The Lindsey Cycle

this artwork by: Paul Cowdrey

The Lindsey Cycle

by: Paul Cowdrey

1.

Tony - After Darrel - Later

Tony didn't recognize her but he recognized the body language. The wondering eyes, the over done makeup, the constant checking of her bust line all screamed, 'I'm single and lonely. Please come to talk to me.' He also recognized the drink in her hand.

"Bartender! Hey, bartender!" Tony shouted over the house music and loud conversation. The bartender, Jack, made his way over.

"What'll it be?"

"See that lady? Over there, by the end of the bar." Tony pointed subtly so as not to attract her attention.

"Yeah, yeah. The one in the red dress. She's a pretty one. Frankly, Tone, I'm surprised she hasn't already got someone." Jack replied and slapped Tony on the shoulder. They went way back, him and Tony, back to high school. Back before Darrel's accident, before everything got weird. But that was a long time ago and now Tony could come by Jack's bar and hang out till after hours and they could shoot some pool and have a few drinks and not talk about the good old days.

"She doesn't look like a hooker to me," Tony said. Jack had steered him towards, not a few, prostitutes over the years. "She looks... lonely."

"Aww, come on Tony, we both know you aren't the marrying type. Ha, not even the dating type. Forget about her." He drafted Tony a glass of beer - with the perfect amount of foam. "You're the drinkin' and forgettin' type. This one's on me."

Tony slid the glass the rest of the way across the bar, to the coaster in front of him. Tony always used a coaster, always. "One good turn deserves another, Jack." his eyes never leaving the lady in red. "Get her a fresh Cosmo." As he lowered his beer glass he waved Jack back. "On me. Tell her it's on me."

Jack went about making the woman a fresh drink and going back to work taking a hundred drink requests at once. Tony didn't know how he kept up with it. He shook his head at his old friend's bar tending skills and allowed himself a little chuckle before taking another swallow from his glass. As he lowered it, half a drink still in his mouth, he choked and coughed and wiped the beer that came out of his nose on his sleeve.

There she was. The lady in red, with a Cosmo in hand, already half gone. The corners of her mouth twitched slightly in a way that might have made a smile if allowed to go all the way. But she didn't, and Tony liked that. Tony was actually embarrassed.

"Well..." he wiped the last of the beer from his beard and mustache. "How do you do, ma'am?" effecting his best John Wayne impression.

"Thanks for the drink," short. But that twitch in corners of her lips again.

"You're welcome. I'd ask you to sit, but it doesn't look like there's room at the bar." usually he'd be collected by now. He was good at this. But her, the dress, the almost smiles, the eyes, shook him. She put him off balance in less than five minutes. He liked that.

"I'm sorry, I didn't get your name. Or you, mine. Perhaps I'd join you at that table in the corner, but I don't even know your name. How charming." she said all this with contempt in her voice, looking down on him from her standing position. But the corners of her mouth still did that thing, that intoxicating thing.

"You're right, you're absolutely right," dropping the John Wayne voice, "very impolite of me." He stood now and extended his hand, "I'm Tony. It's a pleasure to meet you..."

"Lindsey," she curled her fingers around his hand in a way that made it seem entirely appropriate for him to raise the back of her hand to his lips and give it a gentle peck of a kiss.

"So, now we've met. Would care to accompany me to that table in the corner over..." he scanned the crowded bar.

"Looks like it's been taken," she swallowed the rest of her Cosmo and placed the it on the bar. That twitch again. Tony was hooked. "I don't drive," she said with finality.

Tony was speechless for a moment or two - not like Tony at all, he always had the right lines. After what felt like far too long, Tony stopped his mouth from opening and closing like a fish out of water. He managed a strangled, "Can I... um, give you a ride. Mine's right out front. It's not a problem at all. I haven't had that much to drink," that last coming out like one word, all ran together.

"Yes, that will do. I don't live far." Her head swung and so did her red curls. Before her hair hid all but her chin and a sliver of her nose and forehead, he could swear he saw the corner's of her mouth go up. A little farther this time.

Quickly, Tony grabbed her hand stretched out behind her and laid a twenty down on the bar. A single thought raced through his head: she's the one, she's the one, she's the one.

They made their way out of the bar's doors and into the night.

The smile on Tony's face was sad in hind sight. Everything about the last half-hour was twisted and sad in hide sight. But sometimes there's no going back, there's no moving on.

2.

Reminded of Darrel - The End

The drive to the red head’s place was silent, tense. Maybe just for Tony, maybe Tony was just tense. She hadn’t changed a bit. Lacking the drink in her hand she looked exactly the way she had when she caught his eye. But she was right she didn’t live far.

When the car was parked she sat there. Tony covered his mouth with his fist; he coughed into it and got out. He walked around the back of his car and opened the passenger door. Her door. Lindsey held her handbag out to him with a delicate air. Then one leg came out of the open door and rested a red suede high-heel shoe on the pavement. Then the other, and with that oddly attractive smirk she raised herself out of the car. Even in the awful glow from the ‘booger lights’ she looked amazing. Again, Tony’s mind was seized up.

She took the lead, walking him just as she had out of the bar, and they approached the front door. At the door she simply said, “You’re coming up,” usually Tony heard that phrased as a question. Now he wasn’t sure if it was statement or suggestion.

“Uh, of course,” he stumbled out. God, what was this woman doing to him? He’d woken up mornings after hanging out at Jack’s bar wondering what the hell he’d been thinking the night before. This was different, sure his head buzzed slightly, but he wasn’t drunk. Tony knew drunk, and this wasn’t it.

Entering her apartment, she set her purse down on the low hutch just inside. “I’ll be just a minute,” a pause as if he should now the next part of the scrip. Goose bumps stood up on his arms. “Just make yourself comfortable in the room on the left.” She glided straight down the hall to the bathroom.

Jerry turned to his left, he’d been so enthralled with her every movement he hadn’t taken in much of the surroundings. Now he found the door on the left, slightly ahead of him. It was mostly shut but not latched.

Inside, he found a bedroom. Nice, beautiful – expensive – furniture stood in all the right places. Just the right balance of money and minimalism existed here. Tony couldn’t think Lindsey would have any less. He smoothed his hand across the silk coverlet on the bed and smiled to himself. This was perhaps the best bedroom he’d ever been in, the best house he’d ever seen from the inside.

He stripped down to his boxers and lay down on the humungous bed. This was a clumsy endeavor. He almost fell over twice getting his jeans off. Had he taken his boots off first maybe that part would have gone better, or maybe Tony was only half here. The real Tony would know just what to do, but here, now in her place Tony rolled and repositioned constantly.

Lindsey came out of the bathroom and Tony heard the door open and close. He tried to settle on a good spot. Entering the bedroom Tony saw the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, looking even better. She moved to the bed with a self-assuredness that was unfamiliar to him. He had always been the initiator, the go-getter.

She crouched above him using one hand to hold his wrists still above his head. It was everything Tony could do not to burst into a thousand pieces of glittering confetti. She leaned in toward his face; he puckered his lips for the offered kiss. Then, she moved to left and brought her mouth right up next to his ear.

“You have the most beautiful eyes,” she said as she raised the dagger from behind her back.

It was the oddest thing Tony had ever seen. ‘Dagger’ would be the best term for it he thought. The curved – and extremely sharp – sides at the bottom of the blade made what looked like a spoon. Kind of.

Tony struggled, but the one-handed grip on his crossed wrists was like iron. The little light that came in through the windows glinted off the blade. Tony was terrified, and what she said: You have the most beautiful eyes, brought back memories. Memories, he and Jack avoided over beer and pool. Memories of Darrel. And then the sharp edge was pressing against the outside corner of his left eye.

She’s scooping, she’s scooping…

That thought repeated over and over until Tony couldn’t see anymore, until Tony didn’t breath anymore. Tony’s heart stopped and although he screamed up until that final moment they didn’t reach out and touch anyone. The bars were still playing music at full volume, the band hadn’t wrapped up yet and traffic – horns and hollers – was heavy here on a Friday night. 

3.

Jack - Summer of ‘95 - The Whole Group

When they were kids, summer was the best. Summer meant free time, summer meant no school. The days sitting in class and looking out the window, waiting for the bell to ring, one more day closer to the great land of summer, would drag by so slowly that sometimes Jack wondered if time had actually started moving backward. Summer was the best and Jack couldn’t wait, just like the rest of them.

They’d hang out at Darrel’s; he knew that, they always did. Scotty and Tony would anyway. Scotty and Tony were bigger than Jack, better at football and basketball and they always laughed at Jack for carrying around those ‘stupid books’. They just didn’t understand why someone would want to sit still and read. Oh, my god. Reading was for the nerds. It wouldn’t be until they made it to High School that the rest of the guys started being really nice to Jack. Hey, hey, Jacky! Can you help me with Algebra this weekend? And of course they’d be going to Darrel’s to do that, just like they’d spend the summer between fifth and sixth grade at Darrel’s.

Jack – he hated it when the guys called him Jacky, that’s what his mother called him – sat by the phone in the kitchen. He wasn’t reading, he was focusing all of his attention on the phone. Ring, ring man, come on. He’d already talked to Darrel’s mom twice and his own mother told him it’d be rude if he kept calling, so he sat and he waited. He wished with all his heart the phone would ring. They had all waited out the endless days of school halls and homework and winter. Now it was summer.

His right leg bounced up and down. Jack really had to pee, but what if the phone rings and I don’t get to it. They won’t call back, whichever one of them it is, they won’t call back. Well, maybe Tony would. Finally, the urge overcame his fear of missing the phone call and he bounded out of the chair, through the house, up the stairs and to the bathroom. Just as the floodgates opened and sweet relieve ran through his body and into the toilet the phone started ringing. Just like he thought.

Dang it! He shouted at himself. It was his fault really, he should have waited, he knew they’d call. When the third ring wasn’t followed by a fourth he guessed his mom had picked up the phone. Please ask them to hold on a minute mom; please don’t say I’ll call them back.

He’s running down the stairs now, his tongue stuck up in the corner of his mouth. He almost missed the last two steps and his stocking feet slid down to the bottom where they landed hard. Shocks went straight up his legs for an agonizing moment and Jack thought he was paralyzed. Then he was moving again.

“Okay, okay,” he could hear his mom in the kitchen. “Alright, I’ll have him call you back.”

Noooooo. Jack was terrified. In that moment his young mind saw the whole summer being hung up on, forgotten. He’d have all the time in the world to read his stupid books and stare at the phone.

“Oh! Hey, Scotty! Scotty, here comes Jacky now,” she was the best mom, the greatest ever. She moved the mouth piece away from her face, “You forgot to zip up there buddy. Here’s Scotty.” It took Jack a minute to understand what she had said. He looked down and could feel spots of color forming on his cheeks. When he zipped his pants up she handed him the phone.

“Hell….” Was all Jack managed to get out.

“Ha, ha, ha, ha, oh, man that’s classic. Zip up, Jacky poo, zip up for mommy,” the snickering and laughing died away.

“Hey, Scotty what’s happenin’?” Jack asked, trying not to sound embarrassed, he was, or ticked off a little at Scotty, he was that, too.

“Oh, nothin’. Listen we’re going out down Johnsford Hollow later today. You wanna come?” Johnsford Hollow, Jack couldn’t believe his ears. Nobody went down there. Rumor had it that an old factory or warehouse was down there. None of the grown-ups would talk about it, except to say the kids weren’t allowed to go near that place. Their reasoning was that it was dangerous to go there. It was true that the trees had grown tall and then the underbrush thickened with poison ivy. You could never be sure what kind of snake you might run into and there were a lot of poisonous snakes around these parts. But ten year-olds don’t worry about that stuff. “Ride your bike on over to Darrel’s, you know his mom won’t ask what we’re doing.”

“Alright Scotty. I’ll get over there as soon as I can,” Jack was breathing heavy. He was excited. This was going to be a great summer.

4.

The Hike - The Sight

Jack hung up the phone and walked through the house in that weird way kids do when they’re nervous. All stiff and almost robotic Jack made his way to his bedroom. Scotty told him to bring that big army color duffle bag with him and camping stuff. His mother wouldn’t notice him right now, she was ‘putting her face on’ for an open house or something, but he would have to let her know he was leaving. At that point, Jack was worried she’d ask questions if he had an armload of camping stuff. He located the bag and his blue plastic flashlight that you had to smack sometimes to make it work. The sleeping bag was on the top shelf in the closet, but Jack had system for that. He pulled the old wooden toy box out from the back of the closet. It had a sturdy lid and used it as a step and reached back in the shelf until he got his fingers around the tie strings on the sleeping bag.

With his gear in hand, he made another trip through the house looking like a marionette piloted by a drunken man. He made it downstairs and to the garage where his bike was leaned against the wall. Setting down his cargo, he nervously eyed the big bag and his bike. They rode bikes just about everywhere, but Jack wasn’t sure how well he’d handle the big pack on his back. These roads could be tricky enough to navigate without the extra weight. But these thoughts were here and gone in the blink of an eye, literally.

Now he made his way back through the house to tell him mother he was going to Darrel’s. If he could get permission to stay the night, everything would work out just right, his mother wouldn’t call to check or anything – Jack didn’t think his parents liked Darrel’s parents very much.

“Hey, ma, I’m ah… going to Darrel’s and his mom said it was okay so I was going to stay the night, okay? Okay, ma?” the words didn’t come out right at all and again Jack could feel color start to come out on his cheeks. She was going to say no, Jack knew this, she would say no and the best summer ever would turn into the worst with just that word, ‘no’.

“Alright, honey. You just make sure you’re back tomorrow before lunchtime okay?” she called from her seat in front of her vanity.

“Okay, Ma, love you,” and Jack was away. His mother’s ‘love you too’ faded away behind him as he rushed down the stairs and out to the garage. He was on his bike and awkwardly pedaling out the driveway and down the road to Darrel’s house. He had gotten away with it. That mixture of excitement and guilt spun through him with each rotation of his bicycle pedals.

He thought he was going to lose it coming around and down what Jack had heard the grown-ups call ‘dead man’s curve’. The front tire started trying to go this way then that and Jack did his best to make the wheel straight, the handle bars steady. After a terrifying he was able to get the bike under control and do smooth slow curve to the left, into Darrel’s driveway.

He saw Mrs. Howard on the front porch and raised his hand. She raised hers back and he rushed inside with his big duffle bag. Up the stairs to Darrel’s room he ran as fast as he could and pushed the door open. There they were, the whole gang: Darrel and Tony and Scotty. They all looked up at him with expressions that filled Jack with an overwhelming sense of acceptance. They looked at him like he was really one of them.

“Alright, fart knocker, load up the rest of this stuff in that bag while we get soda’s and hot dogs from downstairs,” that was Darrel. He always had the plan. He always knew what to do next. Jack went to gathering the assortment of flashlights and batteries and sleeping bags the others had collected before they all made it out of the room.

When the rest of them got back up to the room Jack had everything stowed just so and everything fit. Each of the other boys had an arm full of soda cans and Scotty had a loaf of bread and two packs of hot dogs. Jacky suggested that they put the cans and dogs in the folds of the sleeping bags to help keep it cold.

“Whatever. You know you’re a dork,” and bang, there was the punch to the shoulder. Thank you Darrel, thank you.

Now they were ready to go. Sure Jack was probably the most excited of them all but none of them had completely steady fingers. Jack reached down to get the bag and it weighed a ton. He was standing up with his legs and bending upright from his middle at the same time and for a moment he thought his arm would come right out of his shoulder. He grunted and added his other hand, the bag came off the ground just enough. Darrel looked him up and down, red face and all, “Let’s go. The Dork’s got the bag.”

Scotty helped him secure the bad to his back and mount his bicycle. Jack was glad the Old Jensen’s place wasn’t that far. Not far, right. It seemed really, really far with that cargo on his back. But that was okay.

They made it to the bridge and walked their bikes down the little path. When the steep incline leveled out there was a flattened out spot, just big enough to lay their bikes down in. They’d been down here before. Usually they went under the bridge and down to the little fishing hole – smoking spot down the road of years a little ways, but today they went away from the bridge.

There used to be an access road down the old Jensen’s Place but it had first been chained over and that was fine. But then something happened, none of the grown-up’s would say anything, and all the kids had different stories. Nobody knew, and nobody went there. About ten years after the access road got it’s chain a couple of those big concrete wall things were put up. Over the following years – decades, really – the underbrush and then trees grew up and the gravel washed away and down in the earth. If you knew where to look you could find where it started, and the boys did, but it was a whole lot easier to go in through the back way.

They’d never seen the place, but they knew where it was. They walked down the tiny river a ways – by now Scotty shared the burden of the bag with Jack, and even Tony took a turn or two. When they got to the spot where a path, barely a path, but with less trees than the access road, they turned up it. Using trees and roots to gain hand and foot holds to get up the hill they made their way up to the top in the setting sun.

When Darrel called out that he made it the rest moved a little bit faster. Soon they all stood, except Jack, he sat down just as soon as he could. Looking down they could see the top of the old Jensen Place, a massive structure. The roof, really all they could see, was a gnarled mass of jagged fingers ripped up from years of hard storms and other places where no roof actually existed. Everything was rust.

Slowly the boys made their way down the embankment. Not even Darrel would say anything. None of them could say they weren’t scared.

5.

Old Jensen’s Place - The Campfire

Jack dropped the buddle in a heap on the floor of the Old Jensen Place. Dust plumed up when the bag hit and made itself a little crater. They were all still nervous and silent. Jack looked around, eyes wide; the others shuffled their feet. As the dust settled Jack looked at the massive dark corners, at the rafters where who-knew-what lived, at the jumbles of old things gone to rust. Jack saw something else. He didn’t feel the strain of carrying the bag right then. And he wasn’t scared.

“Well, where’s the girls at,” Tony said and did this cackling laugh. “Darrel, I thought you said there was gonna be girls here,” that laugh again. That was Tony, always thinking about girls. His dad had a couple of magazines he claimed to have seen. Jack didn’t see what the big deal was. Girls weren’t stupid, like they were when he was younger, but they certainly weren’t as cool as Tony made them out to be.

“Shut up, dweeb!” Darrel said and socked Tony right in the shoulder.

“I’ve got some matches. If we find some wood we can make a fire,” oh, man. Jack didn’t mean to say that, he really didn’t. Especially when Darrel turned his face toward Jack’s, he still wore that sour expression.

He took a deep breath, he was already a big kid and when he did that he got even bigger. Jack was nervous again. “You know, the Dork’s right,” his eyes scanned the empty doorways and vacant holes in the roof. “It’s getting’ dark guys. Let’s get some firewood together so the Dork can use his matches,” Darrel kind of chuckled in his chest and got Jack on the shoulder. At least it wasn’t a punch, he used his open hand.

All of them set out in different directions. Each one went to a corner where the brush was the thickest. Jack went towards the north east corner, he thought he saw an old bench or counter or something. The darker the air around him got the bigger did his eyes.

Jack saw the counter. Saw it with freshly Windex’ed glass and those white tube lights – knee-on, something, - he saw the shelves inside, clean and full of comic books. The comics that came in plastic sleeves, the one’s you didn’t open. First additions and signed copies lined the shelves that only Jack saw. He stepped back a pace or two and looked at the walls. There they were, all comic companies represented at the top of each rack. They were ordered from oldest to newest somehow. His eyes fell on his favorite section. The smallest section in the only Collin’s County comic store was huge here. It filled a whole section, from support pole to support pole, from the ceiling all the way to the top. Except in the middle. Above the massive section, in the coolest letters and the emblem and all, a sign said: Dark Horse. Jack loved Dark Horse comics.

“You like it?” a voice surprised him. He recognized it, but couldn’t place it. He looked where the voice came from, behind the counter. He recognized the face, too. Short hair and slight stubble on the cheeks marked him for a middle aged ‘grown-up’. “You like what you see?”

Jack stammered. He was lost for words. The man’s gaze held him paralyzed. He thought maybe his mouth was doing that thing fish do when they’re out of the water.

“It’s great, I’ll tell you. This town always needed a good comic shop. Come on, Jack, you know that. Sure when you’re old as me…” the man chuckled. “Tastes change in this town, in every town, really. But you can do it Jack. You’re going to get it.”

“You’re going to get it,” Jack blinked and the darkness of the old Jensen Place came back into focus. “You’re going to get it!”

Darrel. Darrel was mad now and Jack really didn’t know what he wanted. He turned around just in time for a Darrel shoulder slug. He grunted and stumbled a little. “Go, Dork! Go get the rest of the wood. You think the rest of us are your slaves or somethin’? Go. Now!” He leaned back. Jack saw what was coming, a ‘super Darrel shoulder slug’. He busied himself with the broken wood from the ancient counter and the dead brush around it.

They built a woodpile and Jack fumbled with the matches in the glow of flashlights. The sun had long sat and the shadows grew until they met and two became one, and so on until all was darkness. Although he fumbled with the matches the wood was dry enough to catch pretty quick and soon they had a fire going.

In the dancing, chaotic light from the fire they set out their sleeping bags. The four of them made a square around the flaming pile. Tony and Darrel with their heads close together and the same with Scotty and Jack.

Jack couldn’t see across the flames but he thought he heard something over where Darrel and Tony were. He didn’t dare ask what they were doing, if Darrel wanted him to know he’d say something. And besides, he was probably just hearing things. Suddenly, a heavy, shiny, metal rectangle thumped onto his sleeping bag. “You did good Jacky,” that was Darrel. Jack hated it when he called him Jacky. “Have a drink. You called it about the firewood and the matches. It won’t hurt you.”

Jack raised the flask to his lips with shaky hands. He’d heard about this. Even seen his parents ‘drunk’ a few times. When the fumes hit his nose he almost tossed the flask in the fire. But he couldn’t back down, not now. Not with the whole gang here in front of him. Scotty was even looking at him with insults on the tip of his tongue, and Scotty was the nice one.

He closed his eyes and held his breath and upended the flask in his mouth. His whole head was instantly on fire and his throat was closing off. For one terrifying moment he thought he was dying, that Darrel and the rest had played a big mean joke on him and his death was the punch line. He coughed and coughed – the places on his chin that caught drips of the booze were on fire too – and as it died down in his throat to merely hitches in his chest, he heard them laughing. They were rolling.

“Way to go Jack!”

“Knew you could do it!”

“You’re only half a sissy now, Jack,” Darrel said last. “Okay, now, tell us a story Jack. We’re all going to take turns. What happened here Jack,” he paused. “Have another drink first.”

Jack took him up on the offer, the second drink went down much smoother than the first, not easy, but a little less harsh. His cheeks were hot, at first he thought it was from the fire but after he thought about it he realized the warmth in his cheeks started in his belly and radiated up his throat. Okay, what happened here?

“I heard that Old Man Jensen ran an old paper mill here and one night he went mad and brought his five kids up here and their mom too and put ‘em all under one of the smasher press things and he crushed them,” he looked around at his friends. They were all looking at him like he wasn’t finished. Maybe he wasn’t.

“Old Man Jensen fell to his knees in their blood and laughed and laughed and died laughing…” Jack took a deep breath and pointed out behind him, out to the edge of the firelight. Darrel and Tony were up on their elbows peering over the fire and Darrel was reaching for the flask as Scotty passed it to him.

“Right over there,” Jack said and looked them all in the eye one by one. Of course they were looking out into the darkness. What he meant to do then was yell something like BOO, or AARR, but the thought of them all jumping out of their skin was too much for him. Loud bellows of laughter and strangled breath came out of his mouth without warning. Jack doubled up on his sleeping bag and clutched his stomach. Soon, they were all rolling with giggles.

They all felt the effects of the whiskey after the second drink but the flask continued around. And so did the stories, getting sillier and sillier. Only Jack didn’t have anymore. His fuzzy mind couldn’t stop thinking about how great it would be to have a really, really, big comic store right here.

Eventually they all fell asleep – or passed out. The morning was terrible and Darrel was the worst. Terrible with a capital ‘T’. But they got the gear together and made their way back to their bikes and eventually back to Darrel’s house. There, they slept off the last of the hangover and Scotty, Tony and Jack all made it back home for supper. None of them talked about that night, ever. Nothing need be said but they all understood on some level that amidst the silly stories and the fuzzy feelings that came out of the flask they were all terrified. Scared beyond anything they would experience until much, much, later in their lives.

Jack never talked about it but that afternoon and the vision of the comic shop decided for him. That one night at the old scary Jensen place in Johnsfords Hollow showed Jack his destiny. He knew he would open a comic shop, he just knew it. But tastes change in towns, everywhere perhaps, over the course of years and by the time Jack was middle aged with close-cropped hair and a scrim of stubble on his cheeks it was a bar he was opening. A bar him and Tony played pool in sometimes, drank beer, and didn’t talk about the old days. The days when Darrel was still around.

6.

Scotty - What’s It Do To You - What’s Her Name

At fifteen, Scotty still listened to the same ‘crap’ as his mother would call it. Kurt Cobain was long dead. So were ‘Punk’ and ‘Grunge’ and all the good indie stuff. 1995 was a good year for music, the whole 90’s music scene – most of it, anyway – had stuck with Scotty. Nirvana, Soundgarden, Hole, Rancid, Operation Ivy, they made up the soundtrack to his early high school life. And, currently, he was jamming to the sounds of the underground. Lars Frederickson and the Bastards filled his ears and vibrated his eardrums through his disc man.

He just laid on his bed, feet tapping and hands strumming like mad – empty as they were. His mother told him to clean his room but Scotty wasn’t interested in that. Scotty had music on the mind and counter culture and rebellion. He couldn’t be really angry with his mother; she was pretty cool most of the time. But he sure was angry with his teachers and his school and pretty much everyone else. They called him things, not the teachers but the kids; the kids called him things, mean things. Some days he could swear everybody else, everybody, was about four feet taller than him. But Scotty didn’t notice any of that – or his messy room – when he had the music. The music made everything all right.

And the girls, too. Scotty liked the girls, almost all of them. Not just the ‘cheerleaders’ or the ‘preppies’. Not just the popular girls that covered their flaws with money. No, Scotty saw ‘pretty’ in the female. Maybe just Julie’s smile, or the color of Cary’s eyes, but girls were pretty. The girls helped but they hurt, too. They weren’t mean like the jocks and the bullies, but when they looked at Scotty, he felt invisible. Freshman year was starting and that didn’t help much. He tried not to show it but he was nervous.

The trip to the old Jensen’s Place had made them – Darrel, and Tony, and Jack, and Scotty – immortal for a while. But things change and hierarchies rearrange and memories fade. The boys would never forget, they shared a bond that night with the fire and the whiskey. Scotty liked the whiskey. They had gotten together and drank a few times sense then but the other guys didn’t seem to get the same peace from it. Maybe in high school there’ll be parties and stuff. And high school was starting tomorrow. They’d be the only ones left that remembered that trip.

The bed was shaking, increasingly more violent. His arms and legs stopped pumping to the beat of the music. Half startled – this wasn’t the first time – he looked at his mom and hit the pause button. She had a look on her face – not for the first time – that Scotty could read to a tee. She wasn’t happy at all. Nope, momma wasn’t happy.

“You haven’t touched your room, Scotty,” hands on hips she glared at him, and she wasn’t finished, “Jack’s on the phone, but I told him you were busy and I come up here and find this!” there was the arms spreading out from the hips.

“I’m sorry, mom. It’s just, with school and all tomorrow, I’m…” he kind of grimaced, “I’m kind of nervous, you know.” And there were the puppy dog eyes. He wasn’t completely avoiding the truth. He was nervous about school tomorrow, but the other half – maybe more than half – of the truth was that he just didn’t want to do it. It didn’t matter much to Scotty if his room was a mess.

His mother’s face softened considerably. Her eye brows descended back down above her eyes, instead of halfway up her forehead and the down turned corners of her mouth adjusted slightly from a mad frown to a sympathetic, worried look. “That’s okay, Scotty,” she said as she exhaled in a sigh. She patted the top of his head to emphasize each word, “I – still – want – your – room –cleaned.”

She turned and left, shutting his door behind her. Right on mom, Scotty thought, you’re the coolest.

He did get off his bed and made a halfhearted attempt to clean his room. Then went downstairs to get the phone and call Jack back.

“Yeah, hi. Is Jack there?” Scotty waited a moment and then Jack picked up.

“Okay, mom, I got it. You can hang up now!” Jack yelled.

“Easy, dude. I’m standing right here, man,” Scotty shifted the phone to his other ear. “Anyway, what’s up man?”

“Ummm. Oh yeah, I gotta tell you. I thought about you first you know. You know how you go on and on talk-” Jack was excited. He was talking faster than Scotty could keep up.

“Slow down, man. What are you talking about?”

Scotty could hear Jack breathing, getting his thoughts together and stop rambling. “Okay, okay, there’s this new girl moved in down the road. She’s really cute. I don’t usually say that about girls, you know I don’t get why you think they’re so great, but this one’s really cute.”

“What’s her name?” Scotty’s interests were peaked.

“I don’t know man. But I thought you’d wanna know. You can ask her tomorrow.” Jack’s mother hollered in the background. “I gotta go man. See you tomorrow.”

“Later,” a smile spread across his lips, “Jacky.” Scotty hung the phone up just when Jack started to say, don’t call me that. Scotty wasn’t mean but he loved getting Jack like that. In fact Scotty got him like that every time they hung up. It was like a ritual, man.

Chuckling to himself, Scotty meandered back to his bedroom. Drifting to sleep with thoughts of this new girl, what she might look like, what kind of music she was into. He never took his headphones off and Nirvana made the soundtrack of his curiosities.

So many, so many girls. Scotty thought he’d be looking for one new girl at school. There were thousands, even the one’s he knew last year looked different. He wondered if they changed their names. Still beautiful, still, all the girls held with each of them, different amounts of the ‘pretty’. So many, so many girls.

Abruptly, his thoughts were interrupted. A very big guy sent him stumbling forward. “Get outta the way, freak!” the big guy shouted after Scotty’s awkward attempt to regain his footing. He did, Scotty did get his footing back, he didn’t fall, but a lot of good it did him. A circle of emptiness had formed around him, the empty space filled with laughter and insults. Scotty put his head down and thought as hard as he could about everything he’d like to say. See that was Scotty’s problem.

He wanted to say things to the bullies, he wanted to say things to Darrel and the teachers and the football players and – even being girls, god’s masterpiece – the cheerleaders, but he never could. He couldn’t endorse the violence and the bullying. He couldn’t become one of ‘them’. So he wanted to say things, but looked down at his sneakers instead and adjusted his book bag.

The laughter died down and the rest of the school kids went back to their routines. By now, Scotty made it to his locker but the combo lock gave him problems, as usual. On the third attempt he got it. But that was after he hauled off and punched his locker, the sound surprised him and he looked around all wide-eyed. There she was, and then the locker opened, other people found their lockers between them and she was gone. Who was that girl? Scotty thought.

Brrrriiinnnngggg!!!!!! The warning bell sounded and Scotty came back to himself. What was first period, again? Oh yeah, math. Great, he hated math and he was all over the place. The first day and he’d already been picked on and then spun right around the other way seeing that girl by his locker. Now he had to put up his lunch and find the math room and the warning bell had already rung.

He had just sat down – first row, right in front of the teacher’s desk – when the ‘beginning of class’ bell sounded. Math class droned by in the same sluggish manner that Scotty had grown used to in Junior High. So did second period. English, his third class of the day, one of his better classes, was his favorite class of the day. Not only was he good at it but he got to sit in the back of the room and she was there. That girl he saw by his locker. Who was that? But she sat across the room. He became extremely aware of what he was wearing and how he was sitting and where his hands were. He’d talked about girls for years with his buddies but he didn’t really know anything about them. For a brief second he was more scared than he’d ever been in his life.

She didn’t notice him. At the same time, the day wasn’t the greatest already, so Scotty just got the homework and replayed songs in his head while he doodled on his notebook. Eternally sighing on the inside and trying to be totally nonchalant on the outside, Scotty rode the rest of the day out in much the same manner. He had gym as last period and got all his homework done.

When he got home his mother asked him the same thing she always did, “How was school honey?” And in turn, he replied,

“Fine.” And went up to his room and his headphones. High School wasn’t so much different than Junior High had been. Same kind of bullies same kind of confusion. Only, maybe more confusion, he couldn’t get that girl out of his head. Her name was Cindy; he remembered that from the roll call. What he didn’t fully understand was the chemical changes going on inside his mind and body. Whirlwinds of undefineable emotions were lurking right below the surface. He was so mad at that older kid for pushing him he could explode and at the same instant Cindy made him feel… well, he wasn’t sure, the only thing he could say about it was that it was quite the opposite form the way he felt thinking about that jerk in the hallway.

The next day came and went without incident. Other than to say that Robert, the bully, reduced his assaults to simply kicking the back of Scotty’s shoes every morning, but Scotty could take that. And then it was Friday. For Scotty, Friday went by way too fast and lasted much longer than almost everything else in his mind. Camping at the Old Jensen Place was one of those things. One of those things Scotty would remember forever. A lot happened for him on Friday.

Everything started out normal. The bus ride was solitary and silent – and half asleep. In the five minutes before class started when Scotty walked the halls with Jack, Robert, Scotty’s personal bully it seemed, started in on the heels of his shoes. Kicking them whenever they’d come off the ground in a step forward. Only, Scotty wasn’t in the mood. He never really was in mood to be treated like that, but he could tolerate it, most of the time. Today, the conversation between him and Jack ceased immediately – stopped for Scotty, Jack kept on talking, rambling about some new computer thing or what the News Hour had to say.

Maybe it was the way his jaw clenched when his heel was kicked sideways, or maybe it was the frustration he didn’t fully understand surrounding that beautiful girl (they were all beautiful in their own way, but this one…). Maybe Robert’s screwed up parents or whatever had done something to Robert to make his day a bad one; whatever it was Scotty slammed into the brick wall before he knew what happened. He lost his balance and fell/slumped against the wall, dragging his shoulder down the unpainted brick. The pain came from two sources simultaneously, his ankle and his shoulder sent flashing neon, Roman candle signals to his brain.

I’m hurt!

That bastard did it!!

Destroy him!!!

And Scotty was off the ground and his fist connected with Roberts nose in one movement. Robert’s nose exploded and like on Monday there was an empty space surrounding them. For a few seconds that Scotty wouldn’t clearly remember, they were alone in that hallway.

But Scotty was on the move and as much as he never would admit it, the reason he didn’t see clearly what happened in those few moments were the tears welling in his eyes. Now they ran down his cheeks. Not in big rivers and his chest didn’t hitch as if he were sobbing but he was a wreck. He found his first period classroom and took his seat. The lights were still off, that’s how he knew the ordeal hadn’t been a long one. He folded his arms on his desk and put his head down in them. He’d become one of them, one of the monsters, at the same time he’d stood up for himself. The girls he didn’t see any beauty in would see beauty in this. The guys he thought were jerks, others like Robert, would think he would become one of their numbers. And what would Cindy think?

The warning bell rang and then the final bell. Shuffling feet and dropping book bags brought him out of his own thoughts enough to make it through Math class, and then Biology, and then he got to English.

They didn’t have assigned seats in English and again Scotty was the first one there. He didn’t spend time exchanging pleasantries with anyone, not even Jack or Tony or Darrel. He got the back row, all the way to the outside, by the window.

It wasn’t long before the other kids started filing in. Scotty was writing in his notebook and oblivious of what was going on around him. He didn’t even hear the teacher start up. His favorite class and he just couldn’t get rid of the slimy feel from being violent, from hurting someone. No matter how deserved. Then his chair jumped underneath him. And again.

Scotty pulled his head out of his notebook and looked straight over to his left. Straight into the biggest green eyes he’d ever seen. Straight into Cindy’s eyes. And again a moment, maybe two, just maybe, stretched into a memory forever. A priceless, intangible treasure that couldn’t be bought or sold, or forgotten.

“Hey,” that was all she said. Hey, was all she needed to say. Scotty fell instantly in love.

“Hey,” he said in his best… whatever: tough guy, cool guy, smart guy, ‘Scotty’ guy, voice he could.

Cindy chuckled slightly in her throat and looked down at her paper. “So what about that guy, he had it coming,” she looked back at him. He was still looking at her, he didn’t know for sure if he could stop. It’s really a wonder that he heard her over his heart drumming in his ears.

“Yeah, well…” Scotty didn’t know what to say, he’d never been this confused in his life.

“Here,” she slipped him a folded piece of paper. Of course, he didn’t open it until later when she wasn’t around. Turns out it happened to be one of Scotty’s best days. She had written her phone number on it. Below the number a short note was scrawled: call me before 5! And the dot on the exclamation point was roughly shaped like a heart. Now he definitely didn’t hear anything. His heart was practically beating its way out of his chest; the drumming reverberated through his body to a deafening point.

The rest of the school day went as usual, only now Scotty had forgotten all about the ‘fight’, if you could call it that. All Scotty could think of was the girl. Cindy. And the number. He got home at four and made himself wait until four-thirty to call her. A shaky hand dialed the numbers.

“Yes, hello. Um, is uh, Cindy, um, there?” oh he tried, he tried so hard to pull of the polite young man, calling for this woman’s daughter. A daughter who was perhaps an angel in the flesh, or a goddess.

“Hold on, sweetheart,” presumably Cindy’s mother said. Scotty’s cheeks grew hot at the word ‘sweetheart’. He felt even more like a little kid, silly.

“Hello,” such a musical voice she had, so wonderful, just that one word. Everything she said was like music. Everything was going to be okay as long as he could hear that voice or see those eyes, natures perfect green.

“Hu-hey, how’s it going?” oh, god, he was wrecking big time and he knew it.

“Good. What are you doing later?” she asked so casually.

Scotty was speechless. What was he doing later? What the hell, nothing, he wasn’t doing anything later. He tried to say that and some kind of guttural sound came out that, apparently, Cindy deciphered into ‘nothing’.

“Hey, that’s awesome. I’m going to a party with my sister. She’s in college and she said she’d take me to a party cuz we’re like in high school now. Everyone seems so immature, but you, Scotty, you see the same thing I do.”

Good lord, Scotty didn’t know how to handle this, he just didn’t know what to say. “I… I don’t drive…” totally against his wishes that last word went up so it sounded more like a question.

“Oh, no it’s cool Scotty, my sister’s going to take us… um… I mean, me with her. I think your house is on the way,” her voice changed from lighthearted to unsure. Of course he wanted to go. Maybe she realized how forward she was being. More likely she realized she was talking to ‘Scotty’.

“Us,” he reached, he put all of his bravery into that one word. “For sure. When?”

“Uhhh…” now she wasn’t so sure – Scotty smiled on the inside for that, not to be mean, it was nice to have someone to share this uncomfortable moment with. “Yeah, for sure. How about thirty minutes?” it wasn’t a mistake on her part, she was really asking. That was cool as hell.

“That’d be great,” he said, and then the coolest thing he could think of. “Later.” He hung up the phone in a hurry.

SHE WAS GOING TO BE HERE AT FIVE! Scotty’s mind roared at him. FIVE O’CLOCK!

He rushed upstairs to find his mother. She was at the vanity in the bedroom. Such a perfectly arranged vanity. He told her he was going out with a girl he met at school and his mom told him that was great. Told him that High School wouldn’t be so bad. Well, High School sucked, but going out with Cindy was great.

As soon as her sister’s car pulled up Scotty thought again about what he was wearing and how he was standing. He’d never been this nervous in his life. Cindy reached across the back seat and opened the passenger side door for him. “Come on, she hollered.”

He was thrilled hear the System of a Down coming out of the car’s speakers. The guy in the front seat wore a studded leather jacket and close-cropped Mohawk. They drove for what seemed like forever and then some weird kind of cigarette was being handed to him from the front seat. He’d tried smoking before and his mom’s cigarettes made him sick. But this cigarette smelled sweet, this cigarette smelled different.

Cindy grabbed it and Scotty was glad it was nighttime, his cheeks started warming up. Smoked on it, but she didn’t do it like his mom did. The end glowed brighter and died out, brighter and dimmer. Then, Cindy acted like she was holding her breath and an orange ball was floating in front of Scotty.

At the same time he reached for it Cindy let out a bellowing cough. Scotty was worried but he was filling his lungs from this odd cigarette and started coughing, no choking. Scotty was choking and the interior of the car got bigger and they – all three of them – were laughing. And then he was coughing and then he was laughing. Scotty couldn’t tell his friends that much about the rest of that night. The beer and pot kind of took over for his brain there for a while. He could tell them, everyone from the rooftops, even, about Cindy’s fingers entwining with his and the those beautiful green eyes. The girl that lived down the road from Jack – Jacky, ha ha – had the most beautiful green eyes. Cindy, he’d never known a Cindy before and he wanted to laugh but he didn’t want to be stupid around her. And that was funny, too.

Her eyes weren’t funny, no; her eyes were green, beautiful. Scotty loved those eyes. And the grin he wore, try as he might to look tough, felt just right. Her hand in his felt even better.

7.

Her Name's Cindy - What a Party

Over the course of Scotty’s freshman year in high school he and Cindy became like peas in a pod, like baseball and cracker jacks. They spent every moment they could with each other. Most of those moments were spent in her parents’ basement, studying the art of ‘making out’ and ‘smoking grass’. Cindy’s parents worked a lot and like most kids Scotty and Cindy thought that leaving the vent window just above ground level in the basement would clear away any evidence that they’d been doing something bad – and like most parents, Cindy’s weren’t fooled a bit.

A distance grew in the old gang. Jack was on a steady track to the Honor’s Club and graduating early and all that. Tony and Darrel – more Tony, Darrel had an impenetrable self esteem – treated him a little different. Scotty was excited and called them all up after his first ‘make out’ session with Cindy, but the guys weren’t nearly as happy for him as he’d hoped. Tony was the ladies man, not in the kind appreciative gentle way that Scotty was, but Tony was the one with the right lines and the right clothes and everything. Darrel was just ‘King Poo-Bah’. It didn’t take long for the coaches to notice Darrel’s athletic ability, and with jockdom comes girls, girls, girls. It’s almost a commandment. Maybe it was in the way he talked about it, maybe it was the way him and Cindy held hands at school, maybe the look they got in their eyes when they were telling their friends about the other one; for some reason a level of resentment grew between Scotty and Tony and Darrel. Mostly Tony.

Notes were passed with the determination of the U.S. Postal Service. Come hell or high water, Scotty sent doodles and a high schooler’s version of poetry to Cindy almost continually. And she responded with the most flowery compliments and encouragements imaginable. Scotty only wished they had more classes together, every class together.

Christmas break was coming up and Scotty was a nervous wreck. Cindy had mentioned going to stay with her sister up at the college for the break, only coming home for Christmas Eve and leaving Christmas night. His fears were assuaged when she nonchalantly invited him along.

“Oh, no. It’s totally cool. I showed my sister that ring you made me out of a piece of yarn and she thought it was the coolest thing. I didn’t like the patronizing tone, you know how older people can be, right? All, ‘I’ve seen everything’, but anyway she said that’d be fine if you came. Think your mom would let you go?” Amazingly she said that all in one breath. Scotty could hear NOFX blasting in the background. He almost told her that she didn’t need to yell. The radio was much further from the phone mic than her mouth was. But then he thought about her mouth and her beautiful smile – and her full poutty lips, yeah, that too – and he couldn’t say anything but:

“Totally, I’m down. That party we went to at the beginning of the year was awesome,” he hesitated a little. He didn’t want to sound stupid or a dweeb or any of those things Darrel had called him over last six years. “You ah… you think she’ll have… you know?” His heart sank to his shoes, no, lower than his shoes, it rested itself down in the floorboards.

She was laughing. Actually laughing at him.

“Oh, course baby. She’s always got that stuff,” her laughter had stopped and Scotty’s heart was back where it should be. Beating too fast, he could hear her smile through the phone. She was smiling with every bit of kindness and caring and admiration a fifteen year old can manage. “Oh, and guess what?”

“Mmmmm…” he let the silence hang for a few seconds, “There’s peace in the middle east.” It was the best he could come up with. He liked to throw her curve balls sometimes. “That’s all I got. Come on give over, what’s up?”

“My sister’s friend came back into town. She goes to a college in another state, and you know what?” she paused for a breath, amazing, “I heard that what they got there is like a million times better than what goes around here.” Even better. If Scotty had had any doubts he didn’t now.

That odd cigarette at the beginning of the year, the beginning of him and Cindy was so much better than the whiskey they drank that night at the Old Jensen’s place. Scotty had tried to turn Darrel onto it, thought maybe it would mellow him out a little bit – god knew it wouldn’t be a bad thing, perhaps for the whole Sowell West High School – faculty and students included. And Darrel did try it.

Cindy wasn’t as opposed to the outdoors the way Scotty thought she would be. One weekend, Scotty got the gang – except Jack, he had to study and get ready for this really, really big test on Monday. Scotty didn’t get it but he just said, “Alright, dude. See you later.”

“Later,” was all Jack said and the phone was dead. But the rest were on board. The only problem was getting Cindy from her house to somewhere a little closer. She had a bike but the road she lived on, even more ‘back road’ than the one the guys lived on, wasn’t the safest for long rides. And Scotty couldn’t ask her to do that, after all, Scotty was in love.

After much scheming, Scotty was able to talk his mom into picking Cindy up – his mom didn’t like Cindy that much, not to the extent she forbid him to see her, but she kept her quiet reserve – and go along with the camping trip. When they got back to Scotty’s house a conversation ensued between him mother and Cindy that Scotty wasn’t privy too. Cindy had the same lighthearted step about her when she came out of the kitchen so it must not have been that bad. She also had an odd smile on her face.

“Your mother told us too, ‘be careful’,” even whispering she put a sarcastic twist to the final words of her statement.

They made their way up to his bedroom to get the camping gear together. Same sleeping bag he’d had back in the fourth grade. Same oversized backpack – not quite a duffle like Jack’s – filled with the same stuff. The only thing it lacked was the trepidation of their destination.

They weren’t going to the Old Jensen Place and that was good. Surely, Cindy knew the many old stories about the place (who didn’t?) and although their night spent there was uneventful in the ghost and goblin sense, none of them had ever been back there, or even talked about it much.

Tony and Cindy had to set out a little ahead of the rest of them. Cindy didn’t have her bike with her and they had to walk. It wasn’t that far to the bridge and the path to the camping sight, but the other guys would make much better time. Tony carried the packs; hers’ wasn’t that heavy but his oversized one weighed on his shoulders after just a few yards. Yet, they made it to the spot – before anyone of the other guys – the determination of the young and the in love. The excitement of being fifteen, and being with Cindy.

It wasn’t long and Scotty and Darrel rolled up on their bicycles. They had packs of their own. It had been awhile, maybe years, maybe sense the trip to Old Jensen’s Place, since they’d made this trip. This time they’d go left, under the bridge, and to the regular hang out spot.

They didn’t take long setting up the few tents they had – Scotty wasn’t very happy to be sharing a tent with Tony, but it was better than Darrel. He thought he was cool having his own tent, he didn’t understand that was because no one particularly wanted to bunk with him.

By the time the sun went down the camp fire was going and they were toasting marshmallows. None of them knew how to act with a ‘girl’ in their presents. Darrel and Tony did the best they could with their posturing and attempts at humor. But when Cindy pulled one of those odd looking cigarettes out of her purse things got really interesting. Darrel had already passed around the flask, the same one from ‘the trip’. Cindy grabbed a stick out of the fire with a flaming end and lit the ‘reefer’. God, she’s cool, Scotty thought and looked at her with deep eyes, eyes that said forever baby, forever.

Everyone had a good time that night. Good loose talk about the high school going ons and laughter filled the dark with the campfire light. Darrel decided he needed to go for a walk, it wasn’t long and the sounds of retching floated over the totally cool airwaves to the group left around the fire. Not long after Scotty and Cindy retired to their tent to practice the fine art of ‘making out’ before Tony stumbled his way over.

They, Scotty and Cindy, were fast asleep in each other’s arms by the time Tony passed out by the fire and they didn’t see Darrel until the morning. He sat by the remnants of the fire with a poker stick and a pale face.

“Dude, I don’t know what was in that cigarette, but you guys suck big time,” that was all he had to say. The next week or so at school was a bummer. Darrel was having problems with his masculinity, Scotty guessed. Darrel could handle his liquor and beer, hell; he could have handled anything in their freshman year at Sowell West High. He was the grand ‘Poo-Bah’. But he didn’t like the reefer. Not one bit.

But this party, this Christmas party at a college kids place. This was the bee’s knees. Scotty laid every persuasive tactic he had in his arsenal at his mother’s feet. She relented eventually. If it was only going to be for a long weekend. For some reason she thought he would run away are something. He didn’t get it and after the all the reassurances to be careful and good and all that stuff he called Cindy back.

“Think any of your friends wanna come? There’s an empty seat in the car. That jerk she was with is long gone and good riddance.”

He had to think for a moment. Jack was out; he didn’t even need to call. Scotty would love it, but then again he might get them kicked out. The nervousness Scotty felt the day before the first day of high school was back, only this time it was snarling and foaming at the mouth. The only thing that kept him from being out was Cindy. Cindy made everything all right. So he called Darrel. Darrel would go, his parents would let him and he was pretty cool in the eyes of their peers.

“Hey buddy,” Scotty said after Darrel picked up. “You wanna go to a party?” There was hesitation on the line, dead space. “It’s a college party, dude. Girls, booze, come on…” he let the line hang this time.

“Okay, when are we doing this?”

“Ah, Cindy’ll be at my place on Thursday about fiveish. We’ll be at your place around five-thirty I guess.”

“Done deal,” Scotty hung up the phone and floated on cloud nine up to his room and drifted to sleep with dreams of Cindy and a real college party.

Sure enough, Cindy – or her sister, rather – was at Scotty’s house at fiveish and they were picking up Darrel at about five thirty. Darrel was jazzed up. Scotty couldn’t stop thinking about where the night would take him and Cindy. There was a whole world further than ‘making out’ that excited and terrified Scotty to equal amounts.

Everything was dark inside the car. The dash lights were dim and no stars shone. The moon, full or not, didn’t shine on that car, on them that night.

Again, something was being passed around the inside of the car. It was hard to see and Scotty being in the back with his girlfriend couldn’t see anything. But he kept hearing these weird ‘smelling’ sounds. Before he knew it, a wide-eyed Darrel moved way too fast and shoved a flat surface in front of Scotty’s face. Scotty was lost; he didn’t have a clue what to do. There was a straw on what looked like a mirror and Scotty was totally, completely lost as to what he should do next.

“Let me see that,” Cindy released his hand and reached up to the tray of… whatever. She put the straw to her nose and inhaled deeply, took a moment’s pause and offered the tray to Scotty. “Think you could do that?” and the smile that went with that questions blew away any questions Scotty had.

He lifted the tray to his face and did as she did and zang!!!! Pow!!!! Boom!!!

Scotty liked it. And he really liked the party they went to. It lasted for days. His memory wasn’t that clear of those days, but life was good. He knew that, he knew that life was good.

But he noticed Darrel. Everyone noticed Darrel. He did as much of that marching powder as he could, and there was a lot of that at this college party. A certain sadness followed Scotty home and stayed with him… forever perhaps. He never should have called Darrel. He never should have invited him to that party. Lindsey was at that party.

She wasn’t in high school. She was just a little bit older, not much, but a little bit. Darrel’s big frame and outgoing, self confidence (exaggerated by the blow, no doubt) appealed to Lindsey. If they had gone to the same school as Scotty and Cindy did, they’d be just like peas in a pod, baseball and cracker jacks but they didn’t. And maybe that’s what made everything take so long. A slow motion downward spiral.

The rest of Scotty’s high school life was touched by a tinge of sadness. He watched Darrel stay on top, on the surface, on the top. Underneath, Scotty saw the destruction. He liked the blow, too – who wouldn’t – but he didn’t like it that much. Not like Darrel, and he didn’t like Lindsey. Something wasn’t right about her.

Scotty and Darrel and everyone had remarkable features. Darrel was big and strong, Tony was cool and slick and funny, Jack was smart and dedicated, Scotty was… well Scotty was hooked up with Cindy so he must have something. But when Darrel and Lindsey became friends she incessantly complimented the eyes. Everyone of them – off to the side, where no one would hear – were told how beautiful their eyes were. She had some hang up about wishing she had beautiful eyes.

And in a sense, Darrel and Lindsey were like peas in a pod, baseball and cracker jacks. They loved to party and be loud and in your face and on the powder. But Lindsey and the thing with eyes.

The rest of the guys couldn’t say they didn’t feel something wrong with it. Something was bad. A bad moon perhaps, rising on the horizon, far away but oh so close.

8.

Darrel - Lindsey - Christmas

Darrel arrowed the Chevelle – red with black side lines, rattler hood with chromed out turbocharger, 1974 – down the interstate like a running-back sprinting after a QB hand-off, trying for a fifty yard touch down. None of the other drivers seemed to know where the gas pedal was. An old beat up Chevy puttered along in front of Darrel in the left lane. The high-speed lane. But this guy, this guy in this Chevy, he got the high beams and blurts for the horn. Most driver’s saw how fast he was coming on and got out of his way.

Avoidance had become a national past time. Darrel knew that, he had it figured out. At school he didn’t have to beat people up if he looked at them right. They just curled up in a ball, put their tales between their legs and scurried away. That was a good thing.

In tenth grade he got in one too many fights for the school administration to avoid. He was suspended from the football team until the next year, at least. This was a bad thing; football had been Darrel’s life. But his parents and neighbors seemed to have a good handle on avoidance.

“Darrel, honey. Do you know anything, anything about the Westerson’s mailbox?” his mother would ask, all timid and quivering. Just like the dweebs at school that were doing his homework. “It was… um…” deep breath, come on mom, come on Maggie, deep breath, “it was vandalized last night and, uh, well, we don’t really know who did it.” And there they were, those big puppy dog eyes. Not hopeful for the truth, no, hopeful for the excuse.

Avoid the problem, it will go away. Everything will be okay.

He denied the mailbox, of course, and all the other things that came up until they quit asking him. Lindsey was the first one. The first time they – his mother, Maggie; his dad was mostly a go along to get along kind of guy – asked him about her, about Lindsey. Well, he didn’t really remember. It wasn’t a good thing. They, she, didn’t ask about much of anything anymore.

Now, halfway through his senior year at Sowell West, he got the Chevelle. A Christmas present, and he was proud of himself. Proud that he only had to raise his voice once and slam his door, what… two, three times. His father wanted to buy and old rust bucket and rebuilt it together, some kind of new-age hippie thing bonding thing. They relented about the car about the same time he got kicked off the football team. His father, Doug, came up with a solution; he just bought Darrel the car. Doug successfully avoided just about everything. Merry Christmas.

Of course, Christmas was a week ago and school was letting back in after the weekend. But Darrel was headed to Lindsey’s. The way Lindsey smiled without really smiling. The red of her hair. And her eyes. He wasn’t really sure what he saw that night. A lot of things weren’t clear in his mind. Even less from the battering it took. But some things stood out clear, like Lindsey. Everything about her, mostly her eyes, yet he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Something happened in that basement that night.

Sometimes in dreams he’d come close to it, but even the subconscious ran from that basement. That cold basement, below ground. Surrounded by earth, a bare bulb hanging above. Shining down, not on smooth concrete and not quite shining, the light gave shadows to old rock walls that stayed damp. A dirt floor that didn’t send up dust with each step.

But he turned to look at her and… nothing. When the vehicle of the dream took him as close to that membrane separating everything the human mind collected and nothingness. Blackness.

Her eyes were the most, they drew him and he went. He drove that car like a running-back making the play of his life. Like a man on a mission, determined and set, not to be swayed or stopped. He drove fast and hard to Lindsey. Hard and fast to her, to her eyes.

Darrel arrowed the Chevelle toward that basement as if death were chasing at his heals. Maybe hell was riding shotgun.

9.

The Drive - The Dirt Floor

Darrel rolled that ’74 Chevelle down the interstate as if his life depended on it. And who knows, maybe it did? The pale lights reflected off his pale skin. His dark, almost black, hair hung somewhere between his eyebrows and his eyes. The contrast made with is pale skin and hollowed out cheeks was striking. By now people weren’t avoiding making him mad, they were avoiding him. The look in his eyes – Lindsey loves them, there’s that – drove people to the other side of the hallway, side walk, grocery store. He rolled the ’74 Chevelle down the interstate. He drove away from the people that worried about him, some who loved him.

The road was deserted. Nothing stood in the way of the darkness ahead. A freak ice storm had grounded flights, and booked hotels. Vacations were cancelled and in some neighborhoods the heavy crust of ice cancelled electricity. Despite is mother’s slight attempt to make him stay in, just for tonight – in the morning Darrel, please – he rattled the keys in his hand and smiled at her. She didn’t see the skull wearing a dark, almost black, wig. Maggie saw her strong boy. He knows what he’s doing, that was just a surface thought. Underneath, Maggie just wanted to avoid, avoid Darrel. Maybe the world.

His knuckles remained white around the steering wheel. No expression of fear on his face, just that grin. That grin that made people look somewhere else.

His brain looked somewhere else, too. He was in that place he was headed now. Only everything was fuzzy. The bare bulb, that was certain. And the ground, the dirt floor that didn’t give up dust was there. Even the creak of the wooden stairs as she led him down creaked now in his ears. Where is this place? He said to her through a mouth full of honey. She giggled, he remembered that. Then they were crossing this underground place. This place with sharp shadows, the kind that scare children – and if Darrel were completely honest, it scared him a little bit too. But she had her hand stretched out behind her and held his, leading him across this place. The light from the ever still, naked bulb hanging in the large room faded as they approached what looked like a doorway.

Did I ever tell you about…she said.

And now everything is shaking. The sharp light from the bulb turns into the full moon on snow glow of his dash lights. The left half of his car was bouncing along in the gravel and dirt and grass that made up the edge of the median.

If it were possible for Darrel’s fingers to tighten around the steering wheel any more, they did in that minute. The shadows in the hollows of his cheeks grew with his grin. He righted the car on the icy pavement, giving it just the right mixture of throttle and coast. He was rolling down the highway again. Fast and hard, that was Darrel. Heading towards darkness with nothing in his way.

If death were riding shotgun that night, death kept him safe.

10.

Lindsey - Did I Ever Tell You About...

Only five days after the Christmas party, Lindsey sat on the couch and waited for him to arrive - through the ice and the storm, she didn't care. Big clots of stuffing belched from just about everywhere - really it was surprising anyone could see that the couch was red. Just like Lindsey's hair, fanned out on the couch where her head rested. On her stomach a round mirror lay. The second object of Darrel's affection - though he'd claim the red and black car to his grave over what she offered on the mirror.

She was smiling, almost. The corners of her mouth quirked up slightly, most men found her 'almost' smile seductive. Darrel smiled back, showing a mouthful of unkempt teeth, his hygiene had taken the same route as his football career. "You made it, baby. I knew you could," she said in an amused yet distracted way. "I could feel you coming. Fast and hard. I love that about you."

"You know I love you, Lindsey," Darrel said as he lifted his head from the surface on her midriff.

In one fluid motion she stood and placed the mirror on the table, she had her back to him with her hand outstretched behind her. Darrel was simply amazed, after all, his mind was moving on par with a ferret afflicted with ADHD. Not even in the ballpark of graceful, he took her hand, eager to be led where ever she meant to take him. He loved her with everything, all of it. Every microgram of him yearned for her presence.

In just a few strides they were at a doorway, set below the stairs going up to the bedrooms. A tickling started somewhere deep in Darrel's brain. She could see the hesitation in his jerky body language.

"It's okay, honey," she touched his face. Everything was okay for Darrel at that moment.

"You're right," he stared deep into her eyes. "I love you."

Soon, they descended the steep stairway into the basement. This time she had to grip his hand a little tighter. He heard the creak of the boards. Flashes went off, not just a tickling but flashes. Deep underneath everything else in his poor mind (everything consisting of: Lindsey, the dope, and a distant third, his car). As bright as those flashes were he never show them. Never felt the tickling.

Lindsey led him across the ancient black basement. She paused for a moment and a click illuminated the space - to the extent a naked bulb can in the center of an underground (ancient) room. The corners, just out of reach. And the doorways.

The doorway.

The memory was there. The way she leaned against the two-foot thick rock doorway, just out of the yellow light, yet he could see her. Shadows mostly, but he could see that funny smile of hers, the hair falling over her shoulders, hiding her ears. He could see the elbow propped against the doorway and her crossed ankles. To Darrel the memory hadn't made it to the surface and he was enthralled. Where was she taking him? Why didn't the dirt puff up at all when they stepped?

With the hand not holding his she grabbed a handful of his hair on the back of his head. She stared straight into his. Her eyes, never the same - blue, green, brown (red, ha), acted, for Darrel, like a time machine, taking him back. That night, the creaking stairs, the dirt floor, the awful single light. The shadowed doorway.

"Did I ever tell you about the time I was down here when I was fifteen?" she asked and went on as though she knew the answer. "Something happened to me then. I think it was night. You can see it's dark down here all the time."

Their minds were both running on high octane. She continued, "I don't want to talk about it or anything like that. I try not to think about it, but I know you love me and I have to share this with you cuz if you're the one I think you are, I feel you are, you need to know everything about me."

"E-ehhm, mmh," she cleared her throat and took a deep breath. "Darrel I had a baby four years ago. It was a complicated pregnancy and some things didn't work out very well."

Amazingly, he was able to break in, as mesmerized as he was, "What, wha, what's this place?" jerky movements gave life to each syllable. "What happened?" His eyes were open, wide, he saw her face. The way that half-smile buried itself as fast as it appeared.

"I wanted to show you this."

The eye lock she had on him, it all came back. He could almost see the memories floating from her eyes into his. This time she held his hand and almost dance like spun him around so he was in the room. She stood in the doorway, the room was illuminated by shadows. Lindsey stood facing him, holding - no gripping - his hand, and looked at him and the memories came flooding back.

Despite the memories, the total recall. Darrel wasn't prepared for this. Shock coursed through him. Every part of him. The hairs on his arm stood up, straight up when he turned around.

"I wanted you to see Adam, again,"  she said behind him. He thought maybe she was really smiling, now.

As his mind reeled in horror and tried to forget every millisecond, his eyes recorded. Some part of that overloaded circuit in Darrel's brain wondered where the pale, almost nonexistent, glow came from.

A monstrosity stood before him. A blackened humanoid thing that stood erect and shuffled to his/it's feet. Chains jingled and the shackles that blended in with the skin, though the cuffs around the things right ankle and wrist were smooth, the skin surrounding was wrinkled and darker.

"Yesterday he asked about you," she said behind him. Her voice seeming to come from inside his head, or a hidden surround sound. "He asked where his daddy was."

And now Darrel was in a sickly yellow landscape with dark thunderheads on the horizon. He was there, not the basement, he was in this wasteland. A sign stood next to him, 'Cerebrus' the sign denoted. It was shaped like an arrow and pointed off into a distance that never changed. Before him stood his query. More than that, his master. As much as Darrel loved Lindsey, the object - the absolute #1 object, person. Adam - of his total devotion stood before him.

Blackened and withered, Adam looked up at Darrel. Instead of meeting a face like Lindsey's with eyes to fall into, he looked into holes. Holes that went all the way down, and Darrel feared that if he looked far enough into Adam's eyes, he'd see the hell that had been riding with him for the last few months.

Adam managed a smile much like his mother's. A half-smile, an almost smile, really just a quirk of the corners of his mouth. Darrel's face turned into a question mark the way a parents face does when they have no idea why their child is so distraught.

The small quirk of a smile grew wider. Pieces of his cheek fell off and floated on the yellow air like ashes. Broken teeth now showed through the widening smile - smile? part tearing, perhaps. Those familiar with the sound of a brick wall tumbling down, or a high speed car crash. The sound of  'unfortunate' turned to full volume and came out of Adam's mouth. Past the tongue dried and shrunken, past the broken teeth and flaking skin, came the sound of death, and desire.

I'm not complete without you, Daddy. Somehow Darrel's rattled mind heard words in the symphony of chaos. I need help, Daddy. I can't see. Mommy's looked for me, but none seem work out.

Adam gestured behind him and Darrel saw the bodies. They were standing - and swaying slightly - but they looked nowhere. They stood in no particular order, they just bunched around Adam. Darrel thought he recognized some of them. Old Miss Thompson, she died a few months ago. He'd seen pictures of Jack's dad and thought maybe that one over there was Jack's dad. It was hard to tell.

They stood in various states of decomposition. They all stood looking nowhere. They all stood with black sockets where eyes once where.

Darrel looked back at Adam. That odd white ash glow filled and shadowed his grotesque features. Adam's mouth twitched in that odd way - so much like his mother - again. Darrel's priorities shifted drastically. Enough so that he fell back into Lindsey's, mommy's, arms; his eyes never leaving the black - blacker than the skin, if that was possible - gaze of Adam's empty sockets.

"Da-dee," Adam managed and Darrel felt Lindsey's chest rise against his slumped body.

After football went out the window Darrel kind of floated, not knowing or caring, where he went or how he got there (as long as he was having a good time). Lindsey became more important than football ever was. If he ever stopped to wonder why - which he didn't - he knew now. Everything happens for a reason, Darrel knew his reason now.

His boy needed eyes. That's it, just the right pair of eyes and his new son would be complete.

"Da-dee," and Adam extended his left hand. Darrel took it and folded himself around the blackened, shackled... eyeless four year old. He wept on his son's shoulder as he felt flakes, ashes maybe, fall on the back of his bare neck.

Adam smiled from ear to ear.

this artwork by: H.R. Giger