From the Eyes of a Juror

by Frank Terranova

  Chapter 72 – I’ve Got a Feeling…Somebody’s Watching Me

  Monday evening June 16, 2008 – 8:00 PM

  Marianne Plante didn’t know quite what to make of her habitually surly husband Tom Willis’s suddenly placid behavior…and it was beginning to worry her. The fact that he was his usual gloomy self was nothing new, but conversely, he was also keeping a peculiarly low-profile which was totally out of character for him, and on top of that, as an added twist to his mysterious demeanor, he was suspiciously eyeballing her every move as she made a halfhearted attempt to clean the house.

  The children were attending a sleepover at the home of one of their classmates, so the Willis’s had the place to themselves, which in happier times would have led to a romping chase around the house until they were both naked on the floor. But alas, these were not happy times in the marriage of Marianne Plante and Tom Willis.

  For better or worse, Plante always understood exactly where she stood with her husband; whether it was his incessant complaints aimed at her lack of cooking skills, her lack of cleaning skills, or her lack of lovemaking skills, he was always unceasingly vocal with his criticisms, so this sudden turn of events was totally baffling to her.

  Under normal circumstances Plante would have relished the respite from the verbal abuse which her husband dished out in measured doses on a regular basis. However, the state of affairs in Plante’s life was anything but normal these days, and so the cold-shoulder treatment gave her serious pause for concern.

  Plante wasn’t altogether certain whether it was merely her guilty conscience, or whether it was her woman’s intuition, but something told her that her husband’s distrusting nature had somehow been aroused; something told her that his radar had picked up on an unfaithful vibe pulsing from her morally deficient scruples; something told her that he could see right through her, right into her very soul, and she was absolutely terrified by what he might discover, or even worse, what he might have already discovered.

  Yes, Marianne Plante’s heart was being emotionally undressed alright; emotionally undressed in broad daylight; emotionally undressed in plain sight, and in more ways than one. In some ways, Plante felt as if her husband had donned a pair of powerful x-ray glasses which left nothing to the imagination. And in that same vein, in other ways, she felt as if her inner most secrets had been stolen from her cerebrum; snatched up and put on display for public dissemination; put out on display for all the world to see.

  And furthermore, Plante was scared to death of the implications the she was drawing from her perceived vulnerabilities and the tragic consequences that they might set into motion.

  “What’s wrong Tommy? Please, talk to me,” pleaded Plante until she was blue in the face, while at the same time her husband lay sprawled out on the sofa, indifferently balancing a can of beer on his belly as he watched the Red Sox take on the Philadelphia Phillies in interleague play.

  But for Tom Willis however, passiveness was not a natural condition, and so it was only a matter of time before his wife’s pitiful pleas managed to light his combustible fuse.

  “Can’t you see that I’m watching the game? So please, just leave me the fuck alone,” demanded Willis in a tone that bordered on violent; in a tone that bordered on a man who was a ticking time bomb; in a tone that bordered on a man who was just about ready to explode.

  “Please, Tommy I’m begging you. We need to talk. Can’t you see that I’m falling apart? We need to fix things or else we might as well split up. We can’t live this way anymore. It’s not good for either one of us. It’s not good for the kids. Please Tommy help me, I feel so dead inside,” wailed Plante in a raised tone of her own that was gut-wrenching in its despair.

  But despite his wife’s tearful lament, Tom Willis continued to stare stoically into the TV set, and his long, chiseled face showed no signs of emotion; his impassive, deadpanned face revealed not a clue as to what he was really thinking inside that evil head of his, which mercifully was just as well for the sake of Marianne Plante’s tenuous sanity.

  However, as is our duty, we are compelled to let you, the dear reader, in on exactly what Tom Willis was thinking in regards to his “dead inside” housewife. At that moment, what Tom Willis was really thinking was this; “never mind feeling dead inside, you just might be feeling dead on the outside pretty soon, you fuckin’ bitch. You and that asshole boyfriend of yours…whoever the fuck he is.”

  As was made clear by his ruthless thoughts, at this hour, Willis was still unaware of Frank Newlan’s identity, and he was just dying to find out; at this hour, Willis was impatiently marking his time until his hired hand, Private Detective Brent Blain, got back to him with the much anticipated vital information regarding the sleaze-ball who had despoiled his prized possession; the classless act who had deflowered his private garden; the no good piece of shit who had stolen his personal property; a piece of property which, mind you, he rightfully and legally owned.

  You see, as far as Tom Willis was concerned, his wife was much like an ornament that he, and only he, was allowed to make use of for his own decorative purposes; for his own personal pleasure. And the fact that another man was somehow able to break the chains of abuse which he had always wielded so masterfully in controlling her spirits was killing him inside; and he wasn’t about to take it lying down.

  Meanwhile, although Willis was tempestuously glaring at his wife and silently contemplating his hostile plan of action, she, on the other hand, continued to appeal for some sort of resolution to their unruly stalemate.

  “Please Tommy please, you’re freaking me out. Please say something, anything, please,” implored Plante, until finally Willis had had enough, and he blew up like a nuclear reaction run amok.

  “You want me to say something do you? Well you should have thought of that before, before, before…” roared Willis. But in spite of his infamous temper, he caught himself just as he was about to say, “…before you shacked up with that fuckin’ Casanova, who’s as good as dead, by the way.”

  “Before what…before what…please tell me, before what,” pressed on Plante. But her husband wasn’t about to divulge what was on his mind, at least not yet anyway. Instead, Tom Willis sprang up from the sofa, and like a madman he howled, “Before you started acting like a fuckin’ whore.”

  Willis’s accusation stung Plante more than all of the humiliating insults he had ever hurled on her combined, and now that the gauntlet had been thrown down, she had a dire decision to make; confront her husband once and for all or back down forever.

  And so, regardless of her equally imprudent indiscretions, Marianne Plante at long last decided that no one, not even a rabid animal, deserved to be treated this way.

  Despite her fears, Plante got up into her husband’s face, and with the help of a seething rage which seemingly came bounding up from out of nowhere, she was ready to give him a good solid piece of her mind. However, before she could say so much as a single word, Willis slapped her to the ground and let loose with the vilest stream of insults imaginable. And then, to add insult to injury, he just left her there where she lay, balled up on the floor, as he pulled on his jacket and headed out the door in a huff.

  “Where the fuck do you think you’re going, you asshole? You’re a fuckin’ coward,” defiantly whimpered Plante as her husband’s Infiniti coupe took off like a rocket propelled grenade and left a cloud of dust lingering in the driveway.

  It took a standing eight count before Plante was able to lift herself, physically and emotionally, up off the proverbial mat, but she eventually regained her composure, and when she did, her first thought was to call on Frank Newlan.

  But unlike her indecisive days of yore, this time Plante acted immediately on her initial impulse, and as the telephone rang in unit 630 of the Medford River Park Condominiums, as the caller ID announced the party on the other end of the line, Frank Newlan stiffened with an alarming mixture of foreboding apprehension and decade
nt delight.

  Newlan was becoming increasingly unsure of what he might be getting himself into, but he desperately needed to hear Plante’s voice just the same; for on the one hand, Newlan loved Marianne Plante. He loved her unconditionally. He loved her with every beat of his aching heart. He loved her from somewhere deep within the breadth of his being. But on the other hand, the fact remained that she was now a married woman. And if he had previously doubted the ever-present danger that this virally-induced strain of a clandestine arrangement might present, then the Breslin trial was a much needed dose of reality; the Breslin trial was a wake-up call; like a cold shower; like a bone-crunching punch in the nose; like a hard slap right across the face.

  And so with all of this and more flashing across his mind, Newlan answered the phone only to find Marianne Plante crying softly into the receiver.

  “What’s wrong Marianne?” cooed Newlan in the most soothing voice he could muster.

  “Oh Frankie, I’m so unhappy. Tommy and I have been fighting again, and I just don’t know what to do with myself anymore,” confessed a sniffling Plante.

  “I don’t know what to say Marianne,” admitted a befuddled Newlan.

  “Just be there for me Frankie…that’s all I ask,” beseeched a slobbering Plante.

  “Of course I’ll be there for you Marianne. No matter whatever happens in life, no matter how many years go by, you’ll always be my friend…and I’ll always care about you. But right now, I think you really need to figure this out on your own,” counseled a suddenly standoffish Newlan.

  “I love you Frankie,” blurted out a desperate Plante. But her tender declaration only served to further distance the growing gap between her and Newlan.

  “I’m sorry to say it Marianne, but I think you either need to work things out with your husband, or you are gonna have to get a divorce…and whatever happens, it can’t be about me,” advised Newlan in a sobering tone.

  “I know Frankie…in my heart of hearts I know that I need to make some changes in my life, but it’s so hard. I just tried to talk to Tommy about it again, but he doesn’t want to hear it. He just walks out on me every time I bring up anything that’s the least bit painful…and I just don’t know what to do anymore,” sobbed Plante.

  “Hang in there Marianne, because I’m sure that whatever is meant to be…it will happen in the end…and whatever happens, it will be for the best. And I can’t make any promises, but who knows, maybe someday we’ll find ourselves…” began to predict Newlan. But alas, his voice faltered just as he was about to spit out the word “together.”

  However, regardless of Newlan’s existentially uplifting ramblings, in her own mind, Plante saw no resolution to her predicament in sight, and her tears turned into hysterics as the harsh reality of her dreary situation began to sink in.

  As a matter of fact, the situation seemed altogether hopeless until finally Newlan resorted to using those preciously clichéd words of wisdom which had come to define his own life of hopeless hope; infamous words which he no longer completely believed anymore in his own right.

  “It’s OK Marianne, everything’s gonna be alright,” portended Newlan, but at the same time he continued on with his sermon of misplaced accountability.

  “But for now, as hard as it might be, I wholeheartedly believe that you are gonna have to resolve your issues on your own…because, if you do get divorced, I don’t want it to be directly, or even indirectly, related to me in any way.”

  Of course, after the steamy events of the weekend, one could make the case that it was already much too late for Newlan to back away from the gambling table; he had already shown his cards; he had already played his hand; he had already cashed in his chips; he had already called the dealers bluff, only to find that the house doesn’t always play fairly when it comes to rolling the dice of love.

  “Frankie there’s something I need to tell you. I think you might already be involved, whether you want to be or not. I think he knows that something’s going on. He’s been acting really strange lately, like he’s suspicious about something…and I think…I think he knows about us…and I’m so sorry that I got you in the middle of all this,” lamented Plante while at the same time Newlan fell into an utter state of disbelief as he deciphered the impossible words that were streaming out of his paramour’s mouth.

  “What do you mean he knows about us?” demanded Newlan in a panicky voice.

  “I think he knows,” repeated a choked-up Plante, and all of a sudden Newlan felt a cold, sticky perspiration dripping down from the brow of his forehead as he repeated his question.

  “How the hell can he know about us?” wondered an incredulous Newlan, and for her part Plante was just as bewildered as he was.

  “I don’t know, but I think he knows,” was the only explanation that Plante could come up with. And so for the next hour, the two of them racked their brains out trying to piece together the scant clues that were available to them, as if they were attempting to solve some sort of mind-teasing riddle, until finally they rationalized that there was no way Tom Willis could have possibly known about their illicit rendezvous; or perhaps more likely, they had merely talked themselves into believing that their secret was safe.

  But regardless of their comfort level, regardless of whether they honestly believed what they were desperately trying to convince each other was true, the troubled lovers hung up the phone with the promise that Plante would keep Newlan apprised of the situation; although at the moment, her assurances were of little consolation to him; in fact, he was so stressed out that he was practically climbing the walls of his apartment.

  Newlan was behaving very much in a like a caged animal as he paced around his condo in a daze…and when, out of the corner of his eye, he happened upon Dr. Clay’s letter and the vial of Lorazepam sitting on his kitchen table, his first instinct was to reach for the ampoule and swallow a handful of pills before putting himself to bed. However, the subconscious scars of his near fatal overdose were still fresh on his mind, so instead of drugging himself up, he screamed out, “SON OF A BITCH” as he punched his fist into the kitchen wall; simultaneously almost breaking his hand and bashing a hole clear through the cardboard-thin drywall.

  Newlan howled in pain as he lunged at the prescription container and flung it across the room like a catcher throwing out a runner at second base, and then in a release of pent-up tension, he reached for the letter and began tearing it into pieces. And when that didn’t sufficiently relieve his nerves, he placed the torn remnants of Dr. Clay’s note into the kitchen sink and put a match to it, setting off the smoke detector in the process, while at the same time the danger alarms in his head went ringing off as well.

  By now Newlan was in full panic mode as he switched on the ceiling fan and cursed his misfortune. And yet even after his fervent attempts at stress release, the demons of his recent drug-addled past still hadn’t been fully exorcized from his bloodstream, and so, last but not least, he flushed the Lorazepam down the toilet bowl as he sank to his knees and vomited away his dinner.

  After his convulsions had subsided, Newlan spat wretchedly into the master bathroom sink, and he watched on helplessly as the scraps of his meal, much like his foolish dreams, were flushed away into the sewer hole of his life. And although the hypnotically flowing water cleansed his mind to some degree, he was still a bundle of nerves, and so to remedy the situation, he settled himself down to a few too many shots of whiskey before calling it a night.

  However, the whiskey was almost as damaging to Newlan’s psyche as the Lorazepam had been, and so it’s not surprising that he fell into a series of dreams; dreams of someone following him…someone watching him…someone, but not just anyone.

  In Newlan’s dreams, the evil, ghoulish face which had haunted his youth for so many years was back. But this time, it was more determined than ever to finish the job.

  In Newlan’s dreams, the enraged face was back. But this time,
it was more chilling than an Arctic frost, and it was determined to wring the life out of Newlan’s heart once and for all.

  In Newlan’s dreams, the faceless face of his past was without a doubt following him, just as surely as day will follow night. But this time, the lunatic was determined not to fail in its frantic attempt at obliterating Newlan’s tortured soul.

  In Newlan’s dreams, the possessed apparition was inexorably following him, just as surely as spring will follow winter. But this time, the relentless demon was determined not to stop its dogged, deathly pursuit until they had journeyed all the way…to Hell…and back again.