Princely Bastard

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

First Edition

Copyright
©
2015 by K. H. Alynn

http://facebook.com/ThePunkRockGrrl

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in any part in any form.

chapter one

Aimee

IT’S FREEZING OUT. I mean, really freezing—and has been ever since I got off the bus.

This surprises me, as I always thought it was warm and sunny here all the time. It’s not sunny, either. It’s overcast, much like the day that brought me here, three thousand miles away. But as long as it’s not there I don’t care. Because anything is better than there.

Even better is that I’m anonymous here. I’m just one of a million nobodies wandering the streets—streets that go on forever—and from good to bad at random, from one block to the next. And I feel as random as them. I exist for a single moment and the next I’m someone else. Someone I don’t know.

I also don’t know where I am. Maybe I’m not even in Los Angeles anymore. The neighborhood I’m walking through seems both grungy and yuppie at the same time, reminding me a little of Hoboken—something I really don’t want to be reminded of. I notice as well that most people look about my age. They dress a little like me, too. I kinda fit in. Which is not usual. It’s not usual at all, and I’m not sure I like it. But at least I won’t bring attention to myself.

Suddenly, I stop—for no apparent reason. Then I turn and turn, searching for something, I guess.

Finally, I see it—a short distance away. It’s called the Silverlake Lounge.

I walk inside, and I see it’s a lot like the neighborhood—both grungy and yuppie at the same time, and random, too. It’s also long and thin like a railroad car, with a small stage at the far end of it.

It actually looks a little like another place I know—a place I wish I didn’t know. But it’s warm, and so, without thinking, I march right up to the bar, where a small group of people are watching football. And I sit down on a stool—at once catching the attention of one of the bartenders, who looks at me suspiciously. Which frightens me, though I try not to show this. I try to maintain my scowl—the one I’ve had for days.

Or has it been forever?

“What can I do for you?” he asks.

“Beer,” I blurt out—again without thinking. Perhaps it was that someone else who says this.

He again gives me a suspicious look—this one even more suspicious than the first, and he says, “Got ID?”

Now I’m really scared, and I silently curse myself for coming here instead of a café.

Do I want to get caught?

Maybe part of me does. Maybe this part wants to stop running. Maybe it further wants to suffer. But the other part wants to get out of here and fast, and only doesn’t because it knows this may draw even more suspicion. And besides, I really need a drink.

So, I reach into my backpack and pull out my wallet—and, while trying to keep my hands from shaking, I extract a laminated card, which I hand the man, hoping he has no idea what an authentic New Jersey driver’s license looks like.

Fortunately, he doesn’t. He puts the license down in front of me and says, “What kind?”

“What?” I mumble, not really hearing him.

“What kind of beer?”

“I . . .” I stammer, before glancing around to see what other people are drinking. Right away, I see a guy nearby with a beer bottle and I concentrate on the label as I read it.

“PBR,” I afterward tell the bartender, trying to sound authoritative.

He nods while continuing to look at me suspiciously, and walks off—and I grab my fake ID and stare at it.

It says my name is Michelle Theriault. That, of course, isn’t my real name. My real name is Aimee Goodwin, and even that’s not entirely real. At least it’s not the name I was given at birth, which was Eimi Xaipe.

“Eimi” looks a little strange, but it’s pronounced just like “Aimee.” It’s also the Greek word for “I am”—and the name of an E. E. Cummings book, just like Xaipe—which is Greek as well and means “rejoice.”

I actually didn’t know my first name was spelled like that until I was thirteen, and to this day I don’t know who changed it. And I only learned the truth about it when my adopted mother somehow got her hands on my original birth certificate and showed it to me. Which freaked me out a bit. It did, I think, because it meant I had no idea who I really was, and I could never quite shake this feeling. Not even now. Especially now.

“Three dollars,” the bartender tells me, as coolly as possible.

“What?” I gasp, as I look up and see an open bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon in front of me.

“The beer—it’s three dollars. Cash only.”

“Can, can I start a tab?”

He thinks about it for a few moments and nods his head, prior to walking off. Which is good, because I don’t think I have three dollars.

Actually, I’m pretty sure I don’t, and this fact causes me to glance at the gold bracelet my mother gave me for my 18th birthday—the one thing of value I have with me. But I quickly turn away from it, and I return the ID to my wallet, and put the wallet in my backpack—and, with some reluctance, I sip the cold beer. I sip it while avoiding smelling it.

Instantly, I feel a slight and warm buzz, probably because I haven’t drank in years and haven’t eaten since last night.

Or did I have something this morning?

“You got any nuts?” I say to the bartender, who reaches under the bar and grabs a bowl of pretzels, which he plops down in front of me.

They’ll do, I say to myself, as I crunch one between my teeth.

They’ll more than do.

I’M ON MY third beer, and I’m really feeling it. I’m feeling almost good, for the first time in a long while, and I don’t even care that I know this feeling won’t last—that when the alcohol fades I’ll feel even worse than before, probably much worse. All I care about is now.

So, I chug what’s left in the bottle—at the same time noticing a man has come up beside me—and not just any man. He’s a policeman.

He eyes me even more suspiciously than the bartender, and I think this is it—he must know. He must know about the murder.

Murder
.

The word makes me shiver, and makes me think back to the first time I heard it in connection with myself.

It was only a few days earlier, in Des Moines. I had just gotten off a bus late in the evening and was waiting for another—one that would take me farther west.

In the station there was a TV, and, having nothing better to do, I sat down and watched CNN—and had been watching it for about twenty minutes when I suddenly saw my picture on the screen.

“Authorities in New Jersey are looking for 18-year-old Aimee Goodwin,” the anchorwoman proclaimed without emotion, as if she were reading her grocery list—“who’s been missing since Saturday. They want to question her about the murder of a fellow high school senior named Julian Bauman, who was found bludgeoned to death not far from his home in South Orange.”

I was so shocked by this that I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even breathe. Then, when it finally passed, I glanced around the station—to see if anyone else was watching the TV—and, more importantly, to see if they were watching me.

But no one was, and I hurriedly jumped to my feet and rushed out of the station—and I hid behind a corner of the building until my bus came.

“Can I see some ID,” the cop asks me.

Surprisingly, I’m not afraid. Maybe it’s the beer. Or maybe it something else. Maybe it’s just that it doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing matters, I tell myself, so I reach into my backpack for my wallet and pull out my fake ID, and I show it to the man—knowing he will surely arrest me and return me to New Jersey.

Murder
.

Strangely, this is not what I fear most about returning. It’s not even close.

The cop looks at the license carefully. He looks at it far more carefully than the bartender. He even tilts it in the dim light, and I’m just waiting for him to say, “Come with me.” I can even see the words forming on his lips.

“Michelle Theriault,” he says instead.

“What?” I softly reply—so softly that it’s barely audible.

“Is that French?” he inquires with a smile, as he hands me back the license.

“I, I don’t know,” I mumble.

“My wife’s French. Or at least her grandmother was.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. What are you doing in LA?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“Let me guess—you’re an aspiring actress.”

“Maybe,” I say with a forced smile.

“Well, good luck.”

“Thanks.”

He soon walks off, but I feel no relief from this. I actually feel worse. So worse that I tell the bartender: “Can I get a bourbon?”

chapter two

Mark

I’M DOING REAL good, or at least better.

My right hook is suddenly working, and my left jab, too. I’m hitting Ricky over and over, and he’s staggering. He can barely return my punches.

I’m gonna win, I tell myself. I’m gonna fucking win. Which is hard to believe considering how I must look—and how I felt only a short time earlier.

I’m gonna win.

This is so hard to believe that I have to tell it to me over and over. I especially have to say it because I know what’ll happen if I don’t win.

Just one more punch—one more punch is all I need, and I throw a right as hard as I can. But he blocks it—and my left as well, and he slams his bare knuckles into my gut.

Now it’s me who’s staggering. I stagger in all possible directions at once, just as another fist lands—this one squarely in my right eye, which sends me flying backward into a wall.

There my legs wobble, and blood washes over my face. I can barely see—not just from the blood and sweat, but from all the punches I’ve taken over the past ten minutes.

Ricky then hits me again—this time across the chin—and I fall to my knees as he starts using my head as a punching bag. Over and over he pounds me, and I just want it to end. I want everything to end.