Tag Archives: Mystery

Chapter Forty — Seven: The Closet

26 Jul
Hi, I am the daughter of the author. What am I doing here? I have a place here. In fact two places. What are they? This is a mystery series. You either have to figure it out or wait until it is reveled.

Hi, I am the daughter of the author. What am I doing here? I have a place here. In fact two places. What are they? This is a mystery series. You either have to figure it out or wait until it is reveled.

Did you notice my daughter's picture? Yep, she is here.

Did you notice my daughter’s picture? Yep, she is here.

 

 

At some point L C fell asleep.

She woke up when the car bounced over bumpy roads that shook her in the trunk as though she were a shake and bake woman, needing only to be breaded properly.

Eventually the car stopped. Doors slammed. And at long last, the trunk opened. Hands grabbed her, pulling her out of the trunk. She had pictures of being drug somewhere. She weighed one hundred and fifty pounds, which the doctor told her was not seriously over weight for her height, but which she had found many men could not carry.

Her legs were pulled out first. Perhaps her restraints would be cut and she would be allowed to walk.

Or maybe it was a rapist.

She had not given much thought to why she had been kidnapped, or what would be done to her besides killing her and leaving her body in a ditch or something of the like. For a second she had hoped the tape binding her legs would be cut, now she dreaded the idea.

The rest of her body was pulled out of the trunk.

Whoever had her was able to carry her and walk with her. She tried to get some picture of what the person might be like. She was unsuccessful.

She wondered if she were being carried over a threshold like a wedding couple was supposed to do.

Once again she went back to the problem of why she was being kidnapped. Could it have to do with why she was in jail? Nothing she could think of made sense to her.

The person, she was sure it was a man, somewhat thin, dumped her into a chair with a plop. It felt like a wooden kitchen chair. It hurt her hands, which were at the small of her back.

Rope was looped around her chest. She was being tied to the chair. When her upper body was secure the abductor turned attention to her legs. Rope was tied around her ankles and pulled back. After all that was done she was poked and prodded as though to make sure she could not move.

A voice was mumbling. She wondered if there might be more than one, but she could not hear anyone else. Nor did the voice seem to be directed to anyone else, not even her. It sounded most like the voice of a person trying to make sense of written directions. Like her father would make when he put together a bicycle for her from a box. Her father loved it when things were obvious enough he could put things together without needing to make sense of the directions.

She wondered if her kidnapper were reading directions on how to tie knots.

When she was secure in her chair it was tilted backwards as though she was going to fall. A seconds worth of new fear hit her. Then she was being drug.

Tilted up again. She was being pushed into a place.

You’ll be okay in here until I get back.” A voice told her. “You can scream and yell all you want now. Nobody around here to hear you. But it will be a while before I get back with food. You might not want to tire yourself out.”

A door was closed on her. She was sure then she was in a closet because the door pressed against her shins hard as it was slammed too. Something was done outside to secure it.

There were footsteps, then silence.

Two miles a way Tom drove the pickup up a back road well away from people or cabins so his brother-in-law and his pain in the ass dog would not distract them from what they had come up here to do: Hunt. The dog looked steadily in the direction of the cabin where the dead man had been.

Five miles away a little dog named Rocko went up to a window, scratching at the pane and barking, trying with all of its three-pound weight to force its way through the glass. Aunt Emerald picked him up, scratched him absently behind the ear and peered outside. In the background the parakeet, Tabby, barked twice, then shut up.

Aunt Emerald saw nothing. There was nothing to see.

©2014 All Rights Reserved

Chapter Forty — Six: Normal Disturbance

21 Jun
Did you notice my daughter's picture? Yep, she is here.

Did you notice my daughter’s picture? Yep, she is here.

Hi, I am the daughter of the author. What am I doing here? I have a place here. In fact two places. What are they? This is a mystery series. You either have to figure it out or wait until it is reveled.

Hi, I am the daughter of the author. What am I doing here? I have a place here. In fact two places. What are they? This is a mystery series. You either have to figure it out or wait until it is reveled.

 

 

Morgan and Delavera pulled into the parking lot. Someone had called in a disturbance. No one seemed to know what was going on. The neighborhood wasn’t the worst part of town but it was on a down hill run and headed there fast. The parking lot was in back, behind the store; dark and gloomy, with an array of litter scattered across the asphalt. It was large enough for eight or ten cars. Bushes and a broken fence with holes big enough to walk through, and an alley on the other side of that.

A paradise for drug dealers, pimps, and muggers. When they got out of the car both Delavera and Morgan kept their hands close to their belts. People stood around staring at the two of them. A neighborhood where people appeared and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

“Anybody see what happened?” Morgan asked in his most policeman like bellow. Most of the people just kept staring at him. He figured those were the ones who didn’t have any outstanding wants or warrants. There were others. Shadows who did not want to be seen. Fully arrestable on sight people.

“Man and a woman had a fight. Happens all the time. Don’t know why anybody called it in.” Said a man in a long brown coat.

“Maybe because there are laws against beating up on women?” Delavera said from just behind the headlights. “Who called it in?”

An older woman, obviously drunk, probably in her seventies, spoke up with conviction and no fear. “He was holding her down. I couldn’t tell what he was doing to her. She was laying on the ground and he was rolling her around. I said, ‘Young man you should stop that,’ but he acted like he didn’t hear me.”

“Probably her pimp frisking her for money,” said a young man. Most of the bystanders laughed.

“Did you get a look at him?” asked Morgan.

“No. I didn’t stay around. I went across the street to my friend’s house and called the police from there.”

“Did you see what kind of car they left in?”

“Young man, I just told you. I went across the street to call you people. It is your job to take care of these things, not mine. Besides it is too dark back here to see anything anyway. I told the store owner there ought to be a law making him put lights back here.”

“I agree with you, ma’m. Okay. We’ll make a report as best we can.”

Before they left the spoke to the owner of the store. Delavera asked him, “You got no lights back there. You got no video cameras. You know it is dangerous for your customers back there?”

The store owner looked her, his black and rock hard, hers soft brown, “What do you want me to do, lady, scare all of my customers off?”

 

(c) 2014, all rights reserved

 

Chapter Forty — Five: Silence is Frozen

14 Jun

 

 

Did you notice my daughter's picture? Yep, she is here.

Did you notice my daughter’s picture? Yep, she is here.

Hi, I am the daughter of the author. What am I doing here? I have a place here. In fact two places. What are they? This is a mystery series. You either have to figure it out or wait until it is reveled.

Hi, I am the daughter of the author. What am I doing here? I have a place here. In fact two places. What are they? This is a mystery series. You either have to figure it out or wait until it is reveled.

 

 

The car drove for a ways, then bounced horribly. Stopped. The engine turned off. Silence. The door opened. Silence. The door closed. Silence. Some gravel crunched.

Silence.

Oh, my God. I never told anybody where I am. The Langlins are in Europe. They won’t be thinking about me. They wont even want to think about me until they come back and I’ve proven myself innocent. The lawyer won’t think about me until I don’t show up for trial. Nobody knows where I went to but the lawyer. It will be days before anybody realizes I’m missing.

Oh, my God. Oh my God. The killer kidnapped me. The cops are going to think I skipped the country. It will be years before they find my body and the case is reopened because they find out their mistakes.

Oh, my God. They may never find my body. Oh, my God. They will never know who the real killer is. The Langlins, My mother, Auntie Em, they will all think I did it. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

OhMyGod!

After a few minutes, in the pitch black trunk, hearing nothing except her own thoughts and fears, panic engulfed L C. She began to kick her legs, buck her body, and make as much noise through her gag as she was able. The more she moved the more panic overtook her. Soon she was an unthinking mass of frantic movement and noise.

Then there was a solid banging on the back of the trunk.

L C froze. Both mind and body.

Silence.

She waited. She was sweating. Her breathing was ragged, almost hurting her nose as the drove in, out, in, out, in heaving blasts.

A voice came through the trunk. “Do you want me to beat you to a bloody pulp with a tire iron?”

Fear gutted her from the bottom of her stomach to her mouth.

“Answer me.”

Her first thought was, “How do I answer.” Her mouth was stuffed with something that prevented her from making intelligible sounds.

“If I open this trunk you will regret it.”

She yelled “NO!” as best she could through her gag.

“You make one more sound and I’m opening this trunk and beating you senseless so you can’t make any more sounds. Do you understand?”

Her mind raced. Is that a trick question? He just told me if I make one more sound he will beat me with a tire iron. Then he says make one more sound. What do I do? What do I do?

“DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”

“YES!” Losing control she fairly screamed the answer.

Silence.

Something scraped. She flinched thinking the trunk was going to open any second now. It didn’t.

It was dark. L C Was sweaty. She could smell her own fear. She began to shake. She was a tiny little girl again in a big dark bedroom, and there was something horrible in the closet. Daddy was gone and mommy was asleep and didn’t hear her.

 

 
© 2014 All Rights Reserved

 

 

Chapter Forty — Four: The Ride

7 Jun
Did you notice my daughter's picture? Yep, she is here.

Did you notice my daughter’s picture? Yep, she is here.

Hi, I am the daughter of the author. What am I doing here? I have a place here. In fact two places. What are they? This is a mystery series. You either have to figure it out or wait until it is reveled.

Hi, I am the daughter of the author. What am I doing here? I have a place here. In fact two places. What are they? This is a mystery series. You either have to figure it out or wait until it is reveled.

 

The lawyer told L C to stay low, not attract attention, and avoid the press. She had a microwave, a TV, and a small refrigerator. Still she needed some food and something to read. It was a neighborhood where a lot of people dressed so as to be “invisible.” It was not uncommon to see people walking slouched over, wearing hoods so you had a hard time seeing their faces, shoulders and arms bowed forward so you could not tell from looking at their chest if they were male or female.

She sat in her room, with the lights out, looking out the window.

She decided she could do that. She rolled her hair up and tucked it out of sight, waited unill the sun set and the world outside was in dull quiet shadow only broken occasionally by someone yelling or honking. She missed her little dog Rocko.

The store was open after dark. It was less than a block away. It had everything she could need. Food, drinks, magazines, and a shelf of paperback books.

She went ahead and used her debit card, wondering how long her money would last. Enough to last a week, maybe.

As she left the store the only thing on her mind was getting back to the room. When she rounded the corner of the store, one step past the driveway into the parking lot, something rammed into her, driving her into the unlit parking lot.
She dropped her bag. She started to yell. A fist hit her in the stomach. She found herself bent over looking at the cement. She looked up, trying to see her assailant. Another fist hit her in the chin.

She went down.

When she came to she was being rolled into the trunk of a car, her bag of groceries being dumped on top of her. Her hands were duct taped. Her feet and legs were duct taped. A cloth something was in her mouth and duct tape applied over it as an after thought. Duct tape was wrapped around her eyes. Someone was going through her clothing picking out her cell phone, billfold, room key.

As the trunk slammed down, closing her into total blackness, she thought, “That sure as hell isn’t a reporter.”
© 2014 All Rights Reserved

Chapter Forty — Three: Understanding Oneself

1 Jun

 

 

Did you notice my daughter's picture? Yep, she is here.

Did you notice my daughter’s picture? Yep, she is here.

Hi, I am the daughter of the author. What am I doing here? I have a place here. In fact two places. What are they? This is a mystery series. You either have to figure it out or wait until it is reveled.

Hi, I am the daughter of the author. What am I doing here? I have a place here. In fact two places. What are they? This is a mystery series. You either have to figure it out or wait until it is reveled.

 

Okay, I think I’ve got it figured out.

Why I never killed anything in my life before. Why I was afraid to kill anything. Why I was so squeamish. I was murder phobic. I knew, subconsciously, what I was. And I knew, also subconsciously, that if I never did it I would never become it.

That didn’t sound right.

That sounded muddled.

Some men are homophobic. Some men are so non-homophobic they can do things that would embarrass a homosexual and it still never effects their basic heterosexual nature. Now I know. Not all homophobes, maybe. But some of them. They know deep down that if they ever kissed another man, if they ever had sex with another man, they would lose control, and from then on all they would ever want was another man.

Some of us fear other things.

Some.

Somewhere deep down I knew. If I ever killed anything, If I ever tortured something, someone. I would never want to stop.

So maybe that kid in class, the one you teased because they refused to dissect the frog… Maybe they are the wuss you thought they were. But maybe they are a murder phobic latent psycho murderer who secretly knows in their heart of hearts what they really are.

And maybe, if they are like me, and they hated you enough, perhaps they are considering you as their next victim.

I am.

Chapter Forty — Two: The CIA Agent

24 May

 

Did you notice my daughter's picture? Yep, she is here.

Did you notice my daughter’s picture? Yep, she is here.

Hi, I am the daughter of the author. What am I doing here? I have a place here. In fact two places. What are they? This is a mystery series. You either have to figure it out or wait until it is reveled.

Hi, I am the daughter of the author. What am I doing here? I have a place here. In fact two places. What are they? This is a mystery series. You either have to figure it out or wait until it is reveled.

 

 

Lonnie had been out to the safe house several times. Nothing. A window had been broken and a squirrel moved in. Other than that it was uninhabited, unvisited, and hardly worth going back too.

 
He was pretty sure he was suffering from depression. Since Cody’s murder he had been getting higher more often and stealing more cars, not just oftener but more desirable. The kind that brought in better money.

 

The guy who bought the cars from him was proud of him. Something Cody said was a bad sign. “Means you are doing it too often. You are playing with fire. Cops will start looking for patterns until one day you go to break into a car and they are waiting for you.” Until Cody’s death what Cody said was what Lonnie did. Now. It didn’t seem to matter.

 
Right now he was doing something else Cody had told him never to do. Cody said, “You heist a car you get in it, you get it where it is going, you get out of it. Never look back.”

 
Now he was doing what Cody told him only a fool on a suicide mission would do. He was stealing chick mobiles, cruising town in them, and picking up girls in them.”

 
He was driving slow checking out everybody. Looking for some promising action.

 
That was how he spotted the CIA agent.
He whipped into the parking lot. Got out of the car, and headed toward the street, trying to figure out what to do next.

 
Right now Lonnie wanted to be really really clear. To think perfectly. To be more brilliant than he had ever been before in his life. To be able to see and understand things normal people leading normal lives would miss.
Lucky for Lonnie. Even though Cody had told him never to mix his crimes, to never be loaded or have drugs anywhere near you when you boosted a car… Well, Cody didn’t know everything or he wouldn’t be dead, would he.

 

Lonnie reached into his pocket and pulled out a syringe. He smiled. This was some of the best shit. It made the world a pane of glass you could look through.

 

With this he could think his way through anything.

 

© 2014 All Rights Reserved

Chapter Forty — One: Bag Nanny Anonymous

17 May
Hi, I am the daughter of the author. What am I doing here? I have a place here. In fact two places. What are they? This is a mystery series. You either have to figure it out or wait until it is reveled.

Hi, I am the daughter of the author. What am I doing here? I have a place here. In fact two places. What are they? This is a mystery series. You either have to figure it out or wait until it is reveled.

Did you notice my daughter's picture? Yep, she is here.

Did you notice my daughter’s picture? Yep, she is here.

 

 

“Where would you like me to drop you?” asked Tulkhorn. He sat behind the wheel, somehow giving the impression he was guiding a tank through enemy territory rather than driving a car through town.
For some reason it was a question L C had not anticipated. Her only concern had been getting out of jail. For some strange reason she thought that once she was released from the nightmare she had been subjected to everything would go back to normal.
Now she realized. Released. Standing in front of the courthouse. Tulkhorn holding the door of his modest car open for her.
Nothing would ever be normal again.
Tulkhorn confirmed what she was thinking by saying, in as gentle a voice as it could be said in, “You can’t go back to — the Langlins. Not while you are accused — of wrongdoing. — You understand.”

“Yes.” She nodded.

“How about your parents?”

“No. My stepfather.”

Tulkhorn nodded understandingly. He waited. A man used to applying infinite patience to a multitude of problems that yielded to his implacable will. “I know of some reasonably priced apartments — that rent by the month. Not in the best part of town — but they are clean and — no one asks a lot of questions.”
L C had the feeling Tulkhorn had more than a passing acquaintance with those apartments. Visions of Perry Mason hiding clients in seedy hotels sprang to her mind.

“Okay.” She agreed.

She did not want to talk to her mother, or anyone else in her family just yet. In the morning she would get Rocko from Aunt Emerald. When L C was little she would pretend to be Dorothy in the wizard of Oz and would call Aunt Emerald, “Aunty Em.”
Maybe that was where L C developed a fondness for small dogs. It’s a wonder she had not named him Toto rather than Rocko.
© 2014 All Rights Reserved

 

Chapter Forty: To Bail or Not to Bail

27 Apr
BTW when you are done reading this chapter. If you think thinking is fun; if you think philosophy should be for everyone try reading  TheMapThinker.com

BTW when you are done reading this chapter. If you think thinking is fun; if you think philosophy should be for everyone try reading TheMapThinker.com

 

L C Had never been in a courtroom before. It looked just like the ones on TV, all the way from the old black and white Perry Mason series up to the newest Blu-ray.

She thought she was going to go to her arraignment but it turned out it was her preliminary hearing. Something that happens before an arraignment.

It would have been comforting to have had Kathy Bates from Harry’s Law instead of the heavy-eyed Tulkhorn sitting next to her. She looked at him out of the corner of her right eye. It was not a sight to cheer up her already lowered spirits.
He looked reluctant and lethargic, as though he not only did not want to be there, he barely had the energy to lift his head up high enough to look at the judge.

L C had asked him, “Are you really my lawyer? Or are you working for the Langlins?”

He studied her carefully before answering. “I work for money. My skills do not come cheap. If I am paid I work. If I am not paid ― I do not work. I am being paid ― to represent you. As long as I am being paid ― I represent you ― and you alone.”

“And if they quit paying you?”

“Then you will probably be given a public defender.”

Somehow she felt like she was back in the cell with Violet. “I’m a professional. I don’t get paid I don’t fight.” She had said.

A man in uniform stood up. “All rise.”

Everyone stood up.

The judge entered. Sat behind his desk. Nodded his head.

The man in uniform intoned, “You may be seated.” Then he sat down and so did everyone else.

The judge read some papers. Looked around the room. Said some things L C didn’t follow. Then he said a string of numbers and suddenly asked “How do you plead. Guilty or not guilty.”

“Not guilty. My client has no knowledge of the crime in any manner, shape or form.”

The prosecutor rose. He was everything her lawyer was not. He was young. He was good-looking. He was thin and hard muscled. He bounded to his feet. He spoke strongly, quickly, and steadily. He had a good speaking voice.

“We ask that bail be denied, your honor. She is a flight risk. She has already attempted to flee the country once and it was entirely through luck she was apprehended within minutes of boarding.” He handed papers to the judge. L C assumed they were tickets, flight plans, etc. Proof she was boarding an airplane bound for Europe.

Tulkhorn rose. “Rediculous. My client,” he stared at L C causing every eye in the room to go to her. She was dressed in the most professional, most “nanny” looking outfit money could buy. He had handed it to her earlier and instructed her to go into the bathroom and put it on. She was surprised that it fit her perfectly, but it did.

“She was not fleeing. She was acting ― in her capacity as nanny. She was following her employers instructions. On extremely short notice ― I might add. Unless,” he managed to look at the prosecutor with his entire body, not just his eyes,

“you claim her employer ― was somehow involved ― in this alleged ‘escape’ ― you keep talking about.”

The judge brought down his gavel. “You will address the court, counselor.”

Ponderously Tulkhorn turned his body toward the judge. “Of course your honor. Is it your wish to extradite her employers from,” he riffled through his papers, “France, I believe.” He waited expectantly.

The judge did not look happy. “Of course not. I do not believe anyone here has implied her employers were, or are, in any way concerned in the matter.” He looked to the prosecutor. “Isn’t that correct, counselor.”

“Of course your honor. All of our findings indicate the girl acted on her own.”

“Woman,” Stated Tulkhorn. “She is twenty years old. She is no longer a girl.”

“This woman, acted alone. She admits to being in the cabin and her prints are all over a revolver which appears to have been fired at the crime scene.”

“Appeared.” Tulkhorn straightened his tie. “Was the gun fired at the crime scene or not? Was it fired during the crime? She does not deny handling the gun. She admits it. Even if she fired it. If she did so a week before the crime ― it is not pertinent.”

“One question at a time, counselor.” Advised the judge.

The prosecutor looked apologetic. “Our town is not large enough to afford a full-sized crime lab, your honor. We have to farm these things out. The results are not back yet.”

“I see the pistol, I am unclear  –  about what has been sent –  to the crime lab.”

“A bullet dug out of the roof of the cabin, your honor.”

“It is a hunter’s cabin, your honor, such things – often – happen.. Is there any proven connection between my client and the bullet in the roof?”

“We cannot allow a cold-blooded killer to roam the streets at will simply because the test results that would prove it are not yet returned to us.”

Tulkhorn squared his shoulders. “Noble sentiments. However my client is not a murderer. She has nothing to run from. And the results of the test will clear her of wrong doing.”

The prosecutor spoke passionately. “She murdered her fiance with no compassion. It was a torture scene. She knows we will prove this. She has every reason to flee. And we do not believe it is in society’s best interest to allow someone with so little compassion as to commit such a barbarous to be allowed to roam the streets, your honor.”

“There is no evidence ― my client ― has had any contact ― with the deceased ― except for a chance encounter ― one time only ― in a grocery store.”

“Which she lied to the police about.”

“A chance encounter ― a half a year ago. In a grocery store. I am sure ― I can produce someone ― the prosecutor ― or even yourself your honor ― you encountered in a grocery store ― a half a year ago ― that you do not recall.”

“An encounter that was so blatant the owner of the story threw her out over.”

“That has yet to be proven. And the prosecution ―has only interviewed ― one witness to this ― alleged ‘incident’.”

In the end she was let go with five hundred thousand dollars bail which Tulkhorn posted. She had to surrender her passport and was told not to so much as leave the city limits.

 

 

 
© 2014 All Rights Reserved

Chapter Thirty – Nine: The New Old Timer

20 Apr
BTW when you are done reading this chapter. If you think thinking is fun; if you think philosophy should be for everyone try reading  TheMapThinker.com

BTW when you are done reading this chapter. If you think thinking is fun; if you think philosophy should be for everyone try reading TheMapThinker.com

 

 

Janet was gone. “She’ll be back, one of her new friends told L C. It was the type of woman L C would never have spoken to a week ago. A woman she would have skirted past and not looked at. Yet in here, today, she saw woman who was the closest thing she had to a friend. A thin woman who looked older than her years with bad teeth, bad skin, and bad hair. She’s never gone long. In six months to a year she’ll get in trouble again. She always does.”

L C Was puzzled. “I thought with the three strikes thing that couldn’t happen any more. I thought if you kept getting in trouble you wound up in prison for life.”

“Ahg. It is like a routine, honey. She never does anything real bad. She gets arrested, gets booked on some big fat charge, gets the charge reduced. Winds up doing community service. Most of the time it doesn’t even show up on her record.” She shrugged and smiled broadly, either unaware or uncaring of the condition of her teeth.

L C felt as if a rope holding her to reality was somehow cut, setting her adrift, a boat that had lost its ties to the wharf that gave it stability. “It’s like a whole new world. It’s like an Edgar Rice Burroughs novel where you wake up on in a whole new world. Or nowadays I guess a whole different parallel universe. The world I lived in two days ago and I live in today have nothing to do with each other. Just yesterday my biggest worry was whether I should go to college or marry a man who could support me. Now I don’t even know if someone is feeding my chihuahua right.”

“Honey, you got more to worry about than a chihuahua. Word is you getting Andy this afternoon. She’s been in prison twice. She goes again she probably spend the rest of her life in there.”

“Okay. What does that have to do with me?”

“Word says you up for murder. You could wind up with her for your roomy for a few years. She is a bull dyke. White supremacist. Good chance for you to get in some practice. Cuddle up with her and she is the only ass you’ll have to kiss.”

“Uhhhhh.” L C felt like a space shuttle that had broken free of earth’s gravity, never to return.

“She ain’t your regular gay girl who wants to do her own thing and be left alone to do hers and her girlfriends. Andy is a cave man with a vagina. She will grab a sweet thing like you by the hair and …”

L C Left. Short, quick steps. She wasn’t prepared to face the concepts, let alone the pictures, that were going through her mind. She felt slightly dazed.

It happened later that afternoon.

She was not ready to face Andy. The woman was built like a tank with arms and legs. She would make the incredible hulk blink twice. She was huge. She was fat but she looked like her fat cells had muscles all their own. She looked like she lived for one purpose and one purpose only. To beat the hell out of anybody she could find.

The minute she entered the cell was like sides were chosen. She stared at Violet and Diamond, and even though Violet and Diamond were in separate parts of the room L C could see them forming a solid rank against the newcomer.

Then she looked at L C, “At least there is one white woman in here.”

L C felt her own eyes widen. She turned and looked at Violet. Until then it had never dawned on her Violet wasn’t white. Her skin was actually a shade or two lighter than Andy’s.

Violet smiled. It was a cold smile, one Jack Nickleson would be proud of. “A real racist can tell.”

Andy sneered at L C. “You didn’t even know. Hell, you got a lot of learning to do.”

L C felt something clutch at her diaphragm. She wasn’t even sure if it were fear or not. She knew it was a feeling that would inhibit her ability to act, to move, to defend herself and she did not like it. She knew there was no right or wrong here. It did not matter what she said or did, she was not going to find a “door three” with the bright shiny car inside. No matter what she chose, or why she chose it, there was not going to be a happy solution in here. Not now. Maybe not ever.

Her mother always told her to make the best of every situation. What would she consider the best in here? Her mother scorned her grandparents injunction, “Its better to lose being yourself than to win being somebody you despise.” Her hippy grandparents, thrown out of their wealthy homes, living on the fringe of society, arrested during sit-ins, marching for civil rights, had no doubt faced similar problems as she was facing now.

L C Suddenly realized that when you are in a parallel universe, say a prison universe, reality also changes. As the reality she lived in changed she grabbed onto the only constant she could find. She realized she had to decide who she was, really was, and she had to decide now. She felt the fear wash over her, rising from her feet up over her head. But she knew she could not let the fear decide for her.

She spoke slowly, deliberately, the way Tulkhorn spoke. “I’m not ― Interested ― In learning ― anything ― You have ― To teach.”

“What? You a lover of,” she paused to sneer, “These?” she gestured toward Violet and Diamond.

“Yeah.” L C Looked directly at Diamond’s eyes, even though Diamond kept her eyes trained on Andy. “I love her. She’s my aunt.”

“Bah.” Andy snorted. “What you think that black bitch going to do for you in prison?”

Diamond started to move. Violet interposed herself. Knowledge passed between the two L C was not privy to.

“You think she is your friend? In there she will slit your little white throat without even thinking about it.” Andy leaned close and spoke in L C’s ear so close she could feel hot, stale breath, tinged with dead cigarette smoke. “When you reach the big time you better choose sides. And it better be the right one.”

“Oh, my god,” thought L C “I can’t go to prison. I’ll never survive.”

 

 

 

© 2014 All Rights Reserved

Chapter Thirty – Eight: The Letter

5 Apr

 

BTW when you are done reading this chapter. If you think thinking is fun; if you think philosophy should be for everyone try reading  TheMapThinker.com

BTW when you are done reading this chapter. If you think thinking is fun; if you think philosophy should be for everyone try reading TheMapThinker.com

 

 

 

The desk wasn’t a desk. It was a piece of metal stuck to the wall. It was hard, it was cold, it was unfriendly. Two stools were provided to sit on while trying to write a letter. They were uncomfortable. The felt like someone had designed them for a torture chamber. When you sat on one it did not feel as though it were designed to accommodate the person’s posterior. It felt more as though it were designed to assault it in an obscene manner.

Somehow money had appeared on her books, allowing her to buy what few luxuries were allowed. Paper and something to write with were among them.

So she was trying to write a letter to her mother.

She hadn’t started when the older tattooed woman spoke to her. “Be damn careful what you put in that. They read every word and it will come back to bite you in the ass.”

“First time I got arrested I was just a scared kid. I wrote a letter home about how upset I was, all my feelings, I just poured it out.”

“Yeah. I can see doing that.”

“If you are a scared kid with no lawyer they can keep you for seventy-two hours. By then my letters home were so frantic the prosecutor petitioned the judge to have me sent to observation for possible mental problems. According to them I had no reason to be scared of nothing. No reason to cry either. So I spent a year in a cuckoo’s nest. I was never charged, never convicted, never nothing. Just kept.”

“Shoulda kept on keeping ya.” It was from the woman in the bunk. Her name was Violet. She was the most muscular woman L C had ever seen in her life. When she told L C “I’m a professional boxer,” her response was, “I guess I’ll try not to make you mad at me then.”

“Kid, I’m a professional. You can’t tick me off. If there isn’t a purse I don’t fight.”

“Purse?”

“You know. Prize. Money. A professional boxes in the ring for money. You don’t pay me I don’t fight.” She tapped the newspaper in her hand. She subscribed to it, said she needed it to keep up with her professional career. “A philosophy you could use according to the paper here.”

“Huh?” L C Wasn’t sure where the conversation was leading.
Violet shoved the paper under L C’s nose. It was a picture of her with the caption, “Family discusses home wrecker who allegedly murdered their husband, father, brother.” As L C read Violet went on,

“From now on don’t do no home wrecking unless you get paid for it. You can’t just be giving this stuff away for free, you know.”

The tattooed woman, Margie, chided, “I thought you were in here for street fighting.”

“No. I’m in here for mouth trouble. This guy hit his woman and blacked her eye. I told him he was a pretty sorry piece hitting a woman like that. So he took a couple a swings at me and couldn’t hit me. He got mad and when the cops come he said I’d hit the woman and give her the black eye. She scared of him. She won’t say boo.”

“You need a high priced mouth like cinderella here.” She indicated L C “How’d you getta lawyer like that? You ain’t got the bucks to pay him.”
She explained Tulkhorn was the Langlin’s lawyer.

“And you trust him?”

“He told me he is my lawyer.”

 

“You poor little fool. He isn’t here for your benefit. He is here to keep the richy bitchy Langlin’s nose clean. He don’t care about you. He’ll toss you anywhere he needs to to keep the people who pay his wage looking good.”

 

 

 
© 2014 All Rights Reserved

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ultimatemindsettoday

A great WordPress.com site

Don Charisma

because anything is possible with Charisma

this is... The Neighborhood

the Story within the Story

stillness of heart

MUSINGS : CRITICISM : HISTORY : PASSION

The Guilty Preacher Man

abandoned illustrations

matchtall

A tall women amazon model WordPress.com sit

Three Wise Guys

Best not to think about it

Mister G Kids

A daily comic about real stuff little kids say in school. By Matt Gajdoš

Ray Ferrer - Emotion on Canvas

** OFFICIAL Site of Artist Ray Ferrer **

The Judy-Jodie and Kelli Memorial Blog

A great WordPress.com site

A Financial Life Coach

Your Financial Life Coach

Storyshucker

A blog full of humorous and poignant observations.

Dysfunctional Literacy

Just because you CAN read Moby Dick doesn't mean you should!

Top 10 of Anything and Everything

Animals, Travel, Casinos, Sports, Gift Ideas, Mental Health and So Much More!

ajrogersphilosophy

A fine WordPress.com site

Thoughts

What ever I'm thinking

CosmicMind

Dissolving Ordinary Unconsciousness

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