Trying the Knot (32 page)

After mounting his motorcycle, he vigorously
revved the engine. He drove determinedly through the soft summer
rain. Every time he accelerated, he released more of the aggression
he had shored up inside of himself for too long.

With a cigarette clenched in his mouth, and a
glass of vodka dangling in his hand, Thad poured over a pile of
newspaper clippings. Ever since his unfortunate trip to the
hospital, he had grown increasingly less productive as he became
increasingly more intoxicated. He murmured to himself while
half-heartedly attempting to follow Ben’s fervent line of
inquiry.

Sitting in the swiveling chair with his feet
propped up on the desk, Ben drummed a pencil against his leg to the
beat of an intense rhythm he appeared to be composing off the top
of his head.

“Then what happened?” Ben asked again.

“How many times do we have to go over
this?”

“What were her exact words before storming
off?”

“She didn’t storm off.”

“It doesn’t sound that way to me. Are you
saying she just said, see yah and walked away?”

“That’s how it went. Pretty much.”

“Hard to believe.” Ben stopped drumming and
implored, “Don’t water this down. I want to hear all of it.”

“Why do you even care? The only trace of
hostility I saw was when she shoved him and sped out of the parking
lot,” Thad reiterated, letting cigarette ash fall to the floor.

“As a reporter, you suck. You’ll never get a
news beat outside this room,” Ben said. “Nick threatened you, what
was that all about?”

“He didn’t threaten me exactly.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he’d tell Kate about the time I made
a drunken pass at him, that is if I told Kate about his fling with
Vange.”

“Well, did you?” Ben asked. He sat upright
and shifted uncomfortably in the chair.

“Tell Kate, are you nuts?”

“I mean, did you make a pass at him?”

“I’ve no idea, it was during an alcoholic
blackout.”

“That’s a cop out, did you or didn’t
you?”

Thad offered ambiguously, “I guess I was sort
of making fun of him.”

“How so?”

“You know, if a body’s just a body, then why
not have sex with every body?”

“That’s really strange logic,” Ben shook his
head, unsure if he wanted to pursue this line of questioning any
further.

Thad downed the last remnants of the vodka
pint and put out his cigarette. Then he asked flatly, “Why go
through life with one hand tied behind your back? Why roller-blade
on only one foot?”

“Don’t be idiotic.”

Thad shrugged and resumed pasting the
newspaper clippings together. “I could never be gay, men are too
simple.”

“Or maybe you should be because women are
complicated creatures.” Ben raised his glass and downed the last of
its contents. He then picked up the pint and shook it. Out of
booze, their conversation withered up, and he resumed drumming
against his thigh. With defeated resignation, Thad worked away at
the task of completing the Back to School insert.

Ben cleared his throat, and he began, “You
had sex with Vange a couple times.”

“And your point is?”

“Did it ever not mean anything at all?”

“What,” Thad asked, “like did I love
her?”

“Sure, or was it meaningless?”

“Of course it meant something; of course I
love her.”

“Oh, really?”

“But I could never be in love with her,” Thad
rationalized.

“Why’s that?”

“Ah, because she loves you,” Thad said as if
it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Didn’t she ever tell
you that?”

Ben was silent for a long moment, and he
finally shook his head. “No, I guess not.”

Watching Thad work, Ben was grateful at least
his days were his own, and at night he worked around people, even
if they were drunks who wove endless tales of yesteryear. It was a
shame, he thought, their multitudes of talents and wealth of wisdom
should be wasted on dreary dead end jobs in newspaper layout room
or a restaurant that served only deep-fried and flame-broiled
artery-clogging dinners. Once Ben attempted to convince Ginny
Norris to revamp the menu with health foods, but she thought the
idea preposterous and too cutting edge for a town that had barely
seen an episode of Beverly Hills 90210.

Ben grabbed a pair of scissors and began
trimming his nails. “Is this job the reason you dropped out of
college?”

Thad laughed dementedly, and he said, “I
didn’t drop out, but I was nearly too shell-shocked to complete my
tour of duty.”

“Why’s that?”

“Some punk rocker tried to rape my
girlfriend, and she dumped me. Then my roommate ran off with his
boyfriend, and my best friend got pregnant. And then I moved six
times in one year.”

“Would you ever go back and get a
Masters?”

“If the economy doesn’t pick up, I won’t have
a choice. I can hardly pay back $25,000 worth of student loans with
a $6 an hour job.”

Distant drunken commotion drifted upstairs
from the main entrance and voices filled the vast cluttered second
floor with an out-of-place sense of merriment. Heavy feet trudged
up the stairs followed by quick, light steps. Seth Poole emerged
and saturated the room with his loud, sweaty presence. His
short-sleeved, pink dress shirt was open at his fatty hairy neck,
and his loosened tie was flung over his bulky shoulder. His gray
slacks were more wrinkled than usual, and he grinned tellingly from
ear to ear. When he moved aside to let Tristana pass through, his
face grew flushed with smug, self-satisfaction.

Tristana giggled loudly and poked at his big
gut. She heaved his pants up over the exposed crack of his ass.

“Yes, my roving reporter is hard at work,”
Poole said pleased. “That’s what I like to see.”

“The drudgery of deadlines,” Thad murmured,
and he eyed Tristana’s anatomically incorrect body. Her tight short
black dress emphasized her skinny waist and unnaturally full
breasts. With her smeared lipstick and long henna-dyed hair
tousled, she looked hauntingly beautiful as ever.

“Here’s a treat for your trouble,” Seth Poole
said, and he slammed down another pint of booze on the desk next to
where Ben’s feet were resting. “Drink up, fellas, all work and no
play makes Johnny a dull boy!”

“Awesome, my Christmas bonus in September,”
Thad said.

Ben removed his feet from the desk, sat
upright and inspected the cheap bottle of vodka.

“I don’t want to spoil you too much,” Seth
remarked as if reading Ben’s mind, and he wrapped his big hairy arm
around Tristana. “I prefer to spoil Porknorth’s lovely maidens,
especially this beautiful fugitive. In this backwater town, the men
are men, and so are half the women!”

Tristana’s raucous laughter only encouraged
his ribald attacks on Portnorth’s females, and he added, “And the
sheep are scared!”

Top-heavy Tristana giggled wildly and leaned
so far back she would have surely plummeted down the steps if it
had not been for Seth Poole’s stronghold around her scrawny
waist.

“You big lug, you really know how to treat a
girl,” Tristana said, and she squealed with laughter. She flashed
Ben and Thad a facetious wink and nuzzled up next to Seth. With all
the flattery she could muster, she flicked her long tongue against
his swollen, fatty neck.

Chortling with anxious anticipation they made
their way up the dusty attic steps, and Seth called down, “Hold all
calls until further notice. I’ve got to teach this luscious little
lawbreaker a lesson, you’ll never guess where I picked her up!”

“A street corner,” Thad mumbled under his
breath.

“Jail!” Poole called down, and he slammed the
attic door behind them. His raucous laughter was now muffled, along
with Tristana’s encouraging squeals.

With his eyes wide with disbelief, Ben poured
two shots of vodka and downed one. He then threw his feet back up
on the messy desk. “You weren’t lying when you said they were
hot-n-heavy.” Ben drummed the pencil fiercely against his thigh
with increasing frenzy as he spun around in his seat.

Thad slurred confidently, “Never doubt me, I
know most everything that goes on around this town.”

“Everything? Then tell me something about
myself.”

“You’re conducting an illicit affair,” Thad
began, and Ben grew perfectly still. “It’s with the girlfriend of
Portnorth’s only mortician and alleged drug kingpin; not to
mention, she’s the mother of one of our closest friends.”

“Chelsea is not one of my closest friends,”
Ben said.

“So, then you are screwing Ginny Norris.”

“Who told you?”

Thad continued to haphazardly cut and paste
together the newspaper layout. He shrugged immodestly and tapped
his temple, “No one, women’s intuition.”

Ben laughed and challenged, “How about
intuiting this; I bet Kate doesn’t go through with it. I bet
anything she backs out of the wedding.”

“You really think so?” Thad asked,
skeptically. He held out his shot glass for a refill. “I’m not
sure. I bet its Nick who backs out.”

Growing suddenly excited about gambling, with
the stakes being their friends’ future, Ben inquired, “How much you
willing to put down, fifty bucks?”

Thad grinned and said daringly, “Make it a
hundred.”

“Dude-man, you’re on!” Ben exclaimed, and he
jubilantly hammered his empty shot glass down on the table.

chapter sixteen

“It is no use,” Alexa said to the air as she
forcefully hung up the phone, “He’s probably with his elderly
girlfriend now that the lunatic is in a coma.”

Hovering in the narrow Feldpausch kitchen,
she grappled with the futility of her situation as she plotted her
next move. She was unsure how to go about springing Jack and
Tristana from their cellblocks with only her meager teenage
resources. The authorities would hardly release two criminals into
the custody of a minor. Besides, Alexa had long ago suspected the
Portnorth Police department of holding Jack responsible for the
death of Jules Czerwinski, and they were as determined to lock him
up as he was elusive.

For a brief moment, Alexa considered calling
her parents, but with one hand on the receiver she decided they
were probably falling off their barstools as she dialed. She bet
Jack’s dad and stepmom were in no better predicament. More than
anything else in the world, she dreaded a life sentence spent
wasted on booze in Portnorth, where the only viable pastime was to
piss away years in local taverns.

Unable to reach Ben, or Thad, or anyone else
for that matter, Alexa impulsively ran the three blocks to the
police station alone through the pouring rain. Soaking wet, she
entered the station and shook like a dog for the fun of it. Water
droplets covered the Plexiglas entrance barrier. Emotionally
wrought screams escaped from the backroom headquarters.

Alexa rang the buzzer and knocked on the
bullet proof Plexiglas. But as the yelling grew louder, so did her
confidence, and she forcefully pounded her fist against the window.
A red headed dispatcher appeared from the Sherriff’s office. She
blew her nose and dabbed at a steady river of tears. She finally
asked, “What for can I do you, kid? Visiting hours are posted on
the door.”

“I’m here to find out about Jack Hesse and
Tris-,” Alexa broke off and asked, “What’s her real name? It’s not
Tristana, it’s like Nan, or Nanette, maybe?”

“If you come to see that Hesse criminal and
the Paull girl, tough luck,” said the middle-aged dispatcher,
gnawing on a wad of gum. She was decked out in too large Avon
jewelry.

“Please, give me a few minutes, it’s all I
need,” Alexa pleaded. “Has bail been set yet?”

“What do you think this is Night Court?” The
woman laughed at her stunned face and rattled off the important
details. “That weirdo in black was picked up by the newspaper guy,
Seth Poole, and it’s unfortunate, but the Hesse criminal is not
being detained behind bars.”

“Where is he?”

“Beats me, we released him into the custody
of Carey Derry. He came in and probably took Jack out to the farm,
with all the other Juvies,” the dispatcher explained. “Uncle Carey
likes to bail out boys in trouble and give them a second, third and
fourth chance in life. But if I had my way, that pipsqueak criminal
would be thrown in the slammer. He’ll end up on America’s Most
Wanted, for sure.”

The angry yelling erupting from the backroom
lent the police station the ambiance of a mental institution. Alexa
stepped back and asked quietly, “What the hell do I do now?”

“Go home, kid, it’s late.”

“Derry Queen is probably molesting Jack as we
speak – they probably have him tied up in the barn and are
torturing him,” Alexa said.

The older woman rolled her eyes up at the
stained, sagging ceiling and quipped, “Well, let’s hope he’s into
S&M bondage and kink.”

“This isn’t funny,” Alexa said hotly. Trying
to ignore the barrage of shouts coming from the back room, she
glanced out at the wet street. She supposed she could get Thad’s
car and drive out to the farm and smuggle Jack home, but she had no
driver’s license. She never learned how to drive, or bothered to
get one. She never quite saw the point, as the entire city of
Portnorth only covered a four-mile radius.

The dispatcher cringed as the screams grew
angrier. “You got to leave here, we’re in the middle of a whopping
big-ass crisis.”

Feeling defeated, Alexa turned away and
stepped into a vacant street glistening with possibilities. She
leisurely made her way back to her parent’s house. As she ambled
aimlessly along, she noticed a figure in the distance and vaguely
recognized it as being her cousin Kate’s fiancé. As he neared her,
Nick Paull waved eagerly and called out her name.