“I’m not, nor have I ever been, married,” Danny stated, smiling. “In fact, I haven’t had a girlfriend since Jessica.”
Whitney and Butch locked eyes, shocked at what they just learned.
“Wait a minute!” Butch leaned in and winked at Whitney, intrigued. “The entire time you were here, you never dated? Messed around with anyone?”
“Nope! Not a one.”
“So Jessica was it? Right?” he furthered probed. “I mean, she’s the only one you ever had, uh, ‘experiences’ with, right?”
“Yes!” Danny answered, growing aggravated and embarrassed.
“No drunken one-nighters?”
“Nope!”
“No other woman, ever?” Whitney asked.
Danny shook his head.
“So did you and Jessica ever…?” She paused and looked down, smiling in anticipation. “You know, ‘home run’?”
“Did we what?”
“Plow the field?” Butch jumped back in.
“Did ya’ll ever shuck some corn?” Whitney volleyed.
“Put the pig in the pen?”
“Reap the harvest?” Whitney laughed out loud.
“No! No, we didn’t plow! No, we didn’t reap! No, no, no!” Danny roared angrily, slamming his bottle on the table. “We didn’t get around to it! Okay?”
Whitney and Butch leaned back in their seats and lowered their heads, trying not to laugh out loud again.
“Hey, I’m sorry. Okay? I’m sorry,” Butch confessed with a pat to Danny’s right arm. “There’s a lot of white boys out there that can’t!” he laughed.
Danny shot up out of his chair, knocking it backwards. “You know what? You can just—”
Whitney jumped out of her seat and grabbed Danny by the arm. “C’mon, I wan’ dance!” she said as she yanked Danny away from the table then forced her way onto the crowded dance floor.
As they neared the middle of the floor, the band started playing Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game.” He nervously stood in front of Whitney with his hands in his pockets. Like a little boy being dressed for school, Whitney had to pull Danny’s hands out of his pockets and wrap his arms around her waist. She leaned heavily into his body and slowly encircled his neck with her fingers.
“Were you serious back there?” she asked, genuinely concerned. “I don’t wanna pry, but you never have?”
He looked into her big brown eyes and shook his head.
The cocktail waitress came back around to Butch; she said nothing but pointed at the table and made a circular motion, playing a quick charade for “ya’ll wanna beer?” Butch answered her by holding up his bottle and making a slice to the throat gesture, as if to say “I’m cut off.” She smiled, nodded, and walked away. He noticed her stop and stare at a customer sitting at the front of the bar then shake her head. She mouthed a few words then waved her hand as to shoo away a fly. Butch kept his eye on the waitress who, after not getting the results she desired, approached the edge of the dance floor. She stood on tiptoes, looked over the crowd, and then pushed her way through the slow-dancing throng.
He glanced at the customers in the bar area for any irregular or sudden movement. After disappearing for a brief moment, the waitress reemerged in the middle of the dance floor next to Whitney and Danny. He watched as the two women leaned in to each other, trying to talk over the noise level. Whitney quickly reared back, clenched her fists, and thrust her forearms down in anger. The waitress again leaned in to speak while pointing to the front of the bar, shrugging her shoulders. Butch looked in the direction the waitress was pointing to catch a glimpse of who had caused such a reaction, but with the exception of the door opening for someone to enter the bar, no one or nothing appeared out of the ordinary.
In an aggravated huff, Whitney led Danny around the edge of the dance floor to stand directly in front of the cocktail tables. She aggressively pulled him in to her, pressing her full body against him. Danny, confused at her sudden change in behavior, lowered his head and inquired, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing!” she snapped, anxiously looking around her. “Just some guy that won’t leave me alone…kiss me!”
“What? Who? Where is he?” he asked, scouring the bar area.
She grabbed him by the neck, pulled his mouth down to hers, and passionately kissed him. He kissed her back, deeply, as his physical desire quickly took control. Whitney pulled away; her heart was racing and her eyes were opened wide like a doe standing in the headlights of oncoming traffic. Danny couldn’t contain his feelings of arousal as he looked at her eyes, lips, and body. Whitney looked to the front window and spied the man still watching her. She leaned in to Danny and laid her head on his chest.
Butch observed the man, but was unable to clearly see his face. He watched the front doors swing open again and the stranger dart across the street. Trying not to alert Whitney of any possible danger, Butch decided to take the drunk decoy route. He stepped onto the dance floor and loudly called out to Whitney and Danny. “All right, you two, I’m leaving. And you, Missy!” he blurted, wrapping his arm around her shoulder. “You are in custody of this perpetrator and I recommend immediate house arrest!”
Danny laughed out loud while Butch whispered in Whitney’s ear, “Can you bring him to the hotel later?”
“No problem,” she whispered back, then loudly asked, “are you okay?”
“Yeah, man! You ah-ight?” Danny inquired, grabbing his friend by the shoulder.
“Sure!” Butch played on. “I just wanna get to the hotel ’fore this really kicks in.”
“Well, okay,” Danny agreed, looking to Whitney. “I don’t want you to get into trouble.”
“You kids have a great time and you get him home safely!” he offered the young couple.
“Thanks!” Whitney replied with a kiss on the cheek. “He’ll be fine. I promise.”
Butch turned to leave with a clumsy pat on Danny’s head.
Only when Butch was a few paces away did Danny ask, “What’d you say to him?”
“I told him I’d have you back, safe and sound…” Whitney playfully confessed with a pause and a kiss. “First thing in the morning.”
Once outside, Butch straightened up so as to not draw attention to himself. He looked all around for any sign of movement, but only heard the sound of a heavy-duty truck starting up. He briskly walked to the end of the building; the warm hum of the music masked the sound of his footsteps. He cautiously poked his head around the corner to watch a Penguin Ice delivery truck speed away.
One would have thought God himself had pulled the moon closer to Earth, judging from its size and luminosity. It was well after 1 a.m. and Whitney and Danny hadn’t made that strong of an effort to keep their mouths off each other since they left Rinkydinks. They kissed on the dance floor, they kissed outside the bar, they kissed in her ’76 Chevy Luv pickup, and now, in Whitney’s backyard, under the bright Texas moonlight, they kissed in her porch swing. She felt so familiar to him, as if he had been holding her all of his life. He was now so strangely attractive to her, even though she had always thought of him as dangerous and forbidden. As they kissed under the light of the full moon, they felt their bodies calling out with desire.
Whitney managed to break free of Danny’s embrace, climbed off the swing, and said, “I’ll be right back.” She leaned down and kissed him once more. “Make yourself comfortable!”
Danny clung to her arms as she pulled away just until her fingertips were in reach. With a chuckling gasp he fell back into the porch swing and watched her skip away through the opened sliding glass door and billowing white drapes. She popped her head out the door throwing a sly wink at him before vanishing. He lay back in the corner of the swing, letting his right leg dangle down to rock himself. While looking up at the moon, his smile turned into a frown as his mind was suddenly cast back to that fateful, rainy homecoming night in 1986. He remembered how good it felt to hold, touch, and kiss Jessica. He could still see her face, covered with grass and blood.
He sat up, uneasy, jittery. Where is she? he asked himself. She should have been back by now. Feeling his breath coming on in short, shallow bursts, he stood up and began pacing, talking out loud, “Jess! What am I doin’? You should be here!” He turned to the patio doors and pulled back the drapes.
As he entered the living room, he noticed a soft glow emanating from the hallway. He cautiously called out, “Whitney?” But there was no reply. He started walking toward the hallway and again called out. “Whitney?” The light grew brighter and brighter. He walked down the hall until he came to the doorway leading to her bedroom. Votive candles were scattered across the nightstand, dresser, armoire, and bed chest. The fresh and light, enticing scents of cinnamon and mulberry lingered in the air. Whitney emerged from the bathroom with her hair swept to one side and wearing a white, oversized men’s button-up shirt. He shook his head and quickly blinked a few times.
She approached him, took him by the hand, and walked backward to the edge of the bed. The two gazed desirously into each other’s eyes as she brushed her fingers across his lips, then tenderly kissed him. Without taking her eyes off his, she unfastened the first button on her shirt. When she moved her fingers down to the next button, Danny pulled her hands away and said, “Wait…wait!” He pushed her softly onto the bed and backed up a few steps. With a dry throat and quivering knees, he untucked his T-shirt then pulled it over his head. Whitney leaned onto her right elbow, raised her legs onto the bed, and made a gentle pat on the mattress, but Danny moved not a muscle.
She extended her hand and pulled him down next to her. He pushed Whitney onto her back and climbed on top of her, looking directly and intensely into her eyes. As he lowered himself and opened his mouth to kiss her, Jessica’s face once again flashed before his eyes. He stopped, rolled off her, and turned his head away, all a tremble.
“Danny…” she said, reaching up to feel his biceps and shoulders. “Danny, baby, you’re shaking.” She then noticed a tear running down his cheek and tenderly wrapped her arms around his neck. “Oh, baby. C’mere,” she consoled soothingly. She pulled him into her breast and slowly rocked him and comfortingly whispered, “Ssshhh… It’s okay now…ssshhh.”
Danny quietly wept into Whitney’s chest; his body heaved and lurched in breathless, confusing contradictions of mourning and desire. She stroked his hair and ran her fingertips across his back. Soon, he was fast asleep, safe and content in Whitney’s arms. Tonight, as the moon sailed across the sky, she would not let go.
GHOSTS FROM THE PAST
W ith newspaper in hand, Butch walked into Pokey’s diner a few minutes before 8 a.m. and again sat in the last booth with his back against the wall. The early morning sunshine bathed the table with excellent reading light. As he read, swirling steam from his cup of coffee rose into the sunbeam, casting transparent heat waves on the paper. After a while, he looked at his watch, curious as to when Danny and Whitney would make their appearance; half past eight. At around ten minutes to nine, he watched as Whitney’s faded white compact pickup pulled in and parked next to his truck. He peered over the rim of his reading glasses and watched as the newly formed couple joyfully bounced themselves to the restaurant entrance.
The front door swung open wide, giving the brass jingle bells a good jostling. Danny strutted in with his left arm slung across Whitney’s shoulders and her right arm wrapped around his waist. The gleeful pair were all smiles as they approached the table. He suddenly pulled away from her, bent over, and wiped out the bench. Bowing down, he extended his arm out to the seat and offered up his best rendition of Professor Henry Higgins, “Yo seet, m’ laideee.”
“Aaooohh!” Whitney replied with her finest interpretation of Eliza Doolittle. “Hau so vay thotful auv ya, gov’nah!”
With intentional, staggered bluntness, as the lovebirds joined him at the table, Butch mumbled, “I…am gonna…be…sick!”
“Yo!” Danny hollered over his right shoulder, holding his empty coffee cup high in the air. “Two coffees please!”
“Nice to see you made it in okay last night!” Butch commented, not taking his eyes from his paper.
The waitress almost immediately appeared at Danny’s side. “Two coffees please,” he calmly and politely requested.
“You wan’ those black, hon?”
“Two cream and two sugars,” he replied and turned to Whitney. “How ’bout you, doll?”
“Oh, just two creams and two sugars please. Just…like…you!” she gushed.
“No way!” he shockingly declared with a whip of his head.
“Way!” she replied, just as energetic, then grabbed his arm and yanked him closer for a kiss.
“So are you two crazy cats goin’ to the sock hop?” Butch interjected as the prepubescent adolescents bounced in their seats.
Danny finally acknowledged and greeted Butch. “Morning!” He then reached across the table and playfully slapped him on his left shoulder.
“Yes, a good morning indeed!” Butch replied sarcastically. The waitress reappeared and poured two fresh cups of coffee as he continued. “Miss Whitney, a pleasure to see you again! A good time was had by all with last night’s activities, I assume?”
“Oh, yeah!” they answered in unison as they opened each other’s sugar and creamers, entangling their arms.
Later, after the bulk of the breakfast had been downed, Butch reluctantly addressed the reason for which they came to town. “Okay!” he started. “Going by what Danny said is supposed to happen, I figure that if you’re in our headquarters at the time this is supposed to take place, then the so-called ‘magical spell’ will be broken. It ain’t gonna happen with forty troopers surrounding you.”
Whitney reached under the table and took Danny’s hand as the mood and tone of the moment suddenly shifted.
“You really think so?” Danny asked, not completely sold on the simplicity of the idea. “Something’s gotta happen, though, right? I’m not trying to contest your theory, but I think there’s gonna be more to this than what you and I bargained for.”
Butch looked into Whitney’s desperate eyes and confidently addressed her. “I think that at this time, right now…what we do will determine if what Danny has been saying will come true. What I have come to believe and understand over this past year and half is…you gotta have faith.”
Danny fought back a tear as Butch reached out and squeezed both of their hands.
“We gotta have faith. The one thing we need to focus on, of all there is in this world that’s good ’n bad, in the past, in the future, and all that there ever will be…is God. His love for us, and us for Him. That’s it! Out of love comes Faith. Faith is seeing—and believing in—what others say can’t be believed in or doesn’t exist. If we keep our faith and disprove this prediction, then whatever was making you see this, I think, will stop, because man can’t change or alter God’s plan and God doesn’t reveal his plans to man. So this? I think is about to stop…because it’s not from God. And I firmly believe that with having God by our side to see us through this, once it’s over and done, we’ll all start to live a whole new life!”
Danny raised his arm over Whitney’s right shoulder and tenderly squeezed her.
Butch released their hands and wiped his eyes before saying to Whitney, “You’ll be fine!”
Danny rolled up his sleeves as Butch, again, reviewed the plans for the day. “Now you got my cell number? Right?” he asked, concernedly.
“Yeah!” Danny confirmed, looking through his duffle bag for his charger. “I just need to charge up on the way!”
“Okay, again,” he restated, “we’ll go to my house first so we can drop off the trucks, then we’ll take my car to the station…and wait. Okay?”
In irritation, they both blasted, “Okay!”
Butch climbed into his truck and waited for Whitney to back up first. Danny searched through his duffle bag once more for his phone charger, but was unable to find it. With a prompting honk of Butch’s horn, Whitney pulled out of the park
ing lot as Danny, frustrated, hissed, “Forget it. I can’t find it!”
Butch pulled out behind them, loaded down with Danny’s belongings. Once he was a few blocks away from Pokey’s, Butch looked into his rearview mirror and watched as a Penguin Ice refrigerated truck pulled onto the road.
Dale followed a little more than a mile back, keeping Butch’s truck just in sight. “Brooke!” he called out, slapping and twisting the steering wheel. “Don’t you know I love you?” In his mind, he replayed the moment the gun went off, watching himself shoot Brooke over and over again. He never forgot the shocked and sorrowful look that hung on her face as the bright-red blood began to flow from the entry wound. “All I wanted was to be with you!” he shouted. “Why didn’t you shut up when I told you to? You just had to keep yelling! Had to keep pushing!” Memories of her decapitation still haunted him; the way she fell out of the door just as he collided with Tommy Lee’s car. “You never had faith in me! You never trusted me!” he screamed. He conjured up the faces and voices of his later victims; the way they pleadingly called his name, begging for mercy, just as Brooke did, before he raised his gun to snuff their young and promising lives.
Dale drove the same refrigerated truck when he killed his first Brooke look-alike near Alma in 1988, the second one in Athens in 1993, and Emory in 1999. It was easy for Dale to meet girls at the grocery stores, restaurants, bars, and hotels on his delivery route; he had his pick. He knew he still looked young enough to woo them and his body was always in peak condition from lifting the large bags of ice all day long. Between the muscles, the curly, jet-black hair and big hazel eyes, you’d be hard pressed to not notice him. The problem with getting to know Dale, unbeknownst to his victims, was his deep, hidden insatiable hunger to find a surrogate replacement for his lost love. Also a problem for Dale was his inability to forgive himself for what he had done and to accept the responsibility for his actions. Try as he might, he just couldn’t seem to find the inner strength to let go of Brooke, to forgive himself, or to ask God for forgiveness and seek help; he was too afraid, bitter, and selfish.
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