Vicious (5 page)

Although he hated to admit it, Howard did too. He was willing to suspend disbelief for years while hanging onto the fleeting hope that maybe she was still alive somewhere, but my God, after a while, reality must be acknowledged.

Beth refused to acknowledge it, and she hated Howard even more for giving in to the temptation of others who didn’t know their baby Anna the way they did. He knew his Anna. But if she were alive, his Anna would be twenty-six or twenty-seven by now. Why wouldn’t she have come home? What would have kept her away so long without a phone call or anything?

No, she had to be dead. Howard had to face the facts that his wife would not bury his daughter. But he couldn’t do that either. He wanted more than anything for Beth’s insistent ramblings about how she could feel that Anna was still alive to be true. So he would help her on this pointless quest like he always did, knowing full well it would amount to nothing. In the end, he would neither bury his daughter, nor would he believe her alive. That, of course, was the damnable misery of it all.

Howard sighed and grabbed the oversized remote for his oversized TV while he sat in his oversized arm chair in his undersized study. He began to flip the channels, mindlessly hoping to happen upon something that required virtually no energy or thought to watch. He started staring at the game show on whatever channel, made a sour face and quickly decided that mindless had its limits. Perhaps he should try something with at least a third-grade-education requirement. He turned on the news and was greeted immediately by the video footage of a large burning building. Intrigued that someone was having a significantly worse day than he was, he turned up the volume as the voice of an anchorwoman clued him in on the story.

“Fifteen are already reported dead and twenty-six wounded here at the site that once used to be the Coteau Holmes Correctional Facility. No one is sure how this massive fire broke out, but authorities speculate it may have been the work of disgruntled inmates planning an escape. The massive blaze began in some of the solitary holding cells around three-thirty this morning and rapidly spread throughout the prison. Unfortunately, since the facility was in such a remote location, the St. Martinsville fire fighters were not able to get to the fire in time to save much of the building. However, thanks to the quick thinking and diligent efforts of the guards here at Coteau Holmes, the vast majority of the inmates were evacuated unharmed into the gated yard. There have been no reports of any escapes, which has a nearby community sighing with relief.”

Howard flipped to the next channel. Why had he stopped on that story? What did he care about some prison in Louisiana catching on fire? It was that name, Coteau Holmes. The name sounded vaguely familiar.

Chapter Seven

Grant, twenty-six years later

Mardi Gras was the mission. I called it a mission because when a group of college guys are this serious about partying, it becomes more than just a road trip to New Orleans. This was our mission. Well, it was their mission. I was more like an innocent bystander that got drafted to go whether I wanted to or not. It wasn’t like I didn’t want to go to New Orleans, and I had absolutely nothing against drinking and having a good time, but I had heard the stories and seen the aftermath of Bourbon Street. The whole thing seemed a little on the dirty wild side for me.

“Come on, Grant. Don’t puss out on us now. You want to be a writer, right? Well, you got to experience some shit so you have something to write about.”

The majority of this had come from my pre-med friend Eric. Of course, Kyle and Reggie added insults and their own brand of convincing whenever possible. In the end, it was Eric’s dumb so-you-have-something-to-write-about comment that always made me cave. I knew it was juvenile, but it was also right.

All my years in Pennsylvania had given me a picturesque childhood full of lovely Kodak moments of white Christmases, autumn sunsets and endless summer days in the woods. We were your typical old-school television family, all cookie cutter and nice. It was a lovely backdrop for a childhood but made the idea of becoming a writer difficult. To write a story there must be a conflict, and how could I write a truly compelling story when I had experienced so little conflict of my own?

I suppose that was why I chose to go to LSU instead of somewhere local to home. The South had always intrigued me, and Louisiana seemed like a completely different world altogether. In the end, it was my choice because it was as far away from my cookie-cutter home life as possible. The Brady Bunch be damned, I needed to experience something.

“So Cheese Steak, are you ready for some action?”

Eric asked me this as we finished loading the car and I took my place in the back seat next to Kyle. Reggie sat shotgun and Eric got in the driver’s seat. They all looked at me with ridiculous grins on their faces. I was the novelty. I was the guy from up north who had never been to Mardi Gras before.

Rolling my eyes, I said, “You do know that I’m not from Philadelphia, right?”

“Doesn’t matter, Cheese Steak. Would you rather we called you Yankee?”

“You do know the Civil War ended a long time ago? We won.”

“Yeah, but we have to call you something. I’m Gator, Reggie’s Mud Bug and Kyle is Burg.”

“Grant is fine,” I said with a grin.

“Whatever Cheese Steak,” they all said in unison before they all broke out in hysterical laughter. It was contagious, so I laughed too. I knew I wouldn’t be able to outrun my nickname. Let them call me what they wanted. It was guy speak that meant I belonged.

“Like I said before, are you ready for some action?”

All the guys began to whoop and holler in response, and I couldn’t help but join in as the car sped out of the parking lot toward New Orleans. As soon as we reached the highway, Reggie cracked open the beers, and we all drank and talked about which bar to hit up first. Since I didn’t know New Orleans, I just let them debate about which one had the best Hand Grenades and which one always had the hottest girls. I listened with mixed enthusiasm before I piped in with my own thoughts on our plans.

“Hey, I was thinking tomorrow we could go on one of those ghost tours or maybe a cemetery tour or something. They are supposed to be really interesting. Maybe we could hit up a voodoo shop?” This was met with much less enthusiasm, and I instantly had three sets of confused eyes looking at me.

“Are you a chick, Cheese Steak?”

“Dude, I plan to be in a bar every minute that I’m awake,” stated Kyle.

Reggie added, “There is no last call except on Fat Tuesday. I plan on being so hammered that the street sweeper will have to push my ass home. Screw a ghost tour.”

They all laughed. I knew then that in order to get an idea of the New Orleans I wanted to know, I would have to make my plans when the others were peacefully sleeping off their hangovers.

The drive was not very long, and we found our hotel among all of the streamers and colorful costumes just off of Canal Street. The constant music and movement of this place was intoxicating, and it seemed to get into our blood and follow us up to our rooms. I shared a room with Eric, and Reggie and Kyle bunked together. We all were excited as we took turns showering and got ready to hit up the town.

We walked down the stairs, through the lobby and out the door only to be greeted by an insane number of people dancing and screaming in our way. Beads were being thrown everywhere, and confetti and glitter rained down on us from who knows where as we maneuvered through the throngs of people. There were so many women flashing their breasts it became just another part of the scenery, and eventually we didn’t even stop to look.

I was hot and sticky being pressed up against all of these people. Even though Eric kept us moving, all of the body heat around me made me feel feverish. Everyone had a drink in their hands, and as I saw drink after drink fall and splash on the feet of the person next to them, I was suddenly very relieved I had chosen to wear my worn-out boots tonight as opposed to flip flops.

The police broke through the crowd here and there, offering a small pocket of relief in their wake. We saw one lady cop pushing a guy that was hobbling on a broken leg through the crowd. He had a cast up to his knee on his right leg and was desperately trying to hold onto a crutch under his arm while she had his hands pinned behind his back. The guy yowled in pain. We got in behind her and followed the nice path she was clearing as she pushed the poor guy in front of her through the crowd. We couldn’t tail her long because she shoved the guy down a side street towards her patrol car, so we were on our own again.

Thankfully, the crowd began to thin the farther out we got on Bourbon Street, so making our way through the maze became easier and easier. It wasn’t long before Eric found the bar he had been looking for, and we were all relieved to abandon the street and make a beeline for it. Eric bought us all shots of something green, and we toasted each other before throwing the green liquid down our throats. It burned and tasted like apple at the same time. I bought the first round of Hand Grenades as we began to walk around the bar looking for potential points of conversation. There was an intoxicated couple in the corner that was making out on the pinball machine, and a drunken chick who was standing uneasily on the high-top table trying to maneuver an impromptu table dance. The hilarity seemed to be never ending.

The guys immediately started scoping out girls. Who was the hottest? Who did they actually have a shot with? Who was too drunk to even bother with? The night went on like this as we drank and laughed at one another. I had to admit that despite the crowd, this was fun.

I stood off to the side at one point and watched Reggie and Eric’s conversation. I like to do this sometimes. It’s fun to be close enough to listen but far enough to not interfere. It seemed educational or scientific in nature, and I often felt like Jane Goodall observing the uninhibited behavior of a primitive species.

“I’m telling you, Gator,” said Reggie, already beginning to talk that slurring drunk talk after downing his second Hand Grenade, “that one there is in your league. You could get her.”

Eric looked unsure, which was an unusual expression for him, as he evaluated the girl in question. Eric was not only the most confident one in our group, he was also the best looking as well. He rarely had a difficult time with girls, and we often lived vicariously through his stories and experiences. However, the unsure look on his face was intriguing to me, so I walked over to join the conversation.

“Who are we talking about,” I asked casually.

“That one. The blond by the end of the bar,” said Reggie as he pointed with an empty drink in his hand in the direction of their gaze.

I followed where he was pointing and that’s when I saw her. There was no way to mistake who they were discussing. She took my breath away, and I instantly understood why Eric seemed so unsure of himself. Who wouldn’t be with her? She looked slender but toned under a black tank top and short blue skirt. Her pale skin shone against the thin black velvet scarf she wore tightly around her neck. Her blond hair was bone straight and cut off dramatically just above her shoulders in a way that tapered down longer around her face. She wore very little make up except for some light-blue eye shadow and blood-red lipstick that left the slightest imprint on the clear glass she was sipping from. Her face was flawless.

The girl looked aimlessly around the bar, but in a flash turned her gaze on us. That’s when I saw her impossibly blue eyes. They were a kind of blue that seemed to be artificially made, and they were rimmed with a dark line of purple that made them seem shocking and animalistic. I was taken aback. Was she some sort of model?

“Na, I think she’s too much for me. Maybe if she was a little drunker, but just look at her. She seems stone-cold sober to me. Besides, those eyes of hers are funky. You think they are contacts?”

“I don’t know,” I answered, intoxicated with the sight of her.

Eric grinned from ear to ear at the sight of me and elbowed Reggie in the ribs to point at me. Even though Eric was a brutish idiot at times, he was also more perceptive than people gave him credit. If there was one thing he could do really well, it was read people.

“Well, I think Cheese Steak here should go talk to her,” he said with a hard slap to my back.

“What? Ah, Cheese Steak doesn’t have a snow ball’s shot in hell with that girl,” stated Reggie with a laugh that was supposed to mock me.

“Now hold on just a minute—” started Eric.

“No, Reggie’s right,” I said. “I mean look at her. Who would she go for?”

“I don’t know. She looks like she might be a little Goth. Maybe she likes the sensitive, creative-writer type that will be a good guy and buy her a proper drink,” he said as he took the remainder of my drink from me and handed it to Reggie. “Now go. You need a new drink and so does she. Chicks like that dig artsy guys.”

He hit me on the back again with his large hand and pushed me forward in her direction. I looked up to see if she saw that, but she was thankfully looking away. I walked slowly across the bar toward her, and my heart began thumping loudly in my chest. This was insane. She was so beautiful. What was I going to say to her? I didn’t have time to think, because before I knew it, I was already standing in front of her and those animalistic blue eyes looked up and met mine.

“Hello.” She spoke first, and her voice rang daintily like a tiny bell. Oh, why did she have to have a nice voice too?