Chapter Fifty One

When I turned my head back to Clive there was nothing but an open door. I looked over at Temptation and she was clutching her stomach. Blood was spurting out between her fingers.

Ted stood up from behind the counter. He pushed his hat back on his head. "Right in the corn!"

It was true. Clive had shot Temptation directly in the picture of the corn on the cob that adorned the front of her beautiful dress. Red was streaming from the kernels. I rushed to her and let her collapse in my arms. She looked at me with bloodshot eyes and uttered a stream of words that I will never forget. During our dance we had not exchanged anything beyond eye contact. Now she spoke the words that I had said silently to her all evening. "I love you" was all that she said and then she blacked out.

An ambulance rushed her to the hospital and the local sheriff interviewed me for about an hour. He asked me for my phone number and an autograph. He told me that he knew who I was and that his Daughter would be forever grateful if I signed it "To my best friend Ellen, Love Clark Martin." He told me that most people believed that I was dead. He asked if it was alright to spread the good word that I had arisen.

I said "Sure."

Ted took me to the Wal-mart in Johnson City, Tennessee. I stayed in the car while he went inside to get me some new clothes. I was covered in Temptation's blood and was in need of a shower and a change of clothes.

Ted collected me a pair of black Docker dress pants and a black, silk, short-sleeved shirt. He layed those items, plus a collection of snacks and Red Bull energy drinks on the counter. The round faced boy at the counter rang up the items and Ted handed him a 100 dollar bill. The handsome young man held the bill up to the light to check it for authenticity. Ted spoke with humor "Just printed it this morning." The young man continued the transaction without acknowledging Ted's joke. Ted coughed, just to break the silence.

I was working the radio in Ted's big, black Ford. The stations were almost all country and classic Rock. I came across a station that was calling itself "The Crock." It was a combination of Country and Rock. At the top of the hour a loud piece of synthesized music heralded the break for news.

"This is a newsbreak from ABC news...Oprah Winfrey continues to recover in a Chicago hospital, Tensions ease following the peace conference in the middle east, Tornados rip through the Texas Panhandle, but topping the headlines tonight is word from a policeman that following a tragic shooting in a roadside diner that took the lives of two people, he spoke face to face with Clark Martin, the religious icon that was believed to be dead after falling from the Lincoln Memorial bridge in Vincennes, Indiana during the earthquake there over a week ago. Reporter Lindsay Peckeridge reports that the sighting has his fans all over the country talking."

I knew what Lindsay was about to say and I clenched my teeth. "That's right Christopher." Why couldn't he be wrong for once. "Friends and worshippers from all over the country took to the streets tonight after word of the Martin sighting. Some carrying candles others with buckets full of chicken, shedding tears of joy that the man who was once emerged from the eye of a tornado has arisen again after what some suspected was a fatal drop into the Wabash River. The police officer that spoke to him said he looked well and seemed healthy by all accounts. He even gave him his autograph. Tonight that signature has already gone up for sale on the internet with bids as high as 30,000 dollars so far and rising. Now his followers await word of his next public appearance. Lindsay Peckeridge reporting from Knoxville, Tennessee."

Ted opened the door to the car and threw my new clothes inside. "You know people down here don't have a sense of humor. Fuck em...fuck em all." He gave me a giant container of "Moisty Wipes."

"It's going to be a while before we can get you to a shower, you're going to have to clean yourself with this crap." He got into the car and turned off the radio. He opened up a cassette he bought in the store and shoved it into the tape player. "They had Fats Waller music in there..You're going to love this.."

I gave myself a cat bath in the front seat of the car and put on my new clothes. The organ music started booming from the speakers adding to the already bizarre feeling created by the iodine lamps in the Wal-mart parking lot. I wanted to play my guitar. I wanted to hold Temptation again.

Ted started the car, put it into drive and pressed the gas pedal to the floor in one deliberate motion. "It's about time to let the real world know that Marty is back walking among his people."

"Too late" I said.

Chapter Fifty

My ex wife Carol, the mother of my son Louis, and Dr. Granger, the man who took the chicken leg out of my brain,were huddled together in the back of a Louisville restaurant. The conversation was sparse, consisting of "Pass the salt" and "This is pretty good." They were both trying to enjoy a Hot Brown, a traditional Louisville dish with turkey, bacon, and tomato on top of toast and swimming in melted cheddar cheese. It's some kind of requirement that you eat one when you're in Louisville although I would prefer a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken any day.

Carol and Granger were not enjoying the Hot Brown. They were shaking and afraid. The restaurant they were sharing was very old fashioned and very private. The booth they were sitting in even had a door. The waiter had to knock each time he visited the table. Knock Knock. "Everything going alright in here?" The waiter was quite polite, but incredibly ugly. He wore black pants and a red vest over his stained yellow shirt. His name was Eddie and had a horribly shaped mouth. If one was to look into his mouth, the first thing that they would notice was that he had two complete sets of teeth, one in a row behind the other. His eyes were, as they say in the South, "friendly." They liked to be close to each other. "Can I get you another cocktail, more bread?"

Carol and Granger shook their heads "No" and Eddie left them alone again. "What are we going to do?" Cheese ran down Carol's chin as she sputtered. "I don't know how Marty ended up in Hell, but what does that mean to us?"

"Shut up won't you? I know you know how to shut up." Dr. Granger was both frightened and pissed off.

"I don't think Marty ever did anything wrong to anybody."

"Except bore the world to death." Granger was short in his speech.

"Is that any reason to wind up in hell?"

"Maybe he killed somebody, maybe he secretly tortured animals, maybe it was us that was doing the world a service."

"Listen, don't say US, I never tried to kill him. It was you and Raymond and the whore Elizabeth. I stayed out of it." Carol pushed her Hot Brown to the edge of the table. The half eaten mixture of Turkey, tomato, and cheese was looking more like a biology experiment.

"I stayed out of it." Granger mimicked Carols voice. "You're in it up to your eyeballs Missy!

Carol's eyeballs got very large when he spoke.

Knock Knock. "You folks all done? Would you like some Derby Pie?" Eddie smiled the smile of a man with 64 teeth.

"Normally I would say Absolutely to the offer of a slice of Derby Pie, sir." Granger answered with a southern drawl. "But seeing as how my stomach has been turned by the repugnance of your incredibly disgusting visage, I would have to say, that I will pass."

Eddie continued to smile. "You ma'am?"

"No thanks." Carol buried her face in embarrassment.

"I'll be back with your check." Eddie had heard insults before and he let them roll off his back. He was also consoled by the knowledge that he had peed in their Hot Browns before he had brought them to the table. His only regret was that they wouldn't get the chance to taste the small helping of spunk he had saved for the Derby Pie.

Granger grabbed Carol by the arm. "You keep your shit together. As soon as they declare Marty dead, we'll not only collect his insurance, 3 million mother chicken dollars, but we will create an entire cottage industry from being the family and Doctor of the sainted Clark Martin. No one will ever know we tried to kill him. As soon as I can find that little shit Raymond, I'll make sure he has a heart attack. Everybody will blame Madonna."

Carol couldn't answer, she could only cry silently. It took all she had just to do that. Even though the booth was private they were being heard. Eddie had a peephole in the picture of the horse "Whirlaway" that hung just above eye level in the padded bench seats. The hole for Eddie's eye was in the eye of the horse. If you looked at it directly you could tell right away that it was the eye of a mutant human. Eddie's eyes were so close together they could almost both see in the hole at the same time.

Chapter Forty Nine

"Hey kid." Ted was talking to me from the side of his mouth, half whispering, half growling. Smoke came out from his lips and nose and the cigarette that hung from the other side of his face was bouncing up and down with each word. "I'd steer clear of that one, she has a jealous boyfriend named Clive, he works down at the mill, hates men that look at his girl, carries a dog leg pistola in his waistband. He comes from a family of no gooders. Somebody hung his brother from the pepper tree in front of the library and the police searched for his killer for a good 25 minutes before they gave up. Hell of a search Marty. They looked in all the bushes and the glove compartments of several cars. Christ, they even went to the Krispy Kreme and searched through a half dozen Bismarcks."

"She wants me to dance."

Ted turned around on his stool with the grace of a Sumo wrestler in a washing machine. Once he adjusted his position so he could see her without rotating his neck at all he said "I think she likes you." He turned back to the bar in a record setting 10 seconds. "Don't come crying to me when all hell breaks loose."

I danced for about 20 minutes with Temptation, if you can call it that. We did something that could be described as a cross between a Samba and a Tango. If you could make babies from dancing we would have had a house full. If I had been her boyfriend I would've been jealous of the steps we were exhibiting. I felt sorry for any man who wasn't me right then.

The last song ended and she and I embraced for the final note. A slip of paper could barely fit in the space between our lips. We strutted backwards, away from each other with our eyes fixed on one another. I could have married her right there. I broke the stare and turned back to the counter. Ted was gone. Most of the clientele had crawled under their tables. I turned back to the door....there was Clive. I don't know how long he'd been standing there, but from the look of his face, I would guess, long enough.

He was a very masculine looking man, his muscles bulging through his dirty t-shirt. The line of his jaw suggested strength but there was a tear in his eye. He ran his thick fingers through his thick, greasy, black hair and looked to the ground. "I'm sorry fella, I know you couldn't help yourself none, but now I gotta kill you."

I laughed to myself. What kind of drama was playing out here? I had just been reassembled only a few hours ago by Don and previous to that I was mercilessly broken in to pieces by Ted. This had the feeling of a "shootout" at one of those tourist trap western towns. I didn't have any fear, just a little nervous anticipation of what was to happen next.

From the corner of my eye, I could see the top of a hat behind the counter. Ted and Linda Sue were crouching together on the floor. "Marty, I'd start making peace with either God or Clive at this point."

"Stop the bullshit Ted. I know this is all some kind of passion play for my benefit. What can he do to me that you haven't done already?"

"Marty." Ted replied in a broken, unusually high voice. "I think you're confused."

"Ted, I heard you on the phone. You told whoever you were talking to that you were really working me over Down Here. I figure this is some kind of "Tough Love" visit to hell, to teach me some valuable lesson or something."

"Marty, listen to me. This is for real. If he kills you, you're dead."

I laughed.

Clive pulled the gun from his waistband, pointed at my face and fired twice. The bullets raced passed my ears and through the window in to the the kitchen. Mel who was oblivious to what was happening in the dining room never knew what hit him. His head exploded into bite sized pieces and fell in to the Jambalaya. Linda Sue screamed and Ted covered her mouth.

"Marty, listen to me." Ted had a very anxious sound to his voice. His face was a bright red. "When I said Down Here, I didn't mean Hell. I meant Tennessee. This is Tennessee. South is down. We're in the South.

I was numb at first. Ted was shitting me. Right? Whatever Clive could do, Don could fix. Right?

Ted held up 3 fingers." Three things Marty. One, You are in the real world now. Two, Don can't fix what Clive can do to you. Three, Whatever you do. Don't eat the Jambalaya."

Boom! Clive shot a third time.

Chapter Forty Eight

"It's a funny thing with this car Marty." Ted was driving, spread half eagle across the bench seat, arm over the back, steering with one hand, and barely watching the road. "It's been running on empty for the last 15 years. Haven't stopped for gas once. I been thinking about trying some high octane, some Ethel, kind of smooth out the pings, but I figured what the hell." The car occasionally would run off the road and Ted would grab the wheel with both hands and straighten up in the seat. As soon as he would right the ship, he would resume his languid pose. "Your car ever keep running for a while after you shut it off Marty? This one does. I timed it the other day, the engine cranked for 2 minutes and 17 seconds after it was completely shut off. Not a single spark to the cylinders and it ran and ran and ran. Piece of shit"

I sat on the passenger side, scared stiff at what was going to happen next. I looked down at my leg, unsure of how it got put back together. My eyes studied it closely, I couldn't find a mark. we pulled up to a run down diner. "Here's a Starbucks!"

"This isn't Starbucks." I feared retribution as I spoke. These were the first words I'd said in hours.

"Oh crap, whatever." Ted said. "They have coffee here, that makes it a Starbucks, you know like a Curad is a Band-aid, like an Amana is a Fridge, a Pepsi is a Coke."

I squeezed both eyes shut like I'd been hit by a hammer. I figured that would probably be the next thing in store for me anyway. Then I remembered what kind of car I drove before the accident. I owned a Honda Civic. A dull, boring, silver little Honda Civic. I had one of those wooden seat cover massagers in the driver's chair. The change holder was full of money for the toll booths. I hadn't been through a toll booth in my life.

Ted led me to the counter and told me to get the coffee while he used the restroom. The waitress laid down two brimming cups and demanded $2.75. I reached into my pocket and gave her 4 dollars. "Keep the change!" I said happily, knowing that a $1.25 was an ample tip in this situation. The norm for a lunch or dinner was 15 to 20 percent but when just having coffee you need to give at least a dollar. It's only fitting seeing as how she was providing you with a smile and pleasant service for only the price of a cup of coffee.

The very square and featureless jukebox in the corner of the diner began to play a song from the 1970's. I started to sip my coffee and slowly rotate to get a good look at who in God's name would be playing the song "I feel like makin love", when I had another rush of memories. The very first thing to come to mind was... I don't drink coffee. I eyeballed the room and carefully let the java that was in my mouth slowly leak its way back into the cup. Nobody noticed.

An extraordinary woman was dancing next to the music machine. She was wearing a pretty,blue, sun dress that would float around her beautiful body and occasionally grab on to a particular section to give you a graphic hint as to what she might look like naked and then let go and float some more. There was a large, yellow, corn on the cob printed on the midriff of the dress, caressed by a green sheath of husk. Her long, dark, hair was parted in the middle and framed her olive colored skin. Her eyes were closed as she danced but would open them with a shock at times. She could make eye contact with you no matter where you were in the room. I was too enthralled to notice that Ted had returned and was drinking his coffee, hunched over the counter, head down, like a he was watching a flea circus.

"Hey Linda Sue, how long before the Stroganoff is ready?" Ted seemed to know the waitress.

"No Stroganoff tonight Teddy, Mel is making some Jambalaya kind of crap." Linda Sue wiped her hands on her apron, ran them through her red, thick mane, picked up a burger and placed it on a plate. Hygiene wasn't a priority here. You could see Mel, wearing a stained Chef's hat, through the open window into the kitchen. He was alone and thinking. His lips were moving.

"You make it sound so appetizing."

"Bite me Ted."

"I may have to."

Ted looked over at me and noticed my fixation on the dancing beauty. "Likin the floor show Marty?"

"She's amazing! I can't take my eyes off of her."

"That's Tim."

"Oh my God! That's a man!"

"Oh no, that's not a man. We just call her Tim for short."

"Short for what?"

"Temptation." Ted held up his empty cup towards Linda Sue. Eyebrows raised and a straight line smile could only mean one thing. "Refill!"

Chapter Forty Seven

"This is going to hurt you more than it's going to hurt me." Sparks began to fly and bone shattering pain ripped through every piece of my body, whether it was connected or not. Don had a lot in common with Ted Stockings. He liked to talk when he worked.

"You know when a man comes into this world he's like an empty vessel. If you pour love and knowledge into the vessel, eventually it will spill out on to the rest of the world. If you fill it full of crap. Well....you have created a syndicated game show. When I was a little boy, I had an Aunt that gave me all the attention in the world. She told me I was special and gave me some kind of gift....nothing expensive or earth shattering...but some kind of gift, every time I saw her. It got so I couldn't wait for her to visit. I always asked my Mom and Dad to take me to see her whenever they had the time. They always told me that she was not my friend and I shouldn't spend so much time thinking about her. When I was old enough to ride a bike I would go to her house and sit on her porch. She would tell me stories about the world and give me incites into history and quiz me on my arithmetic. I was so appreciative of her attention."

The room filled with what sounded like a giant fart. It was a pneumatic wrench and it made my teeth ache.

"When I got into 5th grade, I failed a History test. It seems that Aunt Isabella had been making up history in her head. She was addicted to opium. What's more she was selling cocaine out of her house. She got busted right about my spring break and went to prison for 20 years. When I was 16 I went to visit her in jail. She gave me a cigarette."

"I did well in math tho....she knew math. She knew the metric system inside and out. Drug dealers have to know that shit."

From time to time Don would grab a big, clear tube with a pointed end on it and stick it whatever part he was working on. Red liquid would flow down the tube and then suck itself back up when he was finished. I think it was blood. He never said.

"My daddy was an honest, hard working man. He would come home in the late afternoon, so tired he could hardly walk. I felt sorry for him most of his life. He worked down at the mall in one of those places where you could get a pair of glasses in one hour. He was an Optometrist. As hard as he worked he wasn't very happy or very good at his job. He took to drinkin in his later years. You could go down to the mall any day of the week and see the people wearing glasses walking into poles and tripping down escalators. Somebody was always hittin cars in the parking
lot. All because of Daddy and the demon rum. It was tragic. Momma took in sewing to make ends meet. She got glasses from Daddy and her sewing was pretty bad. Thank goodness I had 20 20 eyesight most of my life."

The door opened and Ted walked in. "You about done my friend?"

"I'm missing a chunk of brain Ted, you shorted me again."

"He was like that when I met him Don, did you notice the horrible scar on his head?"

"I thought you did that!"

"Oh for Chrissake Don, you fixed the scar?" Ted rubbed his face and pulled the skin on his cheeks until his eyes looked like exclamation marks.

"Shit Ted! How in the name of holy hell was I supposed to know?"

"Can you fix it?"

"Wait a minute, I'll be right back." Don went to a large machine in the corner and pushed a series of buttons. Reams of information on graph paper came streaming out. He studied it from all angles and walked back, trailing paper like the tail on a kite.

"It was very distinctive Don!"

"Shut the hell up!" Don pulled a small tool out of his shirt pocket and bent down toward my head. I felt pressure and nothing else.

"You're a Goddamn artist Don. A Goddamn artist." Ted pushed his hat back and smiled.

Chapter Forty Six

My cell phone was ringing. It was playing a song by the Flaming Lips called "She don't use Jelly." It's funny that I really wanted to answer it despite being sliced into a hundred pieces. Ted yelled "Hey...you wanna get that it's driving me..." He turned around to look at me and realized that there was no way I could manipulate a telephone in my condition and spun his head back around in silence.

"Here we go, right here!" Ted whipped the car to the right and I could hear gravel spinning under the tires. Everything on the floorboards rolled violently to the passenger side.

The next thing I knew, the back door opened and Ted, along with a large black gentleman began collecting all of my parts and carried them into and old brick building. It appeared to be a rather rundown gas station, most likely a Texaco station at one time. The brick had been painted white on some distant date and had flaked off in scattered hunks. Somebody had hand painted, in a very average way, words in big black letters on the side of the structure. At the top it said "Auto Repair." But what impressed me most was what it said below that...."Body Parts."

"Is this everything? You keep shortin me Stockings. I can't work with missing parts!" The black man had a badge a lot like Ted's on his lapel. It said "Don."

"Oh hell Don, why do you always have to give me a pile of shit everytime I come in here?" Ted was carrying my legs as he kicked the garage door closed with his heel. "I swear to God you live to give me a hard time."

"Me! Look at what you've done here Ted! Everytime you come in here you bring me a bigger mess. Then you say, Oh Don, this was a tough case!"

"It was a tough case. No Joke! Tell em Marty!" I kept my mouth shut. "Aw fuck. Listen I'll be back around supper time." He stopped as he turned for the door and reached into his pocket. "Here, your gonna need these." He dumped my teeth on to the table next to my head.

"She don't use butter, she don't use cheese, she don't use jelly, or any of these..." My cell phone started ringing again.

Don was suiting up for work. Around him there were odd tools hanging from looping tubes that looked like giant springs. He never had to lay his tools down, they never got lost. He would just pull them down from the ceiling when he needed them, and when he was done they would bounce back up. His work area was spotless. Initially he was disturbed with what Ted had done to me, and now he was furious that my phone was ringing. "Take care of that Damn phone Stockings!"

Ted picked up the phone and flipped it open.

My ex wife Carol and her new boyfriend Dr. Granger were sitting at the table of a medium that they found in Louisville. There was a crystal ball on the table of the darkly lit room. Carol's eyes were as big as silver dollars as she held on to Granger's hand. Granger had a smirk of disbelief on his face. The rather portly woman at the other side of the table had her eyes closed and was swaying rhythmically. "I can feel the spirit of Marty...he's in the room with us now!"

Carol swallowed hard. Granger almost laughed. "Marty, come to us, speak through me Marty, use my body to talk to your Wife!" The medium jerked. Her eyes opened and shot chimney red sparks. "Listen, Brunhilda, Marty can't come to your little circle jerk right now, he's laid out in about a hundred pieces scattered all over the fucking room. Tell his bitch of an ex wife and that bunny quack of a surgeon to mind their own Goddamn business and quit bugging us. If they are harboring some guilt about the way they treated Marty just let them know he's getting it worse down here! Now for the last time....go fuck yourselves!" With that the medium's head slammed down on the table so hard, her crystal ball jumped out of it's base and rolled off the table with a thundering bang.

Carol screamed the scream that you would hear in a horror movie. When she looked over to Granger all she saw was an empty chair and an open door.

Ted closed the phone. "See ya around 6:00." He tossed the phone into a garbage drum and walked out the big metal door.

Don pulled a tool down from the ceiling and covered his face with a welder's mask. "Asshole." he muttered.

Here come the big...Black Mariah

Chapter Forty Five

I was gathered up in a pile and distributed across the back seat of the big black Ford like a human "Kit". Ted had a few more revelations for me before he threw me piece by piece into the car. We had been driving for what seemed an eternity and Ted talked for much of the time. He only paid attention to the road when he ran off of it or hit something solid. The rest of the time he had his right arm hanging over the front bench seat, and was wagging his head back and forth making brief, but frequent, eye contact with me.

"You ever eat at a Long John Silver's Marty? Holy Mother of Christ, what in the hell is that place all about? I had never actually eaten in one until last week. You know my Doctor has been telling me for years that I need to lower my Cholesterol and I sees this sign that says SEAFOOD and I think to myself, well Goddamn... Seafood is good for you... let's stop in here. I'm standing in line and some guy gets a seafood platter and it looks like deep fried cow patties and the next guy gets a chicken platter and it looks just like the seafood platter. I order up the seafood and sit down. The first thing I notice is the chairs, the hard plastic chairs are reinforced with steel I-beams bolted into the concrete floor. Why would they do that? I'll tell you why they would do that, because the people that eat there all the time are so fucking fat that if they didn't put the girders under the seats, every Goddamn chair would be in splinters. As it is , I think they're lucky the whole shit house doesn't penetrate the crust of the fucking earth." He stops to put the car back on the road.

"So I'm looking at this seafood platter, sitting in a cardboard boat or some-such, and I'm reminded of Arthur Treacher's fish and chips. Remember Arthur Treacher, Marty? He was some English son of a bitch that got famous on American TV back in the 60's, he opened up a chain of fast food fish houses. They had fucking Malt Vinegar on the tables Marty! You were supposed to put Malt Vinegar on your fish and chips." He shook his head in disbelief. "I can't remember what happened to that son of a bitch. I think he went to prison for being gay."

I was looking around for my hands. The last time I'd seen my hands Ted had thrown them onto the floorboard in the back. There were so many empty beer cans and whiskey bottles rolling around that I couldn't see them anywhere.

"There are 3 pieces of golden, deep fat fried cow shits, sitting on top of a pile of something that looked like fat fried slag. I don't know what the hell that was supposed to be...like fried fish remnants or something." He turned as if he were a customer talking to his wife, affecting a stupid sounding voice, not too much different than his own. "Hey Wanda June, you gonna eat all of your deep fried, scab like, fish debris?....Back off Roy Rogers, as long as there is an unclogged artery or vein in my body, you leave your cotton pickin mitts to yourself. Hey, what happened to Linda Sue ? Shit Roy! Did you eat our child? That was the last one we had left!" He laughed heartily at the thought.

We made a hard turn and all the bottles and cans rolled to the driver's side of the car. I spotted my left hand sliding under the front seat.

"I look over and see some 600 pound man sitting across from a 600 pound woman. He's got his fat little thumb arched, touching his pudgy little index finger, holding it towards his wife and he says....I don't know honey...it's missing something... a certain Je ne sais quois...this fucker is eating this hunk of lard and he's speaking French to his wife. Un-fricking believable. So I bite into my fish, trying hard as hell not to piss in my pants laughing at this fat guy and the first French thing that comes to my mind is...une bouche d'egout...it tastes like a manhole cover. Didn't realize at the time that I could speak French Marty. I took 2 years of it in high school and got D's both years. Something came over me. I guess some of it stuck with me."

We hit some kind of large bump in the road, possibly a body, and all the crap on the floor flew up in the air and back down again. My other hand passed before me on the way down, rocking left and right as it fell, appearing as though it were waving "Hello" as it went by.

"I figure that some Malt Vinegar could've made some difference right about then. I'm trying to remember what TV show that Arthur Treacher was on...Andy Griffin or Merv Griffith or some such. I decide to wolf that crap down and get my ass back into the real world, when all of a sudden I bite down on something hard. It feels like a Goddamn jack-hammer goes through my jaw. You ever feel anything like that Marty?" He looked back briefly. "Oh yea, I guess you have." There was a short and welcome silence. "Soes anyway, I grab my cheek and start screaming bloody fucking murder! I thought I chipped a tooth!!!"

He had my attention now. I couldn't guess in a million years how this story might end. His vigor at relating the incident had diminished. He scanned the scenery from left to right and down the middle for good length of time. Finally he turned his head back and looked at me. He waited for an unusually long time before I heard, once again, the words form in the back of his throat and make their way to his lips. He looked a little sad as he spoke.

"I thought I broke a whole tooth off." He stared at me.

"But I didn't." We drove on.

Chapter Forty Four

Dave was standing amid the chaos at Harpo Studios. He had his cell phone up to one ear and his hand covering the other. His skinny elbow was sticking high in the air and came close to whacking several of the rescue workers in the head.

"Why are you watching Judge Judy? Your son is scheduled to be on THE Oprah Winfrey television show and you choose to watch Judge Judy?" Dave turned to Bob as if he was as perturbed by Dave's Mother's actions as much he is. "Oh...Oh...you TIVOed Oprah!" He starts shaking his head up and down with a sarcastic smile. "Well Mom, don't worry, I'm not going to be on now...that's right...all HELL has broken loose here...that's right...I'm afraid I'm not going to be on Oprah Mom!"

Bob's face contorted. "Don't be afraid!!" he yelled at Dave. He didn't ever want anybody to be afraid.

Dave held up one finger to Bob as an indication that he couldn't talk to him. Bob looked at his finger and yelled. "One.......that is ONE!" Dave nodded to the affirmative and held up five. Bob took a swat and missed.

Dave put his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and said to Bob. "Nice one!"

Paramedics had Oprah bound to a board with her head strapped tightly to keep it from moving.

"Mom, Oprah fell and hit her head." Dave squeezed his eyes shut at the sound of his Mother's reaction. "Oprah took a crap on the stage and.....no....no Mom...Oprah the dog.."

"Oprah is a Boy dog!" Bob held Oprah the dog high, exposing him to the entire audience.

"And Oprah the international talk show celebrity slipped in it. She fell off the stage and landed in a box of audience gifts. We all thought she was dead for a minute but she was just unconscious."

"BOY DOG!" Bob yelled.

Back in Kentucky Louis sat motionless staring into Russell's beautiful TV. The Station that broadcast Oprah had put up a slide that said "Please stand by for more of Oprah!" Louis was standing by.

Russell had made himself busy in order to pass the time. He was on his hands and knees, his hairy gut pushing down on his t-shirt, with his arm shoved down the cushion of the Barcolounger, fishing for goodies. He pulled out more that a handful of cheese curls, a pocket knife, and a bottle cap. Then with a "Eureka!" he produced the eye he had lost over six months ago. He fell asleep, drunk in the chair, watching the Super Bowl and woke up without his eye. He never really applied the effort or brain power to track it down until now, and it was like Christmas come early. It was one of his favorites eyes.

Lisa and Louis walked out of Harpo studios and past the waiting limo. Lisa stopped and turned to Louis. "What happened in there?"

Louis smiled a wide pearly smile. "I let go."

They laughed and began walking. Lisa took Louis' hand. No one knew.

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.

Chapter Forty Two

To make me feel better, Lynette took me to see Smokey and the Bandit that night. You know what? It's a pretty good film for making you forget about your best friend's wife trying to kill you and ending up in Hell. Pretty good. I ate one of those barbecue sandwiches wrapped in foil. It killed.

I was also struggling with the fact that I was in love with Lynette. She was dead, which makes dating almost impossible. It was my last day in her world, I am going to miss her dearly. Maybe I'll be with her again someday. I know one thing, you couldn't ask for a better friend or a better trailer.

The third and last night of playing on the flatbed was the best. My fingers were hopping across the guitar like fleas on a dog. The notes all came together and the songs poured out of me like water from a busted levy. I had learned what I needed to learn and now I was teaching.

The concert didn't end like I imagined. We were playing a rocking instrumental that I was making up as I went along. It was called "The Critical Inches." I don't know why. We were playing an extended finale with everybody banging their instruments and breaking the equipment when a huge flash of lightning bathed the entire scene with a strobe of brilliance. The audience rose, en masse, upward and into a giant black hole in the sky. The band and the flatbed disappeared. I was alone, standing on dirt road in a valley. The sky was a mixture of greys and reds like some mysterious, creative cocktail. The only sound was the wind until I made out what I believed, and rightly so, was a car radio.

My heart jumped and I sucked in enough air that it made an audible noise. Breaking over the top of the hill came a rattling, frightening automobile. I think it was a 1982 Ford Crown Victoria, black, and ominous. The tires never left the ground as it made the crest of the rise, but the shift in it's weight caused it to bottom out. The skirts nearly covered the wheels as it heaved and then bounced back into form. It spewed black smoke as it came. It was magnificent.

I was engulfed in a sea of brown dust as the car roared past me. The windows weren't tinted but I couldn't see through the glare of the glass. The big lumbering Ford stopped 20 yards from me and sat chugging and clanking as the wind carried the dust away. The brake lights were on and remained lit for a long, long, time. I heard the automatic clutch clang as the driver shifted into reverse, lighting up the back up lamps. Slowly the car crept towards me, the trunk wagging left and right as it came. Gravel and stones popped under the tires, just from the weight of the vehicle. The back end of the car passed me, barely missing crushing my feet. One door handle, two door handles. I was squinting into the driver's side window, trying to catch a glimpse of the monster that must be diving as the motor in the door, roared and pulled the glass down into the cavernous depths of the side panel.

The driver had a face that would embarrass a goat. His salt and pepper facial hair was unkempt and off putting. The wrinkles in his forehead looked more like scars and where he was not intending to have facial hair was thick stubble. He topped off this facial work of art with a black, brimless hat, the same color, or lack of color, as his suit. His thin black tie contrasted with his coffee stained shirt and was segmented by a simple, silver bar clasp. We stared at each other, his dull grey eyes fighting with my blues. The cigarette in the corner of his mouth caused him to flinch as the smoke would catch in his eyelashes. I could hear a sentence form in his throat and it made a low growling noise as it made its way to his mouth. He looked away for a moment, at nothing, and turned back.

"Hey...bud. You know where there's a Starbucks around here?"