MR. ED CHRONICLES: talk three with Marty

Mr. Ed needs to blow off steam and he heads straight for the establishment where he hung out on a few other occasions. Decent food and drinks that are endless and cheap abound, but best of all there are no nosy people around that are in this habit of asking too many questions. 

Mr. Ed had this nagging feeling that his stay in Martossa had made him docile. It didn’t make sense though, because he had unleashed his fury on that poor unsuspecting fellow that was finished by Victor Vaughn, who in turn was killed in a double murder by that other bad character named Malcolm Thompson. 

The nagging feeling that he had was more about Mr. Ed’s Frozen Pizza: he wanted to be back on the floor with all the hustle and bustle. He had lived in the big city his whole life, and even though a small town by the sea was nice and all, it didn’t really feel like it was his town and it simply wouldn’t be enough in the long run. 

1

It was almost as if those few nights that Mr. Ed had spend liquoring up had made him a regular. There were a few guys that nodded when he came in, the bartender asked him if he wanted a beer and the stool next to Marty was still empty.

Mr. Ed taps Marty on the shoulder.

“You again,” Marty says, “I wondered where you had been.”

“I needed to lay low for a while,” Mr. Ed says, deciding how much he was willing to tell, “Sometimes there are circumstances that dictate that kind of action.”

“Too much work, or too little money.”

“A nagging wife….”

“No….” they both say.

Mr. Ed sizes up the bar and he waits for his beer.

“You ever got this feeling as if you have got luck on your side.”

“Aaaah,” Marty says, “One in a thousand.”

Mr. Ed gives the number a thought. The bartender places the cold beer in front of him and Mr. Ed asks him to get another beer for Marty.

“I have had years like that,” Mr. Ed says, “But this last year it seems like I got at least ten in one year.”

“Getting a raise? Attention from a nice girl? Getting away with murder?”

“It really is that kind of lucky,” Mr Ed says cryptically. 

Marty thinks: he finally did it – he finally went apeshit and started slashing away….

“Explain,” Marty says, not sure how much he wanted to know exactly. 

“Maybe it’s more like winning the lottery.”

“….”

“Let’s just say that it has to do with business….”

“As long as you keep some cold ones floating towards me, I don’t care where the dough comes from….”

*

Mr. Ed needed to talk about what had happened, but he fully well realized that it would be more prudent to keep most of it to himself. 

“There’s something on my mind though,” Mr. Ed begins.

“Shoot,” Marty says.

“You know about this question that has been asked a million times by a million different people: can a man do the bad thing for the right reason?”

“It kind of sounds like a contradiction.”

“That’s what I thought,” Mr. Ed says, “But let’s say that something like this happens: you’re working late one night and you’re the last one in the office. Then an intruder comes in. This character holds a gun to your head and he says he wants all the money. Then there’s some sound outside and he let’s his attention slide for a split second. You manage to get his gun and shoothim then and there. He then dies of the injuries. Later on it’s ruled to be self-defense and you get out blame free.”

“I’d say it’s self-defense.”

“A guy is dead.”

“In that moment you don’t know what else he had up his sleeve. Maybe a second gun? A knife?” Marty says, “We simply don’t need those kind of elements running around.”

“In other words: it’s possible to do the bad thing for the right reason.”

“It’s murky,” Marty says.

“Ok,” Mr. Ed says, “Let’s say this happened back than in the Gulf War. You’re on sentry duty and after a few hours your mind starts to shut down. Your eyes are getting tired, you’re feeling fatigue, you’re getting thirsty, hungry —all that. Now let’s say that there was this Iraqi that was watching you for let’s say the last two hours. This guy patiently waits for an opportunity to get close to knife you down.”

“My fellow soldiers can’t see me….” Marty says, “I’d say that the same kind of struggle ensues and it ends with the death of that Iraqi soldier.”

“Same basic situation.”

“Same outcome,” Marty says.

“And I must say I feel as bad for this Iraqi soldier as I do for this mugger,” Mr. Ed says, “Meaning: not at all.”

Mr. Ed takes a sip from his beer and he thinks it over. 

“One more,” Mr. Ed says, “This one is from an old movie. There’s this guy. A rich guy. He has this younger secretary and she comes with him on business trips and it’s not long until they have an affair. From the beginning this guy kept telling himself that he shouldn’t let things get out of hand —but then they do. Now this secretary is getting fidgety and she has come to believe that there’s more going on than there actually is: she believes that this guy will leave his wife over her.”

“This is about you?”

“It ain’t,” Mr. Ed says, and he reads the expression on Marty’s face, “What can I say: it’s complicated.”

“…..”

“So this secretary wants to go public and she gives this guy an ultimatum: tell the wife before the end of the month, or she will,” Mr. Ed says, “So on the ride home this guy’s mind is on his predicament, because this woman has become a serious jeopardy.He can only think of one way out of it.”

“So this is where it becomes the same story as the one with the mugger and the Iraqi,” Marty says, “But still this one is different.”

“Because there’s a young lady that’s good in the sack?” Mr. Ed asks, “It will destroy his life: his wife will divorce him and go with half of the money and he’s convinced that she might even drag down the company with her.”

Mr. Ed gives it a thought.

“Never come clean,” Mr. Ed says, “That’s about the only advise that my old man gave that was any use to me. And that’s the only thing that I can make of this strange story.”

“It’s interesting,” Marty says, “I mean I would never be in a position to have a secretary, so this situation would never come up —for me. But still it’s tempting to imagine that it does.”

“My point exactly.”

“I would like to say that I would do the right thing, because that’s what we’re programmed to do,” Marty says, “But I doubt that I will...”

*

“Back to my initial predicament,” Mr. Ed says, “It isn’t like the mugger, the Iraqi and the broad, but it’ssomething like it. There was a situation that I had to deal with and then it resolved itself right before my eyes.”

“No loose ends?”

“Not one string.”

2

Marty hadn’t given Mr. Ed’s predicament much thought until the next day. After all, how much did he really tell? Then his mind started going over the way he said right before my eyes.

The glimpse that was in Mr. Ed’s eyes revealed that he still saw it before him and that’s when Marty realized that it wasn’t just a figure of speech. All of a sudden it gave him this eery feeling. A few months ago, this guy Mr. Ed comes to town. His gut tells him that this guy is bad news, but then nothing really happens. 

What if he was a witness or he had something to do with those two bad elements that murdered each other at the edge of town. That in itself was the kind of bad thing that became good. What was it that this Mr. Ed guy had to do with those two?

MR. ED CHRONICLES - talk three with Bradley / Starion

Mr. Ed had come to believe that he had an angel on his shoulder: just a week ago it seemed that he would be implicated for murder. Then the most unlikely thing happened. The bad element that had come to torment his life turned out to be hunted down by another element that had tormented Martossa in the past. Mr. Ed had been there when it had happened and he discretely slipped away.

Since that day Mr. Ed had asked himself why he deserved this much good luck, because as Mr. Ed himself, or any other person would state, Mr. Ed wasn’t a particularly good man. There was the fact that he had created employment through his frozen pizza plant, but the way he went about his business and the things that he did in his free time didn’t exactly balance the score. 

In a way how Mr. Ed judged himself came down to that old question of good and evil: does a certain measure of good, justify an evil? These kind of deliberations usually end up in a concentration camp where an evil doctor experiments on victims for the good of science. At heart Mr. Ed knew very well that good and evil are not balances, but instead they are different realms. A person is either good or bad and it seems there’s little room for a middle ground, unless for those poor office drones that have all the passion sapped out of them. 

What Mr. Ed didn’t know was that according to those that he spoke with as a therapist, was that they considered Mr. Ed to be a good man, mostly because he had all given them good advise. The strange, or insidious thing is that all of them saw what lurked beneath the surface, but they were all willing to give Mr. Ed the benefit of the doubt.

1

The news of the death of the Debt Collector had spread quickly around town and by the time the Sheriff and coroner came down there was a large crowd. In a way the mutual murder had been the kind of cleansing that could only be reconciled with bloodshed. Victor Vaughn had been the bad news and a bad element that his death by a bullet in the skull was a good thing instead of the bad that a murder usually was. Then again, the other guy that got killed by a bullet from Victor Vaughn was also bad news and he was also sorely missed.

It was almost like a revolution had taken place —the kind that overthrows dictatorships that can only end by the public lynching of its illegitimate head of state. In a revolution the tragedy is already implied, revolution, revolt, which is a turning like a wheel, which already implies that a new kind of torment will present itself in some future. 

On the other hand, that might also be considered the kind of doomsday preaching that feeds on the bad that will come. The simple fact is that the bad thing will always come for us, because there will always be a bad corner, or a bad alley where dungeons await, like a predator waiting patiently for its prey. 

It was just that, statistically speaking, bad things happened more frequently in Martossa and some Martossians had started to believe that it was somehow pre-ordained. 

2

A few weeks had passed and Bradley was brooding on what he could put his mind to. On a subconscious level he must have registered what Mr. Ed had said about the life of the mind. What Mr. Ed had only said in so many words was that the life of the mind might be something that would help us pull through rough stretches, whether they are tough or plain boring like a desert road.

After a little over two months, the three instances when the wicked voice had entered Bradley’s mind were still fresh enough to keep him on edge. The memory of those three times had very subtly warped into this notion that those three times would make him into a schizo, but at the same time he was unwilling to just give in like that. On some level whether it was fact or fiction was irrelevant, simply because for a schizo it was always subjective, an account that was relayed to professionals and documented in reports. Then there were the manifestations that could be observed: a complete melt-down and dysfunction. Those reports were facts that could’t be changed and also the foundation for the diagnosis of schizophrenia. 

No one knew of those three instances and that fact gave Bradley leeway to redefine those three instances into a fiction —for all intents and purposes it had never happened and he was as normal as the next 16 year old. He was still in full control, as Mr. Ed might have put it.

*

Forgetting and processing takes time and Bradley simply needed something to put his mind to. Sometimes the solution to problems is right in front of us and we know this in the back of our heads.

Since the summer two modern classic cars had been for sale by a guy on the edge of town who claimed that he had bought the two carsa good ten years ago, but he never came around to doing the work needed to fix them up. In his yard this guy had two Mitsubishi Starion’s, one from ‘84 and the other of ‘86. These cars are older than Bradley himself, but there’s just something about the 80s design of these coupes. These cars have a very distinctive slick line, headlights that pop up, a chunked dashboard and what can only be described as an 80s swagger.

Bradley had his eye on those two cars since the summer and until recently he hadn’t seriously considered buying one of them. Fixing up old cars is something though that almost came with the territory: his dad, Ian, had always had a ‘68 Mustang that he spend a lot of time fixing and fine-tuning. When Bradley finally asked his dad to have the car registered under his name, he didn’t need to think twice. 

Bradley’s mother, Holly, wasn’t too thrilled about buying the car at first. She worried about Bradley’s school performance, his safety in case the car broke down at high speed, but at the same time she realized that it might be something that he would really like and that would help to sustain the bond with his father.

*

After four weeks the car was running and Bradley could take it for a spin. The engine was running, but it didn’t run smoothly. It sounded like it may need to be taken apart to clean its smallest parts and replace components, such as belts and hoses that were past being worn out. At this point it also looked like an old car, because it needed a very thorough paint job to bring it back to any kind of glory. 

Bradley drove down to the lot with the junked up cars where they used to hang out and where Victor Vaughn and the other guy had murdered each other. The bikes of Brandon, Tommie-Lee and Bobby were where they usually stashed their bikes, but they weren’t around. Bradley knew that this probably meant that they had gone fishing. He had parked the car and gone down to the water.

“You guys want to see my ride?” Bradley asked when he was near.

“We don’t see this guys for weeks and all of a sudden he pops up….” Tommie-Lee says in a fake gangster voice, “We thought you ran off with some girl or something.”

They all start laughing at that, because they know that Bradley still harbors something for Cassie, but according to them he’s too chickenshit to pursue it.

“What can I say….” Bradley says, “There was a certain golden opportunity.”

“That’s good, man,” Brandon says, “It’s better to do something than to just fuck around all the time.”

“Are you calling us dipshits?” Bobby asks.

“Not you, us,” Brandon says, “We all ain’t exactly the smartest kids on the block, but he, this kid, he’s got a real chance.”

“He’s just messing with you guys,” Bradley says, “It’s just an old car that I’m fixing up. Nothing fancy schmancy.”

“Let’s check out this ride,” Tommie-Lee says and he starts tying the fishing line to a tree, “You never know when fish is gonna bite.”

*

Bradley shows them the car. Dented, scratched, faded paint and an engine that runs like it has a cold. The guys don’t look too impressed.

“I know,” Bradley says, “But listen to this….” 

Bradley revs the engine to 5000 rpm and the sound of the raw power gives a glimpse of what’s under the hood and what this ride can be restored back into.

They all return back to the beach and continue fishing together. They catch a few fish, roast it on the fire and sit around and talk until midnight. 

*

“You’ll remember this drive,” Ian said, when Bradley returned, “Right now it’s running, but it’s running like an old heap of junk. Just wait and see in a few months: the engine will be thoroughly cleaned, it will have a new paint job and the interior will be updated.”

“Can’t wait to get started,” Bradley said, “Where should I start?”

“We’ll lift the engine out tomorrow and then the hard part comes,” Ian said, “Taking it apart and arranging the pieces in such a way that you’ll be able to put it back together after.”

“How long would that take?”

“Depends on the time that you have,” Ian said, “But since it’s mostly the evening hours, it will take a few weeks.”

“I don’t mind,” Bradley said and he could already picture the restored car before him: swift and cool and totally back to the future.

3

Mr. Ed was on the other end of town. Even though he was sure that no one saw him near the kill-site, he still had this very strong feeling that it would be better for him to stay low for a while. And that’s exactly what Mr. Ed did. 

Bradley was obsessing over his car and therapy wasn’t on his mind that week.

THE DEBT COLLECTOR PART 1 - When the ice melts

The first heat marks the beginning of spring. It’s the day that the body feels heavy and tired at one in the afternoon, even though you might not have done that much for the day. It’s when the sun is so unmitigated that it doesn’t give us endless energies, but instead it leaves us to struggle to stay cool. 

The heat isn’t the worst though, it comes in gusts, like an engine that sputters after it hasn’t been in use for a good while. Maybe the oil should have been drained and instead it has turned into this black tar that’s only good as the filling of a sink hole. You can rev the engine and it might help a bit, but there’s no guarantee that the idle will run smooth.

The reason for the gusts of heat must have something to do with the fact that the undercurrents of the ocean change slowly and in such a subtle way that it can’t directly be measured, except for the species of fish that seem to come and go. There’s one thing that can be measured: the appearance of objects that must have come from somewhere deep below. 

“Fuck-wad, you’re making this shit up,” Tommie-Lee says.

“Give me one reason,” Bradley says, “Or give me the proof that I’m wrong.”

“I’m working on it,” Tommie-Lee says, “Believe me.”

Tommie-Lee and for that matter, also Bobby and Brandon never much believed in those stories about the ocean changing its lay and spitting things out that had disappeared in its depth somewhere in the past. It wasn’t that they knew of a better theory or that they expected tocome up with a better theory of their own, butit was just that they weren’t much for explanations of this or that. In that respect they were already like most folks that had lived in close proximity of theocean for an extended period of time: it was just there and that in itself meant that there wasn’t much to marvel about. It should be treated with caution though.

In a way it was like telling a cowboy why and when he should worry about the vastness and the harshness of the desert or to tell an ancient hunter when to worry about the potential threats that lurk behind every tree in the jungle. Now cowboys were the ones to always keep their cool and even when facing death they tend to remain stoic, which was basically just one way of dealing with reality. The ancient hunter might have opted for a similar approach as Tommie-Lee, Bobby and Brandon. 

“The simple fact is this,” Bradley says, “Things washashore.” 

“Now that’s something that we can agree on,” Tommie-Lee says, “Logically speaking.”

Still they were good friends: there were enough good times between them and they had a certain understanding. Bradley wouldn’t talk too much and the others would do their best to keep an open mind, which in practical terms meant that they met somewhere in the middle. 

“I see something drifting in the water,” Brandon says, “Close to the rock.”

“Barely adrift is a better way of putting it,” Tommie-lee says, “What do you guys figure it is?”

“It looks like a chest,” Bradley says, “Like what pirates used to bury their treasures in.”

“Possibly,” Bobby says, “But if it is, then it means thatit’s empty.”

“It’s definitely some piece of furniture,” Tommie-lee says, “What about a totem pole?”

“Or a part of it,” Brandon says.

“For lack of anything better to do,” Bradley says, “We should check it out.”

*

The waves were too high to go out on the water in the small boat that they would use to go on the water with on calm days. For a rough day like today they had brought a surf-plank that they would use as a paddle boat. They didn’t go without any precaution, since this part of the sea was known to be very treacherous: every few months people would loose their lives, either when swimming, when a small boat capsized, or when rookie divers came up too fast from on deep. The treachery was a strong rip current that would pull you to the deepand itcouldn’t be seen fromthe surface.

Brandon was usually the one to go out on the plank. Among them he was the toughest, but also the most experienced out on the water. He was secured with a short line on the plank, and the plank itself was secured with a line to the shore. The plan was simple enough: Brandon would carry a second line and attach it to whatever was floating out there.

The tricky part was attaching the line to the object: if it was wood, it was usually slippery, because of algae. If it was large, it was hard to throw a lassoaround it and if it was deeply emerged it was hard to see what was sticking below the surface. Now a wooden object like what they saw from the shore was usually smooth, but if it had been in the water for a long time, it might have some sea urchins growing on it, or large fish such as stingrays or sharks might use it as an object under which they could hover and come closer to prey without easily being detected. 

Between the urchins, sharks and stingrays – the sea urchins were the most treacherous, because the long tips of those charcoal black spikes tended to break off and cause the worst pain and inflammations imaginable. Stingrays and sharks were more scary though, but the most they would do was show some teeth and then they would be gone to the wide depth of the ocean floor. 

*

Bradley, Tommie-lee and Bobby were watching how Brandon was struggling to attach the line to the large emerged object off shore. 

“I still don’t get how you don’t get out there and do that stuff, with your old man being a fisher man and all,” Tommie-lee says. 

“You gotta do what you’re good at,” Bradley says coolly, then he turns the attention on his friend, “Maybe that’s something that you ought to figure out….”

“What are you getting at?”

“He’s struggling,” Bobby says, “I bet it has those urchins and all kinds of nastiness.”

“Maybe it’s bigger than it seems from here,” Bradley says, “But I still have this feeling that it’s not just driftwood.”

They see Brandon raise up his hand. This is the sign for them that the line is attached and for them to reel him in. 

“Any news on what it is?” Tommie-lee asks when helps him out of the water.

“Old and made out of wood,” Brandon says, “I would like to see underneath though.”

Now Bradley, Tommie-lee and Bobby’s turn to do their part: they pull the object to shore. 

“I doubt this one is worth much,” Brandon yells towards the rest while he drinks somewater, “I figure that the most we can do is sell it to someone to put it as an object in their yard.”

“It’s just driftwood?” Tommie-lee asks.

“You can see for yourself,” Brandon says and he points at the object that now washesashore by itself with the last big wave. It looks one of those ancient boats that the native Indians used back in the days: it’s basically a tree trunk that has been cut in half lengthwise and spooned out. With modern equipment that would be a job of a few hours, but with ancient tools it might have taken a few weeks. Unless they had tools that we never heard of. 

“Is it really an ancient boat?” Bobby asks, “I mean, not just the design, but also how old it actually is?”

“How could it have survived in the deep for so long?” Bradley asks, “How can anything survive the salt water for so long?” 

“Air bubble?” Tommie-lee offers. 

“I think it’s just a replica,” Brandon says, “It’s hardwood and all, but even that decays at some point.”

“What if it doesn’t….” Bradley says, still thinking, “What if it’s just like that ancient type of concrete that gets harder and stronger the longer it’s exposed to the sea.”

“Then how would that work?” Brandon asks, “How come we don’t see trees turning into concrete?”

“Salt,” Bradley says, “Water and low concentrations of oxygen.”

“Then it needs to have been under water for an extended time,” Bobby says, “Hypothetically speaking.”

“Yes and yes,” Bradley says.

“If we can prove that it’s really old, it will be worth a whole lot more….” Brandon says. 

“I will take a sample and analyze it in the school lab,” Bradley says, “We need to keep it quiet though, because if the word comes out, I’m sure that it will be expected of us to just hand it over to the museum.”

“I’ll ask my uncle,” Bobby says, “He might know someone.”

*

In the distance they hear an old car passing. It’s an old rackety black Mercedes. There aren’t that many people driving that kind of car in Martossa, because an old car like that are usually owned by criminals or construction workers. There are even less that would drive a car like that down this road: it leads outback through the jungle and for those who are persistent it ends up in the small towns in the jungle that are days aways, and days after that there’s the desert and finally Moac, the big capital. 

Many years ago the government had pulled together to connect the capital to Martossa by train. It’s used to transport cargo back and forth, including cars and trucks. And it’s cheap, much cheaper than actually driving down. The only reason that a person might have to travel down by himself is when there’s something shady that would be better to stay hidden from the authorities. 

“What’s that guy up to?” Tommie-Lee asks, when they all look up from the beach.

“Hunting,” Brandon says, “But then it makes more sense to go by truck instead of a regular car.”

“I saw that car somewhere,” Tommie-Lee says.

“I don’t think it’s a local,” Bobby says, “The number plate is a different color.”

“Let’s finish up here,” Bradley says, “Either way it might mean trouble.”

2

The man in the car wasn’t a local, but he wasn’t a stranger. He was bad news though. This man went by the name of Victor Vaughn and he was as shady as they come: he made his money as a private contractor that was hired to strong arm people into paying their debts. 

In other places this would be a way that the mob went about their business, possibly the local drug dealer or a casino that let people run a tab. In Martossa this was all very different. In a small sea-side town with just over a 1000 inhabitants it’s sometimes hard to be straight and for that very reason it wasn’t just the mob that hired the services of Victor Vaughn, but his biggest client was the local government that was always short on cash and they took it as their only option to go about their business as such. The public secret was that the Debt Collector was send by the federal government and that everyone, including the local government, was suffering because of that. The myth served its purpose, since Martossa was the far end of the country and in some way an insignificant outpost.

The reality was different though. The Debt Collector wasn’t hired by the city council, but it was more of a one man action of a man who saw it as his duty in the sense that he thought that it was the right thing to do. Or maybe it was more accurate to call it a two man action, since the council man always came up with ideas, but he was rarely the one to execute any of them. The man that had hired the services of Victor Vaughn was in fact the council man’s private attorney who was with him at all times. This attorney conducted most deals and he made sure that nothing could be pinned on the council man himself. 

All of this was also much of the reason why Victor Vaughn travelled the jungle instead of the train. In the trunk of his car he had three 5 gallon gas cans and to the back of that he kept certain tools that he tended to use to convince people to co-operate. His basic mode of operation was that he went down to people’s houses and presented what needed to be settled. In most of the cases people were either embarrassed about what the neighbors might think, or what happened more often was that Victor Vaughn’s reputation had preceded him and they complied out of fear. 

The ten percent was where the work came in. They told him to go fuck himself, they send the dog after him (which he usually neutralized with a simple cattle prong, after which Victor Vaughn sliced its throat with a swift movement). When Victor Vaughn returned the next day, most had the money ready out of fear for the terror that he might instill next. 

The last five percent was harder to reach and this is where stake-outs and the more intense convincing came in. He called these his private sessions, because Victor Vaughn never much cared for the word kidnapping. In his eyes it was just a simple business transaction that required a little convincing. He always saw himself as a regular Joe, doing a simple job, after which he retired to his home and he guzzled beer for a few hours.

On these stake-outs Victor Vaughn usually waited until he could get to the person when they were alone and when he was in a position to sneak up from behind. In came the rag with chloroform to bring the person under, dragging the client to the car, tying the client up and putting the client on the back seat. Then the client was driven to a secluded location and Victor Vaughn started to get to work. He always told himself that this was the kind of work that had to be done and that no one was willing to do. During he always wore his headphones and he listened to classical music. It helped him relax and focus, but what was more was that it made him feel like it linked him back to the ancients: back to a time when life was more violent and for that reason more pure.

*

Victor Vaughn had already booked a room for a month at the Martossa Inn. It was a rackety cheap motel in a back street not too far from the beach. It attracted the kind of clientele that were mostly involved with their own lives, some escaping elsewhere, but what united most of them was that they were either poor as dirt or they were involved in certain business. There was a lot whoring, dealing, every few weeks a client overdosed and in all fairness most of them were junkies who had it coming for a long time. On a few occasions it involved students in their early twenties that all had bright futures ahead of them, but who for the moment didn’t have much cash to their name. The coke was cheap, but it also had impurities from time to time, which was linked again to being poor as dirt. It was the simple reality that isn’t that much different in Martossa, compared to Moac, Rokset Island or any other place: to be poor was to get the lesser on everything: food, health and life.

Victor Vaughn had always felt good between these lost souls: if they disappeared they would never be missed. He was never quite sure whether he applied that whole idea to himself, or that it gave him this feeling that he could balance on that delicate edge between civility and rampage. It gave him the edge that he needed to carry through and it made him feel in touch with his brutal self. 

*

Victor Vaughn hadn’t seen the boys on the beach. It had been a long drive already and his clients were usually much older. One of the boys had crossed his path though: he was alone at home with his mother when Victor Vaughn came around. This was the only time in his career that Victor Vaughn had left a loose end. 

When he came at the door, the mother instantly turned white and it was as if she froze to the ground. Next the boy came around the house, carrying his father’s shotgun. 

“Get lost, asshole,” Bradley yelled.

“What are you gonna do with that thing, boy?” Victor Vaughn asked, “You’re gonna shoot me?”

“I suggest you step away,” he said, coming closer.

“I don’t believe you got it in you, kiddo.”

Bradley aimed the shotgun at Victor Vaughn’s briefcase. It blew up, all papers and rags. Victor Vaughn started to instantly boil inside and his fight or flight kicked in. He had been enough delicate situations before to know that this was one where he should recede.

“You better have the cash tomorrow….”

The boy aimed the end of the barrel at Victor Vaughn’s face. This was his cue to start walking. 

3

Bradley went to the school to do the carbon dating: a percentage of carbon in carbon mono-oxide has been pretty constant for thousands of years. Trees absorb the carbon dioxide and store it in their wood. By determining the amount of radioactive carbon, it’s possible to make an accurate estimate of the age of the wood.

It took a few days to confirm the age of the wood, but they had a certificate stating that the boat was actually 800 years old, which in turn quadrupled the value of their finding. The boys ended up selling the ancient boat for a price of 500 dollar to one of the rich folks who lived on the edge of town. 

*

After delivering the old boat, the guys stroll back to town.

“Not bad for an old piece of wood,” Tommie-Lee says, “It’s less than a half day’s work, split four ways.”

“We should get some drinks and celebrate,” Brandon says, “Maybe go back to the beach, build a fire, invite some girls.”

“Which girls do you know that are gonna hang out with the likes of us?” Bobby asks, “Besides, what if they want some of our money?”

“Why would they want that?” Bradley asks.

“They’re not literally going to take it, but they’re gonna make us pay for all the drinks and stuff….”

“So….?” the other guys say, “It’s for the greater good.”

“Women are trouble,” Bobby says, “That’s what my old man always tells me.”

“Seen as to how your mother is,” Tommie-Lee says, “I can understandthat.”

“Wooow,” they all go. 

“At least my mother can cook,” Bobby says.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Tommie-Lee asks. 

“You’re kind of skinny, dude,” Brandon says. 

The other guys laugh.

“You are kind of skinny man….” Bradley says, and when he turns his head, his eyes meet someone that he didn’t see for a good long time: Victor Vaughn. He also sees that the Sheriff is having his eye on Victor Vaughn, and he knows it.

“He kiddo,” Victor Vaughn says, not feigning any emotion. 

The boys don’t say anything and they keep walking their way. 

When they’re safe around the corner, Tommie-Lee is the first to speak. 

“Why did that fucker look at you like that?”

“You guys forgot?” Bradley asks, “He met with the barrel of my dads shotgun the other year.”

“You think he remembers?” Bobby asks. 

“Are you for real?” Brandon asks, “Of course, he remembers, that’s why he looked at him like that.”

“Yeah,” Bradley says, “I heard that he killed a person in some other town and that’s why he can’t stay in any one place for too long.”

“The question is this though,” Brandon says, “Does he want revenge?”

“He had enough opportunity that last time,” Bradley says, “Maybe he doesn’t kill kids….”

“Let’s hope not,” Bobby says, “What should we do?”

“Only one thing,” Brandon says, “Keep our eyes open.”

*

Victor Vaughn wasn’t sure why he had left that loose end those two years ago. It wasn’t that he was a kid, if anything, it always gave him a certain satisfaction to scare the shit out of some kids. It was something else, something that he thought he wasn’t capable of: it wasn’t that saw himself in that kid, but he saw the moxie that too many people lacked these days. Besides, if it was his mother, and if he was that age, 12/13, he would have done exactly the same thing. He needed to decide though whether he would allow the loose end to stay loose. For now it was ok though.

4

The boys continue their walk and they go for ice-cream parlor at the foot of the board walk. There are many tourists and if there’s any place where Victor Vaughn wouldn’t want to try his revenge, then it was here. 

There are a number of parlors around town, but this one is their favorite. The ice-cream is good in itself, but what gets them to keep coming back is that they always get more ice-cream than they paid for. The owner is a fat guy that was nicknamed The Italian, even though the guy was just a local, but the ice-cream truly was great.

“What can we do when that guy comes after us?” Tommie-Lee asks.

“You mean after Bradley?” Bobby asks.

“Friends stick together,” Brandon says, and in a scary voice, “Besides, he saw all of us together.”

“What does that mean?” Bobby asks in a scared voice.

“That guy is the most vicious man that anyone has ever known,” Tommie-Lee says, “If he wants to do something bad, he will do it to all of us.”

“Maybe if we just keep to ourselves,” Bradley says, “It’s not the kind of evil that kids can see: I saw how the Sheriff was looking at that guy.”

“Why can’t he just put him in jail?” Bobby asks, “He did bad things, right?”

“He did,” Brandon says, “Why isn’t he in jail?”

“My dad says that people are afraid to talk,” Bradley says.

“But everyone fears him,” Tommie-Lee says, “But I guess people don’ttalktalk.”

They reached the far end of the pier and they climb up the tower to the level where the light house is for the bay area. Martossa has four light houses, because the coast isn’t a straight or curved line, but it’s very rocky and it has a few areas where boats can’t make land. 

“What exactly can we do when this guy comes after us?” Tommie-Lee asks, “Except to hide or run….”

“Take your dads shot gun,” Bradley says.

“Or scream like a little girl,” Brandon says, directed at Tommie-Lee,“How do you scream again?”

“Haha,” Tommie-Lee says.

“I may have something though,” Bradley says, “You guys heard of the Blue Lady?”

“….”

“Some years ago there was a group of homeless kids living on the streets in some big city,” Bradley says, “No parents or family to care for them. To keep it all together they started to come up with all kinds of stories – one of them was about the Blue Lady. You know how water is stronger than anything else, right?”

“All too well,” Bobby says painfully, and the other boys pad his shoulder. The house of Bobby’s family was almost destroyed in the most recent flooding: some fifty years ago the natural water ways for torrents from the mountains when there was heavy rainfall had been redirected. The men-made redirectionswasn’t good by far and on more than one occasion it turned the streets into gushing torrents that just went straightwhere streets tended to make corners. Bobby’s house was on one of those corners and since it wasn’t build sturdy it didn’t stand much against the water.

“The story went that if they summoned the Blue Lady, it would gush everything bad away: in a shoot-out it would cause flying bullets to drop out of the sky, in an attack it would wash away all the strength of the attacker and if a person is particularly angry it would wash away all anger and bad thoughts.”

“That stuff really works?” Tommie-Lee asks.

“It’s just a story, man,” Brandon says, “But that’s not the point.”

“What exactly is the point?” Bobby asks.

“That’s not important,” Bradley asks, “What if this story gives you more guts.”

“How did they summon this lady?” Tommie-Lee asks.

“It didn’t say,” Bradley says, “But I guess they just called her name….”

“Maybe we can use it as a code word,” Brandon says, “Code blue means one of us is in trouble.”

“We should all keep our walkie-talkies with us at all times,” Tommie-Lee says. 

“We need to net let this guy get to us,” Brandon says, “You’re all with me?” 

“Aight,” they all say.

5

Victor Vaughn makes his first house-call: Karla Doyle. This lady is what’s called a Fish Wife: she has a loud screechy voice and she has the kind of unpleasantness that makes it hard to be around her for more than an hour; even for her husband and kids (or maybe, especially for them). She was poor as dirt, four scrawny kids and house and a yard that looked like a cross between the local dump and an abandoned place with junkies.

Victor Vaughn hears the lady screaming, even before he steps out of his shabby ride. He thinks: I do what must be done.

*

Something went wrong. Or maybe it’s more accurate to call it sideways. Victor Vaughn had been on a stake-out for three days and it looked like there wouldn’t be any opportunity for him to take the lady on a trip without anyone knowing anything. They didn’t own a car, she send her kids out for groceries and during those three days she hadn’t left the house even once. 

Then on the third night Victor Vaughn saw the light come on in the house at four in the morning and he quickly ran to take position behind the back door. Sure enough the lady came out, but it was a struggle to keep her quiet. The chloroform took a long time to work and Victor Vaughn ended up strangling her until she lost consciousness. It wasn’t what ultimately killed her though. 

He took the lady to a deserted cabin in the woods that he had spotted the other day. He had tied the lady up on a chair while she was still unconscious and he had gone outside to take a nap. He fell asleep and when he returned to the cabin the lady had died: she must have swallowed her own tongue and suffocated. 

Victor Vaughn had put stones in her pockets and he tied a few large rocks around her feet. There was a nearby lake where he dragged the body to the end of the jetty and dumped her in the lake. 

Victor Vaughn returned to the shabby motel and he slept for a full 12 hours.