Chapter Forty Three

I didn't see it until he opened the moaning, squeaky door to the car, but he was wearing a small golden name plate on his right lapel. It said "My name is Ted" in black letters. He wore black, pointy boots that had silver tips on the end. He was lanky and skinny although his stomach tested the limits of the bottom button of his shirt. The tops of his boots were hidden by his dress pants, but you could see the shape of them through the fabric.

His voice growled again. "Hi, I'm Ted Stockings, been standing out here long Bud?"

"The name is Marty, I just got here."

Ted looked around for signs of life and scratched his crotch. "Yea...I know. It's hard to get these conversations started. Most people are scared as hell when they meet me and don't want to talk much."

"Are you the Devil, Ted?"

Ted laughed briefly and swallowed. "Oh hell no, that's what you thought? I was the Devil ?...oh hell no." He had a little problem with eye contact. "Wish I was Marty, I'd probably be able to relax a while, meet some chicks...wish I was."

"Who are you exactly."

His head whipped around and he gave a glaring gaze. "I'm a...well...I'm sort of a therapist. I'm here to straighten you out on a couple of things."

"I have heard quite a bit of advice in the last few weeks Ted."

"Yea...I know...and has it helped you at all?"

"Not particularly, I'm still lost and confused."

"Lost and confused." He found a cloud to look at. "Lost and confused." He went to the back of the big black Ford and opened the trunk. "Lost and confused." His voice echoed.

"What do you want to know Ted?" There was a bit of sarcasm in my voice.

"It's all about what you need to remember Marty. You've been walking around with this brain injury telling yourself that you can't remember a Goddamn thing. I see where you might believe that this has something to do with having a chicken leg thrust from a large wind into your skull, but trust me...it doesn't."

"Oh yea?"

"Fuck yea."

"Why can't I remember anything?"

"Marty, I want you to think back and try to remember your wife Cynthia." He was rooting around in the trunk, throwing things aside. "You loved the hell out of her. She was pretty, in a curious way, she was sexy, and she was fun."

"I think I can understand that."

"Well you should Marty, because you were smitten with her, ready to give her things that you just wouldn't give to just anyone else....try and feel that feeling for a moment. " He stuck his head around the trunk lid to stress the importance of what he was saying. Now I looked up to the clouds and the blissfull feeling of love swept over me. Cynthia was the love of my life.

"Why did I forget about that Ted?"

Ted walked around the car towards me holding a tire iron. "One day Marty, you came home to your wife of 2 wonderful years in order to surprise her. It was Valentines day. You had a gift for her in one hand and flowers in the other. When you walked in the door you found her lying naked on the floor next to the landscaper with his pants down to his knees." With that he took the tire iron like a baseball bat and struck me with a full swing, just below the kneecap on my right leg, just below the opening of my Bermuda shorts. The pain was enormous. "His little member was wagging in the air right at you." He took another swing from the back in right about the same spot and the bone snapped and punctured the skin. "She was drunk and opened her eyes to see you standing there and told you not to worry Marty, it wasn't that good." The next swing made my whole body shudder and I fell in the dirt.

"Stop!" I cried. "Stop this, what are you doing? Who are you?"

He fell down next to me and cuddled me like a mother holds an infant. "It's ok Marty." He pulled out a Chesterfield cigarette and lit it with his Zippo lighter. The smell of rancid lighter fluid filled my nostrils as I sucked for air. "Remember Candace...she was your savior, she took care of you when your heart was broken, she did your laundry and washed your hair. "

"I remember." My leg had separated from my body. It was lying a foot away.

"She was honest and true to you, she healed you."

"I loved her so much." The tears streamed down my cheeks.

"And when you got better, she told you she didn't love you." He took the cigarette from his mouth and pushed it into my eye. It sizzled and popped. "She left you alone and went to Chicago." He spit in the burning socket for good measure. I howled in agony.

"Your wife Carol."

"Oh my God NO!" I knew what was coming.

"She gave birth to your son and was your soulmate, or so she claimed." He pulled a box cutter from a secret compartment in his jacket. "After 15 years of marriage..." He slid the razor's sharp blade from it's cover.

"NO...NO.." I begged.

"She told you...."

"Please NO!"

"You were one lazy, boring, Son of a bitch Marty." With that, he put the knife to my chest. "And she was leaving you for Raymond, the exciting man that worked at the Rexall drugstore." He pushed the blade into my skin and cut my chest open. Once he had created a wide enough gap, he reached in to the open cavity and pulled out my beating heart and tossed it into the road. It rolled through the dust and gathered dirt and debris until it looked like a breaded chicken breast.

I screamed bloody murder. Ted hugged me. "Let it out Marty, it's alright to cry." I stopped momentarily and with disbelief turned to look at him with my good eye. The butt of the Chesterfield was still sticking out of my other socket.

The air was filled with pain and torture. I wanted him to let me die. I wept and pleaded for the mercy of death.

"Now, let's find that Starbucks." He said with a cheery tone.

I screamed loud enough to make it rain.