"Has to do with being raised by good, honest southern folks or something, I think," I said as I moved in to kiss her again. We had one more romp under the sheets and shortly after we were both sleeping soundly.
CHAPTER 16
I woke up smelling bacon. And this might sound a little on the white trash side, but that's got to be one of the best things in the world. I stood up, threw on a pair of shorts and headed into the kitchen where Jess was in the middle of preparing breakfast. Eggs, toast, OJ, bacon, and Jess in a T-shirt and a pair of short shorts that got me staring.
She turned around and said, "Well good morning sleepy."
"Morning." I walked over to her, put my arms around her and moved my hands up under her shirt.
She grabbed my hands just before I hit the jackpot and said, "Settle down until we finish with breakfast, then you can go about trying to molest me. You're going to need your energy if you expect to handle a woman like me."
She laughed and the sun from the window lit up her face. We talked over breakfast and didn't start messing around again, because after we got into the bedroom and onto the bed again we were both back asleep within minutes.
Luckily, we only slept for about an hour. Most of the time when I sleep for too long I feel like complete hell for the rest of the day. I rolled out of bed and went to wash up. Jess woke up shortly after me and surprised me by joining me in the shower. That's when the making out started again.
We dried off and spent the rest of the day hanging out around the house. We watched a little TV, cleaned up here and there. By about six PM we were both getting restless and decided to head down to The Cavalier for some food. This day had been nothing but sleeping, eating and fucking, and I was just fine with that.
We walked past The Shaft and I noticed that a KISS cover band was going to be performing later in the evening. Excellent. There was no better way to bring out Jefferson's finest rednecks than a KISS cover band.
The front door was open, so I asked Jess to step inside with me to find out how much tickets cost. I guess that doesn't say much for me, but hell, I still remember buying my first record at Kmart when I was four or five years old. KISS: Alive 2. I was hooked on them from that point on, and I remember crying one morning in first grade when Mom wouldn't let me wear KISS make-up to school. I remember crying again as a young boy when the members of the band stripped off their makeup. It felt like someone had sucked some of the magic out of the world. The super hero band didn't really have any supernatural powers, and Gene Simmons wasn't a demon from hell after all. What a bummer.
As soon as you took a single step inside The Shaft, the smell would slap you in the face; cigarettes, vomit, alcohol and piss, not necessarily in that order. The Shaft always did its best to be as trashy as possible. The ceiling was about twenty feet high, and on nights when the club was packed there would be a thick cloud of smoke that would prevent you from seeing the mirrored ceiling.
The entire ceiling was made up of enormous mirrors, each panel extending twelve feet in each direction. I was always a little nervous that one of the heavy sheets might one day come loose and kill me in the crowd at a show. It was one of the least dignified deaths I could imagine.
Shameless men used the giant mirrors to their advantage. You could always tell which guys were getting desperate, because their heads would be cocked toward the sky to get a look down the ladies' shirts. Jess would be a dream-come-true for those fellows.
There was a rough-looking woman working the counter. She had her face buried deep in an issue of Cosmo. The magazine was giving off the scent of at least four different perfumes, and it wasn't mixing well with The Shaft's infamous aroma.
"How much are tickets for the KISS show?" I asked her.
"It ain't KISS," she responded without looking up from the Cosmo. "It's a bunch of jokers playing KISS tunes in dime-store costumes."
"Well, yeah, but how much are tickets?"
"Too god-damned much if you ask me, especially for a grown man to pay." She lifted her eyes to mine long enough to make sure her insult had made an impact, and went right back to her reading. Needless to say, this old hag wasn't in the running for salesperson of the year.
"The tickets are for my nephew and his friend." I was lying in hopes of getting an answer out of her.
She looked up at me and rolled her eyes to make it clear that she hadn't bought my line.
"Tickets are twenty-five dollars apiece, which is too damned much for this sort of nonsense."
I thanked her and walked away. I could hear her grumbling something more about "that god-damned nonsense" as Jess and I made our exit. The grumpy old lady was right about the price being ridiculous, as it was about twenty dollars more than I'd ever pay for a cover band.
"Good grief!" said Jess when we were out of the hag's earshot. "That woman was horrible! Has she always been that way?"
"Actually, I've never seen her there before. But I'll tell you, she makes the bitch she replaced seem like a saint, and that's no easy task."
We were still laughing as we walked into The Cavalier. Bart nodded and got to pouring our sweet teas. As we made our way toward a booth a familiar voice called to us. It was Sergeant Matheson, who seemed to have good taste in dining.
"Need to talk to ya'll," said Matheson.
"Yeah?" I said, "What's going on? Any word on Alicia?"
"I got nothing new on that. But that fellow Jeff's done busted himself out of the joint last night and we haven't been able to find a trace of him since. It's like he just went up in smoke. I was going to be giving you two a call when I got back to the station."
My stomach sank and my heart soured to find that my nightmare had been given new life. The vacation was over.
"Should we be nervous?" Jessica asked, a look of shock on her face. It was a stupid question.
"I don't know if I'd go that far. There's a ninety-five percent chance he's fled the area. Most of these guys want to get as far away from their cells as their legs will take 'em. Just keep your doors locked and your weapons loaded and I think you'll do just fine. But let me tell you, this is one odd case. Ain't used to no one being able to get away from me for long. I mean, hell, we get a prison break every now and then, but they always take off into them woods behind the jail and end up running in circles 'til we nab 'em. This fellow's been on the loose for close to twenty-four hours and we haven't come up with a damned thing. We combed the woods and then called in the dogs. Funny thing though, the dogs didn't want nothing to do with it. We basically had to drag 'em kicking the whole way, and these dogs are trained to be tough as bricks. I don't know what the hell's going on, but I sure don't like it."
"Well, I appreciate the heads-up. Let me know if you guys catch him so we can relax a little. We'll definitely give you a yell if we see him around anywhere," I said. I felt like I could vomit.
"Thank you much. We're gonna keep this one on the down low for another twenty-four hours. Can't stand dealing with them media bastards. Hell, I can't even stand to watch 'em on the tube anymore. Seems like every night at six they give you something new to worry about 'til you go to bed. And it's some dumb shit too, like deadly pool drains drowning kids, or how burning a candle at night might burn down the entire state of Virginia."
I nodded agreement. I liked Matheson more every time I spoke to him. I wished I could tell him what he was up against and know he'd believe me.
"Oh, and that ex-girlfriend of yours apartment is set to be cleared out later this week. The owner wants to get someone in there since she ain't paying the rent. So you might want to go up there and grab anything of yours," said Sergeant Matheson.
"Damn, they don't wait long do they?" I said.
"Not when there's money to be lost they don't."
"Well, there's nothing of mine there anyway. At least nothing that matters much now. But what will they do with her things?"
"They're actually doing good by her and throwing her stuff in storage for a month or two in case she turns up. Then I
guess they'll toss it or sell it if her relatives don't want it. Who knows?"
"Have you tried calling Alicia's sister?"
"Yeah, we've been in touch with her, but she's too broken up about the disappearance to deal with it right now. She could hardly talk on the phone for cryin'. I told her to get in touch with me when she feels able."
We said our goodbyes, and Jess and I went and sat at our table and ate in silence. I should've known my fine mood and good luck couldn't last forever. Hell, it didn't even last a month. That's not at all what life had in store for me, and unfortunately anyone who came to care about me caught a little of my bad luck like a virus.
Over the course of the meal, the black cloud that had settled above us started to dissipate a little and we found our voices again. I asked Bart to bring us a couple cups of hot chocolate, feeling no desire to head home. A few customers had wandered in while we were finishing our food and poor old Bart was doing his damnedest to keep up with everyone. I saw that he had set our drinks on the counter so I got up and walked to the bar to save him the trip to our table.
As I picked up the hot cups I noticed a pair of stocky, five-foot tall grungy fellows in flannel shirts staring at Jess and laughing. They looked like ambassadors sent to visit from the nation of Whitetrashonia. They were pissing me off, but I managed to keep my cool for Jess' sake. She looked over at me with an expression of mock sympathy for the guys and shrugged her shoulders. The flannel-clad morons kept laughing, and their laughter was more about the rapid up and down bouncing of their shoulders than an actual sound. There weren't enough teeth between the two of them to make one decent-looking mouth, and the ones that hadn't yet rotted out of their faces were yellow and brown and the size of pinto beans.
I heard one of them mutter the word "titties" under his breath as the giggling continued. These poor souls were acting like they hadn't seen a woman in ten years, and from the look of things I'd say that the last lady either of them laid the ol' pipe to shared their last name, and I don't mean by marriage. It was best they stay away from females in general, because god forbid either of them should pump out any mutated offspring.
I thought about grabbing the guy closest to me and slamming his face down into the bar, but somehow the situation was funnier than it was annoying. So I let them carry on as I carried the hot chocolate back to our table. Jess was laughing and I was having a good deal of trouble keeping a straight face. At one point I lost my composure and came close to spitting a mouthful of my drink across the table.
That's when one of the inbreds crossed the line. He grabbed his crotch with one of his fat, stubby hands and started gesturing at Jess with his tongue. The fat-ass beside him, who was probably his brother, laughed and patted him on the back as if to say, "good one, Jethro." I stood up to go teach them some manners but Jess grabbed my arm.
"Let's just leave," she said. "No need to get into it with these dickheads." Her eyes were pleading with me.
I laid some cash on the table, took her hand and headed for the door. I kept my eyes averted from the giggling bastards at the bar to avoid getting any angrier. I wanted nothing more than to walk over and split their heads open to shut them up, but it wasn't worth upsetting Jess who'd already seen her fair share of rough times lately. Personally, I feel it's every man's duty to correct assholes like those two by whatever means necessary. Otherwise they'll never learn.
The door opened as I grabbed the handle, so I stepped back to let whoever was coming in go by.
"Hey there, neighbor!" said the scrawny fellow who had just entered. His greeting was dripping with enthusiasm, but it took me a few seconds before I could figure out who he was. He was Nate Smith, my geekiest neighbor.
"Hey Mister Smith, good to see you," I said with a lot more excitement in my voice than was in my heart. The jerks behind me were still being obnoxious and I was wondering if they ever took time to breathe. One of them had two fingers up in a 'V' shape and was working his pink slug tongue between them. He and his look alike were still bouncing with laughter.
"Call me Nate," he said. Nate had a look on his face like he just bit into a cheeseburger to find three quarters of a spider trying to get the hell out of harm's way.
"Would you mind holding these?" he asked me after removing his glasses from his face. I took them from him wondering what in the hell he was going to do.
Now Nate was about as nerdy looking as a guy could be without a Nintendo tattoo. From his pocket protector full of pens to his old-fashioned wire rim glasses, this guy was pure-bred geek. He stood a few inches less than six feet and was thin as a rail. Mousey brown hair stood up on one side of his head and lay flat on the other as if he were attempting two hairstyles at once and failing at both.
So you can imagine how surprised I was when he walked over to the asshole twins, grabbed the one closest to us by the arm and gave it a good twist, sending the big bastard to the floor with a thud. Nate backed up a little as the other brother moved in on him. The flannel-clad moron threw a clumsy right fist toward Nate's head, but Nate dodged left, grabbed his wrist and slung the brute forward onto his knees. Nate held onto the wrist and pinned the guy's arm behind his back. I could tell it hurt a great deal from the expression on the downed man's face. Nate spent a few seconds punching him in the head with his free hand, the whole time talking to the guy about using manners when in the presence of a lady.
I was beginning to think that Nate Smith was Jefferson's answer to Batman, when the first fellow he'd sent down rose up in a flash and gave Nate a good punch to the back of the head. Nate dropped to the floor like an overweight rock, and I immediately handed his glasses to Jess and darted forward to help him. Nate lost his grip on the brother he had pinned when the blow landed on his nugget. The downed brother tried to get up, but I kicked him in the chin, sending a good deal of blood spraying from his mouth. Then I moved on to the fellow who'd landed the sucker punch. Before he could make a move I landed a hard right punch to his face that sent a couple of brown teeth tumbling to the floor. I almost felt bad about that, because this guy couldn't afford to lose any more of his chompers. The way things looked, it was going to be nothing but yogurt and applesauce for him from here on out.
Bart had ignored his customers to watch the whole mess from behind the bar. He had a huge grin on his face and threw me a thumbs-up while nodding his head. Then he walked over and helped me drag the wonder twins outside where we deposited them in a heap on the sidewalk. One of the twins managed to get a few words out from between his swollen, bloody lips.
"We gon' get ya'll boys. Nobody fucks wit' da Sneepy brothers and gets away wit' it."
I exploded into laughter at hearing this, and Bart soon joined in with me. This did nothing toward improving the temperament of the one Sneepy twin who wasn't having trouble staying conscious. His fat face became a snarl.
"We gon' laugh last ya'll muthafuckas. Nobody gets da best of da Sneepy brothers! Nobody!"
That gem caused Bart and me to double over laughing. I noticed that our uproar was causing passing traffic to slow down to see what the hell was so funny.
After managing to compose myself I said, "How about this: If I ever see you, your disgusting hillbilly brother, or any other member of the mighty inbred Sneepy clan here again, I will personally knock the rest of those shit-covered raisins you call teeth out of your heads and make your brother here eat them. You got that?"
He didn't respond, but I felt good and confident that he got the gist of what I was saying, and that was good enough for me. Bart and I went back inside laughing and helped Nate to his feet.
"My head hurts something terrible," said Nate, stroking his sore spot with his left hand. He seemed to be having trouble getting his eyes to focus.
"It's no wonder," said Jessica from behind me, "I thought you were dead when that shot landed. It sounded like someone throwing a melon at a wall."
"I might be better off dead, judging by how I'm feeling right now," said Nate. "I got clumsy. Forgot all about that
son of a bitch behind me."
"I would've helped out sooner if I'd thought you didn't have things under control," I said. "You looked to be doing pretty damned well on your own there for a minute. Well, for what it's worth, the good guys definitely won."
Nate smiled and nodded my way, and then cringed a little. He kept his head good and still from that point on. The rest of the customers in the place were staring at us. Most seemed amused by what had happened, but a few seemed uncomfortable and nervous. Those folks wouldn't make eye contact with me. Nate put his glasses on and Bart went back to helping his customers. Other than a little blood and a couple of teeth on the floor there wasn't much physical evidence that the tussle took place at all. But I came away with a whole new respect for Nate, who was nothing like the person I'd assumed him to be. We exchanged phone numbers before leaving The Cavalier and I found myself looking forward to seeing him again sometime.
Out on the sidewalk, a couple of cops were telling the two fellows Nate and I had beaten up to move along. Apparently, they were loitering.
CHAPTER 17
I spent the next week with my stomach in knots. I had stopped sleeping at night so that I could stay on guard in case we were attacked again. I would fall asleep at dawn and stumble into work around noon. By the time I got off the sun was low in the sky.
I wasn't seeing Jess as often as I'd like, mainly because we were on opposite schedules. When we did find some time together it was great. She was the only thing in the world that could take my mind off of the werewolves. Jess and I spent our time together doing the stuff we had come to love, most of which involved being lazy and having sex, not necessarily in that order.
Andy Deane Page 10