were taking their lunch into the living room, as someone mentioned something about an Orioles game. The tape then cut off temporarily, only to resume at the same day, probably just a few minutes later. Marlowe and his mother were down in the basement. He was asking her why she wanted him to go down there with here. Grace noted they were wearing the same clothes, but Mabel Krovell was acting much differently than she had been upstairs. She was acting suspiciously, as though not wanting to be overheard.

“Do you remember what we did in the bathroom last week?” she asked.

Marlowe looked away, as though frightened. No, more than just frightened. Ashamed. In fact, he looked as though he was humiliated.

“Answer me, Marlowe”, she said. “Do you remember what we did in the bathtub last week? How I came in, took my clothes off, got in it with you, and-“

“Yes”, Marlowe moaned. “And I told you I don’t ever want to do that again, I-“

“You threatened to tell your father on me, I know”, she said. “So, I already told him. He knows.”

“You did what?” Marlowe demanded in shock.

“Only I told it my way. I told him you forced me. You got in the tub with me and forced yourself on me. He is mad at you, Marlowe. He has even been thinking of having you put in a home for bad kids. Do you know what that would be like? What if word got out why you were there? As I said, Marlowe, your father is very mad at you. Can’t you tell? As for me, I am very hurt as well as disappointed in you and your attitude.”

“It’s wrong”, Marlowe said. “And you lied, I’m going-“

“You’re going to what, Marlowe, tell him the truth? Tell him that I wanted to have sex with you, and made you do it? Whom do you think he would believe, Marlowe-his wife, whom he loves and has loved for years, or you, who disappoints him on a weekly basis? A boy who has been caught in lies several times?”

As Grace watched this recorded drama unfold, she lit a cigarette, and wished she had some popcorn, and that Phelps would get his black ass back with the beer. On the other hand, it was just as well. This was something Phelps would not be in the frame of mind to deal with tonight, of all nights.

Mabel Krovell now demanded that Marlowe, her eight-year-old son, play along with her. If he did so, she would tell his father that Marlowe had been overwhelmed by the flu medication he had been on at the time. He had just not been himself when he entered his mother’s bathtub and forced himself on her. However, he had to do everything she told him from here on out.

“Including now, Marlowe”, she said as she started unclothing. As she did so, she lay upon the large metal table ordinarily used for the embalming of dead bodies. She was now demanding that Marlowe eat her pussy, and Marlowe, though offering one weak, pleading objection, yet tearfully and ashamedly did as she demanded. After a few minutes, his mother then pulled him with her legs towards him as he unzipped his pants, the erect penis barely visible from the vantage point of the lens of the silent, hidden camera that recorded everything, including even the glaze that now seemed to come over Marlowe’s eyes as he breathed deeply, and moaned loudly.

The phone then rang, and Grace answered. It was Phelps, calling from the neighborhood Speedway Station, just seven blocks away. The manager wanted voice verification of her check, she explained. The manager then got on the phone, whereupon Grace Rodescu repeated the information printed on the check. Then she got Phelps back on the phone.

“You got the beer and the smokes, right?” she asked.

“All that and a bag of chips”, Phelps replied. “And dip. That all right?”

You say you like chips and dip more than pussy, fine with me”, she teased.

“Hardeharhar”, he said. “You say I can go ahead and hand that story and pictures into the Explorer tomorrow?”

“I got your camera”, she replied.

“You wouldn’t”, Phelps said anxiously.

“Calm down, I’m just kidding”, she said. “I could use some anyway, I’m starving and there ain’t shit here but baloney and bread with mustard, and some pop. Chips and dip sound good. Just hurry back.”

He assured her he would, whereupon he hung up. She lit up what turned out to be her last cigarette as she returned her attention to the DVD. Marlowe had finished performing his mother’s demands, and he was crying. He was crying, and she was laughing.

What a fucking bitch, Grace thought, as The DVD suddenly went blank. After just a few seconds, however, it resumed, and they were back upstairs. There was Mabel and Marlowe, along with Brad, and two other people.

They were two older people, and they joined Brad and the Krovells in singing “Happy Birthday” to the just turned eight-year-old Marlowe, who looked aloof, sullen. He briefly met his father’s gaze, and he his, and in that one moment, Grace could tell-he knew everything. It was a game, some kind of sick head fuck that went on for no telling how many years.

Grace once again magnified the imprint of the original time-stamp of the old film, and saw the date-June 1st 1993. The newer time-stamp showed more clearly the date of transference to disc as being May 10th of this year. Marlowe’s parents had been dead for about half a year. So who had done the transference? For that matter, who was the unseen person who recorded the original film, those parts of it done by hand, such as this part here?

Grace could hear the man being addressed in the party film, which featured presents from each member of the family. Yet, though Grace could hear his voice, he never stepped into the picture, not even when young Marlowe Krovell suddenly broke down and started sobbing uncontrollably. His Uncle Brad looked unnerved at this, even distraught, and seemed genuinely concerned, asking him what was wrong.

However, the older man, whom she had heard Richard Krovell address as “dad”, the man Brad called Martin, waved him off. Martin Krovell, Marlowe’s grandfather, now derided Marlowe as a weakling. A man never cries, he informed him, and young boys who cry never become men. He then looked at the parents and winked, while Richard Krovell smiled a sadistic smile. Then, the woman who was evidently Marlowe’s grandmother declared that she would be happy she and her husband would finally be moving to Florida and away from Baltimore. She then told the unseen cameraman to stop filming, as such a record would be an embarrassment to the family history.

Grace looked over all of them at the same time. She got a good look at the Krovells and at Brad Marlowe, who seemed more uncomfortable than angry. Finally, she focused on the two older people, the two people that called themselves Martin and Nancy Krovell.

Suddenly, Grace felt overwhelmed by an inexplicable feeling of sadness, followed by a mounting rage. She looked upon the family, at the ostensible occasion of a young child’s eighth birthday party, and her stomach started churning. She was becoming hot, and dizzy, and started to feel weak, and then sick. She made it to the bathroom just in time to eject the majority of the vomit into the toilet, though she halfway heaved some up by the time she got to her bathroom door. She could feel the puke burning her nostrils as she tried with all her strength to restrain it until she finally reached the commode. When she did so, she found to her dismay that she felt no better. The room was starting to spin. Weakly, she pulled herself away from the commode, and made her way back to the desk chair and the computer. She removed the disc, and turned off the computer.

After replacing the DVD in its case, she found she could not get the faces of the people out of her mind. They spun around seemingly in the opposite direction as she did. They alternated from Marlowe, to Bradley, to Richard, and Mabel, and finally to Martin and Nancy Krovell. Then, they finally seemed to merge into one face, a mask of sheer horror, a head without a face, a demonic entity shrouded in darkness. She then went into dry heaves, but for just a brief period of time, when she suddenly noticed there were insect bites marks all over her arms and legs. Chigger and mosquito bites, she realized. They had made large welts on her arms, her hands, and even on her cheeks. They itched, and for a few seconds she scratched uncontrollably.

The last words on the DVD, those spoken by Martin and Nancy Krovell, suddenly resounded in her mind. She could hear them, repeatedly, intermingled with the laughter of Mabel, amidst the anguished and silent though obvious despair of Marlowe, the perplexed uncertainty of Brad, and the incisive, leering gaze of Richard. She became ever dizzier as she continued to hear the words spoken during those final seconds of the DVD.

“Now that we’ve decided to retire, it’s time to live the good life”, Nancy said. “I hope you don’t feel like we are abandoning you, but it so happens that is just what we are doing.”

“But you will always be in our thoughts”, her husband Martin now said with a wry smile.

Grace felt sick still, but knew she had nothing left inside her to puke. She was hurting. She needed a fix. Therefore, she fished around inside the inner pocket of her jacket until she found the hidden, secret compartment that contained the heroin she had swore she would never again take. Despite this vow, she kept it with her. The overwhelming urge had crept up on her suddenly, as it had so often done in the past. It had always been a nagging pain, but she had controlled it over these last few months.

She started to cry as she entered the kitchen, and started to heat the water she would need to mix the powder from the packet, the powder that she would have to cool enough then to inject into her oft-abused veins. She could not wait until it boiled, to say nothing of the extra minutes it would then take to cool to a safe level of warmth, and so she merely allowed the water to get hot enough to ensure she achieved the adequate solution. Her body was suddenly wracked with pain, as she suctioned the formula up into the syringe. She quickly found a rag, and tied it expertly around her arm. Aware that her mental state was not conducive to insuring accuracy, she tested the contents numerous times to insure a lack of air bubbles.

She then pulled at the makeshift tourniquet with her teeth, and tied it as tightly as she could. She tapped a vein in her lower left arm. It seemed to be adequate. Just one more time, she promised herself. After what she had seen this night, she was certainly justified. All she wanted was to rest, to sleep. If Phelps returned, and fucked her while she was wasted, so much the better, she reasoned. He could have what he wanted and she did not have to know about it. All she cared about now was getting through the rest of this night.

She injected the heroin, as she noted that it was now raining, and there was even some lightning. Good, she thought. This will hold Phelps up for a while, and give her a chance to hide the evidence of her failure to control her lifelong addiction. Possibly, he would merely surmise that she was exhausted, that the events of the evening had all caught up with her.

She felt now the rush from her bloodstream, into her body and mind, of the dream-like state she so secretly longed for, yearned for, and the desire for which she could never completely free herself from. She replaced the syringe and the now empty vial of heroin in the secret compartment of her jacket. Then, she moved herself slowly over to the sofa, and collapsed down upon it. The room was still spinning around, but now in a good way, in a welcome way. She finally felt serene, at peace with herself for the first time in months. She was a fool to think she would ever be any different. Why should she be?

“I am that I am”, Grace now said, repeatedly, as she started to fade into a semi-wakeful dream state that seemed to go on forever. She could still see the people on the DVD, but now they seemed clownish and ridiculous. As they gradually started to fade, she could hear what seemed to be the barely contained cackling of an insane man, but this faded as well. She was now feeling so much better. It was all nothing but a dream, her life.

A series of loud and assertive knocks at the door, however, interrupted this welcomed trance state. For a long time Grace ignored the knocks. Despite this, they seemed to grow successively louder. Then, she remembered something.

“Phelps”, she whispered, barely able to hear herself speak. She knew then she had locked the door. She pulled herself up, and she tried to shout at him to wait, but it only came out as a whisper. Still, Phelps must have heard the whisper. He stopped knocking. She made it to the door and unlocked it. Now he would know she had shot up again. She did not care. She opened the door and smiled a dazed, dreamy smile. Phelps wanted pussy too much to bother with a lecture, she realized.

It was not Phelps, however, and the young woman with the goatee and moustache tattoo did not carry beer and a bag of groceries, but a hand-held tracking device and a pistol.

“You fucked up big time, bitch”, the woman said, as she fired a shot from the gun. As Grace collapsed to the floor, she could feel the blood pouring from a wound from which she strangely felt no pain.

That was good, Grace thought to herself. That was all right. She just wanted to rest. She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Radu-Chapter XII (Novel by Patrick Kelley)

Previous Installments:

Proloque with Chapters I-X


Chapter XI


Radu-Chapter XII (Novel by Patrick Kelley)

Lynette was looking forward to her up-and-coming move to Baltimore, when she at last decided to go through with her plans. She loved the old city, had ever since her first visit as a girl of eight, and all of her subsequent visits had only magnified her appreciation of the old city’s charms. At the same time, she viewed the renovated docks with mixed feelings. On the one hand, they were attractive, and seemed to be vibrant and alive with activity. At the same time, they seemed almost artificial, as though the city planners might have been trying too hard to modernize the old areas while striving to maintain a semblance of the original culture and personality.

She would be living in an upscale area, of course, far from the facade that disguised the core of the inner city. When she resumed her studies, she would be attending John Hopkins University. She greatly looked forward to it, as well as the opportunity to get away from New Jersey.

For one thing, she had to get away from Teddy. She had almost given in to his advances that night before Christmas, and in fact had lured him into making them. She had drunk a little too much eggnog, and wanted nothing more than to dance, to laugh, to feel some degree of happiness. Unfortunately, she, and they, almost went father than she truly intended.

She wanted to get away from her parents as well. Everything had blown up at once. Her younger brother had finally turned eighteen, some three months ago, when her dad suddenly and inexplicably filed for divorce and moved into an upscale condominium in Atlantic City with his mistress of, she later learned, seven years.

Mom had graciously agreed to a somewhat generous settlement. Ten million dollars after taxes, along with the family home, with all of its furnishings, in addition to a second home in South Carolina, and four of the families automobiles, including the old Bentley. Father agreed to pay the insurance and property taxes on each one of the cars and both of the houses, and agreed to a further allotment of one hundred thousand dollars a month in perpetuity. That was one third of his average earnings, but on the other hand, he had liquid assets of well over thirty million dollars.

Yes, he and mom would both be fine, but as for Lynette, she was heartbroken. All of this time she had lived in a bubble that contained the illusion of a perfect world, but now the bubble had burst. She could no longer concentrate on her studies, and so elected she would take off her last semester, and would return the following spring. Some time off would do her some good anyway. Where previously she had planned to attend Cornell School of Veterinary Medicine after graduating from Princeton, she hoped now to attend John Hopkins School of Comparative Medicine for her graduate school courses. In the meantime, she might perhaps find a job at a veterinary clinic.

In the meantime, she started to realize just how much like her father was Teddy, her fiancé. They liked the same sports; they enjoyed most of the same pastimes, with almost the singular exception of sailing, which Teddy despised. They even liked the same music, classic rock. They only had one other thing in common-each one despised the other. Still, the four times they were together, during holiday family get-togethers, they at least put on an appearance of cordiality. After all, appearances were everything.

Teddy also had the same career goals, in business. Her fiancé of some two and a half years held out hopes of landing a job with a major stock brokerage. Lynette had no doubt that he would do extremely well. Teddy had one other character that her father, Phillip Khoska, did not share-he was very religious. Her own father had disavowed the church of his up bringing, the Romanian Orthodox Church, yet never spoke of religion in any light, good or bad. Still, he had a system of ethics that he considered binding on him both in his business dealings and in his private life-or so he always claimed.

Teddy was a Southern Baptist, and a strong believer. He also, however, had disappointed his own father when he passed up the opportunity to attend Liberty University in Lynchburg Virginia, not quite sixty miles from where he and his family lived. He could not see a future for him that involved a degree from such a place as that, not with the kind of career he was after. Therefore, he decided instead to attend Princeton. Upon graduation, he planned to attend Princeton’s Graduate School of Finance.

He nevertheless remained faithful to his church. He attended regular worship services, and Lynette accompanied him many times. She was saved there, or as they put it, “born again”. It seemed actually to afford her a degree of comfort and even filled a vacuum that had been there for some time. Her father just shook his head and even chuckled when he heard the news, but otherwise offered no criticism. Her mother had been the only one to scoff, but when she saw Lynette was not pleased with this attitude, she let the matter drop.

The night of the last Christmas had been traumatic. Teddy did not believe in drinking, but some friends talked him into having a couple of beers a few nights previously. He had drunk a few times before, but never really got anything out of it with the exception of a guilty, nagging feeling that he had compromised his principles. One of his friends only half-jokingly informed him that, if he were truly going for a career in the business world, he needed all the practice at that he could stand.

Afterwards, he came home, tipsy, and called her, wanting to come over. She told him no, at that particular hour it would not be a good idea. As such, he let the matter drop.

It was less than a week before Christmas, and Lynette was depressed still over her parents. She looked at the present she had purchased for the both of them, in the stubborn yet hopeless belief they would make amends by the time the holidays arrived. It was a sterling silver tea set. She finally decided she would either keep it for herself, or sell it for what she could get for it.

She never really thought about the process that led her to enter the neighborhood lounge and order a whiskey sour, but she did so without really thinking about Teddy, who never approved of her drinking even socially, despite the fact that it was only on rare occasions that she did so. Nevertheless, she began to think about him after her first drink, and into the second one. In the thirty minutes she was there, not one person tried to hit on her. Was she actually that unattractive, she wondered?

She looked at herself in the mirror over the bar and realized that she looked like a wreck, and was dressed shabbily. She would ordinarily never go out looking like this, but she was just too upset at the time to give it any thought. She decided she would return home, fix herself up, and try to do something to get her mind off her parents’ bullshit.

She left several messages for her father, but he never returned her calls. She wondered if perhaps his new whore-yes, this is how she thought of her-had deleted them before he ever heard them. Perhaps he had just been too ashamed to talk to her. Maybe he did not even care. Whatever the reason for his actions, however, no possibility upset her nearly as much as her mother’s attitude. She actually acted as though it was just another day. It was as though she may as well come out and say, ‘I got what I wanted out of him, so I just don’t care what he does from now on’.

None of her siblings seemed to think it was that big a deal either, though of course she was the only girl among five children. Maybe her female emotions took things more seriously, or maybe being men, all but one older than her, they had learned better to keep their emotions in check. Whatever the explanation, she was devastated.

She had accompanied Teddy to a Christmas party on the 22nd, and there to her surprise he had drunk some eggnog. She joined him, though only for two drinks. She felt somewhat better, more relaxed, and actually started to somewhat enjoy herself. Prior to this, she had only gone along due to the previous commitment to do so, but her heart really was not in it.

She decided not to return home for the holidays, and so had the apartment to herself. She decided to make some homemade eggnog, and found a suitable recipe from a book at the library. She invited Teddy over. He had not yet returned home, deciding to drive home on Christmas Day. He agreed to come over, and by the time he got there, she realized she was quickly becoming soused. She was drunk, and did not give a damn.

She put on some music, an old album by a group known as The Cars, which Teddy liked very much. After bathing, she dressed in the most seductive outfit she could find. She handed him a present the minute he came through the door. They kissed, and Lynette led him over to the eggnog. There was more than enough for two people. She put on the Cars CD. By the time it finished playing, Teddy had drunk five cups of the frothy brew.

“Damn, this is great!” he declared. “Where did you learn to make this stuff? This is better than what James had at his party last night”.

“Beginner’s luck”, she assured him.

They drank, and they danced, and at one point during a particularly romantic number, she held herself tightly up against Teddy and could feel his erect penis pressed against her. She backed off, whereupon he seemed embarrassed. Before he could say anything, she said, “I have another present for you”.

She quickly handed him a small gift-wrapped box marked: “To: Lynette”.

“I don’t get it,” he said. “This is to you, why-“

“Just open it”, she insisted.

He opened it, and saw it was a box of Trojan condoms.

“Just what I always wanted”, she said as he looked at her dumbfounded. “Well, you are supposed to say ‘Merry Christmas’ when you give a girl what she wants.”

“You haven’t finished unwrapping the present yet”, he replied in a suddenly raspy voice, barely able to contain himself.

She smiled and started fumbling around with his zipper, while undoing the clasp of his jeans. She then pulled them down to where his hardened penis now protruded from the open fly of his boxer shorts. She gasped when she saw it, noting the beads of semen that exuded from the end of it. It was actually the first time she had seen a hardened penis, the first time she had actually seen a penis period. She had never actually seen one, not even in pictures. She felt stupid when she realized the adult penis was not like that of her little brothers-the only one she had ever actually seen. She already knew this, of course that they got bigger at the onset of puberty. Nevertheless, her mind had never actually processed that fact, until now.

“That is a pretty big penis”, she said. She just stared at it.

“This ain’t science class, Lynette”, he replied. “Call it a dick. Or a cock. Penis sounds so damned clinical”.

Then he reached out, grabbed hold of her, and tried to put her hand on it, but she pulled it back. It was an automatic response, but she realized then that she was actually afraid of it. She was afraid even to touch it. At the same time, she could not keep her eyes off it. She just stared, and sighed. She was getting wet. She was so hot it was almost painful. She breathed deeply. It was so beautiful, yet it also frightened her.

“We’d better call this off”, she said. “We’re drunk and we’ve-“

Before she could say another word, he was on her, pushing her back on the sofa. He was up against her, pressing his dick against her bare legs, humping her left one as he ripped at her blouse. She felt the blood rush to her head as her bra came off and he started fondling her breasts. Up until now, this had been as much as she would allow him to do aside from some kissing, but he was now determined to advance far beyond this all too familiar territory, and venture into an unknown space that brought with it a dread, a terror, that was just now catching up to her.

She begged him to stop, but he was unsnapping the clasp on her skirt, determined to remove this obstruction. He was ignoring her, and so she shouted for him to stop. She pushed him away.

“What the fuck is your problem?” he demanded. “You’re the one that wanted this!”

“I thought I wanted it, but I changed my mind, I’m not ready, damn you, so stop now!”

She was enraged, and adamant. He just looked at her, with a look of pure naked anger and frustration. She had never seen that look before, not from him or from anyone. She was not used to being the recipient of such intense and passionate rage, however contained it might be for now.

“I’m warning you, Ted, get the fuck out of here now. Don’t make me have to say it again. Leave!”

“Fine, I’ll go”, he said. “Do you mind if I put my pants back on first? You know, the ones you pulled off?”

She picked them off the floor where they lay at almost the same spot where he had scooted out of them after she had all but ripped them down from his waist. She flung them at his bare chest as he reached for his shirt on the arm of the sofa.

“Be out of here by the time I leave the bathroom”, she said with a snarl.

It did not seem to be two minutes after she entered the bathroom and started surveying her features in the mirror before she heard the door slam, so she surmised he might have not truly left. She remained in there for a good twenty minutes longer, but decided that was senseless. She went back out, only to see he was nowhere in sight. She looked inside the bedroom and kitchen, and even in her roommates’ bedroom, but he was nowhere around, at which point she felt foolish as she considered checking the closets. Nevertheless, she did just that.

When she returned to the living room, she checked the door, locking it. She then turned to notice a note left on the coffee table, held in place from the corner by an ashtray. It protruded over the edge, as though to insure quick notice. She then saw beside it the box of condoms. The box was open and only about half the contents of the package remained. She picked up the note and read:

“I won’t need them all. You keep the rest just in case you ever grow up. If you do, give me a call. I might still consider a one-nighter.”

She opened the door, half way expecting and half way praying he was lurking at the bottom of the cast iron steps that led up to her second floor apartment. She was ready to tear into him, though unsure as to exactly what she would say. He was nowhere to be seen, however, and so she shut the door in disgust. She immediately began fighting off a sense of hopelessness and depression, and surveyed the remainder of the eggnog. She scooped up the bowl and proceeded to the bathroom, where he emptied the contents into the commode, and then flushed. She watched as it swirled around and finally vanished, leaving at the end only a small remnant of once frothy foam, now only a cream-colored spot on top of the clear water.

She returned to the sofa and began sobbing, and eventually began openly crying. It took her ten minutes to pull herself together. She called her mother. There was no response save the answering machine message that assured she would happily return the call if left a name and number. Lynette hung up. She called her father then, but the phone rang repeatedly, until she soon lost count of the number of rings. She just sat there, growing angrier even than she had been with Teddy.

Finally, when she had almost forgotten she was even holding the phone, her father answered. He sounded to be half-asleep, and would have probably cursed her had he not noticed, through his caller id, exactly who was calling him.

“Lynette, what is wrong?” he asked. “Do you know what time it is?”

“I know, its 1:24 a.m.”, she replied. “I never get hold of you if I call through the day, so I thought I might as well try now if I ever wanted to talk to you again.”

“Lynette, I’m sorry sweetheart”, he said. “There’s just been so much going on I haven’t been able to return your calls yet. I just got back from overseas. I was going to call you tomorrow.”

“I guess you’re just too busy these days huh?” she asked. “Maybe you should hire an assistant. Then again I guess that’s not such a great idea either in your case.”

“Lynette, are you drunk?” her father asked in a voice that suggested incredulity.

“Yeah, I was drinking eggnog, me and Teddy. He just left. I think we just broke up. Probably just as well, seeing as how the two of you didn’t like each other. You know what they say about two people being too much alike. I guess I found that out just in time.”

“Lynnette, I know you’re upset, but there’s a lot you don’t know. We’ll talk about it in person. Soon, I promise. What’s this about Ted, did you get into a fight with him? I always told you he was-“

“Out for one thing, I know. A lot of people in this world like that, huh?”

“Lynette, it’s not like that. You are being very judgmental. And what’s this I hear about you moving to Baltimore? Leaving school this close to graduation, that’s bad enough, but Baltimore is a hellhole of a place. What would possess you to move there?”

“It’s kind of silly for someone in New Jersey to be worried about hellholes”, she replied. “And I do have family there.”

“Your grandfather”, he said. “Lynette, he hasn’t spoken to me in years, he’s old and probably senile by now. Let’s talk about this in a day or two. Your grandfather is not what you think he is.”

“Well, nobody seems to be”, she replied. “I’m hanging up now, sorry I woke you. Bye.”

She hung up, and stared at the phone when it began ringing less than ten minutes later. It continued ringing, and she assumed it was her father but, as she and her roommate had no Caller ID service, was unsure. She finally answered, but no one responded. All she could hear was the noise of music in the background, and numerous voices. Someone seemed to be calling from a bar. That meant either it was a wrong number, or it was Teddy.

She heard a drunken sounding female voice that seemed to address not her but whoever the caller was, though she could not make out her slurred words. She sounded as though she might be somewhat older.

“Teddy, is that you?” Lynnette demanded. “If it is, say something. Stop acting like a little boy. You’re a grown man. At least that’s what I thought until tonight.”

Suddenly the phone went dead, preceded by a louder than usual click. Now she had probably really pissed him off, but she didn’t care. She was feeling sick. Her stomach was beginning to rebel against the inordinate amount of alcohol consumption. She wondered if perhaps she had used more bourbon than was wise. It seemed to go down quite smoothly, which unfortunately made it all that much easier to overindulge. She ate a piece of bread, hoping that might help absorb some of the excess. She remembered overhearing her older brother advise the next oldest once that this would forestall alcohol sickness, never imagining in her wildest dreams that she would ever be obliged to put the remedy to the test.

She was feeling hot, and so poured herself a cold glass of Mountain Dew from the 2-liter bottle in the fridge, then stepped out onto the balcony. She felt foolish stepping out into the snow and the cold, dressed as she was, but for the time being the cold air actually seemed to refresh her, and even seemed to calm her frayed nerves. She stared out at the few stars she could make out, and the moon as it tried to disappear behind the darkening clouds.

After some time she began to feel a slight chill, and shivered with growing discomfort. Her body stiffened against the bracing wind until she had to return inside. Her stomach was still rumbling, but not as badly. She ate a second piece of bread. Before she finally went to bed, she would eat a cold turkey sandwich with a glass of milk.

She noticed it was now just after 2:00 a.m. She was tired but she dreaded sleeping. She had seen her younger brother suffering the effects of a hangover not that long ago, the day following his graduation, and was determined never to have to suffer that. She realized now she had probably very seriously fucked that promise up. It was all her fault, too. Teddy acted like a spoiled child, to be sure, but her conduct this night had not been exactly stellar. In fact, she had instigated the entire sorry sequence of events, from start to finish.

She tried to tell herself it was all for the best, that Teddy revealed his true nature and capacity for such childish cruelty before it may have been too late to do anything about it. Here she was, active in promoting chastity before marriage, involved in civic groups in high school and in college to that effect, rapidly finding herself the oldest by age, and member of longest duration, within these groups. She sometimes wondered if she were some freak of nature, but determined to remain faithful to her values nevertheless. How would it look if her marriage ended in divorce due mainly to naivety and inexperience in sexual matters? It would have turned a large portion of her life into an obscene joke.

At the same time, that was of secondary importance. She had seen too many of her former classmates and neighborhood friends in some cases wreck their lives by placing so little value on their self-respect and dignity. By the time she had graduated high school, she was one of only seven professed virgins, most of whom for the most part viewed themselves as unfortunate. One was medically obese, one profoundly ugly, most of the rest of them plain, gawky, or socially backward. One in fact was borderline retarded. Only one besides herself, a girl named Alicia, was attractive, socially uninhibited, and intelligent. She was also a bit arrogant, unfortunately, something Lynette tried to guard against.

For the most part, they were from religious backgrounds. Lynette had never been particularly religious or spiritual. She based her views instead on self-respect and a sense of integrity that left no room for wanton engagement in sexual experimentation, or even the desire for such. Yet, she considered herself to be normal, with natural human desires, but with transcendent goals and dreams for the future.

She wondered where this came from. She knew that her mother had gotten pregnant with Greg, her oldest brother, before she married her father. However, she seemed to have no regrets, as the two of them had been planning marriage anyway. This merely accelerated their plans.

Her mother was caring and concerned, and a moderate disciplinarian, but otherwise not the type to impose any kind of overbearing or otherwise strict set of moral guidelines, other than an insistence on regular family meals, homework, school attendance, and a curfew by which time all the children had damn well better be home. Religious belief was not a part of her worldview.

Her father, on the other hand, was lax in a good many ways. Nevertheless, he not only expected respect-he demanded it. What few times he felt this was lacking, he spared no effort at imparting the lesson, at times painfully. Lynette had been the recipient of the back of his hand once, at the age of six, and spat blood for ten minutes. Their parents had fought over that, briefly, her mother insisting that a hand to the ass would get the point across much better. Her father thought that would be not only abusive, but also humiliating. A smack in the mouth was more painful, but also more respectful, to his odd way of thinking. It let the child know just how serious the matter was.

Her offense had seemed slight to her at the time. He told her she should pick up her toys and straighten up her room. She said quite sternly she would do it later. He insisted that, no, she would do it then or she could do without supper.

“Fine, I don’t like that garbage anyway”, she responded.

For just a couple of seconds, she did not know what happened, only that there was a quick flash of pain, and everything went black, as she almost but not quite went to the floor. She heard her mother screaming, and then saw her getting into her fathers’ face wagging a finger, as it slowly dawned on her exactly what happened. Her lower lip stung and felt wet, and when she wiped it, she withdrew her hand and saw the blood, which she could then taste. It was only then that she started crying, and ran to the bathroom.

After a few minutes, she walked quietly to her bedroom, not wanting to see or talk to anybody. Everyone had seen it, but no one knew exactly what to say or do. Her father finally came to the room.

“Don’t worry about cleaning this pig sty up tonight, or about having to eat your mother’s garbage for that matter,” he said. “But this place had better be straightened up by the time I get home from work tomorrow. Got it?”

“Yes”, she said simply

“Yes, what?” he demanded.

“Yes, father”, she replied.

“Yes, sir is what I am looking for.”

“Yes, sir.” she said.

He left, and nothing more was said. She had her room cleaned by the time he returned from work. He looked inside it, and said not one word. The two of them had never had a cross word since. It was almost as if it had never happened, as far as he was concerned, and with the passage of time, she had all but forgotten the incident as well.

Over time, they grew closer. He was always there with encouragement, and what seemed to be good, sound advice. He had a way of making even the most ordinary things seem profound, while the most difficult problems became commonplace. Her mother, on the other hand, had the tendency to make everything confusing and complicated, whether it needed to be or not. She spent ten minutes one time explaining to her the proper way to wash dishes in the dishwasher, and by the time she was finished Lynette still could not comprehend the proper order in which to engage in this everyday task. With her mother, words just seemed to get in the way.

She asked her mother one time why she believed in God, for an essay in her social studies class. Her mother responded that nothing in the universe could have happened by accident, the world was just too complicated, especially living things. Nothing so vast and magnificent could come into being and maintain such consistent order, unless there was some grand design at work.

Her fathers’ response was that he actually did not believe in God, because it just did not make any sense. The world was just too harsh and even chaotic to allow for the involvement of such an all-powerful, wise and supposedly loving creator. It was a scam, meant to keep people in line, though he did concede it was, up to a point, good for society.

Neither response was satisfactory to her, though as for herself, she did not really believe, either. She did not have to. Morals, ethics, and principles, all those values that she lived by, were their own best reward. They were not always easy to live by, but those challenges only strengthened the person who adhered to them all the same. They made you a better person, a stronger person. That was all the reason she needed.

Lately, however, she found that she needed more. Why did she feel this way, while her brothers were for the most part such hedonists? Her mothers’ family was not particularly religious, either, nor in fact her mother. Lynette doubted she ever gave any serious thought to the question before that day she asked it for her sophomore sociology class.

She began to wonder if her grandfathers’ influence had not somehow filtered down to her through the generations. It made a degree of sense, and she wondered if perhaps he might have the answers she needed. She had not talked to him in years, and her most lasting impression of him actually was from old family photos. He was an impressive figure with his long flowing black with grey-specked beard, his tall, sturdy, authoritarian pose and gaze, and the robes of his Orthodox faith. At the same time, he had a kindly smile with a twinkle in his eyes.

The night she and Teddy had their fight was when she finally decided she would move to Baltimore, a decision that up until then had just been talk, a vague idea opened for consideration in the wake of what was to her a personal trauma. It almost seemed to come from nowhere, and yet at the same time, when it did it seemed part of a natural sequence of events. By now, the idea was firm in her mind.

She was starting to think that her entire life and the principles she cherished amounted to nothing if they came from a self-serving attitude of what was in her own best interests. That same thought process leads a serial rapist ultimately to murder his victim, nothing more than naked self-interest. If that was all her values were based on, how was she any better? They were the same, in a weird kind of way, two animals doing what they had to do to get what they want and continue unabated.

She suddenly this Christmas night felt a different kind of urge, one she had not experienced in years. She had to run to the bathroom. She made it just just in time. Otherwise, she would have soiled herself that night. The eggnog had worked on her in an unexpected way. She had diarrhea. She suddenly felt disgusted with herself, as she sat there on the commode, streams of liquid feces flooding out of her and emptying her. At the same time, she was stunned at how good it felt to remove this burden from her churning stomach. She had drunk more over the last week than she had previously in her entire life. It was almost as though her body had sensed the foreignness of the beverages she had imbibed and proceeded to take desperate measures to ward off the invading formulas.

She felt, appropriately enough, like shit. By the time she finished, she needed almost half a roll of toilet paper to clean herself adequately, after which she thoroughly soaped and washed her hands and forearms. She even had to clean off the top of the commode seat before she flushed. She felt disgusted, mainly at herself. She was thankful now that Ted had left.

She decided she would take a shower a little later. She dreaded the potential for a hangover when she awoke. She had only had one, at the age of sixteen, and it was possibly the sickest she had ever been, though she had not actually gotten that drunk. It was on her sixteenth birthday party. This was the first time she had been truly drunk since then.

The first time it happened, she blamed her parents for allowing her to drink perhaps a little too much for her first time. Tonight, she also found herself blaming them, but told herself she was no longer a teenager, she was an adult, and was responsible for her own actions.

She went into the kitchen and prepared that turkey sandwich with mayo, and opened up a bag of chips. As she extracted a gallon of milk from the refrigerator, she realized she was finally starting to feel sufficiently hungry. Maybe she would make it through the night and the morning would see her relatively well.

Then she heard Ted’s’ drunken voice yelling from out on the street. He shouted out her name repeatedly, and Lynette walked over to the living room’s picture window and glanced out at the street below. Unfortunately, the patio blinded her to the view of the sidewalk, and so she walked outside. She glanced down and saw not just an obviously soused Ted, but a woman with him, a woman dressed ridiculously, for this time of year and for the weather, in shorts and a halter-top. As if that were not enough, she looked to be at least twenty years Ted’s senior. It was still somewhat of a distance of course, but Lynette was certain a closer proximity would not afford an improvement. Teddy was obviously so drunk, either he did not care or could not tell. Whatever the case, there he stood with his arm around the woman.

“I want my ring, Lynette”, Ted shouted. “The one I gave you for our engagement. Since that is over, I want it back, now! I’ve got somebody else now that appreciates a real man.”

“I don’t have time for you now”, Lynette shouted, not believing she was hearing this, as a small group of passers-by, having heard the commotion, gradually started to gather around. “Come back tomorrow and we’ll talk about it.”

“Nothing to talk about”, he insisted. “I want my ring back.”

“You heard him bitch”, the older woman shrilly shouted. “Give him the ring. Do not make Mama Bella come up there on your ass, ‘cos when Mama Bella gets your ass, you never forget it, bitch.”

That did it! Now a drunken old sot that referred to herself in the third person was actually threatening her. She would not tolerate this.

“You old hag you look like you’ve spent all your life beating yourself too much to beat anybody else. You look like you can barely stand up. I hate to break it to you, but you are robbing the cradle there with Teddy, not that I think that is very likely to be anything unusual with you. If you are interested, after you are through with Ted I can hook you up with my nephew Mark. He turns eight next week. How the hell old are you, anyway-eighty?”

“Fuck you, you little bitch”, the woman drawled. “I am all woman, not a little girl, like you.”

“That’s right, Lynette”, Ted added as yet more people gathered around, some obviously amused at the spectacle. There looked to be about seven or eight, mostly men, standing around, alternately watching Ted and the woman, and then looking up toward her to gauge her reactions to this childish display.

“Besides, I have had plenty of sex, and I’m going to get me some pussy tonight”, Ted now bragged. “How much dick have you had again? Oh, wait a minute, it’s coming to me now, I remember. You are a virgin. A twenty-one year old fucking virgin. It ain’t Marsha here that’s robbing the cradle. I came awful close to it a few times though, didn’t I? You are a little girl, Lynette, and will probably never grow up. You will never be a woman, just a pathetic little wannabe.”

There was some whooping and cheering from the mostly male on-lookers, but some from the relative small number of women as well, as Ted now grabbed the woman and began to engage in a long, extended kiss. Their arms wrapped around each other, until the woman named Bella suddenly reached down and started fondling Ted’s crotch area.

“Whew, what a man!” she said. “You’d better be glad I took him, bitch, a little girl like you could never handle a real man’s dick!”

“It must have doubled in size then over the last hour or so”, Lynette shouted as she affected a spiteful laugh. “Oh, wait a minute though-you said a real man’s dick. I guess it must have tripled in size then. That is why I didn’t let you fuck me, Ted, I want my first time to be memorable, like I always told you. I want to be able to feel the first dick that gets inside me. Sorry, pal, I’m afraid you just don’t measure up.”

This enraged Ted, and the laughter and applause of the gathered crowd only made his mood worse.

“Fuck you, bitch, we’re really through now. I thought we meant something to each other, but I see now what you are. The ring, Lynette-I want the fucking ring, now! Bring the motherfucking thing to me, or I swear to God I will come up there and tear that place apart until I find it.”

“And while my man here is getting me my ring, bitch”, she said, “I’ll be whipping your little spoiled, precious little virgin princess ass.”

“What? You’re giving that old drunk whore the ring you brought for me?” Lynette could not believe what she was hearing.

“I tell you what, I could just lock my doors and call the police”, she continued, “which is what I was about to do. Instead, you just wait out there where you are. I will get your fucking ring for you. No problem whatsoever.”

As she stormed back inside her apartment, she was almost in tears, but it was not tears of sadness that she had trouble holding back, but tears of unmitigated rage. She would dearly love to tear into Ted right now, but she could clearly see that the man she had foolishly imagined she loved for the past three years was about on the same level as his newfound girlfriend. He was useless, and not worth any physical effort or mental or emotional anguish. God only knew how many women just like this he had cheated on her with over the course of their relationship. She had a phone call she would make in the morning, after she slept what little she might be able, but first, she decided it was indeed time to make a clean break. Well, a break anyway.

She went into her dresser and found the small jewelry box that contained the engagement ring she had possessed for over two years. Teddy wanted it, so he could have it back, with her blessings-and then some. Her stomach was violently cramping, mainly because of the case of diarrhea she had contracted, but greatly exacerbated all the same by the traumatic events of this night, which now culminated in the embarrassingly uncomfortable scene outside her apartment.

She expelled a stream of dark liquid feces from her bowels, after which she briefly inserted the ring up inside her corrupted anus, which she then wiped after temporarily setting the ring aside. She then washed her hands again, even more thoroughly than before. Finally, she made her way to her front door.

Yes, indeed, she would be happy to return the ring.

“Took you long enough, can’t bear to part with it, huh?” Teddy demanded, whereupon Lynette noted, thankfully, that the last of the passers-by were now finally starting to wander away. The last two, a couple, were in the process of leaving, as the man hastened his companion, a tall blonde woman, away from the scene, though she seemed herself reluctant to leave. Whether this was due to concern for her or out of morbid curiosity, or some other reason, Lynette did not know, nor did she care.

“You want the ring, come up here and get it”, Lynette said with an almost fierce assertiveness. “You had better just know right now I’m not going to bring it to you.”

“Yeah, little bitch might just get her ash whupped if she walksh down here”, Marsha slurred drunkenly.

“Just between you and me, whore”, Lynette said. “When you take this ring to the pawn shop tomorrow to get the money for your morning rotgut, I wouldn’t count on getting a whole lot. Like the person who gave it to me-it’s not much.”

“Fuuuuck yoouuuu, biiiitch”, the old drunk railed, but Ted just looked down at the snow-covered sidewalk at his feet, then over to Marsha, then back up at Lynette.

“To hell with you, keep the damn thing”, Ted replied. “Take it out and look at it every now and then when you want a reminder of the good thing you fucked up.”

However, Lynette was not about to let him off that easily.

”I never want to see it or you again”, she insisted. “You wanted it. Go get it.”

She then heaved it with all her might, and in the stillness of the night she thought she could hear it jingling on the road, which had been earlier cleared of ice, save for a few stubborn frozen black patches that yet made driving hazardous over the last few days. Teddy looked up toward her in an expression of dumbfounded surprise.

“Hey, I paid six hundred dollars for that ring, bitch”, he shouted as he ran carelessly out into the road that went in front of Lynette’s apartment. As he did so, a car went careening by him, barely missing him as the driver honked the horn. Ted acted as though he never even noticed, then began looking around, as Bella encouraged him to forget the ring.

“It probably wasn’t the ring anyway”, she observed. “She probably threw a damn dime or something out there and has the ring hid somewheres. Let her keep the damn thing.”

Another car went whizzing by as Ted bent down and extracted something from the paved road, then held it up under the glare of the streetlight as he walked aimlessly for a better view under the light.

“No, this is it”, he said, as suddenly Lynette heard the screeching of the brakes of an on-coming vehicle, as Ted was suddenly bathed in the approaching headlights. He looked toward the sound of the approaching vehicle, but seemed paralyzed, unable to react, as the car skidded in a desperate attempt to stop, and sliding on a patch of black ice, veered off to its left, in the direction of Lynette’s apartment building. It ran up on the curve and came to a stop immediately after the unfortunate, drunken Bella was hoisted up onto the cars hood, then deposited on her back onto the snow covered ground of the yard just off the sidewalk on which she had stood.

“Goddamn youuuuu, youuuu fuckiiiinnnnnggggggg biiiiiitch!” she screamed. “Oh god damn my legs broke I’m going to kill youuu, youuu whoooore!”

She then began screaming, crying in agony.

“Oh, poor little baby girl, does it hoit?” Lynette shouted sarcastically, barely able to believe she was acting in such a hateful, spiteful manner, yet at the same time all but carried away in an attitude of vengeful glee.

Ted walked over cautiously, not sure of what to say or do, as the driver of the vehicle, a purple Subaru, removed himself hurriedly from the driver’s seat, cell phone in hand, apparently in a hurried attempt to call 911.

“Better not hang around long, Teddy”, Lynette shouted with saccharine sweet sarcasm. “They’re pretty rough around here on jaywalking, especially when it results in traffic accidents. Your new girlfriend is probably going to try to sue you now.”

“You did that on purpose”, Ted shouted at her, to her incredulity.

“You wanted the ring, I threw it to you, just like you said”, she replied with a shrug. “I wanted to make sure it got to you, I didn’t intend for it to go out in the street.”

As Ted continued his shouted accusations, and Bella continued with her screaming, and crying, Lynette found herself amazed that she was bothering to defend herself from such ridiculous accusations. Soon, the cops arrived, as another crowd once more started to gather around, though she recognized no one from the earlier group that had been so entertained by the ludicrous performance of the previous minutes.

She went inside, but sure enough, it was not quite five minutes before the cops were knocking on her door. The older cop introduced himself cordially.

“Did you intentionally throw your ex-boyfriends engagement ring out in the street with the intention of causing him or his new girlfriend to be run down by a car skidding on the ice”, he asked her.

Obviously amused by the absurdity of the accusation, he conveyed the impression that he took it with not even a minimum amount of seriousness. Lynette told him everything, from beginning to end.

“You know, if anything you could press charges for harassment”, another cop informed her. As tempting as it was at the time, Lynette thanked them but politely declined.

After little more than an hour, she finally went to sleep. When she awoke late in the morning, she felt far from hung-over, and in fact felt more refreshed than she had in months. There was not as much as a trace of the diarrhea that earlier afflicted her.

More importantly, she felt confident, serene, and knew exactly the path she now would take. Previously, her mother had not taken her seriously when she mentioned moving to Baltimore and changing schools, and obviously considered it a childish threat, tantamount to a temper tantrum. Honestly, that is indeed how it began. As the days passed, however, it became an ever more serious consideration. Ted had been the major reason for her reluctance to carry through with her plans. Now, that reason had disappeared.

There was of course a problem with finances, but at least she counted herself fortunate that she was not limited to the contractual terms of a scholarship or student loan. Her father had previously footed the bill for prior semesters, and now she had only one to go. She would sit the next semester out. When she resumed her studies for her last semester, this time in Baltimore, she would pay all her own way, not merely for her incidental expenses as had been the case. She would be independent, would make a clean break from both her father and her mother.

Her grade-point average was 3.7, and as such, she felt reasonably confident she would be able to get a loan for that last semester. Unfortunately, based on her family’s income, a grant would probably be out of the question. It was just as well. She was willing to work as much as necessary to support herself until she could resume her studies, or even after she resumed them, for that matter. It would write finis to any kind of personal life or to any kind of extra-curricular activities as well, but on the other hand, it was only one semester. What worried her more than anything was the prospect of then attending a school of veterinary medicine, the most obvious necessity in pursuit of her chosen career path.

She hated having to ask her grandfather Aleksandre for help, but everybody needs help at one time or another, she reasoned. She much preferred turning to him than continuing the charade with her parents. Perhaps he would be unable, or possibly even unwilling, to help her. If so, she would make it somehow without his help. She was nothing if not determined.

As the morning progressed, she found herself reminiscing over the events of the past two years, as though she had lived that entire period in a fog. By eleven-thirty, she made her way out of the house and toward the neighborhood pawnshop some seven blocks from where she lived. Sure enough, there it was, just as she supposed it would be. She motioned for the pawnbroker, who seemed to be in a daze. In fact, he seemed almost completely out of it. He was sniffing, and his eyes watered, as did his nose. He was obviously miserable, and seemed high possibly on some kind of strong medication, possibly codeine.

“Two hundred fifty dollars”, he said. “But I can’t sell it for three days. It’s reserved-somebody put fifty dollars down on it.”

She almost laughed aloud.

“Was the person’s name Ted, or Teddy?” she asked.

“No, in fact it was a guy named Ted that pawned it”, he said, to Lynette’s incredulity. “Some old monk in a gray robe reserved it. His name was-“

Then the broker started looking around for the hold ticket, but strangely enough could not find it anywhere.

“What the hell, I know I had it here somewhere”, he complained. Then he started sneezing uncontrollably, and seemed for a few minutes as though he would be unable to stop.

“You really should go home”, she said. “You’ll never get over that if you stay out in public, especially around this neighborhood, and in this weather.”

He told Lynette he was seriously thinking of closing early and maybe taking a couple of days off, but after all it was Christmas, and this was the time of year he made the most money, from people desperately looking for that one present they just couldn’t find anywhere else at a reasonable price.

It made her somewhat depressed to think that such a joyous time of the year for friends and family had deteriorated into just another day of dog eat dog. Unfortunately, that was just the way it was.

She bid the pawnbroker Merry Christmas, and then returned home. She had never finished eating her turkey sandwich, so now she extracted it from the baggie in her refrigerator. She felt guilty about leaving Megan, her roommate, in the lurch to pay her rent without any notice. They were barely making it as it was. She and Megan were both working part time on top of the little money they received from home, and still they could barely afford to eat. Lynette’s father had insisted that she make it on her own, that this would be as valuable a learning experience as any she could acquire from classes.

They could only afford the basic phone service, and had never gotten around to buying an answering machine, or Caller ID service. Megan’s computer was constantly in need of repair, but luckily, now it was working. She sent off some e-mails, to two of her brothers and to Megan, who deserved to know her plans.

Megan responded within thirty minutes, telling her it was fine, she was sure she would find another roommate. She said she always knew Ted was a dog, and did not blame her for wanting to get away from him as soon as possible. Lynette barely knew the half of it, and she had been reluctant to tell her, even though he had come on to her on a couple of occasions. Nor had he been drunk when he did so.

Although this all certainly made sense, Lynette could not help but feel alternately shocked, saddened, and outraged, almost as much at Megan for not having told her before, as at Ted. Lynette e-mailed her wanting to know exactly why she had not told her, and if she knew of any other women with whom Ted had been involved. Megan sent back a shocking response-

“Alicia Davis. Yeah, your fellow virgin friend. Remember when you said something about her not being to any meetings over the last couple of months. Well, I hate to break it to you this way, and I know I should have told you before, but I just did not know how. Really, sorry, but it’s probably all for the best”.

Well, at least Alicia was not a complete hypocrite, Lynette realized. She thought over the last time she had seen her, how strangely quiet she acted, for her, and the more she thought about it, Megan had not seemed all too outgoing whenever Ted was around. She told Megan not to worry about it, and wished her a Merry Christmas.

‘You too’, came the response.

The turkey sandwich was so awful she could not eat so much as half of it, and as she considered just going back to bed, the phone rang. She answered it, only to hear the voice of Ted Corbin, her former fiancé. He was calling from his hospital room, where he had been all day. He sounded deathly ill, and the doctors suspected food poisoning or something similar.

“Well, you’ve been doing some nasty, nasty things, Teddy. Speaking of which, how’s your new lady love, Bella?”

“She ripped me off, that’s how she is”, he replied. “She’s an old drunk whore.”

“By the way, speaking of Bella, I was right, she did pawn the ring”, Lynette informed him, wanting to see if he would admit that he in fact had pawned the ring.

“Somebody already has a hold on it”, she continued. “He will probably get it too, I doubt Bella will be back for it. Her next trip there will probably be to pawn something else she gets from some other drunken fool.”

“Listen, Lynette, I didn’t call you to fight”, Ted replied. “I wanted to apologize. I just got too drunk, and things just went to my head. I want to start over again. Come on, baby, we’ve been together now for going on three years. This is just one little fight, and we were both drunk. Are you going to throw it all away over one stupid misunderstanding?”

Lynette could tell by his voice he was deathly ill, and almost felt sorry for him. She started thinking about those nearly three years

“I don’t know, Ted, I need someone to talk it over with. You know, for feedback. I wonder what Megan might think about it, or for that matter, Alicia Davis. I have an idea both of them might have definite opinions on the subject. What do you think?”

“Yeah, I fucked both of them, so what? It was only once each, and I never messed with either of them again. Damn it, Lynette, I’m a man. Be reasonable. What you expect from men is unnatural.”

“You fucked Megan?” Lynette said, astounded.

“Yeah, the little whore threw herself at me. What did she do, tell you that I come on to her? Shit, she’s the one that fixed me up with Alicia and for that matter a couple of other women. She made out like she was my friend, and felt sorry for me because you were unwilling to take care of my needs. Said she would not feel right doing it herself but of course, she eventually got around to it. She said it wasn’t a good idea to spread it around to too many other women, because it might eventually get back to you.”

“And you actually expect me to make up with you? You are out of your mind”, Lynette said, now more enraged than ever.

“I want to make a clean start, Lynette”, he said. “No more lies, no more deceptions. Nothing but the truth. I love you, baby. Come on, I might be dying here.”

“Yeah, well, you really should be careful. You should always wash your hands after you handle a ring that’s been up the ass of somebody that just had a bout of diarrhea.”

“What?” he shouted. “You really did that?”

Suddenly, he started coughing, choking, and seemed as though he would never get his breath, though he tried several times to say “hold on” and “wait”.

“You’re a funny guy, Teddy, to be asking somebody to wait”, Lynette said coldly. “It’s over, and that’s’ final. Do not call me, write me, e-mail me, or try to approach me in any way. I mean that, Teddy. Goodbye.”

With that, she hung up the phone. She decided to leave before the holidays were over. She did not want to confront Megan, mainly because she was unsure as to the truthfulness of Teddy’s accusations.

Nevertheless, as she made her way to the bus stop, there was the old drunken whore Bella, hobbling around on crutches right on the edge of her path on the sidewalk. She was obviously engaged in panhandling, making the most of the accident that left her with a badly broken leg. Lynette could not help but feel some degree of pity for her. She warily approached her.

“Do you have some spare change, ma’am”, Bella asked, obviously with no hint of recognition. “I haven’t been able to work because of this bum leg.”

The woman’s breath reeked of both whiskey and beer, but at least this somewhat disguised the fact that this woman had not bathed in probably three or four days.

“Sure”, Lynette said, and reaching into her purse, handed the woman a five-dollar bill. “Sorry I can’t spare more. Get yourself something to eat, will you?”

“I will, sweetheart, I promise”, Bella replied graciously. “Thank you.”

“No”, Lynette said with a smile as she began to walk on toward her rendezvous with her scheduled bus to Baltimore. “Thank you.”

Lynette had not bothered to phone her grandfather with the news that she was on her way to Baltimore. From the bus stop, she took a cab to the Church Of The Blessed Sacrament, the doors of which luckily were unlocked. She entered the church, and set her bags down within the back pew. She looked around at the various icons. She found herself particularly drawn to what appeared to be the figure of an archangel with a sword, in the process of slaying what appeared to be a serpent, or perhaps a dragon. She realized this was probably an allegorical representation of Satan. She knew just enough to understand the angel would probably be an image of the Archangel Michael.

She kneeled before the icon, almost unconsciously. She felt surprised to have done this. When she had joined the Southern Baptist Church, she had pretty well accepted their teachings, which in regards to icons seemed to be that it amounted to a form of idolatry. Yet she now looked around at this and the others, at the Crucified Lord and the Blessed Virgin, and it seemed as though she had come home. She was so engrossed in her thoughts she had not noticed the entrance of the old priest.

“Can I help you, young lady?” he asked.

“Grandfather”, she said as she turned in the direction of the familiar face. “Am I ever glad to see you!”

“Oh, my God!” Aleksandre Khoska said in shock. “Lynette?”

Aleksandre was happy to see his granddaughter, but was wary all the same. The events of the previous months had not been conducive to such a visit, and he wondered even if it was safe for her to be there. There was a spiritual struggle in the making, which she could not hope to comprehend. All the same, he prepared a supper for her, as he listened to her story. He found the story of her conversion to the Southern Baptist faith almost amusing in its naiveté.

“They have a very simplistic view of Christianity, I am afraid”, he confided in her. “I am sure they mean well, for the most part, but still, I would find it very hard to believe that a person who is a true spiritual seeker could be satisfied with them for very long.”

When Lynette expressed that they encouraged her in her work to promote chastity before marriage, he found himself suddenly concerned.

“That is good, of course, Lynette”, he replied. “But it is one thing to adopt this for truly spiritual reasons, and quite a different thing altogether to use it as a shield to hide behind. I fear your Baptist friends do not quite appreciate the difference.”

“Well, I am not hiding from anything, I promise”, Lynette said, a bit defensively, Khoska noted, though he also realized that she could well have been used to hearing this from people who volunteered this assessment for more self-serving reasons. There were also, unfortunately, people who just plainly resented those who attempted to live a spiritual life. In her case, however, it was not a spiritual decision, but one based on self-respect. That was a good enough reason to start, he acceded, though it had obviously left her empty and disappointed.

“So, grandfather, I guess you know all the Romanians around here”, she said.

“There’s not that many around here anymore”, he replied. “Most of the ones that come to this church come from outlying areas, and not so often as I would like, I am afraid. Still, I manage to keep my head above water.”

“So do you know the Krovell family?” she asked.

“Krovell?” he asked, as he tried to search the remnants of his memory for any recollections of the strangely familiar name. It finally dawned on him just why the name seemed so familiar.

“I knew a Martin Krovell, but that was almost fifty years ago”, he began. “I’m surprised I can remember this after so many years, but I remember now that his brother had just been murdered on the docks. Martin turned to me for help in finding his mother, who had run off years before. She had abandoned the family when he himself was merely a young lad. I attempted to help him, but I was unable to find any information about her, so after a few months I never heard from him again. The family was not church members or, as far as I know, affiliated with any religion. I never understood why he approached me for help to begin with. Desperation, I suppose. I know very little about the family, other than they were in the mortuary business. I think originally their names were Krovelescu, or something to that effect.”

“That’s the family”, Lynette affirmed. “I just found out the one man’s wife murdered her husband and committed suicide, and tried to kill their son as well. I met the son over a Christian dating site, though well before all this happened.”

“A Christian dating site?” Khoska was both amazed and amused. “Lynette, are you aware that a person can portray himself over the internet in ways that are not necessarily truthful? Computers are, I am afraid, the newest scourge of mankind. I realize you probably think that is an old man talking from an old-fashioned attitude, but when you get older, you learn to be wary of new things. Not that the older things are better, but at least with them you are well aware of the dangers.”

“You don’t have a computer then?” she asked. “That’s too bad, if you did you would soon find them indispensable.”

“Oh, I have one, but I rarely use it. I mainly try to keep up with events in Romania, but lately it does nothing but gather dust. If I were to use it now it might well explode.”

“If you have one, I might be able to find out what happened”, she said.

After dinner, he took her into his office, and cleared a chair for her to sit at. It almost embarrassed him for her to see the disheveled state he had taken to keeping his office in, but she seemed to not notice, let alone mind. He turned on the computer, for the first time in over half a year, and logged on. After he accessed the AOL homepage, she typed the words Baltimore Sun, and Krovell, into the AOL search engine.

This brought up the story of some two months ago. The headline was “Murder-Suicide Suspected In Krovell Poisonings”. The two victims were Richard and Mabel. A son, Marlowe, as well as a brother and brother-in-law named Bradley Marlowe, along with Richard's parents survived them. Richard’s father, Martin, was probably the same man her grandfather had briefly associated with so many years ago. He and his wife had retired and now lived in Florida.

It was the same story she had read before. Unfortunately, there seemed to be no further updates. Her grandfather advised her to be very cautious as to whom she associated with, especially in the Baltimore area, where high crime rates were an unfortunate fact. Lynette agreed to sleep in Aleksandre’s guest room for a few nights, until he was able to find her suitable living quarters. She was in fact welcome to remain there as long as she wished.

She wished now she had brought more with her, aside from the two bags of clothing and accessories, in addition to the silver tea set, which she had originally intended to pawn. The pawnbroker in Jersey had offered her two hundred dollars without having seen it. Though she considered this a bargain, as she he had only paid sixty for it at some roadside flea market. She decided to hold onto it for awhile.

After a good nights sleep, she arose the next morning and decided to take in the town. The docks were even more developed than they had been the last time she visited. She called an acquaintance she had met on-line, also through the Christian dating site, a black girl by the name of April Sandusky. They made a date to meet at one of the sidewalk cafes that lined the docks area.

April was somewhat younger than she was, a mere eighteen in fact, but she was nevertheless bright and well-spoken, not in the sense of a black woman who affects a completely Caucasian manner of speaking, but in the sense of a woman filled with healthy self-esteem, and even joy. She invited Lynette to attend one of her church services, and reassured Lynette there were other white people that did so, though admittedly they were a small minority. Lynette promised her she would think about it.

Over the next four months, they saw each other infrequently, but spoke quite often, both over the phone and by IM. She checked her e-mail regularly. She received e-mails from her family, but nothing from Ted Corbin, for which she had mixed feelings.

Mostly junk mail filled her AOL in-box, but she noted with some interest those e-mails that she received from the Christian Darting Service, previously the one bone of contention between her and Ted. She expressed to him that she merely used the site for purposes of friendships, and for establishing contacts with like-minded people. One of those like-minded people, presumably, had been Marlowe Krovell, though he seemed strangely out of place within the sites typical membership. He was not a Christian, nor was he looking for dates. He looked for friendship in the aftermath of the death of his girlfriend, a girl named Raven whom he evidently loved very much.

He seemed not actually a Christian, and in fact once expressed to her in a private IM that he was a Goth, and listened to heavy metal music. He expressed that he merely looked for guidance and spiritual advice on how to get over the tragedy of his loss, and get on with his life. She had communicated with him only a few times, and this was two years ago. It was not until she started reading the on-line version of the Baltimore Sun that she actually remembered him. This was sometime between the break-up of her parents, and that which occurred later between her and Ted. She was seriously considering the move to Baltimore, though as of this time had not made the decision to do so. While in the course of perusing the various departments on the on-line news site, she happened upon the news story relating to the deaths of Richard and Mabel Krovell, and the near death of Marlowe.

She now finally sent him an e-mail expressing her sorrow at hearing of his current problems, and wished him well. She did not think that much more about it, until a couple of weeks later when she got a reply, thanking her and asking what she was doing.

She decided not to tell him about her relationship problems or of her recent move to Baltimore. Instead, she merely told him she was thinking about transferring to University there. It was not until a little more than a month later that she received another communication from him, offering to show her around if she did decide to come to Baltimore.

There was something strange about this. It seemed almost calculated, but she could not quite put her finger on it. Previously, Marlowe communicated in a polite yet at the same time informal manner. Now, his manner of communication seemed overly proper, and at the same time, somewhat archaic. Moreover, his offer to show her around Baltimore seemed somehow entirely out of character for him. He earlier asserted he was a loner, and actually detested Baltimore. He might well leave someday, in fact. Why would he want to show her around Baltimore? More to the point how could he? Though born and raised in Baltimore, he struck Lynette as someone who actually knew little about the place.

People could change, she realized, but something here seemed different from a natural progression. This seemed to be an entirely different person. He even offered to pay all the expenses for his proposed guided tour of the city. Perhaps she was overly suspicious and reading too much into things, but all the same, she did not answer this e-mail. She was not interested in dating a man who made a living as a mortician, and on top of that, she found the Goth lifestyle pretentious and even to a point repugnant.

Yet, that seemed to be exactly what he was suddenly interested in from her. At the same time, there was something about it that seemed sinister, more so than just a lonely person looking for romance or love, more even than someone just looking for casual sex. Maybe this was the real him, and it just came to the surface when she informed him she might be moving to Baltimore. Perhaps his mind was affected by the horrible crime perpetrated on him by his mother. Whatever the answer was, Lynette knew this person was someone to avoid at all costs. Something about him warned of a deadly serious variety of danger.

When Aleksandre finally found Lynette a suitable apartment, she remembered April Sandusky, and invited her to be her first guest. It had been more than two months since the last time they had seen each other, and Lynette found out that much had changed.

“I just got initiated”, she said, “into the Seventeenth Pulse.”

“Isn’t that a gang?” Lynette asked.

“In a way, but they got a bad rap”, April said defensively.

“So how exactly were you initiated?” Lynette asked.

“Well, I ain’t exactly supposed to talk about that”, she said. “Put it this way, I wouldn’t exactly want my momma to find out about it, so it’s our secret, ok?”

Though Lynette had a foreboding feeling about this latest development concerning her friend, she kept her worries to herself, and they went out to the docks. They sat there, taking in the sunset, as the air became noticeably cooler. They talked about the usual girlish things, about school and plans for the future, and men, naturally, when suddenly they were approached by a tall black man that looked to be slightly older than Lynette was. He introduced himself as Marshall, and Lynette noticed that April seemed not too eager to have him around.

“What do you want, anyway?” she asked him bluntly.

“Hey, baby girl, no need in getting’ uppity now, hey, I know that Pulse is coursing through that bloodstream. I have my dealings with that Pulse too, so chill.”

“How can you have a bloodstream when your veins have collapsed”, April replied as she rolled her eyes. “What the hell do you want, Marshall?”

“A friend of mine wants to hook up with you, that’s all”, he said. “He carries a lot of weight, so you ought to chill with him. Might do that cold, cold heart some good.”

“Yeah, I’m sure I won’t be interested, especially if that is him”, she said, pointing over to where stood a white man, with long unkempt dark hair. Lynette noticed that he appeared to be in a bad way, and made the assumption the man was probably a drug addict, while this Marshall was obviously a drug dealer.

No, that’s not him, but come to think of it, there is a distinct similarity. My guy’s more your age though, dig it.”

“Oh, so how much did he pay you, Marshall, for this introduction?” April demanded, seemingly in disbelief as to Marshall’s forwardness.

“Ain’t like that, April”, he said defensively. “He’s been a good customer over the years, and when I found out he’s wanted to meet you for a while, I just told him I’d try, that’s all. I didn’t make him any guarantees. And really, he’s in a bad way, but he’s had a rough time over the last few months, he needs something to smooth him over the rough spots. You have not forgotten your fellow man in need, have you? The white brother just needs a shoulder to lean on, that’s all.”

Suddenly, Marshall bent down and put his mouth toward April’s ear, whereupon April drew back.

“Uh-uh now, none of that”, she said.

“No, I just got to tell you something” Marshall said. He then whispered something into April’s ear, whereupon her friends’ eyes widened.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me. Are you serious?”

“I ain’t ever lyin’ to you, April”, he replied.

“Well, it wouldn’t hurt to talk to him, I guess, but I ain’t making no promises. You know I ain’t into nothing but a brother, so if he wants anything more than that shoulder to cry on he is wasting his time. No offense, Lynette.”

“Oh, hey-that’s all right”, Lynette replied. “Look, I have to go anyway, it’s getting late. Come by tomorrow if you want.”

“Do you need a ride anywhere baby girl?” Marshall asked her.

“No I don’t, thank you”, Lynette replied simply, and then left as quickly as she could. She could not get away from there fast enough. In a way, she was now almost as disgusted with April as she had come to be with almost everybody else she had known. Sure, it was her life, and it was not any of Lynette’s business, but at the same time, she knew the new lifestyle she had enmeshed herself in was going to lead to no good. Nevertheless, it was her decision. Maybe Lynette just expected too much of others. Her oldest brother had always said you could have your standards set too high. Maybe he was right.

On the other hand, if April’s initiation into the Seventeenth Pulse amounted to what she thought it did, she doubted seriously that this would be an example of acceptable standards under any objective criterion. Especially since April made it clear, she wanted this to remain a secret. Why, then, had she confided in her? Did she perhaps want Lynette to talk some kind of sense into her? Lynette knew how that usually worked, and she was not in the mood to engage in an argument merely for the sake of debate. The most intense arguments came about usually from those who desperately wanted to be convinced, yet for some reason could not allow themselves to so easily be convinced of anything. Moreover, if Lynette was right, April had stepped way over the line, and it was actually too late to regain what she had thrown away. It would be deceptive to try to convince her otherwise.

It was not until the following night that she heard of April’s murder. The streets were alive with people seeking vengeance, and she heard the Seventeenth Pulse brought up frequently over the course of the next several hours. No one seemed to have any idea what their part was in the girls’ murder. Lynette knew, all too well, what April’s relationship with them had become. She wondered when, if ever, the news would be released. For that matter, was the Pulse really involved, or did it have something to do with the man named Marshall whom she had met, a man who had dealings with the gang, but did not himself seem to be a member?

The day after the murder, her grandfather came to her apartment. He remembered April, as she had introduced the two of them. One look in his eyes told her he was obviously distraught. He asked her to spend a few days with him.

“There could end up being a lot of trouble in Baltimore over the next several days’, he warned her.

“It’s pretty calm around here”, she said as reassuringly as she could. However, he was not so easily convinced. She agreed to his invitation, a week or so would do her good. When she told him what she knew, he was even more concerned.

“Lynette, you mustn’t tell this to anyone else”, he said. “I didn’t like it when you associated with that black woman to begin with. Those people, I tell you, are nothing but trouble.”

“Oh, come on, grandfather”, Lynette said with a stern look.

“There, that look, that is exactly why I didn’t say anything before”, he said. “Now I wish I had tried, not that I think you would have listened. I just have to thank God you haven’t come to any problem yet because of it.”

Lynette felt it was unnecessary to return to her grandfathers small living quarters in back of the church. It was even unseemly, in that she had just recently moved to this new apartment, which was sufficient for her needs. At the same time, the old man was adamant, and even seemed almost desperate. Therefore, she agreed to return temporarily.

Later, Lynette saw an artists rendition of the man allegedly last seen with April not long before her murder, which was said to have been somewhere between three and three-thirty am of the last Sunday morning. The picture looked more like a character from a horror movie than he did an actual human being. The face was covered with boils, and puss seemed to drain from one of them.

“If that is an accurate drawing”, Aleksandre said, “it surely won’t take long for them to find him. You don’t have any idea who it could be, do you?’

“No, and if I did I would tell the authorities”, Lynette promised.

“Well, you don’t know, and since you don’t, I’m telling you, you had better keep your mouth shut, otherwise you are going to be drawn into the middle of a race riot. You do not want that, I promise you. The city is just this far from going up in flames as it is. You talking about how your friend, a supposed Christian, had as of late been initiated into a criminal gang, presumably by a form of sexual activity with one or more of them, would be just the thing to send this city up like kindling. Plus, you are going to attract the attention of these hoodlums if you do so.”

“So what should I do, just forget about it?” she asked.

“Well, there is nothing you can do for her”, he said. “Yes, just forget about it, and count yourself blessed you didn’t become more involved with her than you were. This was precisely the kind of thing I worried over you being here. The fact that your father would never forgive me if anything happened to you is beside the point.”

“Have you talked to him?” Lynette asked.

“Of course I have talked to him, and to your mother, and I promised them both I would look out for you. Not that your father has a lot of confidence in me, but I gave him my word all the same.”

Lynette knew she should feel grateful, but at the same time, she was incensed that her mother, and especially her father, was taking it upon themselves to demonstrate this concern for her well-being.

“I guess you think I am being harsh with them”, Lynette said.

“Not so much with them as with yourself”, Khoska replied. “I think you are blaming them because your own life is shit, and you can’t face up to it. Does that make it plain enough?”

Lynette was astounded at this pronouncement. Nobody ever talked to her this way before. What horrified her was, it made at least a small degree of sense. Prior to this, she entertained the thought that she was being childish, self-absorbed, and even arrogant. However, if her grandfather was even partially correct, this put it in a degree of perspective that at least made her life to this point comprehensible.

“I do not condone what your father has done, Lynette”, Khoska went on to explain. “But really, when you stop to think about it, how exactly has it hurt you? I am not saying you should like it, or even accept it, or that you should not criticize him over it. God knows, if I had criticized him more when I should have, maybe certain things would have turned out differently. But at the same time, while he is living his life, you have to go on living yours, and this power he has over your life and well-being is not good.”

It suddenly occurred to Lynette, as though a veil was lifted, that this was precisely what she needed to hear. Her life was shit, to use her grandfather’s blunt observation, and she was having a hard time dealing with it. Now, she knew exactly what she wanted from him.

“Will you baptize me?” she asked. “Right here, right now.”

“I take it you feel you are not quite as born again as you thought, then?” Khoska asked him.

“Not exactly”, she said. “I know you probably feel you should give me instruction before, but-“

“In your case that won’t be necessary”, Khoska said, cutting her off with a wave of his hand. “Actually, we have talked enough over the last few weeks, I feel you are ready. Of course, I will want to continue more formal instructions later on.”

“I look forward to it”, Lynette said, noticing as she said so that her grandfather could not even attempt to hide the elation that he obviously felt at this turn of events. She almost expected him to jump up and down in a dance any minute, and this mental image brought a smile to her face.

“Just so you know, I do not practice the act of immersion”, he told her.

He left her alone to repeat a prayer, which he translated into English from an old prayer book. After twenty minutes, he re-entered, and told her they could conduct the rites of baptism. He had some regret that he could not have given her instruction in the faith beforehand, but this was a special case, and in fact, if her father had done his job, this would not have been a necessity at any rate.

He conducted the baptism, after which he gave her the host, the body of Christ in the form of a wafer, and the blood of Christ in the form of wine. According to the rites of transubstantiation, her faith would transform the two into the spiritual equivalent of the actual thing. He could tell that she was not lacking in faith. Over the years, he had learned very well when the act was performed on various recipients, whether it was merely a meaningless ritual, or an actual act of true faith. Lynette’s eyes glowed, almost as if she had indeed been given over to the Holy Spirit at that moment.

Later that night over dinner, they talked of her plans for the future. She still wanted to be a veterinarian, but at the same time, she considered the possibility of entering a convent, like her aunt Dorothy, perhaps even working in the orphanages of Romania. Khoska was wary of encouraging such an idea, but merely told her she needed to give such a decision a lot of thought. It was not one to enter lightly.

“Oh, I never make any decision lightly”, she said. “The only hard decision I’ve made so far is that when I die I want to be cremated.”

“Lynette, you are a very beautiful young woman”, Khoska said, obviously finding the very idea distasteful. “Why would you want to burn to ashes such a beautiful gift from God?”

“Well, assuming I’m not an old hag by that time”, Lynette observed, “I doubt I would be that beautiful after decomposing in the ground for a few months.”

Khoska found it hard to argue with that logic. He said nothing more for some time, and after dinner was over, he offered a prayer. Lynette then prepared a pitcher of tea, which she served in the silver tea service. Khoska was both surprised and touched when she told him she wished him to have it. He actually felt quite humbled, and thanked her for the gesture.

“I love you, grandfather”, she said, as tears welled up in her eyes.

Then, she cried openly. Khoska walked over to her. He embraced her and, as Lynette lowered her head upon his shoulder, he wiped the tears with a handkerchief.

All The Rage

The woman pictured is an Indian actress named Padma Lakshmi. She was recently married to author Salmon Rushdie. It has just been announced that, as per her wishes, the two are to be divorced.

Will this get Salmon in yet more trouble, and bring down upon his head yet another fatwa from Islamic fundamentalists, as did his previous authorship of the novel "The Satanic Verses"? As much as his recently announced British knighthood?

Will they be enraged because he is allowing her to divorce him, as though she actually has a right to have a say in the matter? Will it be because he married her to begin with, in a Hindu ceremony at that? Will it be because he allowed her to dress like a slutty little whore?

Will the divorce possibly even provide them some sort of feeling of justification and satisfaction at Rushdie's sadness due to the ending of this, his fourth marriage?

Or will they feel so damned confused and conflicted they might just have to blow up some British newsstands?

They take these kinds of things seriously, you know, and Rushdie's knighthood may have provided an extra bit of incentive for the recent spate of attempted bombings in London, and the one in Scotland.

Not that they seem to need a whole lot of incentive. But just in case you think I'm exaggerating about their strong feelings about the place of women, and their hatred of western women's modern attire, you might want to read this article by Christopher Hitchens, in Slate. In it, he points out that the explosions, had they been successful, might well have been timed to coincide with "lady's night".

A whole lot of slutty women with loose morals would have had their shamefully revealed limbs scattered all over Piccadilly Square had that one been successful.

Me, I think I might go out next weekend and buy me a good lap dance, while it's still possible to get one in my price range.

I Made A Vow-I'm Going To Keep It

UPDATE: Here is a link to the exact Senate vote tally on the Immigration "Reform" Bill motion to invoke cloiture to end dabate, which failed by a vote of 53 against, 46 in favor. It contains one scrolling list of all those 46 Senators who voted for the measure, and a second list of all those 53 Senators who voted against it.

I will eventually add it to my sidebar as a permanent link, as soon as I figure out how to to fit it into the general theme of my sidebar.

What do Jim Webb (D-Va), John Tester (D-Mt), and Claire MacCaskill (D-Mo) have in common? Well, they are three of fifteen Senate Democrats who voted against cloture for the recent US Immigration Reform Bill supported by President Bush, about one third of Senate Republicans, and more than two thirds of Senate Democrats. I thank the three of them. I might also add that I am pleasantly surprised at Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown’s vote against the measure. Unfortunately, I am equally disappointed at Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Casey, who supported the measure, and I hereby offer my sincere apologies to former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, against whom I supported Casey. Live and learn.

Whatever the case, I intend to stand by my previous word. Come 2008, when my Senator, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, runs for re-election, I will forget the fact that he previously supported the bill and, acceding at last to the will of the people, he distanced himself from the bill on the floor of the Senate and ended up voting against it. I am still ticked that he supported it to start with, but he is, as Senate Minority Leader, supposed to advocate for the President of his party’s policies, or so I hear. Whether his heart was in it at the beginning or not, I do not know. The most important thing is, he did the right thing in the end, as did my other Kentucky Senator, Jim Bunning, another Republican whom I will likewise support when he comes up for election in 2010.

This is not a promise of permanent support in every election until the end of time. It is a one-time freebie only. It should likewise not be construed as meaning that I will support their entire agenda. I will still be watching, as hopefully we all will be. I will still oppose them, when I feel it is appropriate, on any given issue.

Still, their votes on this one issue entitles them to my support for the next election, and so they will have that support, and my vote.

Don’t find it so fucking hard to do the right thing from now on, huh guys? I can overlook a lot. Support for such a bill as this one can never be one of them.

As for those Democrats who likewise opposed the bill, good for you. At the same time, it bears pointing out that as many as half or more of the Democrats that did so, based their final opposition in part on the fact that they were unable to successfully amend the bill. One such amendment in question would have made it easier not only for illegal immigrants to become citizens, but to also have their relatives move to America to likewise flood the job market and perhaps one day become citizens as well. Such reasoning does not qualify you for my support.

Therefore, if you are one of the Democrats who voted against the bill for this reason, or one of the ones who voted for it for any reason, hopefully your days are numbered. The same holds true for any Republican who supported the bill. Consider yourselves all on notice from here on out.

I guess I might as well go ahead and change my registration to Republican, but I am still hopeful when I consider the likes of Jim Webb that the party will eventually be pulled toward sanity. Maybe that is too much to hope for. All the Republicans would really have to do to get my permanent support as a party would be to adopt a common, sane middle ground between the positions of organized labor and business. There are many other things where we do not see eye to eye, and probably never will. Nevertheless, I can live with them, or at least tolerate them.

On the other hand, I honestly do not believe in political parties, truth be known. Unfortunately, it looks like we are stuck with them.

And It's So Easy Even A Caveman Can Do It-Pt. II

From the ABC Website dealing with next seasons television comedy, tentatively tiled Caveman:

Cavemen is a unique buddy comedy that offers a clever twist on stereotypes and turns race relations on their head. Inspired by the popular Geico Insurance commercials, the series looks at life through the eyes of the ultimate outsiders -- three modern cavemen -- as they struggle to find their place in the world. Joel, his cynical best friend, Nick, and easy-going little brother, Jamie, are contemporary cavemen who live in the suburban south and simply want to be treated like ordinary thirty-something guys. Despite their attempts at assimilation, Nick doesn't believe mainstream society will ever completely accept them, Jamie seems to take it all in stride and Joel straddles the middle, torn between his friends, his traditional values and his loving fiancée.

cast
Bill English: Joel
Dash Mihok: Jamie
Nick Kroll: Nick
Kaitlin Doubleday: Kate
John Heard : Trip
Stephanie Lemelin: Thorne

The only thing I see getting turned on it's head in this proposed ABC series, in which three twenty-first century cavemen live in the Deep South (wink wink), is the original premise of the commercial. Originally, it was a hilarious slam at political correctness, though granted that was not the major intent, which was of course to sell Geico car insurance.

The popular commercials have done their job, evidently, and the executives of Touchstone should bear in mind that the commercials are funny precisely because they do make fun of political correctness.

So will the new series adhere to that premise, or will it at some point, if not right in the beginning, do the exact opposite? Despite the fact that one of the original commercial writers wrote the pilot, I don't look for it to stay true for long, if ever, to the original premise. Look for the series to feature a supporting cast of minority representatives, in story lines that are "ripped from todays headlines".

Will the Cavemen be considered illegal aliens? Will they be denied fair housing opportunities in suburban Atlanta? Problems on the job? Suspicious looks from concerned families of potential romantic interests?

Will it get bogged down in syrupy morality lessons geared toward teaching the value of tolerance? I would almost be willing to bet on it. I can hear the heart-wrenching violins tuning up now at a pivotal part of any given show.

If it does this, as I'm convinced it will,I can almost promise you that it will do so in ways that are as pretentious, condescending, and insulting as similar past offerings which seem to assume that most if not all common Americans are outright bigots either by choice, or by ignorance. We just need Hollywood to teach us better, you see. And since those cool Caveman guys are so popular, what better instrument to use to get that point across?

See how clever those tinseltown folks are? Ha Ha Ha Ha, we thought we were laughing at political correctness but in the meantime they're going to teach us to laugh at our own obvious bigotry. WHOA Ho Ho Ho Ho, those guys really crack me up.

I bet'cha one of those Cavemen ends up falling in love with and dating a regular old white girl, probably a beautiful blonde. Don't look for him to use a club on her, either. Those cave guys,it will probably turn out, have gotten a bad rap in that regard. Shit, these are Cavemen, not white southerners, remember?

Besides, why would they need a club? Those Cavemen guys obviously have humongous sized dicks, and we all know how blonde white women are.