Chapter 65 – Another Man’s Woman
Saturday evening June 14, 2008 – 5:30 PM
After Newlan dropped Plante off at her car, he was at a complete loss as to what to do with his tormented soul, and so he found himself aimlessly cruising around suburbia in a foggy haze of depressed confusion. Yesterday’s music selection of Steely Dan was still loaded in the CD player, and when blasted at full volume, it had an almost narcotic affect on Newlan’s brain, ebbing and flowing like the ocean tide, until it began playing tricks with his mind.
Newlan was feeling more and more as if he were trapped in a bad dream; a dream from which he couldn’t seem to snap out of. And his sneaking suspicion that he had somehow been transported into the Twilight Zone was growing stronger by the minute.
Somewhere in between his unexpected involvement in the John Breslin murder trial and the sudden reappearance of Marianne Plante into his life, something in Newlan’s world had changed…for the worse. He was certain of it. And although he wasn’t quite sure of exactly what it was, he had a nagging hunch that something bad was going to happen…and soon.
However, after circling the Medford city limits so many times that he almost ran out of gas, Newlan’s spirit managed to lift him up just beyond that mythical point of no return, and he finally felt well enough to head on back to the solitude of his condo for an all night joint-smoking session.
But then, just as Newlan pulled into his parking spot, the soul-searching Steely Dan song “Any Major Dude Will Tell You” kicked in, and from the very first note of the uplifting tune, he decided that he absolutely could not, under any circumstances, leave the confines of his red Mercury Mystique until the song had played out in its entirety.
All kinds of crazy thoughts were running through Newlan’s mind as he sang along to Steely Dan lead singer Donald Fagen’s distinctive voice; the arcane lyrics, complete with tales of fighting off demons in a world where the pieces must break apart before they can ever begin to be picked up, never seemed to be speaking to him more than they were at that very moment, and he was choked with emotion as he recited the words back to himself in the privacy of his automobile.
Newlan was practically in tears by the time the second verse kicked in; apparently the emotional whirlwind which his life had devolved into was proving to be a bit too much for him to handle. And on top of everything else, the bittersweet spice of Marianne Plante’s bodily fluids still lingered on his tongue like an intoxicating elixir, once again reminding him of the mythic virgin, Hourii.
Newlan recalled coming across the ancient fable back in his freshman year of college while puttering around the library on a snowy winter’s day. He still vividly recalled the exact moment when the poignant words of the corollary poem came pouring out of his pen, as if it had a mind of its own, and even now it left him awestruck. He had always been curious as to what makes the creative juices of the mind flow. And furthermore, he had always been bewildered by the way that some of his crazier thoughts seemed to pop-up out of nowhere and land squarely in the center of his brain…and now as the distant memory of the tempestuous Hourii intensified, today was no different.
“How could I write such a haunting poem at such a young age?” marveled Newlan at his own ingenuity, and all these years later, he still didn’t have an answer. But he suspected that somehow he didn’t actually write any of the mystical poems which made up the majority of his collected works on his own. He suspected that somehow he had some unsolicited help in the matter. He suspected that somehow he just so happened to be the chosen one, randomly anointed to serve as an unwitting medium, haphazardly plucked out of the clouds and recruited to channel some great force beyond the sky.
“A taste of your forbidden fruit, a serum sticky sweet with truth…how else could a dumb punk-ass kid like me come up with something so deep? There surely had to be a supernatural legion of primordial sex-starved warriors influencing my every word,” contended Newlan, and he shivered at the very thought of it.
Newlan often contemplated on the peculiar doings of the little man that lived in the back of his head, and inevitably he would get himself all hung-up on what it was, exactly, that made him tick. And every time he found himself in one of these aberrant, existential moods, he’d invariably wind up with more questions than answers…and this time was no exception.
And as if Newlan’s mounting problems weren’t bad enough, when he got back up to his condo, he realized that he was just about out of weed, so he put in a desperate call to his best friend, Bruce Reardon, who also just so happened to be his local pot dealer as well.
Newlan addressed Reardon with a greeting which some might consider to be oddly nonsensical.
“Hey dude what’s up? I got a fifty dollar ticket that needs fixing. Can you help me out of a jam?”
However, the salutation made perfect sense to Reardon because it was he who had come up with the hidden precept behind the message that was being communicated to him in the first place. Ever since Reardon had gotten busted for possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, he wasn’t taking any chances; especially since he suspected that it was a so-called friend who had ratted him out.
Reardon trusted Newlan implicitly, but he unfailingly adhered to a strict protocol which stated that all phone orders must be specified in his own archaic version of the English language, and he made no exceptions for Newlan, or anyone else for that matter.
Therefore, Reardon was well aware of the fact that “a ticket” meant “a high”, and that the amount of the ticket signified how much weed was being requested. Conversely, Newlan was well aware of the fact that his request to be “helped out of a jam” would simply be answered with a “yes” if Reardon was holding, and a “no” if he was out of stock.
Luckily for Newlan, Reardon just so happened to be open for business on this most despondent of evenings, and so he hurriedly returned the Steely Dan CD back to its appropriate resting place on the shelf of his music closet, and he made another selection from the “S” section before rushing back out the door.
Newlan decided on the Supertramp CD “Crisis? What Crisis?” and as he started up the engine of his car, he felt surprisingly reinvigorated. Naturally, this optimistic energy led him to crank up the volume knob on his CD player, and he let the music wash over him as once again he kicked around the elusive meaning of life.
“Well at least the album title is appropriate. It pretty much sums up my life, that’s for sure. Crisis my ass…to paraphrase what Jim Morrison of The Doors once said, ‘I’m gonna have my fun before the whole fuckin’ shit-can craps out on me’.”
Newlan made quick work of the pipe full of weed which was all he had left in his possession, and as his craving for more reefer escalated, he made the drive up to Reardon’s house in record time.
Newlan was tooling along at 85 miles per hour, minding his own business and digging on the positive vibes that were blaring out of his speakers thanks to the Supertramp CD. However, his mood changed suddenly when, as he rounded the corner onto Reardon’s street, what would have been the last song on side “A” of the record album, “Another Man’s Woman” stopped him cold in his tracks.
“I knew there had to be a subconscious reason why I picked this CD. There’s always a fuckin’ message,” cursed Newlan, and with good reason as it turned out.
Newlan felt as if Supertramp’s co-lead singer and keyboardist Rick Davies lament about an adulterous man with a guilty conscience was preaching to him personally; and his directive couldn’t have been any clearer if it had been spelled out in huge red letters across the windshield of his car.
As Newlan rang Reardon’s doorbell, he was suddenly burdened with an overwhelming pang of guilt triggered by the delirious events of his day, and the moralistic Supertramp song wasn’t helping matters any.
Newlan tried like hell to maintain a positive exterior as he greeted Reardon’s wife and kids, but his lifelong friend wasn’t fooled for a second. Re
ardon sensed immediately that something was bugging Newlan, just by his facial expression and body language alone.
“Want a beer Frankie?” offered Reardon, and as he waited for a response, he closely monitored his old friend’s demeanor for any signs of abnormality.
“Is the Pope Catholic?” replied Newlan, which elicited a chuckle out of Reardon and assisted him in arriving at the conclusion that his lifelong pal was hanging tough; regardless of whatever it was that happened to be bothering his tortured soul this time around.
After a brief trip to the kitchen, Reardon handed Newlan an ice cold Corona garnished with a wedge of lime, while at the same time he sent out a global broadcast to his family for a few moments of uninterrupted privacy.
“Honey, me and Frankie are gonna go down to my office. We got some business to attend to…and I don’t want you kids bothering us.”
But regardless of the less than diplomatic order, as the old friends made their way down the rickety stairs which led to Reardon’s basement office, Newlan paranoid skepticism flared up, and he threw out an interfering, if well intentioned, inquiry in an attempt to kick-start the conversation.
“Dude, how much longer do you think it is gonna be before your kids figure out what you’ve been up to down here all these years?”
“They don’t have a clue,” Reardon chuckled confidently.
“Yeah but before you know it, they’ll be in high school…and you remember what we were like in high school, don’t you?” countered Newlan.
“Don’t ‘yeah but’ me Frankie…and besides, that’s where I have the advantage. Everything that they’re gonna go through in the next few years…well, I already know about it from real world experience, so nothing’s gonna catch me by surprise,” reasoned Reardon, and they both laughed heartily at the cold hard facts which were hidden somewhere deep within the truth of their words.
As the old pals longingly recalled their younger days, Reardon packed up a bong, took a hit and passed it off to Newlan while simultaneously rasping “check it out…it’s a new shipment…killer stuff brother.”
Not surprisingly, it didn’t take long before the effects of the ganja began to kick in, and Reardon decided it was high time that he broach the subject of his best friend’s attitude readjustment.
“So what’s going on Frankie? You seem a little edgy these days,” asked Reardon in a firm tone.
“Oh it’s nothing...I’m fine…just peachy,” protested Newlan, albeit rather waveringly.
“Come on dude…who are you kidding? I’ve known you for thirty years. You can’t shit a shitter. What, are you still fucked up over the trial?” pried Reardon.
“Yeah, I guess it’s still bugging me,” acknowledged Newlan. He didn’t even bother mentioning that he was as good as off the case, courtesy of Dr. Clay’s liberating note, but Reardon eyed him suspiciously anyway, and he submitted his own diagnosis.
“I’m not gonna meddle, but if you ask me, I got a funny feeling that there’s something more to it than that. But hey, we’re cool. As long as you know that if someone or something is bothering you, I got your back bro, then I’ll let it go. So don’t be shy, just pick up the phone if you need me to help out with anything at all.”
“Understood,” forcefully replied Newlan, but regardless of his pledge, he didn’t dare divulge the thorny details of the marathon sexual-healing session which he and the unhappily married Marianne Plante had been engaged in all afternoon.
Reardon stared Newlan down, but when his buddy didn’t crack, he called it a truce.
However, after a half hour of extended small talk, Reardon impulsively wrapped Newlan into bear hug and he sentimentally added an “I love you dude” to complete the tender aside.
Reardon wasn’t even sure why he went for the greeting card moment; but something in Newlan’s sad smile left him with an ominously sinking feeling that he might never see his old friend again, and so he wanted to say goodbye one last time, just in case.
For his part, Newlan somehow sensed Reardon’s unspoken concerns, but all he could manage in return was to smile sheepishly as he replied in kind with an “I love you too brother.”
And as the two grown men silently pondered the meaning of true friendship, it took every ounce of emotional strength that they could muster to fight back the tears which were welling up in their eyes.
By the time Newlan departed from Reardon’s house he was in a rather sentimental mood, and he was sufficiently stoned to boot, so he avoided the highway and took the back roads home, digging on the upbeat music of his youth while vivacious thoughts of the voluptuous Marianne Plante danced through his head like a cluster of x-rated sugar plums.
Newlan was still riding high when he pulled into the condo parking lot, and reciprocally, he was walking with an unsteady gait as he headed up towards the lobby.
The night doorman, Charlie, should have been on duty by now, but Newlan wasn’t all that surprised to find Saeed Kahn still manning the security desk, since it wasn’t unusual for him to pull a double-shift every now and then.
With the spooky hypnotizing incident from this morning still fresh on his mind, Newlan heedfully presented Kahn with a military salute, and he tentatively questioned him regarding his status for the evening,
“Are you working the night shift as well tonight, Saeed?”
“No, no, no, the night watchman Mr. Charlie, you see, he called in sick again. Always a new illness, you see, always at the last minute,” replied a frustrated Kahn in his rhythmic Middle Eastern cadence.
Newlan promptly picked up on Kahn’s angry modulations, and despite his wariness, he offered up a dollop of reassurance.
“Well, hopefully you’ll have a quiet night,” reckoned Newlan in a mildly encouraging tone. But Kahn shot him a dubious look in retaliation, as if to say he was a madman, and he countered in kind.
“Saturday night is never quiet Mr. Frank…the young, wealthy tenants, you see, always with their loud parties. Always disturbing their neighbors, you see…it never ends.”
Although Newlan himself had calmed down significantly in recent years, he had had his share of blowout parties since moving into the complex, so he realized that Kahn could just as well have been depicting him in his angry diatribe, and as such he made a hasty exit stage-left while at the same time leaving the combustible doorman with some positive parting words.
“Anyway, have a good night and I hope you can sneak in a nap later on,” proclaimed Newlan. And even though his adieu was rather cheerful, his tone was nevertheless guarded.
But just the same, Kahn waved him off with a look that could have killed a charging attack dog, and as Newlan made his way towards the elevator and hit the Up button, his not-so-neighborly concierge continued to ramble on, incoherently, into the night.
“Yes, yes, yes, you see, we will all be sleeping comfortably by morning…in everlasting peace for some, you see, or everlasting fire for others,” predicted Kahn; but it was all psychobabble as far as Newlan was concerned.
“What the hell did he mean by that?” wondered a momentarily puzzled and equally startled Newlan. However, as he stepped onto the elevator, he cursorily brushed off Kahn’s cryptic paean and attributed his jumble of mixed metaphors to a lack of experience in speaking the English language.
And yet, although the language barrier which stood between the two men had been cause for an occasional honest slip of the tongue over the years, by all rights, Newlan’s cautionary radar should have kicked in nonetheless; but instead, his internal vision was blunted by Kahn’s otherworldly force-field.
Kahn’s unusually strange behavior of late, when combined with Newlan’s own bizarre dreams, should have been more than enough to put him on a flashing red-alert. But of course, he had other things on his mind these days, and besides, as of yet, he still held no concrete reason to believe that Kahn was a threat to anyone, never mind society in general, despite his odd deportment of recent days.
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br /> In any event, regardless of Kahn’s boorish behavior, at the moment Newlan was just thankful that he had managed to slip past the bombastic doorman without further incident, and he happily made his way back up to his condo for a little bit of R & R after this most eventful of days.
But first things first, as soon as Newlan stepped foot in the door, he headed straight for the phone and anxiously checked his messages for signs of a concrete clue that this blissful day spent in the company of the only woman he ever loved wasn’t an utter mirage He wasn’t even sure whether he wanted to see a message from Marianne Plante blinking on his answering machine…but the debate lingered on in his mind anyway.
As it turned out, there were no messages from Plante waiting for Newlan on the other end of the line, and furthermore, he had no idea of exactly what it was that he was hoping for her to say, if and when she did call again. But in the final analysis, her state of incommunicado, without a doubt, disappointed him, and in many ways his knee-jerk reaction answered his own question regarding his long-term expectations.
Instead of Plante’s desirous voice, the only message currently stored on Newlan’s digital tape recorder was from his sister Rose who was wondering how he had made out in court the next day, after his unplanned sleepover and his frightening nightmare episode which woke her up in the middle of the night.
Newlan made a mental note to call his sister later as he cracked open a beer and turned on the TV. But within an hour he was bored to tears with all the crap that was being passed off as entertainment these days, so he hunkered down on his laptop instead.
It took a while, but Newlan managed to get caught up on the majority of his tedious, work-related emails, and with his professional obligations fulfilled for the time being, he inexplicably found himself absentmindedly surfing the web for random details related to Fred Miller’s murder.
Astonishingly enough, and despite the fact that in Dr. Clay’s letter he had a surefire token off the case, Newlan still couldn’t get the trial out of his mind…and so, for whatever reason, he found himself desperately searching for ways to put a modicum of closure on the case, one way or another.
In some regards, Newlan wanted off the trial so badly that it caused his entire persona to ache like an amorous craving for Marianne Plante’s exquisite body…but in other regards, he just couldn’t let it go. In some regards, finding himself being arbitrarily assigned to the case was like finding himself staring at a wreck on the highway, in that he just couldn’t look away, no matter how hard he tried. After all, he had to look back. He always looked back. But in other regards, he was ashamed and disappointed in himself for taking the easy way out of the latest in his endless array of emotional traffic jams; regardless of the fact that by being asked to serve on the trial he found himself stuck in the mud of a monumental disturbance which was clogging up his mind like nothing else had ever done before.
“The Big Guy upstairs must have wanted me to be on this case…so who am I to walk away from my appointed rounds,” unsteadily concluded a conflicted Newlan as he racked his brain with indecision.
“Someone killed Miller…”postulated Newlan as he continued on with his internet search in spite of himself. “…and if Breslin didn’t do it, then who the hell else could it have been?”
Newlan thoughtfully considered all of the innuendos that Gleason had been tossing out at the jury, and he wondered whether the renowned defense attorney was merely trying to distract them, or whether he really did have a concealed reserve of surprise evidence, waiting in the wings, which might exculpate Breslin.
“Well, at the very least, he had better produce a few witnesses who can poke a couple of holes in DA Lyons’ theories,” figured Newlan…and at that moment, for the first time, the reality of the situation finally sunk in. For better or worse, he was going to miss out on the inevitable fireworks which were bound to take place once the defense began presenting its side of the story, and he wasn’t quite sure whether to be happy or sad about his pending departure from the trial.
But regardless of the part that he may or may not end up playing in the case, Newlan obsessively sifted through every internet story he could find regarding the Breslin saga, and just about every one of them included comments from Breslin’s ex-wife, Tracy Stone. And so, naturally, Newlan’s mind began to drift in Stone’s direction…and when it finally settled into a revealing contemplation, the similarities between her tale and Marianne Plante’s woes became ever so apparent to him. The correlations were in fact so strong, that as he pieced together the puzzle which was beginning to take shape between him and Plante, their inevitable encounter suddenly seemed as if it might turn into a frighteningly familiar brush with fate.
As Newlan pondered what he had just gotten himself into, the tragic ending to Fred Miller’s life wasn’t lost on him, not for a minute. But despite his fears, he was helpless to stop the momentum of the train which was barreling down the tracks, headed straight for him; the allure of Marianne Plante was much too strong for him to turn back now, regardless of the consequences.
Newlan was being drawn into a dangerous trap whether he liked it or not, with Marianne Plante serving as the unsuspecting bait…and as he reflected back on their incredible day of lovemaking, he came to a monumental decision; he resolved right then and there that he wanted her back in his life, once and for all, come hell or high-water.
“Damn the torpedoes. I’ll do anything for a chance to be with her. I’m never gonna wave that white flag, no matter what the fuck what happens,” muttered Newlan…and with his uncanny recall of song lyrics spontaneously springing into action, it’s not surprising that as soon as the words ‘white flag’ left his lips, he instantaneously remembered Tracy Stone’s reference to the Dido song.
Newlan had become vaguely familiar with Dido’s signature hit song “Thank You” when a few years back he read a story in Rolling Stone magazine which detailed how the tune had been sampled into a chartbusting rap by the white hip-hop artist, Eminem, about an obsessed fan called “Stan”. However, he had never even heard of the song “White Flag” until Tracy Stone just so happened to mention the pensive ballad during her blockbuster testimony.
But with the song’s title, which was neatly written on Stone’s postcard to Fred Miller, subliminally planted in Newlan’s mind, his curiosity got the better of him. He punched up Google, and within seconds, courtesy of YouTube, the Dido tune “White Flag” came wafting out of the cheap speakers on his laptop, while he followed along as the words took over his very consciousness.
And from the very first note, the song rang so true that it was almost painful for Newlan to listen to. But listen he did, over and over and over again, until he was literally and figuratively spent.
The opening verse of the tune, about professing your true feelings to an old lover, cut so deeply into Newlan’s mortality that it left him feeling obliged to dissect and analyze every single line of the song in a futile attempt to infiltrate the secret world of Tracy Stone and Fred Miller. He was hoping-against-hope that somehow he could penetrate into Stone’s thoughts before the badgering abuse of the song’s harmonic structure reached the point where the cunning temptress was disturbing his every waking moment. He was praying-against-prayer that somehow he could crack into Miller’s mind before the harrying assault of the hymn’s melodic tones extended beyond the point where the doppelganger dead man was plaguing his every sleeping hour.
Newlan could almost touch Tracy Stone’s torment as Dido lamented her own loss while at the same time she sang of coming to the realization that sometimes you just can’t go back when it only means hurting the one you left behind.
Newlan could almost taste Fred Miller’s pain as Dido’s voice overran his very being with her imagery of sinking ships and white flags juxtaposed against the instinctive inclination to never give up when it comes to love everlasting.
Newlan pounded a clenched fist on his office desk as he tried in vain to exorcise
the demons which were creeping up through his very soul as Dido confessed to leaving behind a wake of desolation, all of her own making.
Newlan’s heart almost broke in two as he sat there and listened to Dido sing of reunions, of words and feelings left unspoken, of biting your tongue and being the better person so as to not hurt your ex’s pride, and of moving on when all the while you know that something is still there.
“No, I can’t let it go anymore. I tried to move on once, but I can’t live without you Marianne. I swear I’m ready to die for you,” wailed Newlan, almost unaware that he was sitting in an empty room.
Newlan must have diligently listened to the brooding song at least fifty times before he finally popped a handful of Lorazepam and put himself to bed with an aching in his heart.
Almost immediately, Newlan fell into a drug-induced stupor, skipping the 4 stages of slumber and instantly advancing directly to “rapid eye movement” sleep (or REM as it is commonly referred to), where his tireless mind continued to work overtime in his dreams.
Newlan imagined that he was seated at a table on board a luxury bus, accompanied by Marianne Plante, Tracy Stone, and Fred Miller, and driving the bus was none other than Saeed Kahn and his co-pilot Mr. John Breslin.
The pairing of regal couples were happily sipping on a quartet of expensive crystal glasses filled to the rim with Dom Perignon, and the women were absolutely glowing over their good fortune, while their dates were engaged in a riveting discussion regarding the many Grateful Dead concerts that they had attended over the years. And as Miller ticked off the list of shows he had seen, Newlan gleefully replied, “I was at that one too.”
The two men were rapidly becoming fast friends, sharing not only a love of weed, wine and women, but also of a happy-go-lucky attitude and a “devil may care” lifestyle as well. And furthermore, they were bound and determined to enjoy every last minute of the ride for as long as it lasted.
“You got a good woman there Newlan,” slurred a drunken Miller.
“You too,” replied an equally inebriated Newlan as they laughed hysterically and clinked their wine glasses.
“Fuck their husbands. They don’t deserve these fine ladies,” roared Miller with a look of contempt in his eyes. He then turned towards the driver’s cabin and boasted his regards.
“You heard me Breslin. And if you have any problems with what I’ve got to say, then let’s step outside and settle our differences man-to-man. You know I’ll kick your ass, you piece of shit coward.”
Meanwhile, an emotionless Breslin stared straight ahead, just as he had done throughout the trial, while and equally silent Kahn looked on. The lack of response from their rivals prompted Miller and Newlan to foolishly let their guard down, and they proceeded to chug down another bellyful of champagne. Clearly, they were having a good old time for themselves, but then the bus suddenly slowed down to a stop, as did their revelry.
Newlan peered out the side window of the bus and he was perplexed to discover that they had pulled into the indoor garage of his very own condo complex. A confused Newlan then took a look around for a second time, this time from out of the back window, and he took note of the fact that the rear end of the bus had completely entered the interior of the garage. A stunned Newlan gazed outside for a third time, this time from out of the front windshield, and he observed the engine of the bus rumbling like a ticking time bomb.
“What the hell’s going on here? What are we doing in the garage?” demanded a tense Newlan.
And in return, Kahn turned a dark eye towards Newlan as he coldly replied, “The bus stops here for you and your friends Mr. Frank. As a matter of fact your life stops here Mr. Frank.”
As Kahn spoke his damning words, the luxurious bus magically transformed itself into a moving van, and the table was reshaped into a row of cardboard boxes. In the blink of an eye, Newlan and the others found themselves chained to the walls of the truck, struggling to escape. But alas, there is no escaping when the master of disaster rules the day.
Newlan blinked once and when he opened his eyes he was forced to watch in horror as John Breslin held a shotgun to Fred Miller’s head and blew him away.
Newlan blinked twice and he was forced to watch in anguish as Tracy Stone and Marianne Plante were melted into nothingness by Breslin’s larger-than-life musket.
Newlan blinked a third time and with the flick of a switch from Kahn’s explosive remote-controlled device, he was engulfed in a ball of fire while at the same time chunks of brick and mortar began collapsing all around him, blinding him in the process.
Newlan blinked repeatedly and when his vision was finally restored, standing before him in the midst of the flames was the devil; the devil himself in the form of a snake-like Saeed Kahn, laughing his sinister laugh as he hissed venom in Newlan’s face.
Newlan’s eyelids were stuck, wide-open, and he was frozen with fear, as he watched in horror while Kahn’s face morphed into that of the rage-filled, murderous man who had been permeating his dreams ever since he was a child; a face as old as time; a face which every man, woman and child is destine to confront at one time or another; a face which could only be described as…death itself.
From the Eyes of a Juror Page 78