DAY 116:  Monday, February 1st, 2010: They wrote a song all about your size, and are still singing.

Severance Pay: continued from Day 115 . . .

Later that evening:

Two doctors walk down the Nutmeg Highway with a security guard, lab coats flared with quick feet in near-perfect unison as they approach a room door and open both slots

“Hey Max.”

The huge body builder is trussed tightly in a triple XL straight jacket, slouched against the far wall as a thread of drool hangs like spider line.  He has already been sedated, eyes glazed with the dazed and distant look of a stoked junkie.

The men enter and kneel before their huge guard as his head flops to one side, trying to focus.

“You gotta listen,” he says through labored breathing.  “Spense has to be punished . . .”

“We know,” one doctor answers softly, patting a huge, bound bicep.  “We’re all over it, Max.”

 “Yes . . . she has to be punished and stopped . . .”

“We know Max, we know . . .”

His head comes up, and there’s a brief moment of recognition as the doctor asks, “Max?  Did Janelle ask you for anything special when you came in here before?”

Max is trying to focus, asking, “Janelle?  Our sweet little Janelle?”

“Yes, Max.  Janelle.  Did she ever ask for things?”

Max puts his head back and starts sniffing like a dog, as the doctor’s hand rests on his massive arm. 

“Max?”

A smile appears, Max asking, “Smell that, gentlemen?  Can you smell these padded walls?”

The two doctors exchange nervous glances as Max drops his head a little, demonic eyes finding the security guard, who wonders why that look seems so familiar.

Max smiles.  “That smell is exactly like the beat-up boards of the old Boston Garden, where you could see chips and puck marks of greatness left behind like the signatures on our Declaration of Independence . . .”

“Shit,” one of the doctors mumble, but Max suddenly stops his brief history lesson, eyes locked on the security guard, who nervously steps back and starts looking around like he may have lost something.

“Hey Teddy!” Max says.  “Tell these guys all about the cool favors we did, for our poor little Janelle . . .”

Both doctors turn in time to see their security guard bolt from the room, Max now laughing and rolling his head like Stevie Wonder.

“Teddy’s a huge Bruins fan,” he explains. “When your brilliant team of experts let him give Janelle that big ol’ Bruins jersey as a present before the so-called meeting, he also delivered matching Sigs in a tight little sports bra double-sling holster rig.”

He starts laughing as drool returns for an encore, and after twelve minutes he’s sleeping like a baby, living out a slow and peaceful recovery from total mind domination, slated for testing later that week.

Spense is another story.

To be continued . . .

DAY 115:  Sunday, January 31, 2010:  You’re too big for coffee to take effect, or even electricity.

Severance Pay; continued . . .                                                                                

 CHAPTER SIX

 IMP IS IN PLAY

The famous east coast lawyer Samuel Smith of Smith, Olive, and Shotenheimer couldn’t believe his ears, nervously hunching and bunching a custom suit into wrinkled elephant skin as he settled closer to a long maple conference table – elbows out and braced – eager little eyes hungrily scanning hospital personnel, and a specialist named Marty who never spoke.  Ferg and Rhiannon were both keeping Janelle company elsewhere, under close supervision.

Fiona was angrily squeezing a rubber hand ball to alleviate raging emotions.  She had been working the same type of ball for several years now, and could break a logger’s wrist in the wink of an eye.  She found out the hard way; immediately banned from sanctioned arm wrestling for life in the United States.  Fiona weighed 123 pounds.

“Super . . . Accelerated . . . Hypnotism,” Smith said, drawing the term out slowly, committing it to memory as a speaker gave him the floor.  “You’re trying to sell me on something never proven by anyone outside of this medical facility; a term you’ve concocted in the last couple of years because my client was able to make you people do outrageous things by . . . let’s see . . .”

He cleared his throat and looked to the ceiling for guidance, recalling the term.  “Blasting dormant images of past events into a person’s active consciousness, ahem; with a distinct pattern of words that overtake and alter their thinking.”

He lowered his broad face and studied the audience closely.  “Benchmarks in the memory bank, I think you told me.  Trigger points.  Close enough?”

Nobody spoke a word as he pushed away and stood to pace slowly, unleashing an audible aerial attack.

“Find the trigger points very quickly, and unleash holy hell upon the here and now.  Last I heard, that’s called a vivid conversation.  Every snake oil salesman and televangelist could be accused of doing the same damn thing.  Audibly unleashing overpowering emotions drawn from shared or general experience has been around since spoken words, and I will not have you twisting it into a specialized weapon used by Doctor McCrory. 

“Thank god you’re a private institution, for so many reasons.”

This was the same Samuel Oscar Smith (S.O.S. of S.O.S.: When You Truly Need Help) who had legally horse whipped the United States Government into handing over a seven figure compensation package to his client, now carefully watched two floors above them in a luxury suite.  The private infirmary was covered indefinitely, and any other medical assistance was provided for Janelle, courtesy of a horrible chemical and the U.S. of A.

When Smith was done negotiating his greedy split, seven figures magically became six on their receiving end, and taxes reduced it even more, but the mortgage was paid off, and their bank account remained prosperous.

What people failed to notice during that fateful day in court was Counselor Smith huddling with his famous client during a prolonged recess, hypnotized beyond belief as impish Janelle coached his attack, Smith nodding like a bobble head doll, utterly trained to seek and destroy during intensive cross examinations.  When she was done frying his brain, Smith could’ve sold fire to the devil for a very high price.  Two hours after the hearing, he was ordering old footage of Boston Bruins hockey games from Amazon.com, for no apparent reason.  He took it all the way back to Eddy Shore, learning new and exciting terms like “penalty killing” and “icing”.  His wife thought it was just stress.

He was on a roll now, letting them have both barrels as a prelude to what could happen in a court of law:  “You’re going to go before a jury and explain this fancy hypnotic term, and then somehow convince them all how petite little Janelle – tortured and weakened by starvation and bounds – could drive people nuts with a short conversation, and mentally control an entire room full of highly trained professionals?”

He started circling the table as if in a courtroom, which was his natural environment.  “You’re going to describe the isolating torture you enforced upon this beautiful, suffering mother, and I’m going to put a little video up on the screen, of today’s final struggle to see her child.”

He held his thumb and index finger up high, less than one inch apart.  “A tiny glimpse of little Rhiannon, her angelic face frozen in absolute terror, with private SWAT team gunners aiming to blow her mother’s head off, with no  . . . official . . . police . . .  in SIGHT!”

He paused for emphasis.  “And that courageous mother was completely unarmed and crying when she ran out, after some security lackey attacked her sister-in-law, right in front of that gorgeous little girl.”

Smith stopped and looked to Fiona, who patted the camcorder tucked in her coat for reassurance. 

“To just . . . SEEEEE . . . her little baby girl.”

The room was silent as Samuel Oscar Smith, renowned prosecutor for the Tiny People versus the Very Huge People, returned to his place and leaned way over the table, taking in the moment, working to his dramatic conclusion.

“Here’s something to consider if this ever goes public:  In a serious maximum security mental health facility, Janelle was able to obtain not one, but two high end automatic handguns . . . a person you considered dangerous and mentally incompetent.” 

He leaned even further.  “You have GOT to be fucking kidding me.”

There were a few seconds of silence, until a very nasal voice spoke up from his left; one of the hospital attorneys finally weighing in.

“Once again, we’re recording.”

“Duh.”

The hospital attorney frowned.  “If we release Janelle McCrory and are sadly proven correct in the general populace or – god forbid – at home ( he glanced at Fiona), the consequences could be absolutely catastrophic, and I don’t care how good you are.  We will have this tape, and your head will roll forever and ever, amen.”

“Nicely put.”

“Thank-you.”

Smith got smug.  “But it’s doubtful.”

“Really.”

“You’ve screwed-up in so many ways, I’m still making a grocery list.”

Silence as he smiled; Fiona slowly squeezing the rubber exercise ball with her Kung Fu Hand of Death, regarding the room with spiteful vengeance, rock hard knuckles going from white to red and back again.  In a quick money bet, she could probably clear the room like Bruce Lee.  Suits and lawyers just naturally pissed her off.

Smith cleared his throat. “I have a specialist with me who knows Janelle’s case intimately, and he has just spent the last hour in close contact, examining her state of mind.”

“Brave man,” someone mumbled, and Fiona’s rubber ball thwacked off his forehead like a hard slap, driving him back with serious velocity.

As others tried not to laugh, the victim’s dainty and manicured fingers gingerly checked for blood, dazed eyes glaring across the table with the hurt expression of a little boy.

Fiona was wishing on a throwing star.  “It’s rubber, you idiot.  Now pay attention.”

Smith continued.   “Ahem.  Thanks for a quick physics lesson, Fiona.  You all know Marty Crandall through medical journals, treatments, and the ivy league lecture circuit.”

Marty stood and gave a short bow.

“He’s very eager to sign her out and take full responsibility.”

Smith inhaled deeply to play his final hand.  “So we’re taking this little freak show out of your private hands, and I’m telling you right now that if Janelle isn’t home for supper, this whole thing is going to hit national news tomorrow, and Brian Williams will be speaking her name over and over and over, liked a broken record.  By the time we’re done talking to reporters, they’ll be filming in your goddamned rubber rooms, and half the world will know how you starved and tortured little Janelle, then put two deadly weapons in her possession.”

“We’ll sign those papers right away.”

Everyone except Marty, Smith and Fiona blew a huge sigh of relief.

“Did they just agree?” Fiona asked.

“A little too quickly.”

One of the doctors pumped a fist, and Marty looked around uneasily at a group who had finally found the easy way out of a very tough situation.

Marty may have interviewed and tested the beautiful and charming Janelle, but he hadn’t spent a single second with “No Nonsense” Spense or her kinky lover, Max, both loudly singing show tunes and rolling against every rubber wall in sight.    

Marty also neglected to interview any of the meeting room hostages, who were still very much enslaved to fond memories and an odd assortment of stimulated flashes going off in their brains like Fourth of July fireworks.  No, they did not want Marty near any of those people right now. 

“You da man,” Smith told Marty, bolting from the room like a flea bitten carpetbagger to tabulate a very large bill, making one final mistake before heading back to New York.

In a cocky and fateful move that would come back to haunt his entire life, Marty had ordered the duct tape removed from Janelle’s mouth, and Smith quickly stopped in to say good-bye as Ferg stepped out for a moment, taking Rhiannon down the hall to relieve herself.

Five minutes later, every single fee was dropped, including shuttle flights.

Duct tape was off; the imp was in play.

To be continued . . .

“This being the first full moon of 2010, it is also known as the wolf moon, a moniker dating back to Native American culture and the notion that hungry wolves howled at the full moon on cold winter nights. Each month brings another full moon name.”

Thanks Bob.  Here’s my pictures of tonight’s activities.  I couldn’t photograph temperature, so just envision freezing your ass off:

A Saw-Whet Owl

A Screech Owl Waving Hello

A Great Horned Owl (one on the right)

The Big Bad Wolf Moon

A Cornfield When It's Summer

 Severance Pay will be back tomorrow.  Hope you liked the intermission!

DAY 113: Friday, January 29, 2010: They can’t fit all the X’s on your size tags.

Severance Pay: Continued from Day 112 . . .

Doctors and security huddle in front of monitors, not believing their eyes:

A room full of professional mental health doctors are looking from camera to camera like happy and confused children, waving and singing “Tie a Yellow Ribbon” . . .

Just about when they finish a positive head count, the screens turn back to white.

“Jesus,” someone says. “That’s just inhumane.”

-   -   -

The first doctor was nothing but a contorted face with the Sig pressed against his left ear, looking out through twelve inches of open door space as Janelle screamed, “Stanley?!  Do you see the lawyer I described?!”

“I’m here!” the lawyer yelled.  “I’m right here, Janelle!”

The doctor turned his head into the gun slightly. “Do I have to go, Janelle?  I don’t know any of these people.”

“Do you see Rhiannon?!”

The face studied several squatting security officers with people huddled behind them.  “I’m looking, Janelle.  I’m really looking.”

One of the negotiators made a crucial decision, and spoke through the speaker phone.

“We’re moving her within view,” he said.  “But this scene is not good for her, doctor, and I cannot allow your guns to be a lethal factor.”

Something caught in Janelle’s throat, before she shouted, “Fiona!  Move this thing along!”

The doctor with his face pressed tight against the door jamb saw movement, and then they all heard Fiona.

“I trained her well, baby!  She can handle this crazy carnival scene!”

A negotiator grabbed at Fiona’s arm, and a loud POP sent him down to the floor in agony, three fingers jutting out at a very unnatural angle.

Fiona glared at the next in line, her voice loud and clear over agonized whimpering.

“Try me.” 

Ferg was hanging back but stepped up quickly, instructing them all to please not challenge his deadly sister.

They heard sobbing from the door now, Janelle yelling, “Baby!  Are you out there, baby!”

Fiona stepped back and nodded to her niece as security got the injured negotiator out of there, while two others argued about losing control of a very strange hostage situation, and the legal ramifications of not having real police on board.

Rhiannon suddenly screamed for her mother, and all hell broke loose.

The door flew open; the peering hostage flying fast and hard against the opposite wall with two Sigs clacking and bouncing off polished floor tiles, Janelle rushing out with hands raised skyward, Fiona screaming for everyone to hold fire as Ferg spun and grabbed Rhiannon in one quick movement, raising her aloft for Janelle to see.

And Janelle saw her daughter.

It stopped her like a wall, wailing and screaming and struggling through, reaching out as security converged on the little banshee in a throwback Bobby Orr Bruins jersey, fighting to see her wailing daughter.

The only other woman from that meeting room followed Janelle’s previous instructions perfectly, keeping a small camcorder trained on the action until it was no longer possible, slipping it into her lab coat until she could pass it off to Fiona.

Almost twenty minutes later, Janelle was hugging her baby under heavy guard and looking into tearful eyes, without speaking a word.

Duct tape on her mouth may have played a role, but even Fiona understood this precaution and knew one thing for certain:

Words were totally unnecessary.

To be continued . . .

 DAY 112: Thursday, January 28, 2010:  Time to go home; the restaurant’s out of food.

Severance Pay:  Continued from Day 111 . . .

Fiona’s black Hummer roared along the commuter lane going into Hartford with Ferg in the passenger seat and Rhiannon in back, reading The Essence of Scientific Reasoning in Today’s Aquatic Systems.

Candy stayed behind, avoiding the possibility of a very uncomfortable meeting between lover and wife , while Ferg promised he would call when matters became more clear. 

Fiona was filling him in on the situation, speeding along on recycled oil from local restaurants.

“The doctor’s telling me how Janelle snapped out of her dementia, and they’re all pumped up about fast tracking her release.  That dude was nearly crawling out of the phone to get us there with Ree.”

“Nobody predicted a recovery like this, if at all.”

Fiona looked at Rhiannon in the rearview mirror, and the little girl didn’t miss a beat.

“She wants to see me right away, dad.  They say it will make mom a whole lot better.”

Ferg turned around and smiled at his little girl, as Fiona continued. “This came right after some crazy woman called about her husband, who seems to be residing in Danielson general lockup right now, awaiting his arraignment before our local scowling judge.”

Ferg started laughing, as Fiona continued.  “A second after this shrieking mess gets out of my ear, the infamous Wilson Brothers drop a haunch of fresh beef off at the door and ask if I drink or smoke local product.”

“Ahhh.”

“Ahhh.”

“Eeee.”

“Eeee – haaaa,” Fiona answered.  “They seem to be celebrating big time, bro.”

“As well they should.”

“After thirty-three years of hunting, their toothless sister is finally hitched.”

“Can I guess at the lucky man?”

“Married, soon to be divorced, and incarcerated?”

“Seems he’s got a full plate.”

“You owe Justice Martin fifty bucks, if he ever sobers up again.  Twenty-five for divorce; twenty-five for marriage.”

“The large and colorful locals.”

“The ones who never bathe.”

“And why be distracted with such minor details?  The tub is needed for mixing gin.”

“Whereas you could probably bathe right now, having been next to a hairy Sicilian and all.”

“Careful, shorty.”

 “Sicily’s an island off Italy,” Rhiannon said.  “And Italy looks like a big old boot.”

The little girl looked at her father.  “Are they really hairy?”

-   -   -

Janelle was sitting back a bit now, legs crossed casually with a gleaming Sig in her lap, the other in front of her on the table.

Her hypothesis of total group hypnosis was proving itself absolutely true, how she could quickly infuse memories into a total recall that would immediately employ an emotional bridge and control their present state of mind, while using one individual to affect another by a new transference method.

She discovered this through stimulated analytics, while rolling in a straightjacket and singing songs from Porgy and Bess in an obscure Inuit dialect known as Crasui.  Later that night, she would sing a song used to enchant penguins.

Doctors on either side had a shot at Janelle if they were fast enough, but there was only one person in that room with mental facilities somewhat intact, and she was dressed like Bobby Orr back in the day.

Cameras in two corners of the room had lab coats hanging from them, blocking any outside observance.

“So at that point in time,” Janelle said, “everyone thought I was spreading something deadly through McDonald’s food, but it was passed by money when I handled it after lab work, and McDonald’s workers transferred it to the food.  Then the District Manager took it to another branch, and so on.  The Feds moved in and took me away.  Plus . . . I went kinda nuts.”

A doctor to her left was sobbing uncontrollably, being comforted by another doctor, who suddenly looked across the table at one of their dazed colleagues.

“Why did you have to bring his Uncle into this?” he asked.  “You made everything ten times worse!”

The other doctor looked to Janelle, who smiled calmly and explained how his relatives were acting as surrogate parents during a very tough time, and it was simply a matter of trading affection for sexual gratification, when growing young boys became easily aroused.

“These things manifested themselves within the curious mind of his older sister,” Janelle said.  “Very similar to what happened with Doctor Chasely over there, when those crazy nuns used him like some kind of male whore during recess, but without ketchup and toothpicks.”

“Fuuuuuuck,” Chasely groaned, dropping his face to the table.  “We’re going back to a very bad plaaaaaace . . .”

“Crossly?” Janelle asked, turning to another doctor.  “Could you please tell me the benefit of Phil Esposito crowding the slot again, when Orr used to own the blue line?”

Crossly almost laughed with glee at the prospect of McCrory’s attention, but she spotted a light blinking on the phone, and asked him to hit “speaker” instead.

Crossly tried to hide his disappointment, pressing the little button as Janelle lifted a gleaming Sig off her lap.

“Everyone quiet,” she said.  “Get your shit together for a minute.”

They all smiled wildly, like demented children.

“I’m listening,” Janelle said.  “And so are you.”

“Hello?” A voice sounded.  “Doctor McCrory?”

Janelle shook her head in frustration.  “We’re at a turning point, here.”

“I’m sorry, doctor.  A turning point?”

“It’s a tough one,” she said.  “And now we all have to live with it.”

“What turning point are we talking about, exactly?”

Janelle aimed at a tiny little micro camera poking from under the meeting room door, getting ready to pull the trigger back.

“You see me now?” she asked.

The camera zipped back out of sight.

She thumped the table with her gun. “Damn.  I really wanted to see if I could hit it.”

“Not good.”

“Back to business then.”

“We’re listening.”

“I trust you got a look at the situation in here.”

“Uh . . . not really.”

“Good.  No cops, right?  No police from the outside?”

“None.” 

Where’s my girl?”

“Getting briefed right now, to meet you.”

Janelle sighed. “I didn’t ask ‘what,’ I asked ‘where.’”

“In the building.”

“More specific.”

“Room 222.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Pardon?”

“Karen Valentine as Alice Johnson?  Hello?”

There was a sound of whispering, then, “The old television show about school?”

“What town did Bobby Orr come from?”

A happy voice came from across the table. “Parry Sound!”

“See?” Janelle asked the speaker.  “They already know more than you.”

“Uh . . . about that . . .”

“Enough!” she said, thumping the table.  “I wanna see my kid right the fuck now!”

“No problem, but we have some concerns about gunshots we heard earlier, so naturally, we’re also concerned for Rhiannon’s safety.”

“You have concerns about someone’s safety?  What a crock of shit.”

Silence.

“Crossly,” Janelle said, looking at the excited doctor.  “Get those damn coats off the cameras.”

The gleeful doctor bolted to each corner, whisking coats off with great flair and shouting “Parry Sound!” over and over.

To be continued . . .

 DAY 111: Wednesday, January 27, 2010:  Stay tuned for this important announcement:  YOU’RE FAT.

Severance Pay: Continued from Day 110 . .

“Let’s review.”

“Let’s not and say we did.”

“Just for ha-has.”

Candy was sipping wine and straddling Ferg in her hotel room, looking down at his unshaven and angular face, her slender hand holding a plastic goblet of Chardonnay on his tight midsection.

“First you throw a chair through a window, then you threaten a security manager with a big honkin’ gun, then you introduce me to the deadliest woman – and possibly child – outside of cinema, then you go to a strip joint and almost get in a donnybrook with a tweaked Ukrainian, then the big honking gun is blazing away to destroy bottled urine and truck tires, and then . . . then . . . you bring Deliverance down on a pervert named Frenchy.”

Ferg was noticing her bullet-shaped nipples pointing up at a forty-five degree angle, wondering how such simple things could arouse male organs.

“Did I miss anything?”

He spoke to her nipples.  “I tapped some survey points out of longitude and latitude, not to mention elevation.”

“Niche Crime!”

“I like to think of it as “boutique”, and let me tell you, elevation takes skill.  You have to use a nine nail to tap a point down gently, but a half inch causes phenomenal results.  It compounds itself and multiplies the errors.”

“Keep talking dirty to me.”

Ferg showed white teeth.  “I will if you keep grinding like that.”

And Candy readily obliged, sipping wine to put the goblet aside, doing a mechanical bull ride until they were spent and curled, spooning back to front as a heating unit under the window kicked into life.

Candy nestled back a bit more. “Can I ask you about your wife?  It’s one of those things that tugs at me here and there.”

“Here and there.”

“You have to understand that.”

“I do, but this is a weird time.”

“It just seemed kind of intimate, when people share secrets and naked seems more vulnerable yet comforting, you know?  But it’s your call . . . maybe not now.”

“It’s a drastic change of pace, so let me collect some thoughts.”

Candy was silent, regretting her request until Ferg started talking.

“I was out of the service and working nights at a K mart store in Natick, Massachusetts, stripping and waxing floors at night because I couldn’t sleep, trying to figure things out and get a new game plan after being injured in a jump.  I was kind of lost and going through physical therapy, trying to learn balance and work my way up to jogging again.  Loving pain killers a little too much.

“One night I come through that main entrance before the store closed, and there’s this interesting woman working a customer service counter in front, talking on the phone and filling out paperwork, handling a return item all at the same time.”

 “Multi tasker.”

“And let’s not forget the damn vibraphone off to one side, which she played when things got slow, like maybe just a phone call cradled on her shoulder, or a customer filling out return slips.”

“Okay; multi multi-tasker.”

“So I see this, thinking ‘whoa’, and then learn she’s got a full ride to Harvard, and comes from a Boston blue collar family of eleven children.”

“Catholics!”

“Here I am trying to figure things out, trying this and that while she’s rocketing through school with honors, working K mart for pocket money and starting to date me, because I’m the only one her crazy brothers didn’t immediately drive out of the house.”

“They like you.”

“Dad was lifetime military, and her brothers saw my boxing matches before the service, so there ya go.”

“Match made in heaven.”

“So I get a job with Victory while Janelle gets recruited for a government lab, and we get married, and have a beautiful little baby girl.”

“Gorgeous kid.”

“Thanks . . . and then things go terribly wrong, and Janelle gets affected.”

“How so?”

Ferg sighed and rolled over, breaking physical contact as he looked up at an invisible ceiling and recounted the days of Janelle’s growing insanity, working on top secret experiments until she started changing drastically, suspecting that a new and little known chemical had entered her system.

“She started doing things to Rhiannon,” Ferg said, “which really kicked things into action.”

Candy asked what kinds of things, and Ferg explained about the metal helmet she had on their daughter at a beach to mess with satellite imagery, and long nights of instruction, playing language lessons from a boom box next to Rhiannon’s bed, trying to educate in her sleep.

“. . . and then,” Ferg said, taking a deep breath, “she started affecting people she didn’t like with specific words, sending them into dementia by simply conversing, and things started really getting ugly.”

“Now you’re scaring me, like crazy science fiction.”

“She was scaring all of us,” Ferg said, “and they had her committed.”

“’They’ . . . not you?”

Ferg rolled over to face her. “Us.  The government moved fast, Candy, and I was on board, since she couldn’t be trusted with Rhiannon.”

“And nowadays?”

“I knew it was bad one night when she wouldn’t come to bed, and I sat at the top of our stairs listening to the talk she was having with herself.  Now it’s much, much worse, and when she talks to anyone, it can become very dangerous, very quickly.”

“Because of exposure to some top secret chemical?”

“Yes.  And she’s obviously insane, singing for hours without any break; not hearing people around her; often playing with make-up or solving Rubik’s cube in like, twenty seconds, then chewing the cube.”

“And you’re completely serious.”

“Ask the angry dwarf.”

“I’ll pass.  Let me just add some business school two cents here.”

“Sure.”

“I don’t wanna sound cold or anything.”

“Please.”

“You have a major fucking lawsuit.”

Ferg was silent for several seconds, and Candy answered for him.

“They settled.”

“They take care of us.”

“Not enough.  How is she doing?”

“Screw the money, and she’s doing a rubber room.”

“Oh god, Ferg.  I’m so fucking sorry.”

Silence dominated as they held each other close, and morning became a war zone of dreams and waking and comfort and eventually, a very intrusive telephone.

Ring!

“No place is safe anymore,” Candy groaned, reaching for the phone.

She listened a few seconds, handing it over with, “The temple found us.  Shaolin Priestess on line one.”

Ferg looked at her funny and took the phone, hearing his sister’s voice.

“Funny girl you got there.”

“Isn’t she though?”

“Answer your room door.”

“There’s nobody there.”

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Ferg and Candy looked at each other, then the door.

“I’m on my cell right here.  We have a goddamn emergency on our hands.”

The phone went dead, and they scrambled for clothing.

To be continued . . .

 DAY 110: Tuesday, January 26, 2010:  Stop eating the pet’s food.

Severance Pay: Continued from Day 109 . . .

A man alone with his thoughts but not alone, smiling stupidly like some kind of drug is coursing madly through his bloodstream, three missing teeth giving the final impression of idiocy.

“God, she hit me,” he says, totally in love.  “She belted me like a fucking mule.”

“Snap out of it,” Nurse Davenport says, needle ready for sutures in his lower lip. “We’re gonna run some CAT scans after this.  Obviously your brain has suffered some kind of trauma.”

“Did you see her pull that lab coat over my head? The girl’s been in a rubber room for years, and she moved like a jungle cat.  They used to watch tapes from observation cameras.  They would secretly take off the straightjacket, and she would spend like, six hours a day working out.  She can put a leg behind her head and sing a capella in latin.”

“They took the jacket off?”  Davenport looks over at a doctor waiting to interview her patient, and he straightens up from leaning on a scrub counter.

The patient cackles.  “YouTube it.  You’ll see.”

“What else did they do for her?”

The patient’s bleeding mouth starts flicking in and out of a grotesque smile, until he laughs again, the doctor facing a clown mask painted in blood.

“What ELSE did they do for her!?!”

“Ask Max!” the patient says, lost to hysterics.  “Max would give her anything!”

Lost and enraptured, a man not alone but alone while two floors down, Doctor McCrory holds court in a cramped meeting room; head of the table, queen of their minds, sipping ice water with lemon, dressed in an oversized Boston Bruins jersey, her strong and sinewy legs crossed underneath.

Two doctors whisper, then ask, “Why did you pick number four, as a jersey number?”

“You’re idiots,” Janelle says, once again fighting impatience. “Go n-ithe an cat thú is go n-ithe an diabhal an cat.”

The two look confused.

“Irish,” another doctor says.  “Some kind of horrible insult involving cats and the devil, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Hey,” Janelle says.  “You ever been to the old Boston Garden, before they ripped it?”

Eight faces huddle in confusion.

“Keep me another minute and I’ll rip your fucking lungs out.”

“Or maybe fry our consciousness with signal word imagery?” a doctor asks.

“I’m afraid your circus freak show is over.  I want to go home.”

The doctor touches a remote in front of him, and suddenly there’s Rhiannon on the blank white wall, reading a thick science textbook, sunlight from windows shining on golden hair.

“Look,” giant Rhiannon says, holding her book up for all to see.  “Swirling red blood cells!”

All eyes are on Janelle’s reaction.

“Cruor,” Janelle says, using Latin for “blood”. “Nice looking kid.”

Chosen for this one particular moment, the only woman in the room besides Janelle clears her throat. “Do you know who that is, Janelle?”

“A little girl studying science; what else escapes your acute observations?”

The doctors look at each other – confused and alarmed – then back to Janelle.  The woman asks, “You don’t recognize this young girl?”

A finger is pointing at all of them, sweeping from left to right as Janelle grins and laughs like her little girl up on the wall.

“Got’cha!” she says, and gentle laughter spreads throughout the room as a slender hand disappears under the massive Bobby Orr jersey, coming out with a streamlined Sig Sauer .40 caliber automatic.

“Enough of this shit.”

The room grows deathly quiet as Janelle steadies her weapon on polished oak, leveling it toward a doctor on her left.

“Lock the door or die.”

The doctor rushes over to lock the door, then retakes his seat, Janelle keeping her gun pointed at him the entire time.

Janelle tilts her head.  “It’s like the three stooges, only there’s eight, and I don’t know who to kill first.”

“How . . .” a doctor says, as Janelle thumbs the hammer back.

“How did I ever get such a cool weapon?”

He barely nods, Janelle ordering, “Quid pro quo, you nasty little fucks.  Rhiannon comes today, or I start cutting heads.  You get me my baby and that beautiful, carnivorous lawyer who spanked the Federal defense attorney, and I won’t execute your asses, guaranteed.” 

“And no . . . fucking . . . COPS!”  She stares at eight pale faces.  “Oh!  Then I’ll tell you how I got the gun!”

“I told you not to pull her out of isolation,” a doctor whispers, and Janelle pulls the trigger, missing his scalp by two inches, the Sig sounding like cannon fire at such close quarters.

Another round explodes the projector, passing through to disintegrate someone’s water glass and just miss another doctor as Rhiannon’s image flickers and disappears.

“My daughter is not in that fucking machine,” Janelle says, leveling the gun.  “My daughter WILL be in my arms by sunset, or I will execute each and every last one of you motherfuckers.”

The woman frowns, and Janelle adds, “That’s right, Carol . . . famous line from “Pulp Fiction”.

Carol rolls her eyes like “Of Course,” and Janelle shakes her head.

“There’s a nice white phone in the middle of this table,” she says. “Use it or lose it.”

Three doctors fight over the receiver, as Janelle smiles like an imp. “Now I wanna see hands on the table, and when my demands are out of this sick little gathering, you’re gonna listen to every single word I say, and respond when questioned.  Are we clear?”

One doctor talks frantically into the phone, and seven others stare in absolute horror, fearing the worst as Janelle’s other hand dips under her new gift jersey, coming out with a matching Sig.

“Two-for-one sale” Janelle says.  “And I can shoot like Bobby fucking Orr from the blue line.”

Her smile slowly becomes radiant, aiming at another doctor halfway down the left side. 

“Take your lab coat and put it over that observation camera in the corner.  Get Jim’s over there, and cover the other.”  

Once her demands are phoned in, Janelle keeps both guns steady, and starts firing questions.

To be continued . . .

 DAY 109: Monday, January 25, 2010:  In a head-on collision, there’s no room for the air bag to deploy.

Severance Pay:  Continued from Day 108 . . .

A man alone with his thoughts . . .

Rrrrrrring!

Rourke reached for the phone and hesitated.

Rrrrrrring!

He followed through, and slowly put it to his right ear.  “Yes?”

“Johnny Farrenza on two, sir.”

“I’m out at a site.”

Silence.

“Doreen?”

“Not good, sir.”

“How not good.”

“So very, very not good.”

“Shit, then.  Put ‘im through.”

“Incoming.”

Click.  The sound of machinery, muffled by trailer office walls.

Rourke cleared his throat.  “Ryan Rourke here!”  

He could barely hear thumpa-thumpa-thumpa.  “You’re available now, you little prick.”

Rourke cringed.  “’Scuse me?”

“Clean your fucking ears out, chief engineer.  You’re gonna be paying through the nose for this one.”

“Well now, it certainly doesn’t sound good!”

Heavy, angry breathing on the other end.  “Bonuses are in play, motherfucker.  Buko bucks for Christmas if this comes in under the projected date, and guess what’s going on right now?”

“They’re getting that flu bug going around?”

“I’m gonna fucking kill you all.” 

“Sorry.”

The breathing became heavier.  “I tried getting your head of survey, but Randy just told me how Rick doesn’t roll out of bed before his wife drives the kids to school, because she’s just as lazy, and can’t get ‘em up for the bus in time.”

“That Randy sure is a talker.”

“He’s trying to pass the blame, because we’re about to make his fat ass part of a Jersey barrier.”

“Not good, not good.”

“Oh!  You’re listening!”

“I’m all ears.”

“Your surveyors are telling me how points are bad, and everyone’s standing around holding dick while they play with those goddamn survey guns, trying to figure things out.  But there’s one massive monstrous problem with that.”

“No.”

“Yes.  The concrete guys poured this weekend, going off bad points.”

Rourke swallowed and leaned forward.  “We signed-off on that?”

“Hey, what a concept . . . like you never signed bar napkins for that Devens project, you schmoozing piece of shit.  That Frenchy faggot signed away after lunch on Friday, and this time the contract was official, like cans of NFL beer he was drinking all afternoon. ”

“Jesus Christ Almighty.”

“And you just found religion now, huh?”

“I uhhhhhh . . . I . . .”

The line went dead as a shadow appeared at his door glass again, this time Rourke spotting some kind of familiar shape to it.

Out at the reception desk, Doreen noticed Rick nursing a coffee near Rourke’s door, and started to ask him how things were going when the door flew inward, and their survey manager was yanked inside like he was never there, screaming as hot coffee splashed his dress shirt.

The door slammed shut as Doreen recited a silent prayer, officially making Farrenza’s comment ironic.

Things were not going well at Victory Engineering, and when Rourke was done explaining the blown survey points to Rick (who was slightly distracted by a ruined shirt and scalded chest), he turned their attention to Frenchy, presently incarcerated in the lovely town of Danielson, sixty miles east.

Details were still coming in, but it appeared that his old Chevy Suburban was discovered in a deep roadside ditch off Route 44 late Saturday night, blown front end parked on top of a crushed pig trough with Frenchy out at the wheel, soaked to the skin with booze and urine, his blood alcohol count near fatal levels.  His pants were down around his knees, and it looked like some kind of rabid animal had a go at his personal equipment, everything red, bruised, or bleeding.

The state boys in Troop D had little compassion for a blubbering story of crazed rednecks in the hills of Ashford, and after skunkweed was easily detected among other appalling odors, they started messing with him big time, ending with a 5 am jail wake-up featuring heavy metal music blasting at a very high volume.  Sunday was not a day of rest for Frenchy, and officers laughed at a video of his drinking fountain attempts, their rigged bubbler blasting his face like a Florida waterspout.

Rick listened to Rourke’s report and appeared to shrink in his chair, awakening a small sliver of glass still hiding in the rear crevice, now finding solid purchase in his left butt cheek, causing further discomfort.

“. . . we’re gonna write Frenchy off for awhile and just comfort his poor wife.  I mean, he really doesn’t seem to appreciate being employed during a growing recession.”

Rick was doing the Bush-in-classroom stare, nodding slightly as he tried to piece things together, remembering his crew chief’s wife on the phone yesterday, sobbing loudly as one of the kids shouted from the background, telling his frantic mother to shut the hell up and pull it together; he was trying to play some totally awesome Guitar Hero.

“So,” Rourke concluded, making a tent with his fingers. “What did you find out about my creative interior decorator?”

Rick was confused for a second, then realized he was referring to Fergus and the bashed window.

“He seemed to be gone all weekend.”

Rourke regarded him like something on the bottom of his shoe.  “Uh-huh.”

“Probably wanted to get away and chill after blowing his severance like that, and blowing his cool.”

“Really.”

“Oh yeah.”

Rourke stared.

Rick stared back. “You don’t believe me for a second.”

“The math wasn’t hard, Rick.”

“No.  I suppose not.”

“I mean, what’s Frenchy doing way the hell across Connecticut, in McCrory’s backyard, just after I asked you to find out what’s going on?”

“Apparently, he was getting eaten alive.”

“D’you know what we called that back in the Airborne Green Berets?”

“I thought it was Rangers.”

“Whatever . . . it’s been a long time.”

Shit, Rick thought, here we go . . .

“Staking heads, Rick. We called it STAKING HEADS!”

“You lost me.”

“We made an example of the enemy by putting one of their heads on a stake, for others to see.”

“Was Frenchy decapitated?”

Rourke stared at his survey manager.  “Depends on which head you’re talking about.”

Rick hesitated on that one.  “Sorry.  I thought my chummy crew chief could find something out, schmoozing at the strip joint out there and having a few pops.”

“Perpetual Motion?”

“You know it?”

“Dark as a cave with crazy Europians?”

Rick stared.

“Never been there.”

Rick actually laughed a little, sharing a good ol’ boy moment with his boss as Rourke let him off the hook a little bit.  “Not a bad plan, and we certainly found out where Ferg stands these days, giving up his crew chief to the cops by letting him drive away like that.  I mean, what kind of Airborne turns on his team?  It’s very un-American.  Very un-family like.”

Rick was nodding yes; it appeared that Ferg was no longer in their close little family of a thousand.  “You want me to call him for real this time?”

“And say what?  Come sign your severance and we’ll call it even?”

“I see your point.”

“He’s really, really angry, Rick.”

“Tragedy, going postal like that.”

“You can start talking any time now.”

“I got nothing.”

“Right.  Why do you keep playing with your ass?”

Rick dug under his gluteals to produce a long sliver of glass.  “What the hell.”

Rourke ignored his pain.  “You run a dirty little department, huh?”

Pissed off now, Rick summoned an ounce of courage.  “What about you?”

“Careful . . .”

“Exactly . . .”

“There you have it.”

Ring!

Rourke picked up his phone and listened a few seconds, eyes rolling with exasperation.

“Tell her I’m at a site.”

He listened as Rick tossed the glass sliver toward a wastebasket and pulled his shirt out a little, looking at the coffee stain.  He was a natural slob anyway, and there were spares in a desk drawer, if he could ever remember.

His boss was nodding on the phone, as if Doreen could see him.  “I know she’s hysterical.  She’s gonna be hysterical for days and weeks and months.  It’s what she does best.”

He listened a few seconds, then made eyes at Rick.  “What!?”

He listened some more, swiveling and tapping on his desk, looking back at Rick with big eyes, then finally getting some words in.

“Really Doreen, I don’t even know what to say at this point.  These people are all nuts.”

He waited some more, and finally said, “Right,” hanging up; tapping the desk; looking at Rick.

“Frenchy got married.”

“But he is married.”

“Well,” Rourke said, “he’s married again.”

Rick smiled. “His wife must be very happy for him.”

“Another winner . . . remember her at the Christmas party?”

“Frenchy tells everyone their most intimate sexcapades like – every single day – and then she shows up and all you here is, “Wow . . . I just lost my appetite.”

Rourke studied his survey manager.  “You can really pick ‘em.”

“We were in a corner with that one, remember?”

“Friend Of Client?”

“Another lousy mother FOC-er.”

“Coming back to bite us.”

“I sent a boy to do a man’s job.”

“Huh,” Rourke said, studying the coffee-stained Rick.  “Marriage and jail is a lot in one night.”

“He’s always been funny that way.”

“Better get your ass out to Farenzza, before another one of our boys blows the biggest project we have right now.”

 “How mad is he?”

Rourke stared in disgust.  “Change your fucking shirt.”

To be continued . . .

 DAY 108: Sunday, January 24, 2010:  You won the big lottery once, and spent it all on food.

Continued from Day 107 . . .

Monday Morning:

A man alone with his thoughts.

A new window hidden by plastic blinds and flowing blue drapes, closing him off from a hostile world as the phone rings again, beckoning from a yawning black abyss; hungry wolves scratching at the door; hellfire blazing from swirling skies . . .

Rrrrrrrring!

A shadow appears at tinted office door windows, hesitating and unsure, its shape altered by thick, grainy glass, appearing as something frightening and inhuman.

Rrrrrrrring!

Suck it up, he thinks . . . you handled Kodiak like a tropic island getaway; you handled the Airborne Ranger Whatevers like Johnny fucking Wayne . . .

Rrrrrrring!

. . . okay – so you made it all up for these clowns – but you could’ve done that shit standing on your head . . .

-   -   -

“All rise!”

The courtroom stood as Carlton E. Potts III strolled into view, looking at the ceiling like he always did, trying to avoid the weekend’s sorrowful gathering of slouched and drooling defendants, with a visiting crowd that didn’t look much better.

“Please be seated.”

A massive, toothless girl wearing some kind of crude wedding dress and sporting a bright pink eye patch sat alone in the front row of spectator seats, working sour candy in and out of barren gums, drawing disgusted looks from a huge black bailiff off to one side.  He was focused entirely on the woman now, trying desperately to see where that candy was coming from.

There was absolutely no sharp contours on the woman, and a cattle scale brought her close to 450 pounds at the last official weigh-in, duly recorded at a pig roast in October during the annual “Guess Vera’s Weight” contest.  With winter just around the corner, her summer diet was long over, and Vera was packing it back on again, going for the gold.

 The bailiff was perched and ready when a small glass flask appeared out of her tent-like wedding dress.

She popped the cork and swilled before he got there, suddenly in a furious tug of war when the gavel came down hard, Judge Potts staring skyward to give his brain a moment to gather thoughts, apparently plucked from suspended ceiling tiles.

“Ma’m,” he said to the ceiling.  “Beverages of any kind are strictly prohibited from the courtroom.”

Vera was looking up with her one good eye, readjusting the bright pink eye patch.  “What the hell ya looking at, Potsy?”

The judge froze at the sound of his heavily despised schoolyard nickname, the bailiff angrily corking Vera’s bottle and standing nearby for more action, just now figuring how the glass flask easily breached metal detectors out front.

Judge Potts stared at the ceiling.  “Vera; in this court of law, you’ll address me as “Your Honor.”

He continued staring as Vera looked around slowly, giggling like a school girl as the bailiff cautiously returned to his seat, Vera calling after him to, “Hold that for my honeymoon, bro!”

’Bro’ was a word her new husband seemed to love, and Vera was all over it.

Arraignments continued as the gavel came down again:

A young teen accused of assaulting his girlfriend.

A young teen accused of dealing drugs.

An old man accused of assaulting his girlfriend.

An old woman accused of dealing drugs.

And Frenchy . . .  led into the courtroom handcuffed and bedraggled, unshaven and hurting between the legs, his truck just now being pulled out of a crushed pig trough, the hurting crew chief spotting his massive new bride trying to breach a dividing rail, now falling forward to send a torn bag of sour patch candies raining down like wedding rice.

She wasn’t wearing any panties, and spectators turned away in disgust, missing the furious bailiff’s imitation of a charging defensive lineman.

The gavel was coming down like machine gun fire, Vera struggling to her feet and knocking the bailiff over with shear weight; Judge Potts’ eyes locked on the ceiling as more court officers ran to assist their fallen comrade.

Vera’s shrieking pronouncement filled the courtroom:

“Woo-wee!  We got us a honeymoon in progress!”

Frenchy’s mind exploded out of its near comatose condition.

To be continued . . .

 DAY 107: Saturday, January 23, 2010:  You need binoculars to see beyond your toes.

Severance Pay:  Continued from Day 107 . . . wait a sec!  Some real life first!

A great writer called me tonight, a man who gave up mixing words to venture out as a merchant marine on the high seas, talking to me from Florida about dealing with pirates, and African villages, and crazy ass stories of all kinds, trading tales back and forth for over an hour, till my wife and daughter got home.

At one time he declined multiple job offers from the Providence Journal to be a columnist, because he didn’t like the way they operated.  He didn’t have much money or anything, just big crazy balls, and didn’t hesitate to follow his beliefs.  Now he lives on the high seas and all over the world, and he is a very rare breed today.  We made a promise to meet in the Florida Keys some day to go a little crazy; maybe when my daughter is grown and on her own (I’m not in a hurry, but I hope it happens).

Life goes fast.  Here’s more of a story taken from some real life adventures, mixed and served to entertain.  I hope you laugh, because sometimes “what if” is very, very close to “what about the time we . . .”

Life goes fast, but I’ve got a great gig these days, and appreciate making it through.  My little girl makes everything worth it. 

Story time . . .

They were high up in the Ashford hills, sitting on Frenchy’s tailgate in a fallow cornfield, looking southwest at the distant lights of UCONN, the state university where basketball was king and football was coming fast, which meant coaches made fifteen times more money than research scientists trying to slow world hunger.

“Where’s this crazy party, bro?”

Ferg looked off at the distant lights.  “Just a little rest stop before our big grand entrance.”

Frenchy was higher still when Ferg finally recommended the wine, fishing for a corkscrew as the bloated crew chief struggled with reality, and didn’t like what he found.

“No bro . . .it’s gotta age a little more!”

“Age?  We don’t need no stinking age!” Ferg said, hopping off the tailgate with a small jackknife in his hand like magic.  “Christ, Frenchy, it’s out of your lousy back yard.  Really, dude.  How much better do you think it’s gonna get?”

“Apparently, we don’t need a corkscrew either,” Candy added.

Ferg started digging a purchase into the cork, Frenchy’s gears turning faster at the thought of drinking his own urine, which occupied a large ratio of the homemade wine.

A small “pop!” sounded as Ferg held the cork aloft like a prize, offering Frenchy the first taste.

“Irish custom!  The wine maker starts the festivities!”

“I’m French.”

“Everyone’s Irish tonight!”

“I don’t wanna be Irish.”

“Let’s try a new approach!”

“I wanna go home.”

“You hate home, remember?”

Ferg popped the trunk of his Hyundai and brought out a small, plastic box.

Candy came over and looked into Frenchy’s cadaver eyes.  “You’re gonna love this,” she said.  “My date is on a roll lately.”

Frenchy stared at her opulent breasts, even though nothing was actually showing.

“He’s in the zone, Frenchy.”

Ferg brought the plastic box over to his empty spot on the tailgate and popped it open, explaining as he went.

“I’ll keep this simple, since you’re not really all there, and wouldn’t understand anyway.”

“Huh?”

Ferg carefully poured some wine into a little sample jar, humming as he went.

“Ever do nitrous?”

Frenchy came alive. “You bet!”

“Wish we had some.”

Frenchy’s face fell till Candy drew near and attracted his laced eyeballs, running her long, curling tongue over full and glistening lips, like a hungry vampire.

His eyes showed sparks of life, his mind thinking this could be good; this could be really, really good later on . . .

“Hmmmmm, hmmm, hmmm,” Ferg hummed, mixing something into the little jar; capping the other bottle.  “Hmmm, hmm, hmm, hm, hmmmmmmmm . . .”

“Are you really French?” Candy asked.  “Like, from Paris and shit?”

In what Frenchy considered a master move, he ran a fat tongue over his dry and cracked upper lip to answer her previous flirt, saying, “My people are from Canada, not like those ratty Maine French down here.”

“I didn’t know there was any kind of difference.”

“Yeah,” Frenchy said. “We’re hung like fucking horses.”

Candy nodded in amazement, but not in a good way.

“Shabingo!” Ferg said, shaking a little test strip to show Frenchy.  “We got us a winneeeer!”

Frenchy tore his eyes away from Candy and looked at a little paper test strip, now inches from his face.  It was showing bright blue on the lower half.

“Ever take a piss test, Frenchy?”

Something rang loudly in his stoked brain, Frenchy’s puffy eyes turning from the strip to Ferg’s expression, which seemed to be getting strange and more serious.

“Ever see how they study a piss test . . . Fa-renchy?”

He suddenly felt a little sobriety coming on as Ferg circled for dramatic effect, like Perry Mason.  “Ever see how they test to actually detect urine, Fa-renchy?”

The crew chief’s thoughts were turning inward now, time and events unheeded as Frenchy suddenly found the large wine bottle thrust in front of his face.

“Drink the fucking wine.”

Frenchy stared at the bottle like it would bite. 

Candy came over.  “I would drink that wine, you fucking asshole.  I would just take my beating right now and cut bait.”

“You’re my . . . uh . . . bro,” Frenchy said.  We’re bros, remember?”

Ferg held the bottle under Frenchy’s chin, his face getting darker.

“Drink it,” Candy said.  “Drink the wine, Frenchy.”

Ferg was intense.  “Kill it.  Kill the bear.”

“Oh!” Candy said.  “Anthony Hopkins in The Edge.  ‘Say I’m going to kill the bear!  Say it!’”

Terribly confused at blatant movie trivia, Frenchy reached slowly for the bottle, then drew his hand back like a reverse snake strike.

“There’s a signal if you don’t drink it,” Candy explained.

It took a few seconds to break through Frenchy’s pickled brain, then, “A signal?  A signal for what?”

“A backup plan is in place,” Candy said.  “Some people are waiting.”

This got through a little bit quicker, Frenchy jerking around nervously, looking off into the cold, black night, hearing nothing but a gentle breeze, seeing nothing but those distant lights of UCONN.

“There’s nobody out here,” he said, trying to laugh.  “You guys are full of shit!”

“You don’t wanna hear the signal.”

“You’re pranking me!”

Candy took the wine from Ferg and pressed it into Frenchy’s hands.  “Please Frenchy, don’t make him give the signal.”

In a master move of self-destruction, Frenchy took the bottle and grabbed his crotch.  “Signal this, bitch.”

“I tried,” Candy said, walking toward the Hyundai. “It’s all I could really do . . .”

“Just take your wine back,” Ferg said.  “It’s over ten percent piss, for chrissakes.”

Thinking he had called their bluff, Frenchy chuckled to himself as Ferg followed Candy a few steps, spun and POW!

Frenchy felt glass and wine spray his coat, splashing and dashing off his boots as POW! POW!

Tires were hissing loudly, Frenchy cursing as the truck started leaning heavily portside, his waving arms flying up in delayed terror, jagged bottle neck soaring to join the rest.

“Fuck!  Fuck!  Fuck!” he screamed, crying openly as smoke drifted slowly toward him from Ferg’s extended automatic; three fat .45 casings gleaming in the moonlight among crumpled and deer -nibbled corn stalks..

“That there,” Candy said, “would be the signal.”

Frenchy was swatting at his soaked front and staring dumbly at both hands, remembering his urine as Candy and Ferg got into the small Hyundai.

Just over a hundred yards away, two humongous farmers known as the Wilson boys took one last hit off a shine jar, and started their 1954 step side Ford truck.

Roy Clark was banjo pickin’ on a prehistoric 8-track bolted under the dash, trading licks with Buck Owens as the bigger Wilson brother threw a single headlight on and aimed toward paved road.

Frenchy was busy checking tires when he heard the old truck roar to life, spotting a single headlight bouncing through field furrows before turning his way, onto paved road.

“Eeee-ha!” came a distant cry, and Candy’s warning suddenly erupted in Frenchy’s struggling brain:

“You don’t wanna hear the signal.”

Most people associate moonshiners with Burt Reynolds, early NASCAR drivers, and the South, but Ferg used to tell Frenchy about how it really got started up in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts, and these very same hills of Northeast Connecticut.  Some of those back wood stills became exclusive vineyards with tours and planned hikes in the fall, some . . . not so much. 

A few are still running wild on the down low, complimenting booze with the very same stuff Frenchy was smoking, and they sure as hell don’t like guns blazing in their innocent looking corn fields. 

Unless it’s a certain signal. 

 Frenchy turned this way and that, ran a few steps and fell, ran back to the truck, popped the rear window and dove for sanctuary as Roy Clark’s raging banjo filled his ears, along with Buck Owens and one of his drunken Buckaroos.

“Eeee-ha!”

“Well looky here,” Willy Wilson said, sipping from a mayonnaise jar as he turned off the 8-track.  “A brand spankin’ new Suburban, from the nineteen-seventies!”

“He’s kinda’ lost, eh?” 

Big brother Tom took the jar, looking all around to make his point.  “This here ain’t the Chevrolet suburbs.”

They laughed loud and long, Frenchy curled-up like his kid getting the leather belt again.

“Maestro,” Willy said.  “Tonight’s a very special night indeed.  Cue the music.”

Roy Clark’s fiddle was a perfect accompaniment, and the Wilson boys went right to work, shocking Frenchy by repairing his tires with cans of fix-a-flat, and happily sharing their shine.

His relief was pure and genuine when they sparked some homegrown, and things looked downright marvelous back at the big old party barn, but joyous assumptions would suffer quick and brutal regrets, right near the stroke of midnight.

“Eeee-ha!”

To be continued . . .