Day 163: Saturday, March 20, 2010:  There’s some hope for your weight problem.  I’ll get back to you.

You knew it wouldn’t take long, because IT ALWAYS TENDS TO FIND ME, no matter where I go or what I do.  There it is . . . LURKING.

Today I had a few hundred houses added to my mail route to see how I would do, and time was of the essence.  I was told to be very NASCAR, but safe and accurate.

Ahem. 

Now if there’s a package too big for the mail box, my fellow hillbilly folk will often hang it off your mailbox flag, but the academy was very adamant about trying to deliver in person, so there I was with a big ‘ol package that wouldn’t fit in the rural box, and the apparent house across the street.

APPARENT IS THE KEY WORD.

There was no other house in sight!   Just this big, brand new McMansion where I drove up tooting my little horn, trotting off to the front porch to ring a doorbell that sounded like an entire Trans Siberian Orchestra.

There was some kind of insane screaming in a foreign language, until this woman with the largest teeth I’ ve ever seen approached me, looked the box over, grabbed it out of my hands, and became very agitated.

“Is this 426?” I asked, as she shook the box.  “I need to scan that bar code so I can go.”

“I need to find the BOY!” she yelled, as if I had a hearing problem.  “I told the boy not to do this THING!  DAMN HIM!!!”

So I waited as she raved and screamed through the house, then the backyard, then somewhere in-between, before finally returning.

“Okay,” she said.  “Good-bye now.”

She had killed my time and several brain cells, so I was leaving when I remembered the scan, and returned.

She gave me the box and left, so I scanned it and was just going to put it down and bolt, when she returned and showed me an envelope, addressed to 427, not 426.

“Is this your address?” I asked.

She nodded.  “This is here.”

“Is there a house number 426 across the road somewhere?”

She pointed across the road.  “Up in woods!  Up in woods!”

“Thanks,” I said, wishing she had told me ten minutes ago, before running around for “the boy”.

“Europe is better,” she said, as I thanked her for . . . whatever.

“Okay,” I said, trying to leave now.  “Europe is nice.”

“Your numbers are all crazy.  In Europe they’re chop-chop-chop!  Smarter in Europe!”

“Have a great day!”

And I was practically running for the truck, to find that - once across the street – a cart path led up to a beautiful cape, where a friendly sheep dog came out to greet me, and a nice old couple were excited to get their package of seeds for the garden.

When I mentioned the mix-up, they told me she had just moved here from Bolivia.

Via Europe?

And so it finds me.  IT FINDS ME . . .

I won’t even mention the registered letter, where I had to find a backyard party to have someone sign.

More stories to come.  Did I mention the large teeth?  Like a friggin’ HORSE.  Sorry . . . venting . . . venting . . . there.

Did you know that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were killed in Bolivia?

Just a thought.

Day 133: Thursday, February 18, 2010:  Your desert menu is longer than a dictionary.

Severance Pay: Continued from Day 132 . . .

Candy tried the cigarette again and coughed mightily, shooting one more nip of vodka to get her mood right.

She walked unsteadily across the lot to Perpetual Motion, feeling fear and everything that’s been happening come back to sap her confidence, trying to show daddy who was really boss.

I’m showing him who’s a mess, she thought, stabbing the cigarette at her mouth coming into the club, looking around to let her eyes adjust when a musclebound bartender jumped the bar in one move and ran to meet her.

“You are she.”

“Candy stabbed her mouth, a spark almost hitting her left eye.  “What?”

“We’ve been waiting since earlier in this day.”

She dropped the cigarette and grinded it out.  “You know me?”

“Please,” he said, stepping close.  “Your name.”

“Candy.”

She saw the tear and backed up a step, this intense young man brushing at his face to step with her, crowding Candy near the condom machine.  “I knew you would come, Candy.  We’ve been waiting . . . please . . .”

She watched him disappearing fast into the club, waving for her to follow as he walked, yelling Victor’s name over and over.

She cautiously followed as eyes adjusted, the stage strangely empty with no music at all, and she could hear strange noises from a dark corner, like grunting and punching.

“Out you pig!” someone screamed, a shadow dragging another shadow across frazzled and stained carpet as she continued to follow this powerful little man, leading her up and across an empty stage to the back dressing area, where Victor stood very slowly from the prep area, arms extended as if Candy was a long lost daughter.

“Candas Kane of Californ-ee-aaaahhh!”

“Uh . . . Victor?”

He rushed to hug her like a long lost child, lifting her high off the floor as Candy forgot all of Big Jim’s advice.

“Candy Candy Candifornia!”

Victor began a very stupid dance for her benefit, swinging her around like a big doll as he sang, “Dream of Candifornicaaaaatiooooon . . . dream of Candifornicaaaaatiooooon . . .”

“Put me down, Victor.”

“Dream of Candifornicaaaaatioooooon . . .”

“Victor!”

He put her down and froze, afraid to make her angry.

“Where’s a phone, Vic?”

“You called me ‘Vic!’”

“Phone!”

“Office!”

“Show me.”

“Please,” he said, leading her out.  “This is all so exciting today.”

Victor  led her across the quiet club, sweeping his arms like a ring master.  “The dressing room will be a tanning salon, Miss Kane.  And all this . . .”  He spun around and nearly fell.  “Big gymnasium and health food things!”

“I’ll fucking kill him.”

The call came through as Bobby was interviewing a dancer named Gem, who could walk on her hands for ten minutes.

“That covers about two or three songs,” she said.  “They just tuck money into my talking snatch.”

“It talks.”

“I throw my voice.”

Bobby’s lamp squawked hello, and his phone started ringing.

“Hello, thank Christ.”

“What?”

“Candy.”

“Dad.”

“You’re alive.”

“Not for long.”

“Tell me.”

“I’ll get the electric chair after I cut your fucking eyes out.”

“Ha-ha!” Bobby covered the phone and looked at his new stripper.  “Sicilian.”

The stripper rolled her eyes.  The lamp said, “Got’cha.”

“See me in ten.”

The stripper left, and he interrupted a long tirade of profanity.

“Whoa there, honey.  Come up for air.”

“I’m putting Victor on, before he builds a shrine in my honor.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Maybe he can explain.”

“Victor?  Hello?”

“Mister Kane.”

Please, Vic.  You know it’s Bobby.”

“It’s Candy’s club now, but I beg of you -”

“It is?”

“What?”

“My daughter’s club?”

“Forever.”

“Well, Victor.  This is very good news.”

“It’s the best news in a terrible world, Mister Bobby.”

“Bobby, Vic.  It’s Bobbyyyyyy.”

“In a place where the pain of humanity and suffering has gathered to offend itself, and where small children cry for drunk fathers that never come home to tuck them in from work, and where the angry hockey woman comes like an angel to set things right -“

“Hey Vic?”

“We will turn this bloody tide the other way through health and fitness.”

“Victor!”

“Yes Bobby mister?”

“Put my daughter on.”

“Dad?”

“Get out of there now, hon.  Don’t be obvious or anything, just run screaming like hell for your fucking life.”

“I figured something out.”

“You better, because a shipment of heroin hit Hartford last week, and we’re hearing stories about serious brain damage.”

“No dad.  He mentioned a hockey lady.”

“Among other things.”

“I know the hockey lady.”

Bobby heard Victor yelling happily in the background.  “Honey . . . what the living hell is going on out there?”

“I’m going to let you wonder for a while.”

“No!”

Candy hung-up, smiling at Victor.  “Your angel came in white, huh?”

“Black and gold!”

“So it wasn’t a visitor’s jersey.”

“The old Boston Garden!  Home ice!”

“And the magic number.”

“Four!”

“Thanks, Vic.  I’ll be taking the club now.”

To be continued . . .

Day 131: Tuesday, February 16, 2010: The elastic in your waistband just snapped and took a light out.

Severance Pay: Continued from Day 130 . . .

“Smell it?” Janelle asked.  “Smell the boards?”

They were in a penalty box, Ferg and Janelle leaning way out over the boards now, feeling cold air off polished ice.

“I can just barely.”

“It would start right there,” she said, pointing to where a net would be. “The set-up and read.”

Ferg provided color: “Bobby Orr has the puck.”

“He would see everything, Ferg.  Reading the movements of players, positions shifting in little microseconds, bodies leaning this way and that, but it was as if he had a bird’s-eye view, looking down from above, and every single player would be the gears of a giant clock, spinning and tick-ticking to be within a perfect pattern.”

 “He’s back behind the net, looking to pass or rush.”

“And then everything would be . . . perfect.”

“He’s moving out and up the left side . . .”

“Sanderson would be faking to receive a pass that never comes, Bobby putting on the speed now, because gears are closing fast, and baby you gotta move . . . you gotta move when those gears are closing fast, with players in the way.  Everybody getting in the way . . .”

Ferg saw tears coming fast and moved to hold her, Janelle pushing him back.

“No!  He’s got a man to beat, baby, and Bobby’s way to fast, cutting on those knees with a thousand pounds of pressure, feet flashing on blades and now the gears are clear, the microsecond is closing, and that fucking puck goes eighty miles an hour past the goalie, right past the goalie, and time marches on until he’s in banking commercials, and dropping pucks for charity games, but I’m still caught in the net.  I’m so caught in the fucking net, and those gears are never going to be in position again.  Not in a million years.”

Tears took over, Janelle crying openly as Ferg held her tighter than ever, telling her everything would be alright now, watching the rink manager stare from where a Zamboni would come out to freshen the ice, and now he was slowly walking their way.

Ferg didn’t care, holding her until the manager was ten feet away, raising a hand to back him off a minute, the older man reading things right, until Janelle’s face came back into view, looking terribly lost.

“Are you folks gonna be alright?”

Ferg looked at his wife closely.  “We just need a little time.”

The manager looked around until something came to him, and he sat down to tell them a story about what he would do late at night, before his wife died and things got a little bit rough.

Twenty minutes later, Ferg held both of Janelle’s hands as they tried not to fall skating around center ice, with Jethro Tull sounding loud and clear over countless arena speakers.

“One day you’ll wake-up in the present day . . . a million generations removed from expectations . . . of being who you want to really be . . . skating awaaaay . . . skating awaaaaaay . . . on the thin ice of a new day . . .”

And they cried like little children, as higher up near some old rafters, the manager watched and cried with them.

To be continued . . .

DAY 122: Sunday, February 7, 2010:  You don’t need a bathroom break until after two cases of beer.

Utmost insanity.

I have an vague memory of waking with my head on the keyboard, breaking to eat and walk the dogs, then returning to finish in time for the midnight deadline tonight.  It’s the Amazon writing contest to discover “new” writers (I’m old), so I banged out a few thousand more words and started an editing frenzy that discovered the usual multitude of mistakes and so forth (the italicized first person had to be altered to keep the fast pace going, and match the rest.  Stuff like that).  I finished and submitted at 10:37 pm, after three days of sick night and day typing, so tomorrow I’ll head into Massachusetts to meet crazy friends and light up a gun range with several exotic weapons, and I have no idea why this is fun.  They love black powder and I love long distance, having been trained by a Marine sniper named Bob Koteen out in Minnesota; I’ll try to hit nail heads at a few hundred yards.  I couldn’t shoot anything that breathes, but paper, cans, and nails are fun.  Then I’ll cheer like crazy for the Saints, but enjoy it anyway if they lose.  I have no idea why.  Blah blah here’s more story . . .

Janelle giggled like a small child, loving every second of this family reunion, but when the giggling finally stopped, Rhiannon looked deeply into her mother’s eyes, and smiles turned to silent tears of gratitude, holding each other close.  They were family once again, and later that night Janelle did some serious catching up in the soul kitchen, sitting across from Ferg with Fiona nursing China tea at the island, and little Rhiannon doing homework in the living room, between colorful crayon renderings of a gorgeous genius mother.

“I can sit here all night and tell you the little things I see,” Janelle explained.  “Nervous excitement in Rhiannon’s eyes that require my comforting attention, another kind of nervous excitement from Fiona’s attentive mentoring program . . .”

Janelle trailed off, looking to her sister-in-law.  “Is she full ninja yet?”

“Close.”

“Right.”

There were more smiles and laughter until it came time for Fiona to check Rhiannon’s homework, passing her off to Janelle at bedtime, mother and daughter lying down to cuddle and chat until sleep took the little girl elsewhere, and Janelle quietly switched spots with Fiona, the celebrity patient from Nutmeg Highway creeping out to read her long lost husband.

Ferg explained his dramatic departure from Victory Engineering in detail, and Janelle mentioned the ironic timing of a couple breaking loose from oppression.

“Your job sounds worse than the insane asylum.”

“Good thing I didn’t bring guns.”

“I can sense a fresh energy,” Janelle said, sipping tea from Fiona’s stash.  “I can see a level of intensity coming off you like nothing before; certainly not during the old daily grind with those bottom feeding scumbags.”

“That’s just me needing a shower.”

“Goes without saying.”

Smiles.

“And you,” Ferg said.

“Went very deep to get here.”

“Center of the earth, baby.”

“And you came in the wink of an eye.”

“Like a finger to the moon.”

 “Enter the Dragon.  Very appropriate.”

“If I ever knew what was going on, I would’ve killed to get you out.”

“I almost did.”

“Remind me to change our current health plan.”

“Fuck that,” Janelle said, putting the tea aside.  “Are all your parts in working order?”

“No way.”

“Way.”

Ferg watched her closely, a nightmare flash of Candy before his eyes, and a very tense moment when Janelle’s eyes changed, like she saw something there.

Janelle whispered “What,” as if the secret had been found.

Ferg looked down, trying to cover.  “I thought it might be like those prison movies, where it takes a long time for you to come around again with intimacy and all that.”

“Are you nuts?”

He looked up; the ironic nature of her question striking them both at the same time.

Janelle stood.  “To the bat cave . . .”

And they climbed narrow steps to Ferg’s converted attic room, not making the mad and passionate love one would expect after years of separation, but the slow drumbeat of rediscovery, exploring bodies that had changed a bit over the years.

“How the hell did you become so strong and . . . flexible?” Ferg asked, finally exhausted as Janelle rested her head on his chest.

“I had to work a deal,” she breathed, walking long, sinewy fingers across waves of abdominal muscles.  “Horrible sacrifices to get serious workout time.”

His voice caught, thinking of Janelle’s imprisonment.  “I’m so goddamn sorry.”

She rolled onto him then, searching to finally reach down and feel fresh tears starting, his heaving stomach giving them away.  “I know, my Fergus McCrory.  I know everything about you and everything that worries you and everything you feel right now.  It’s nearly impossible to explain the level of sensitivity I’ve obtained, gathering strength in a twelve by twelve room with no communication until those little door slots opened to feed me, and those visits became a very big intrusion over time.”

Ferg held his breath, listening.  A horrible guilt was building now; his wife’s ordeal driving it home.  “Intrusion?”

“It was like a shotgun blast, interrupting meditation and conversations with myself, trying desperately to break free of random, disconnected thoughts to reel them in and get something cognitive and rational going; something that had a flow and sense to it, while over time – over a lot of goddamn time – something pretty fucking clear came across to me in that little room.”

“And what was that?”

She bent near, whispering.  “You were cheating.”

Ferg exhaled slowly, and Janelle inhaled to continue.  “Medical experts told you how my chances for recovery were a million to one; that I was sliding away into dangerous dementia and incurable behavior, so it was perfectly understandable and inspirational for recovery, knowing that my husband was going to move on and that my little girl would live her life without me, eventually seeking comfort in the arms of a surrogate mother, all of this driving me hard for what I had to do.”

Ferg slowly reached up, running his hand through Janelle’s flaxen hair as tears fell to join his own, now coursing down the sides of his contorted face, lips pulled back in a tortured, frozen grimace.

“I had to sweat,” Janelle said.

Ferg stared up to her dark face.  “Sweat?”

“Fuck yeah.”

“Like . . . perspire?” 

She was nodding, brushing the tears away.  “Like a ten dollar Mexico City whore.”

They both started breaking from the torturous truth then, nodding and laughing through the sadness, as Janelle continued.  “At first it was just isometrics against padding because of the straight jacket, with a lot of deep knee bends and squat-thrusts – stretching and yoga – but as people started noticing during camera surveillance, a couple of deals were struck with randy orderlies, and my jacket was taken off.”

“Oh.”

“Yes.”

“Randy as in . . .”

“YouTube.”

Ferg exhaled.  “Have you seen my little laptop?”

“Not now dear; I’m on a roll.”

“Go.”

“So a deal was struck, and I was prancing for all the world to see, using that canvas jacket as another tool for isometrics, sweating the chemical out – which really wasn’t a chemical by then, but close enough – and starting to see things clearly.

“But even as sanity slowly returned, powerful feelings of vengeance and anger started to grow so that it went on and on and on, taking one new level at a time, my inner self rising to the surface of a very polluted and toxic lake.”

“Damn.”

“And of course, there was the old Boston Bruins.”

Ferg shook his head at another brutal switchback.

“I remembered you playing the senior league with my brothers; all of you guys drinking beers later and watching the old Boston Bruins tapes as I tried to study, then joining you later to wonder what it was all about.  I remembered the history and development, until those incredible years with Orr and Cashman and Cheevers . . .”

She cleared her throat.  “Jesus saves; Esposito scores on the rebound.”

“Who could forget?”

“So I clung to these simple memories dangling like a rope into Hades, climbing and climbing upward to more recognizable patterns and other memories, falling back to the old Bruins when things became distorted, but soon it all started flowing into some kind of crazy sense.  Soon I had more platforms to ascend, and present reality came slowly into view.

“When I was absolutely, positively certain that sanity was finally coming back, I also knew that patience was quickly disappearing, and that trust between the hospital staff and myself had eroded into dangerous territory.  I had to take complete control of their situation.”

Ferg was transfixed and listening to every word now; ready to cry again for the bravery of this woman he had loved so much and was loving now, more than ever.

Janelle whispered in his ear.  “Was she good?”

The change-up question froze Fergus as she giggled, rolling off to look up into darkness, letting the question slam through her husband’s consciousness like an angry hornet, then feeling his weight shift to prop up on one elbow, facing her way.

“That was interesting,” he said, “how you dropped the infidelity question again, after talking about your own experience at the infirmary.”

“Yes,” Janelle said, breathing hard.  “Thanks.”

“And you seem really, really happy.”

“I’m ecstatic.”

“And that would be because . . ?”

“It’s a reverse set-up question that would normally be used to start gaining control, but now is used in order for me to lose control.”

“Control of what?”

“A converted transference caused by jealousy and anger.  Would the word homicidal be overly problematic?”

“In a way.”

“I really have to know about your infidelity, for me to trust you and for you to trust me, after watching my naked performance while trying to make deals with a bunch of underpaid zookeepers.”

Ferg settled down on the bed with a great gush of air, gathering his thoughts.  “Could you really fry my brain?”

She giggled.

“Janelle . . . honey?  The giggling really scares me now.”

She broke into laughter, shaking her head to roll on top of him and sit, reminding Ferg of a position Candy had just recently taken.

And he told her everything, starting with a couple of drunken visits to Perpetual Motion around the holidays, to a happy ending massage down in New London, finally wrapping things up with his recent adventures involving Miss Candas Kane, the post grad mafia princess.  He told her the entire Bonnie and Clyde fiasco, explaining how their strip joint episode ended, with Frenchy’s brand new wife and self-adopted brothers.

 “My turn,” said Janelle, and they were at the laptop in no time, Ferg watching intensely as a very naked-from-the-neck-down black and white Janelle danced about the padded room, wearing her straightjacket as a kind of flowing Muslim Hijab, with one sleeve pulled tightly over her mouth.

“Love the Wayfarers,” Ferg said, enlarging the image on his screen.  “It could really be any super hot, athletic looking crazy person in a rubber room.”

“Indeed; and when the goons thought they were having sex with me?  They never laid a hand.”

“Come again?”

“They did, but only with themselves.”

“No.”

“Oh yes . . . once I got into their heads, it was look but no touch, unless operating their very own tools.”

“I know a guy from work who would love that job.”

“Once they operated each other’s tools.”

“I’ll e-mail him the address right away.”

“Don’t wanna know.”

 “So in essence, you gave them a faceless body, with the feeling of only themselves.”

“That’s deep for you.”

“I’ve been reading Rhiannon’s textbooks.”

“I see.”

 “Candy is over,” Ferg said.  “Dead and gone forever.”

“Maybe for you.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Questions, my love.”

“This is where you cook my brain.”

Janelle smiled.  “Not yet.  My only concern is, you weren’t even a day out of work, robbing the cradle of a wild girl and bringing our kid around that.”

“We have Guardian Fiona.”

“Who – by the way – kept this secret very well.”

“For now, and Rhiannon would’ve let something slip; guaranteed.”

“Hmmm . . .”

Janelle pushed away from the desk and stood, Ferg watching his wife’s lissome body stretch and glide away, breaking into perfect ballet spins before slowly returning cat-like, crouching before him like a Saigon street vendor, watching Ferg’s angular, shadowed face.

“I want to know everything about this woman.”

Ferg turned to see the paused image of his wife in a padded cell, dancing for a chance to make deals, knowing there would be other images somewhere because these kinds of people always had backup plans, thinking how she might be affected by such a twisted ordeal.

“You have every right,” he said, turning back.  “You can do whatever you want with this situation.”

“Bingo,” Janelle said.  “That’s the million dollar answer, because it’s not about the girl or what took place between you, it’s about how we both feel and how we’re going to feel now, with my sudden escape from the dungeons of padded hell.”

“Ah.”

“Ah.

“Eee.”

“Ohhhhh,” Janelle said, rising to carefully straddle Ferg’s lap, reaching to close the paused image of herself in another time and place.  “Enough voyeurism.  I just want to hold you tight for like . . . ever.”

She bent forward, and they kissed for a very long time.

To be continued . . .

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 . . .