To read from the beginning, please click the photos on the right.
Chapter XII
Four-year-old Alex Lidecker was struggling to lift the toilet plunger. His pajamas had blue teddy bears printed on them, and feet sewn to the bottoms. A billowing cape - really a faded red pillowcase -was tucked into the back of his pajamas at the neck. For Alex was Super Man, on a mission to fight crime. Waving the toilet plunger as a weapon, he shouted into the air. “Get into the bathroom and think about what you did.” The plunger drooped as he spoke, but Alex had vanquished his foe.
“Just what do you think you’re doing, runt?” Victor was fifteen. Stocky to begin with, he’d spent many hours lifting weights until he’d developed a body to be proud of.
“I’m putting all the bad guys into the bathroom, and then I’m going to kill them.”
“How can you tell who the bad guys are?” Victor was aiming playful slaps at his little brother, at his face, his bottom, his tummy.
“Because I’m Super Man and I have Super eyes.” Like most four-year-olds of the 1960’s Alex worshipped Superman, the champion of justice.
“You mean these?” Victor pushed his hand into Alex’s face shoving him backwards.
Now Alex began sputtering and kicking and swinging his free fist as only four-year-olds can do. “You’re a bad guy, and you have to go into the bathroom.” And he waved his drooping plunger at Victor, poking him in the knee with it.
Victor reached for the plunger, pulling it out of Alex’s hand with one swift twist. Next he reached around and grabbed Alex by the back of the pajamas, and carried the squirming super hero into the bathroom. There he raised the seat of the toilet, and held Alex over it. “You’re going for a swim,” he said.
Alex screamed.
“I’m going to stuff you in the toilet, and you’re going to swim until you drown, and I’ll flush you.”
“NO.”
“And you’ll swim with the turds.”
“Daddy! Help, Daddy. I don’t…want to…swim with turds.”
But his father was upstairs napping in his den, and the bathroom was downstairs. He never heard Alex’s screaming.
Victor twisted Alex till his head was upside down, and, as Alex wriggled and protested, Victor held him upside down over the bowl. He stuffed Alex’s head inside it, and lowered it till his hair touched the water. “You’re going for a super swim.”
“NO!”
Laughing, he held Alex’s head inside the bowl for about five minutes. “Super heroes don’t get stuffed into toilets. And super heroes always win.”
When he finally let Alex go, Alex ran straight to his father’s den whining and crying. “Daddy, Victor said I wasn’t a super hero, and he put….my head….” Alex couldn’t finish the sentence, couldn’t admit that someone had stuffed Super Man’s head in a toilet and made him cry.
“Victor, get up here!” Mr. Lidecker roared.
“What, Dad?”
“What did you do to Alex?”
“Nothing. I’ve been working on my homework all morning. And listening to the radio.”
“Now what’s this all about, Alexander Samuel?”
“He said…” Now Alex was whimpering between words. “I wasn’t a super hero and…” his voice was very small – almost a whisper. He was fighting hard to keep from crying. “And he put my head into the toilet and...” Alex swallowed. He wasn’t going to cry in front of his father. “And he said I was going to swim with turds.” And then he burst into tears.
Mr. Lidecker turned away. While Alex sobbed, Mr. Lidecker reached around to his bookshelf and pulled down Volume A of Compton’s Encyclopedia, then searched for the entry about Alexander the Great. “Stop crying this minute. Son, I want you to look at this,” he said, pushing the encyclopedia in front of Alex. “Alexander the Great. You were named after him. Take a good look, son, a good look. Do you hear me?”
Alex peeked into the pages. The Great Alexander stood, arms folded, surveying a field of dead bodies. Blood poured out of the bodies from their wounds in great purplish-red spatters, and their eyes rolled upwards, fixed into stares of agony. Alex wanted to run away and throw up. Instead he looked up at his father.
“No, don’t look at me. Take a good look, son. Let this be a lesson.” he said. “If you get into a fight, make sure you come out on top.”
Alex hid his face into his father’s shirt, and his father pushed him back a bit. “You were named after the Great Alexander. Be a man if you can,” he said, “– a winner, not a whiner.”
Chapter XIII
Seven children stood out by the swings in the recess yard, telling ghost stories, their eyes wide and serious. They were debating the existence of Dracula.
“There is not any such thing as a vampire.”
“Is so.”
“Is not.”
“Is so.”
“Well, there’s this book in my sister’s room,” said a smallish ten-year old named Althea. “One day I sneaked in there and looked, and it had spells and incantations and stuff, and there was one spell for bringing vampires to life. I saw it.”
“You’re just making that up,” said Jo-Jo. “You’re just trying to be a Miss Smarty.”
“Am not.” Althea was indignant.
“You are so.” Jo-Jo did a don’t-be-ridiculous sniffle.
“You know that old house at the end of Pine Street?” Alex Lidecker looked around to see if any of the grown-ups were listening. Everyone knew the old house. The game was to run up to the steps, toss a rock at the door, or, if you were really brave, at one of the windows, and then run away down the street as fast as you could. “Well, it’s haunted.” Alex said as a matter of fact, the same way he’d say that his sandwich had tuna fish.
“He’s just making that up. Alex, you’re full of it.”
“There could be a vampire there,” said Althea. “It’s the kind of house that a vampire would like to live in.”
“You mean the kind of house he’d like to haunt,” said Alex.
“You guys are such corndogs!” Jo-Jo picked at a scab on his elbow. “There’s nothing there but some junky furniture and a whole bunch of dust.”
“Here’s what we’ll do.” Alex’s eyes got big. “Althea, you get that book and we’ll go down to that old house and we’ll bring the vampire to life. Then we’ll take his picture.”
“I don’t think you can take a picture of a vampire,” said Carl Brown, one of the older boys of the group.
“That’s looking in a mirror,” said Alex. “You can’t see a vampire in a mirror. They didn’t have cameras back in the vampire days,” said Alex.
“Well, I’ll bet you can’t take his picture either.”
“Never mind that,” said Jo-Jo. “If there really is a vampire and you bring it back to life, what are you going to do with it afterwards? I don’t want no vampires running around my neighborhood!”
“You think you’re so smart, Jo-Jo.” Alex spat on the ground. “There’s probably spells to make it go away. Right, Althea?”
Althea nodded. At least she thought there were banishing spells in that book.
Now Alex was waving his arms around, so excited to be planning this adventure. “On Halloween night, after trick-or-treating, we’ll go up to the old house. You get the book. I’ll sneak up and take my dad’s camera. And we’ll get a picture of the vampire.”
“But that’s stealing,” said Jo-Jo.
“Not if I bring it right back,” said Alex.
“You’re gonna need money for film and developing.”
“We can shake down some of the nerds for lunch money.”
“You’re going to get a licking if you do that again.”
“We’ll just make sure that the nerds don’t tell on us.”
As the bell rang for class, the young adventurers scurried back to their classrooms.
After sunset on Halloween night, thousands of pirates, ghosts, pumpkins, and fairy princesses begged their parents to hurry up with dinner so that they could get to the all–important business of trick-or-treating. The rising moon was three quarters full. But this year, Althea couldn’t wait for trick or treating to be over, and, as soon as she’d half-filled her bag with candy, she exchanged her ballerina costume for jeans, a shirt, and jacket – more practical attire for summoning vampires.
Pretending to be a grown up, Althea tiptoed up the splintering stairs of the house on Pine Street. She tried not to make creaking sounds, but it didn’t work. The wood was old, and the stairs sounded like cackling poltergeists, especially with the wind rustling behind her through tree branches. The Victorian had once been the pride of the city. Now it was junk. Althea gulped and breathed a few deep breaths. “Okay, here goes nothing.” She tossed her pigtails back over her shoulders and peeked through the window. It was hard to see. She wiped dirt and soot off the glass with a denim shirtsleeve, then again peered inside. By the light of a candle, she could see Alex, all but drowning in an oversized pair of Osh Koshes. She could just make out his reddish blond hair and freckles. Like Althea, he’d taken off his Halloween costume, a rubber mask and sheet, in preparation for the night’s adventure.
Althea tugged on an old-fashioned bell-pull next to the front door. Three tugs, three reverberating bongs - their pre-arranged signal.
Alex turned, startled by sound in the stillness, then pulled open the front door.
“It’s in the bag,” whispered Althea, “just like I promised. And on page 166 there’s a spell to banish demons, so we’re all set.”
Scrunched over like co-conspirators, they slunk into a dimly lit living room. Alex held back a sneeze; the room was dusty, and smelled of earth and rotten cheese. All the furniture was covered with sheets except for one couch of cotton roses worn away to threadbare, and that’s where Althea dumped her sack. A puff of dust rose up from the fat pillows, and Alex sneezed and wrinkled up his nose.
“I brought a flashlight too, Alex.” She opened the bag. “Chesterville’s Complete Book of Spells.” They looked at each other silently, held their breath, and then both gulped in unison, awed by the title.
Are you sure…he…he’s here?” Althea asked out loud. “Daddy would kill me if he found out what we were doing.”
Alex looked around quickly. He put his finger to his lips – the universal sign of for-God’s-sake-shut-up. “I’ll get the rest of the stuff,” he whispered.
Althea sat on the very edge of the couch, moaning and talking to herself. “We’re going to die. He’s going to kill us in some creepy way. He’s going to stuff us into a wall and cement us up till we starve. He’s going to roast us over the fireplace like spareribs. Or maybe, maybe it’ll be even worse. Maybe he’ll torture us with needles, then suck out our blood like in the book or something, and we’ll have to haunt this spooky old house with…him…forever.” Her eyes got wider and wider as she imagined more and more ways to die.
Alex pretended not to listen. He was anxious to get on with the vampire plan, and Althea was just being a stupid girl. “Okay, I got everything,” he said. In the heavy stillness, Alex’s whisper crackled like firecrackers. Althea jumped. Alex dumped a cardboard box onto the couch next to Althea’s book. “Charcoal, five candles, matches, a needle to prick us for blood, all kinds of magic potions – Drano, Windex, some rat poison, Clorox, and I don’t know what’s in these three bottles. I got us a caldron, too. It’s really just a mixing bowl, but I colored it black so it looks like a caldron.”
“I’m not pricking my finger with that thing. It looks germy.”
“We’ll hold it in the flame of a candle.” Alex’s freckles danced with excitement. He was determined to call up a vampire, and nothing was going to stand in his way. Althea was such a sissy, but what else could you expect from a girl!
“Can’t we just read the incantation?”
“No, we have to do this the right way.”
“I want to go home.” Althea started to cry.
She thought of her mother and father living without her. “Althea was such a brave child.” That’s what they’d say if they knew what she and Alex were up to. “I never really understood. If only I’d told her how wonderful, how special, she was while…while she was still…still alive.”
“Stop acting like a sissy. We have work to do,” said Alex. He thought of slapping her like they did in the war movies (Thanks, I needed that.) But he figured that she’d just cry harder if he did.
“I know,” said Althea, sniffing away the last of her tears. Her dramatic performance was over. “Let the spell begin.”
They arranged the candles in a circle around a stained Persian rug, and put everything else inside of it. With two bleeding fingers, Alex lit the candles, then picked up the book of spells. Solemnly, he turned the pages till he got to page fifty-three, “Spells to call up the un-dead.”
“Shto vetsa, ra bogista,” he said.
The children exchanged knowing looks. The spell was working. They could feel a presence in the air. The words “shto whatever”, they just had to be strong magic. Alex began pouring various potions into the caldron. They held their breath as the magic evolved. A thick, greasy, gray cloud rose from the caldron. Alex continued to pour and recite:
“Naposha-a ko gromveck
Omina leatra.”
A howling sound came from somewhere outside as the wind picked up more strength, forerunner to a hard storm. Smoke hung suspended inside the circle of candles.
“We did it!” said Alex. “It’s a demon or vampire, or something. We did it!”
“Now put him back, quickly,” Althea squeaked, chewing on her pigtails in a nervous snit. The wind’s howling seemed to come through the walls and it rattled the windows like a banshee. Althea jumped, startled by the noise. Small branches were breaking off of trees accompanied by sharp, cracking sounds.
Forgetting all about the camera, Alex flipped through the book to page one hundred sixty-six. The instructions looked complicated:
“Spells to Banish the Undead: Vampires, Ghoulies and Other Beasties of the Unseemly Court,” Alex read the directions out loud, “Three spells shalt thou utter, each human present having spat upon his right palm; each human present having counted five score prior to each utterance.”
“That means we have to spit in our hand and count to one hundred,” said Althea.
“Shut up. I know that,” said Alex.
“Well, hurry up.” Althea wrinkled up her nose, stared at her right palm for a second, then spit into it. “Oh, yuck, this is really gross!”
The children counted. Meanwhile, white sparks shot out of the caldron, and small flames danced on top of the liquid.
“Morituri, moritatum,” said Alex, “ooh, ooh, oremo.” The children quickly spat and counted.
“Vincit in bellum…” Alex paused, picking at something on the page. “Oh, no,” he said. “There’s a black smudge all over the rest of this page. I can’t read any more of it.”
“This is worse than chopping onions,” Althea complained, coughing, and choking and crying as smoke filled the room. “Try, Alex, please try,” she said.
Alex moved the book closer to one of the candles.
“Vincit in bellum… velar nostra mordicium.”
His words came in gasps between fits of violent coughing. The rug had begun to smolder, then caught fire at the edges. The howling, crashing sounds lulled. Then, as if on cue, they started up again, louder, and more sinister than before. Meanwhile, tiny flames shot up from the carpet. Althea ran to the kitchen sink, spitting and counting as she ran. It was an old-fashioned type with a pump handle. She pulled on the handle, as hard as she could, over and over until finally brown, smelly water dripped from the spout. Still pumping with her right hand, she held her cupped left hand under the trickle to catch the precious water and ran back into the living room to pour it over the growing flames.
Alex moved the book around under the flickering candlelight, trying to make out the words on the oil-stained page.
“You’re almost finished,” said Althea. “Don’t stop now. Please keep going. Don’t stop now.” Althea covered her eyes with her shirt and coughed and ran to the kitchen for more water.
“Paniish…” But smoke choked off the words. Now crackling out of control, fire spread to the couch and some of the sheets.
Alex ran out of the house followed by Althea who snatched up Chesterville’s Book of Spells on her way out the door.
They huddled outside the house amid the stumps of rose trees, trying to shelter themselves from the wind. Lit up by the flames from inside, the night sky looked bright as daylight. Althea opened the book, and Alex snatched it out of her hands. “Here, let me finish.” After spitting on the stained page and rubbing at the black goop, he managed to read:
“Paniish in spiritatum
Domen pachem nostratum.”
The howling sounds kept up. “It’s over,” pronounced Alex. “The vampire has been expatriated.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he’s gone.”
“I think you mean exorcised.” Althea was a stickler for details.
“Who cares? We’re in a shitload of trouble,” said Alex.
The children looked around themselves. Flames crackled. Heat played warm then hot on their cheeks. In the distance, fire engines, drawing ever closer, sounded their sirens.
“If Daddy ever finds out about this, I’m toast,” said Althea.
“We’re out of here,” said Alex, and the two raced home on panicky feet.
Alex saw a cop car parked in front of his house and figured that they were going to tell on him, and he was probably going to get whipped. He saw the living room curtains blowing like ghosts in front of the lighted room. So the window was open - just a crack. Alex tiptoed up to it and listened.
“Two children, a girl and a boy, and from the firefighters’ description, it sounds like the boy is Alex.” Officer Kevin McNamara was an old friend of the family. He used to baby sit for Alex before he got on the force, and he and Alex had played cops and robbers not too long ago, hiding behind the picket fences and elm trees, and shooting at each other with plastic rifles. But now Kevin was a real policeman. He’d come over to the house just two weeks before, and Alex had been fascinated by his true-life stories about catching bad guys. Alex had decided then and there that he wanted to be a cop when he grew up. He’d catch the meanest, worst bad guys and throw them in jail, and then his dad would be proud of him.
“Well, Alex has been trick-or-treating all evening. He should be coming home soon. You’re welcome to wait for him, but I’m telling you, this isn’t the sort of thing Alex would be mixed up in. Still, if it turns out that Alex was involved, he’ll get what’s coming to him. You can count on it.”
Get what’s coming to him! Eyes wide, Alex couldn’t believe his ears. This was no way to treat a hero who had just saved the whole world from a vampire, or something. Sometimes grown-ups just don’t understand anything.
Get what’s coming to him? What did that mean? If the police were called, that means someone broke the law. Maybe there was a law about setting a house on fire, although technically, Alex hadn’t started the fire, the candle did, and Alex had even tried to put it out, or maybe that was Althea. But if the police were here and asking for him that meant that Alex was going to go to jail.
Jail! The word made him shiver. They’d send him to jail where a bunch of hairy guys with tattooed arms would beat him up every day and he’d have to eat stale bread and water. That was what his brother said, and he knew ‘cause he’d been to jail. Now Alex was really scared. He was going to jail for sure, and that was after his father got through with him. Alex shuddered.
“I’m very disappointed in you, Alex.” That’s what his father would say and he’d give Alex the look. Then, they’d go down into the basement, and Alex would probably get a whipping. He’d been spanked many times before, but he’d never been whipped. His dad kept a buggy whip in the basement, and he’d threatened Alex with it the time Alex got caught shaking down nerds at school for their lunch money. Surely, if the police were here, this was a lot worse than stealing lunch money.
The night was chilly, but Alex was shaking and sweating as if with a fever. Quietly, he picked up his trick-or-treating costume and “Chesterville’s Complete Book of Spells”, and sneaked back into the shadows and down the street. He would have to run away from home. Too bad he hadn’t thought to bring money or food or warm clothes with him, but how was he supposed to know that this would happen?
Alex ran to the woods at the edge of town and crouched down beside a half-dead oak tree next to Puddin’ Creek to think. After his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he thumbed through Chesterville’s looking for some spell that might get him out of trouble. Everything looked complicated and everything required stuff like strange animal parts. After about a half an hour, Alex grew cold and scared - scared of the night sounds, of being alone, of not having his parents to take care of him. So he wasn’t going to run away. He‘d have to go home and face his father somehow, but how could he? There had to be some way out of this mess. He was desperate. He needed a plan, an alibi, an excuse. There had to be a way out of this mess.
Suddenly Alex got the feeling that he wasn’t alone. He looked behind him, peered through the tall grass, behind the oak tree, but try as he might he couldn’t see anything. There was no shadow, no movement other than the wind blowing through the brush, yet Alex was positive that someone was with him. Ignoring the disturbing sensation, he thumbed through Chesterville’s Complete Book of Spells. Page three hundred forty-two caught Alex’s attention. Lying Spells. He pulled the book closer. The script was old and hard to read in the dim light.
“Remordia - The Craft to Convince.” Alex bit his lip and read farther. “The power to dupe, deceive, and mislead the multitude or the single listener. This spell bestows upon its master the power to invent reality and truth. No matter how preposterous the tale, the conjuror will be believed. The gift is yours for a price.” And here the page was smudged, and, try as he might, Alex couldn’t wipe the page clean, nor could he read through the stain. Only one word was legible at the bottom of the page. “Remordia.”
“Remordia.” Alex said it out loud. “Remordia, Remordia.” The words rang out into the darkness like bullets. “Remordia. Remordia.” Immediately he felt that something was different, as though his body were shrouded by a sense of foreboding and despair. A hopeless bog of dark fear all but consumed him, and he shook more from the strangeness than from the night chill. But almost immediately, the fear shriveled like plastic in a flame. There followed elation, wild and terrible. His clothing seemed to twitch with energy. The sensation was as if a vampire, or something akin to it, was halfway inside Alex’s shirt. “Is that you, Vampire? I’m not afraid of you. I’m a soldier. I’m not afraid of you. Remordia. Remordia, Remordia, Remordia.” As he shouted the words, gone was the sense of dread, the feeling of impending doom. With a start he realized that he wasn’t afraid of anything – of the strange buzzing in his head, or the tingling in his fingers, or the darkness and chill of the night, or his father, or getting into trouble with the police. Instead, Alex felt purposeful, confident. “Remordia,” he shouted and laughed. “Remordia. He laughed louder. “Remordia.” His laughter swept him away in spasms of utter rapture.
The craft to convince! Holy smoke! So, no matter what he said he’d been doing, his father would believe him! It was as if a fog had lifted. Alex saw clearly what he had to do. He dressed himself back into the ghost mask and sheet and ran down to the creek and splashed in the water to wash off any smell of smoke. Next he hid the Osh Koshes and shirt at Jo-Jo Vargas’s house behind a shrub in the front yard. Then, blue and shivering, he ran home. Smarter than the rest of them, he thought, smiling through chattering teeth.
The police cars were still there when Alex limped through the front door. He was wet and miserable, but holding back the tears like a little man. “It was Jo-Jo Vargas and Althea Vennable.” His teeth chattered as he spoke. “They jumped me from behind and took my clothes and threw me into the creek. I had a hard time scrambling up the bank in the dark, and I think I twisted my foot or something.” Alex leaned against the wall, taking the weight off of his left foot.
“You walked all that way with a sprained ankle!” His mother rushed to Alex’s side and sat him down on the living room couch.”
“Let me see that ankle son.” Alex’s father carefully took off Alex’s shoe and examined the foot. Alex took in a sharp breath. “Does that hurt, Son?”
“Just a little.”
“It doesn’t look swollen or anything. Just give it some rest, and we’ll see if it’s still sore in the morning. That’s my brave soldier. I’m very proud of you, Alex.” He turned to the police officers. “It’s as I told you. Alex wouldn’t be mixed up with anything like what you were describing.”
“We’d still like to hear from the boy as to his whereabouts this evening between the hours of eight and ten o’clock.” Kevin’s partner was very official and very stern.
Mr. Lidecker looked at his son. “Now Alex, I want an honest answer from you and I want it now. This is a very serious matter. Tell me exactly what you were doing this evening.”
For a flash of a second Alex considered telling his Dad exactly what had happened - the spells, the candles, the fire, the screeching, Althea’s sister’s book. He especially wanted to tell his father about the book. But the moment and impulse to confide passed very quickly. He looked his father square in the eye, searching the worried face for a clue. “I would never lie to you, Dad.” He squared his shoulders. Like a young cadet standing at attention before his sergeant. “I was trick-or-treating with Althea, but then she and Jo-Jo took my clothes and threw me into Puddin’ Creek and I spent the rest of the evening climbing out of the creek and walking home.”
“Did Althea and Jo-Jo say anything about where they were going?” asked one of the officers.
“They said something about the old house on Pine Street,” said Alex.
Alex’s father watched out the window as the police officers got into their squad car and drove off. “Stupid-ass cops!” he muttered, then turned to Alex. “We showed ‘em, tonight. We showed those dumb asses a thing or two. I’m proud of you, son.” It was the only time in his life that Alex heard his father say those words.
Chapter XIV
Over the years, Alex practiced and refined his craft. His father was fascinated by the military, and Alex found that he could use that. He’d square his shoulders as if he were standing at attention, his blue eyes looking up in concentration. It made him appear determined, powerful. And the spray of freckles remained splashed across his nose, giving him the air of innocence even after he’d become a young man.
"It's time to talk about your future, son.” Mr. Lidecker paused and sucked on the tip of his pipe. You'll be applying to the universities next year. I've given it some thought and I believe Yale would be an excellent choice."
“Yes, sir.”
"Your grades are certainly respectable, and I know some people there. A word or two from your old man certainly won't hurt your chances."
“No, sir.”
"So it's settled then.”
“Yes, sir, I think I can learn a lot at Yale.”
Mr. Lidecker sucked on his pipe, then looked up at the ceiling, as if envisioning Alex’s prosperous future. "Contacts, boy, it's all about contacts. At Yale you'll meet the families that run the nation. Make the right impressions on the right people, and you can do whatever you want with your life. You can do anything, and I do mean anything."
Alex smiled. The advice was true in ways his father couldn't imagine. “Yes, sir,” he said.
Of course Alex had visited Yale several times before his orientation as a freshman, but he was still awed by the sight of the campus and the knowledge that this would be his home for the next several years. Stone walls surrounded the campus like battlements around a medieval city. Tradition seemed steeped inside these very walls. Lofty was the best description of Yale, thought Alex, the pinnacle of the United States, and of the world, both geographically, and socially.
Alex felt like he was coming into his own. Even as a freshman, he was sure of himself. He walked around the campus probing, examining, and evaluating what of the campus he wanted to claim as his possession.
Vivian Owns sat next to him in History IA and he decided early on that, before the year was over, she would belong to him. Blond hair, done in a sophisticated bob, a slim figure, shown off by remarkable clothing, Vivian was the ultimate girlfriend. Her wardrobe cried of money and good taste. She was someone who'd look good on his arm. “Good breeding will always tell,” as Alex's father used to say.
Not only did Vivian exude taste and class, but she was also knockdown gorgeous. A girl who would look great on his arm, and a girl his father would approve of, Vivian was someone that Alex needed to cultivate. Not only that, but Vivian was also smart. More to the point, she was smart in history, and Alex was struggling with his history class. So he decided to make his move.
“You're Vivian.” Alex's eyes shone with boyish innocence. “I know a place where they serve really good coffee. Can I invite you out for a cup of coffee and conversation with a promising law student, namely me.” He said it as a sentence not a question, and after the history lecture was over, they walked out of the classroom arm in arm.
Alex had picked out a homey, cozy café that resembled a lavishly furnished living room. As Vivian sank back into the fluffy pillows sipping a steaming cup of coffee, Alex looked up into her eyes and cocked his head. “You really are a beautiful woman.” He tapped his chin with his finger and blinked at Vivian.
She smiled, and looked down. “Do you always say that to your coffee partners?”
“Only the beautiful ones.”
Vivian giggled. “Only the beautiful ones?”
Alex put a friendly hand on her arm. “And only the ones who are women.”
“So you do have lots of beautiful female coffee partners!”
Their conversation was like a dance or, maybe, more like a chess match, first one moved, then the other.
“I guess I should tell you,” Vivian tossed her head coquettishly. She took a slow sip of her coffee, putting off telling him the all-important “it” for just a little longer. Finally she looked up, and, with a dramatic sigh, she said, “I'm seeing someone. We dated our junior and senior years in high school. We wanted to get married after graduation, but decided to wait out my four years of college. His name is Richard.”
“So where is this Richard right now?” Alex smiled and looked into Vivian's eyes. He searched for clues as to what she was thinking, but they weren't forthcoming.
“He's in Maine -- Bar Harbor Maine, running his father's business. He has a fleet of fishing boats, and, in the summer, he charters fishing expeditions to tourists. See, Richard loves the ocean. He’s spent most of his life on boats, and I guess it’s just become a part of who he is.”
Did she hesitate? Did she expect more from this Richard? Like maybe a college diploma? And she was probably lonely here at Yale while Richard played sailor up north in Bar Harbor. Alex pondered. What to say next…something subtle, maybe just a tad derisive.
“So…” Alex pinched his nose with his fingers. “Do you like fish?" They both laughed. “Well, do you?”
“Actually, after living in Maine all my life, I'm rather tired of the taste, although a good lobster is still one of the best ways to my heart.”
“Then maybe it's time to try something new.” Alex, ever so gently, took her hand in his.
“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe. But can we be friends, at least for now, at least until I think all of this through.”
“Friends.” Alex took a sip of coffee. It gave him a few seconds to think, to plot. “Just friends, huh? Well, my frat house is having a kegger next Saturday. Is there anything in the friendship rules about you and me going to a party together -- just as friends, I mean.” Again, Alex said this as a statement and not as a question.
He was truly charming, and Vivian was feeling quite bored. Maine was a long ways off, and Richard wasn't going to be able to get down to Yale more often than once a month. He probably wouldn’t come down at all during tourist season.
“So what’s it going to be,” Alex asked smiling, “an evening of chemistry and history books, or a night out with a charming, fascinating... friend?”
She giggled. “Oh, sure, why not? I'd love to.” She tore off a sheet of notepad paper and wrote her address and phone number on it.
After he’d left Vivian, Alex considered his options. Waiting for her to decide to dump Richard was too uncertain, and time-consuming. He needed faster results, and the word came into him mind unbidden. “Remordia.” He said the word out loud, and immediately a plan formed in his head.
Back at the frat house, he searched out the Weasel. Jeremy Scoggins got the name Weasel because of his ability to weasel out of trouble and to weasel into unlikely opportunities.
“Can you get me Spanish fly?” he asked the Weasel. “I needed it for next Saturday night.”
“I’ll get you something like it. It’ll make her really groggy, and she probably won’t remember anything. But it'll cost you.” The Weasel had really long fingers, and, when he was talking business, he’d flex them and crack his knuckles. “I'm going to need the answers to Cavendish’s last Tuesday’s math test, along with a $230 procurement fee.”
“How will last Tuesday’s math test help anybody?”
“Bernard had the ‘flu’ last Tuesday, and he'll be making up the test next week.”
“What if Cavendish gives Bernard a different test?”
“Cavendish is retiring after this year. He’s not about to go to the trouble.”
Alex went to bed that night wondering how he was going to get his hands on the math test, (maybe by bullying Cavendish’s teaching assistant) and how he was going to get his hands on Vivian.
In his dream, Alex found himself in an elementary school classroom sitting in a fourth-grade desk and being interviewed by a man with a three-foot pointer.
“It’s time to develop your craft, now.” The man twitched, weasel-like, as he spoke.
Alex almost woke up from the shock of fear jabbing at his insides. “I thought I was doing just fine. So thank you, but no thank you.”
“You’re doing fine as far as it goes, but you’re only thinking in terms of the small picture. I have great plans for you, Alex, great plans.” Like one of Scrooge’s ghosts, the weasel-man took hold of Alex’s foot and pulled until Alex was standing alone in a desert. Sand swirled in dust devils born on the hot, dry air. Alex had the sensation of helplessness, like the feeling of being a very young child, and being very lost.
“Are you hungry?” A disembodied, weasel-voice seemed to ask.
In his dream, Alex nodded.
“Will you pay my price?”
Hunger jabbed at him. The aroma of warm yeast filled him and the bread took on a fascination, a power like an opiate, far more than any piece of bread he’d ever seen in his life.
“Will you do what it takes to get this bread? Will you pay its price?”
The Weasel-like man probed into Alex’s chest, poking between his ribs with clawed fingers and removed, not Alex’s heart, but a wedge of Swiss cheese. Weasel-like man took a bite. “Not bad,” he said. “But not that great either. Sharp, with a bitter aftertaste. A little aging, some instruction by the proper master…” Here Weasel- man laughed, threw the chunk into the air, and caught it in his needle-like teeth. As Weasel-man bore down, Alex felt the tiniest of twinges.
“Will you pay?”
But Alex shook his head. “No,” he stammered, shivering and sweating at the same time.
Then Vivian walked in and sat before Alex, not naked, but wearing filmy, translucent clothing like silk scarves, with just a hint of cleavage showing above the bodice. Alex couldn’t quite see her curves through the cloth, so he tried to picture them.(Hher breasts - slim or ample? Probably ample.) He imagined her skin, soft, curved, with a faint scent of lavender. And as he reached his hand forward to touch her, she pulled away.
Alex gazed longingly at Vivian, then slowly nodded. “I’ll pay.” The words gagged him, sticking like plaster in his throat. And as he reached his hand forward to claim his prize, he sensed a twinge, almost as if tiny teeth were nibbling at something inside of him.
Vivian, the waiters, the scarves, they all blurred, and the scene ran as paint on a canvas sprayed with turpentine.
He stirred in his sleep, screaming “yes” over and over until he woke his roommate Mathew.
“Knock it off,” said Mathew, throwing a rolled-up pair of socks at Alex’s face. “That must have been some dream. How hot was she?”
Alex smiled, still half asleep. “There’s no way I could begin to describe it.”
Saturday night Alex and Vivian walked into the fraternity house living room together, and it was obvious to Alex that every guy in the house was eyeing his girl. Vivian was beautiful, and not only was she kick-in-the-teeth gorgeous, but she was dressed up for something much more promising than “just friends.” Her jeans were cut low on her hips to show a sliver of smooth, creamy belly, and above the jeans, a tightly fitting, royal-blue blouse dipped with cleavage, just a hint of cleavage, and when she turned or stooped, her breasts jiggled ever so slightly. The look was classy and teasing at the same time. It was all Alex could do to keep from reaching out and touching her breasts right then and there. But he had to be cool. Rude and crude wouldn’t work where Vivian was concerned. “What's your pleasure, beer or punch?” he asked her.
“Punch, I think.” She smiled up at him. All Alex could think about was her cleavage. He walked over to the punch bowl. With shaking hands, he doctored up the hastily-poured punch, and got a beer for himself – beer instead of punch, just to make sure that he didn't accidentally drink from the wrong cup.
For a few moments he watched Vivian from across the room. She was chatting easily with some of his fraternity brothers. She was so beautiful! His feelings were a wild, thundering animals stampeding across his heart. She was beautiful, sexy, and yet so innocent and trusting. He remembered the warm feeling on his shoulder when she’d rested her head there, and he remembered the scent of her shampoo. He wanted to protect her and make her smile. No girl had ever left him this confused.
He looked down at the cup of punch and suddenly he was full of remorse, his hand trembling hard. I’ll have to play it straight this time, he though and turned towards the kitchen to dump out the doctored punch.
But before Alex reached the kitchen, Vivian’s laughter rang out clearly against the background of party chatter. “You’re so bad! I’m shocked and scandalized,” she giggled. Alex turned back and watched. Vivian was talking to three of Alex’s frat brothers. She tossed her hair back and dropped her eyes provocatively. Alex knew the gestures. He’d memorized them from their conversation over coffee. He had thought himself the only one who could win that toss. Alex walked back towards Vivian, with the punch cup steady in his right hand.
He could hardly contain himself, watching Vivian down the cup of punch and ask for more.
As Vivian’s mind became fuzzier and fuzzier, Alex’s grew clearer. Finally, Vivian was sufficiently drugged, and Alex carried her to the bedrooms upstairs and closed the door.
Gingerly he removed her clothes, and then stopped. She was so helpless in his arms, more a child than a woman. He’d planned the evening like a chess game, but he hadn’t counted on feelings of tenderness blocking his moves. Gently he stroked Vivian’s cheek. It wasn’t too late. He could still tuck her into bed and walk away. Or he could follow through with his plan. Remembering her laugh and the toss of her hair, Alex made his decision. He pushed aside the tender feelings - feelings of weakness as his father would say. He ran his hand over her naked body relishing the jolts of pleasure that he experienced at each new curve. He laid her on the bed and began to undress himself.
In fact, the sex was disappointing for Alex. Vivian was all but unconscious, and, although her body was beautiful, her spirit, her essence, was absent, making the whole physical encounter mechanical. Still, a beautiful body is a beautiful body. Alex relished the sight of her nudity, the scent of her perfume, and, along with the perfume, the animal scent of her body. Finally, drunk and sexually spent, Alex fell into a deep sleep.
The next morning Vivian woke up in a strange bed without any idea of how she had gotten there. Along with morning came a blinding headache, a sense of nausea, and a general feeling of exhaustion. She looked around and found Alex stirring beside her.
“What was that all about?” Alex asked her. He shook his head looking shocked.
“What do you mean?” Vivian stared at him quizzically.
“You spent the whole evening coming on to every man in the room. At least you saved the last dance for me.”
Shocked awake by his words, Vivian grabbed the sheets and tucked them tightly around herself in instinct. She heard the words, but couldn’t believe them. “The last dance?”
“Metaphorically speaking, I mean. You passed out in this bed.”
“I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. It couldn’t have happened. But what am I doing here?” She tried to stop the barrage of feelings, but her mind spun like a pinwheel, and an icy dread told her that something had happened the night before, and the safe, happy future she had expected had been erased by one horrible mistake. “The evening’s fuzzy. I can’t remember much about it.”
“Suffice to say that you had a very good time last night, and so did Joseph, Weasel, and Barney.”
“I’ve never done anything like this before. That punch must have been really strong or something. Oh my God, what’s everyone going to think of me?”
“Well, I did take a few precautionary measures. When I noticed that you were, blitzed and… you know… acting different, I made the guys all promise to keep their mouths shut. I told them they’d have me to deal with if any stories about you started floating around campus. So no one has to know about the evening. I figure the less said, the better. Then you passed out, and my bed was the only place available, so that’s where I set you down and tucked you in.”
For a second she wondered about something. Had she passed out in his bed or somewhere else? But it seemed ungrateful somehow to question his story over such an insignificant detail. “You did all that for me?” She leaned her head against his naked chest. His body felt strong, safe protective.
“Sure. Friends have to stick together, you know.” Alex reached for his bathrobe, threw it across his shoulders, and slipped a pair of shorts on under the robe. “But I wouldn’t bring up the subject if I were you - in front of Barney or Weasel or Joseph, I mean. Best if they just forget all about it and the sooner the better. I mean, we don’t want any of them inadvertently slipping up and blabbing something.”
“You’re pretty amazing!”
“For a friend.”
She thumbed the blankets for a while, frowning. “Did…did you and I… You didn’t say anything about yourself. Did you and I, you know, make love?”
”You were pretty much out of it, and it wouldn’t have been fair. Don’t think I didn’t want to. I wanted to very much. But friends don’t screw over friends – in any sense of the word.”
Vivian smiled up at him. Out of the panic, he was like a rock she could hold on to. Someone she could trust - someone strong enough and smart enough to take care of her. He’d fix the mess she’d made of the previous evening, and her future would again be safe, full of promise, and under control. She lay back down on the pillows and, for just a moment, made a mental of picture of Richard. He’d never understand.
From the bed, Vivian looked around the room for her clothes, and found them on the floor in a corner. She considered getting up and going home, then thought better of it and closed her eyes. Just a few more minutes lying here, she thought. Just a few more minutes then she’d get up, get dressed and go back to her own place. If only the throbbing headache would go away, everything would be wonderful, she thought.
From the telephone book’s yellow pages, Alex compiled a list of charter fishing boats and fishing fleets that were berthed in Bar Harbor, Maine. Numerous phone calls later, he found The Gully Wumper Fleet, owned by Oscar Cromwell and operated by Oscar’s son, Richard. It was time to write Richard a letter.
“Dear Mr. Cromwell,” he wrote.
“You don’t know me, but your girlfriend Vivian goes to school at Yale, and I’m here to tell you that she’s acting mighty friendly with a sizeable portion of the male student body. It’s probably none of my business. I just figured if she were my girlfriend, I’d want to know about it. I’ve enclosed some Polaroid photos so you’ll know I’m not just making this up.”
He didn’t sign the letter. He addressed it to Richard Cromwell, c/o the Gully Wumper Fleet, and dropped it into the mailbox, and quickly.
Back in his room, Alex jotted down some ideas of what he’d say to Vivian after Richard dumped her. Would Richard mention the letter? If he did, Alex should just plead ignorance. “They all swore they’d keep their mouth shut! I’ll see if I can find out who wrote the bloody letter. That son of a bitch will have me to deal with. I’ll find out who blabbed, and, well, let’s just say that’ll be the last time he’ll ever pull a stunt like that.” He’d look concerned, purposeful. He’d use his little soldier look, eyes up to the Heaven, and his brow slightly furrowed. That look had never failed him. She’d be scared, hurt, confused.
Alex knew he could tell Vivian anything, and she’d believe him - because she’d need something to believe in, and someone to believe in, especially if that someone could make it all be Richard’s fault. “If your Richard …” No, scratch that. “If this Richard is going to get off into a jealous rage because of some half-baked rumors and innuendoes, then, maybe, you’re better off… no, I won’t say it. Just know that I’ll always be here for you no matter what.” Alex practiced his speeches. He told the stories over and over to himself, until he believed them to be true, and he could make a smooth and compassionate spiel. He had to look sincere. Careful planning, that was the ticket - that and actually believing the story. A little preparation, some thought for likely snags as well as likely opportunities, and, with Alex’s innocent good looks and brains, all things were possible.
Alex had saved a couple of the photos as souvenirs of the evening. They showed Vivian, stark naked and kneeling in some especially subservient poses. He studied the pictures, using them for inspiration as he composed his comforting speech for the day when Richard should dump her.
Three days later, Vivian showed up at Alex’s. She had on a pair of jeans and a Yale sweatshirt, and her eyes were red. She tried a casual greeting, then broke into tears and stammers. “Somehow Richard found out. He found out about that, that stupid, miserable night. And, and he called me – he called me…horrible things. And he screamed at me. And – and…”
“He came down to see you?”
“No… No. Over the phone. He was yelling over the phone.” Vivian sobbed and cried, and Alex tenderly pulled her close to him, letting her lean against his chest. “He yelled for hours. And he wouldn’t even hear my side of the story. He wouldn’t let me say anything. He called me a – a – he called me a whore. No one’s ever called me a – a…I can’t even say the word.” She shuddered from the sobbing. Pain held her body captive, weeping into Alex’s shirt.
“Oh, Alex, what on earth should I do?” Mostly she cried. And while the feelings cut through Vivian like a knife slicing through cheese, Alex found the sensation rather pleasant. As he comforted Vivian, he could touch, smell, and taste her pain. She was moist, and trembling, and there was a faint, dank odor of tears, sweat, fear and sadness. She cowered like a helpless animal, and, as he cradled her in his arms, Alex knew he’d won her and relished the feeling of power that it gave him.
To read from the beginning, please click the photos on the right.
This is a work
of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead
is entirely coincidental.
Chapter XII
Four-year-old Alex Lidecker was struggling to lift the toilet plunger. His pajamas had blue teddy bears printed on them, and feet sewn to the bottoms. A billowing cape - really a faded red pillowcase -was tucked into the back of his pajamas at the neck. For Alex was Super Man, on a mission to fight crime. Waving the toilet plunger as a weapon, he shouted into the air. “Get into the bathroom and think about what you did.” The plunger drooped as he spoke, but Alex had vanquished his foe.
“Just what do you think you’re doing, runt?” Victor was fifteen. Stocky to begin with, he’d spent many hours lifting weights until he’d developed a body to be proud of.
“I’m putting all the bad guys into the bathroom, and then I’m going to kill them.”
“How can you tell who the bad guys are?” Victor was aiming playful slaps at his little brother, at his face, his bottom, his tummy.
“Because I’m Super Man and I have Super eyes.” Like most four-year-olds of the 1960’s Alex worshipped Superman, the champion of justice.
“You mean these?” Victor pushed his hand into Alex’s face shoving him backwards.
Now Alex began sputtering and kicking and swinging his free fist as only four-year-olds can do. “You’re a bad guy, and you have to go into the bathroom.” And he waved his drooping plunger at Victor, poking him in the knee with it.
Victor reached for the plunger, pulling it out of Alex’s hand with one swift twist. Next he reached around and grabbed Alex by the back of the pajamas, and carried the squirming super hero into the bathroom. There he raised the seat of the toilet, and held Alex over it. “You’re going for a swim,” he said.
Alex screamed.
“I’m going to stuff you in the toilet, and you’re going to swim until you drown, and I’ll flush you.”
“NO.”
“And you’ll swim with the turds.”
“Daddy! Help, Daddy. I don’t…want to…swim with turds.”
But his father was upstairs napping in his den, and the bathroom was downstairs. He never heard Alex’s screaming.
Victor twisted Alex till his head was upside down, and, as Alex wriggled and protested, Victor held him upside down over the bowl. He stuffed Alex’s head inside it, and lowered it till his hair touched the water. “You’re going for a super swim.”
“NO!”
Laughing, he held Alex’s head inside the bowl for about five minutes. “Super heroes don’t get stuffed into toilets. And super heroes always win.”
When he finally let Alex go, Alex ran straight to his father’s den whining and crying. “Daddy, Victor said I wasn’t a super hero, and he put….my head….” Alex couldn’t finish the sentence, couldn’t admit that someone had stuffed Super Man’s head in a toilet and made him cry.
“Victor, get up here!” Mr. Lidecker roared.
“What, Dad?”
“What did you do to Alex?”
“Nothing. I’ve been working on my homework all morning. And listening to the radio.”
“Now what’s this all about, Alexander Samuel?”
“He said…” Now Alex was whimpering between words. “I wasn’t a super hero and…” his voice was very small – almost a whisper. He was fighting hard to keep from crying. “And he put my head into the toilet and...” Alex swallowed. He wasn’t going to cry in front of his father. “And he said I was going to swim with turds.” And then he burst into tears.
Mr. Lidecker turned away. While Alex sobbed, Mr. Lidecker reached around to his bookshelf and pulled down Volume A of Compton’s Encyclopedia, then searched for the entry about Alexander the Great. “Stop crying this minute. Son, I want you to look at this,” he said, pushing the encyclopedia in front of Alex. “Alexander the Great. You were named after him. Take a good look, son, a good look. Do you hear me?”
Alex peeked into the pages. The Great Alexander stood, arms folded, surveying a field of dead bodies. Blood poured out of the bodies from their wounds in great purplish-red spatters, and their eyes rolled upwards, fixed into stares of agony. Alex wanted to run away and throw up. Instead he looked up at his father.
“No, don’t look at me. Take a good look, son. Let this be a lesson.” he said. “If you get into a fight, make sure you come out on top.”
Alex hid his face into his father’s shirt, and his father pushed him back a bit. “You were named after the Great Alexander. Be a man if you can,” he said, “– a winner, not a whiner.”
Chapter XIII
Seven children stood out by the swings in the recess yard, telling ghost stories, their eyes wide and serious. They were debating the existence of Dracula.
“There is not any such thing as a vampire.”
“Is so.”
“Is not.”
“Is so.”
“Well, there’s this book in my sister’s room,” said a smallish ten-year old named Althea. “One day I sneaked in there and looked, and it had spells and incantations and stuff, and there was one spell for bringing vampires to life. I saw it.”
“You’re just making that up,” said Jo-Jo. “You’re just trying to be a Miss Smarty.”
“Am not.” Althea was indignant.
“You are so.” Jo-Jo did a don’t-be-ridiculous sniffle.
“You know that old house at the end of Pine Street?” Alex Lidecker looked around to see if any of the grown-ups were listening. Everyone knew the old house. The game was to run up to the steps, toss a rock at the door, or, if you were really brave, at one of the windows, and then run away down the street as fast as you could. “Well, it’s haunted.” Alex said as a matter of fact, the same way he’d say that his sandwich had tuna fish.
“He’s just making that up. Alex, you’re full of it.”
“There could be a vampire there,” said Althea. “It’s the kind of house that a vampire would like to live in.”
“You mean the kind of house he’d like to haunt,” said Alex.
“You guys are such corndogs!” Jo-Jo picked at a scab on his elbow. “There’s nothing there but some junky furniture and a whole bunch of dust.”
“Here’s what we’ll do.” Alex’s eyes got big. “Althea, you get that book and we’ll go down to that old house and we’ll bring the vampire to life. Then we’ll take his picture.”
“I don’t think you can take a picture of a vampire,” said Carl Brown, one of the older boys of the group.
“That’s looking in a mirror,” said Alex. “You can’t see a vampire in a mirror. They didn’t have cameras back in the vampire days,” said Alex.
“Well, I’ll bet you can’t take his picture either.”
“Never mind that,” said Jo-Jo. “If there really is a vampire and you bring it back to life, what are you going to do with it afterwards? I don’t want no vampires running around my neighborhood!”
“You think you’re so smart, Jo-Jo.” Alex spat on the ground. “There’s probably spells to make it go away. Right, Althea?”
Althea nodded. At least she thought there were banishing spells in that book.
Now Alex was waving his arms around, so excited to be planning this adventure. “On Halloween night, after trick-or-treating, we’ll go up to the old house. You get the book. I’ll sneak up and take my dad’s camera. And we’ll get a picture of the vampire.”
“But that’s stealing,” said Jo-Jo.
“Not if I bring it right back,” said Alex.
“You’re gonna need money for film and developing.”
“We can shake down some of the nerds for lunch money.”
“You’re going to get a licking if you do that again.”
“We’ll just make sure that the nerds don’t tell on us.”
As the bell rang for class, the young adventurers scurried back to their classrooms.
After sunset on Halloween night, thousands of pirates, ghosts, pumpkins, and fairy princesses begged their parents to hurry up with dinner so that they could get to the all–important business of trick-or-treating. The rising moon was three quarters full. But this year, Althea couldn’t wait for trick or treating to be over, and, as soon as she’d half-filled her bag with candy, she exchanged her ballerina costume for jeans, a shirt, and jacket – more practical attire for summoning vampires.
Pretending to be a grown up, Althea tiptoed up the splintering stairs of the house on Pine Street. She tried not to make creaking sounds, but it didn’t work. The wood was old, and the stairs sounded like cackling poltergeists, especially with the wind rustling behind her through tree branches. The Victorian had once been the pride of the city. Now it was junk. Althea gulped and breathed a few deep breaths. “Okay, here goes nothing.” She tossed her pigtails back over her shoulders and peeked through the window. It was hard to see. She wiped dirt and soot off the glass with a denim shirtsleeve, then again peered inside. By the light of a candle, she could see Alex, all but drowning in an oversized pair of Osh Koshes. She could just make out his reddish blond hair and freckles. Like Althea, he’d taken off his Halloween costume, a rubber mask and sheet, in preparation for the night’s adventure.
Althea tugged on an old-fashioned bell-pull next to the front door. Three tugs, three reverberating bongs - their pre-arranged signal.
Alex turned, startled by sound in the stillness, then pulled open the front door.
“It’s in the bag,” whispered Althea, “just like I promised. And on page 166 there’s a spell to banish demons, so we’re all set.”
Scrunched over like co-conspirators, they slunk into a dimly lit living room. Alex held back a sneeze; the room was dusty, and smelled of earth and rotten cheese. All the furniture was covered with sheets except for one couch of cotton roses worn away to threadbare, and that’s where Althea dumped her sack. A puff of dust rose up from the fat pillows, and Alex sneezed and wrinkled up his nose.
“I brought a flashlight too, Alex.” She opened the bag. “Chesterville’s Complete Book of Spells.” They looked at each other silently, held their breath, and then both gulped in unison, awed by the title.
Are you sure…he…he’s here?” Althea asked out loud. “Daddy would kill me if he found out what we were doing.”
Alex looked around quickly. He put his finger to his lips – the universal sign of for-God’s-sake-shut-up. “I’ll get the rest of the stuff,” he whispered.
Althea sat on the very edge of the couch, moaning and talking to herself. “We’re going to die. He’s going to kill us in some creepy way. He’s going to stuff us into a wall and cement us up till we starve. He’s going to roast us over the fireplace like spareribs. Or maybe, maybe it’ll be even worse. Maybe he’ll torture us with needles, then suck out our blood like in the book or something, and we’ll have to haunt this spooky old house with…him…forever.” Her eyes got wider and wider as she imagined more and more ways to die.
Alex pretended not to listen. He was anxious to get on with the vampire plan, and Althea was just being a stupid girl. “Okay, I got everything,” he said. In the heavy stillness, Alex’s whisper crackled like firecrackers. Althea jumped. Alex dumped a cardboard box onto the couch next to Althea’s book. “Charcoal, five candles, matches, a needle to prick us for blood, all kinds of magic potions – Drano, Windex, some rat poison, Clorox, and I don’t know what’s in these three bottles. I got us a caldron, too. It’s really just a mixing bowl, but I colored it black so it looks like a caldron.”
“I’m not pricking my finger with that thing. It looks germy.”
“We’ll hold it in the flame of a candle.” Alex’s freckles danced with excitement. He was determined to call up a vampire, and nothing was going to stand in his way. Althea was such a sissy, but what else could you expect from a girl!
“Can’t we just read the incantation?”
“No, we have to do this the right way.”
“I want to go home.” Althea started to cry.
She thought of her mother and father living without her. “Althea was such a brave child.” That’s what they’d say if they knew what she and Alex were up to. “I never really understood. If only I’d told her how wonderful, how special, she was while…while she was still…still alive.”
“Stop acting like a sissy. We have work to do,” said Alex. He thought of slapping her like they did in the war movies (Thanks, I needed that.) But he figured that she’d just cry harder if he did.
“I know,” said Althea, sniffing away the last of her tears. Her dramatic performance was over. “Let the spell begin.”
They arranged the candles in a circle around a stained Persian rug, and put everything else inside of it. With two bleeding fingers, Alex lit the candles, then picked up the book of spells. Solemnly, he turned the pages till he got to page fifty-three, “Spells to call up the un-dead.”
“Shto vetsa, ra bogista,” he said.
The children exchanged knowing looks. The spell was working. They could feel a presence in the air. The words “shto whatever”, they just had to be strong magic. Alex began pouring various potions into the caldron. They held their breath as the magic evolved. A thick, greasy, gray cloud rose from the caldron. Alex continued to pour and recite:
“Naposha-a ko gromveck
Omina leatra.”
A howling sound came from somewhere outside as the wind picked up more strength, forerunner to a hard storm. Smoke hung suspended inside the circle of candles.
“We did it!” said Alex. “It’s a demon or vampire, or something. We did it!”
“Now put him back, quickly,” Althea squeaked, chewing on her pigtails in a nervous snit. The wind’s howling seemed to come through the walls and it rattled the windows like a banshee. Althea jumped, startled by the noise. Small branches were breaking off of trees accompanied by sharp, cracking sounds.
Forgetting all about the camera, Alex flipped through the book to page one hundred sixty-six. The instructions looked complicated:
“Spells to Banish the Undead: Vampires, Ghoulies and Other Beasties of the Unseemly Court,” Alex read the directions out loud, “Three spells shalt thou utter, each human present having spat upon his right palm; each human present having counted five score prior to each utterance.”
“That means we have to spit in our hand and count to one hundred,” said Althea.
“Shut up. I know that,” said Alex.
“Well, hurry up.” Althea wrinkled up her nose, stared at her right palm for a second, then spit into it. “Oh, yuck, this is really gross!”
The children counted. Meanwhile, white sparks shot out of the caldron, and small flames danced on top of the liquid.
“Morituri, moritatum,” said Alex, “ooh, ooh, oremo.” The children quickly spat and counted.
“Vincit in bellum…” Alex paused, picking at something on the page. “Oh, no,” he said. “There’s a black smudge all over the rest of this page. I can’t read any more of it.”
“This is worse than chopping onions,” Althea complained, coughing, and choking and crying as smoke filled the room. “Try, Alex, please try,” she said.
Alex moved the book closer to one of the candles.
“Vincit in bellum… velar nostra mordicium.”
His words came in gasps between fits of violent coughing. The rug had begun to smolder, then caught fire at the edges. The howling, crashing sounds lulled. Then, as if on cue, they started up again, louder, and more sinister than before. Meanwhile, tiny flames shot up from the carpet. Althea ran to the kitchen sink, spitting and counting as she ran. It was an old-fashioned type with a pump handle. She pulled on the handle, as hard as she could, over and over until finally brown, smelly water dripped from the spout. Still pumping with her right hand, she held her cupped left hand under the trickle to catch the precious water and ran back into the living room to pour it over the growing flames.
Alex moved the book around under the flickering candlelight, trying to make out the words on the oil-stained page.
“You’re almost finished,” said Althea. “Don’t stop now. Please keep going. Don’t stop now.” Althea covered her eyes with her shirt and coughed and ran to the kitchen for more water.
“Paniish…” But smoke choked off the words. Now crackling out of control, fire spread to the couch and some of the sheets.
Alex ran out of the house followed by Althea who snatched up Chesterville’s Book of Spells on her way out the door.
They huddled outside the house amid the stumps of rose trees, trying to shelter themselves from the wind. Lit up by the flames from inside, the night sky looked bright as daylight. Althea opened the book, and Alex snatched it out of her hands. “Here, let me finish.” After spitting on the stained page and rubbing at the black goop, he managed to read:
“Paniish in spiritatum
Domen pachem nostratum.”
The howling sounds kept up. “It’s over,” pronounced Alex. “The vampire has been expatriated.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he’s gone.”
“I think you mean exorcised.” Althea was a stickler for details.
“Who cares? We’re in a shitload of trouble,” said Alex.
The children looked around themselves. Flames crackled. Heat played warm then hot on their cheeks. In the distance, fire engines, drawing ever closer, sounded their sirens.
“If Daddy ever finds out about this, I’m toast,” said Althea.
“We’re out of here,” said Alex, and the two raced home on panicky feet.
Alex saw a cop car parked in front of his house and figured that they were going to tell on him, and he was probably going to get whipped. He saw the living room curtains blowing like ghosts in front of the lighted room. So the window was open - just a crack. Alex tiptoed up to it and listened.
“Two children, a girl and a boy, and from the firefighters’ description, it sounds like the boy is Alex.” Officer Kevin McNamara was an old friend of the family. He used to baby sit for Alex before he got on the force, and he and Alex had played cops and robbers not too long ago, hiding behind the picket fences and elm trees, and shooting at each other with plastic rifles. But now Kevin was a real policeman. He’d come over to the house just two weeks before, and Alex had been fascinated by his true-life stories about catching bad guys. Alex had decided then and there that he wanted to be a cop when he grew up. He’d catch the meanest, worst bad guys and throw them in jail, and then his dad would be proud of him.
“Well, Alex has been trick-or-treating all evening. He should be coming home soon. You’re welcome to wait for him, but I’m telling you, this isn’t the sort of thing Alex would be mixed up in. Still, if it turns out that Alex was involved, he’ll get what’s coming to him. You can count on it.”
Get what’s coming to him! Eyes wide, Alex couldn’t believe his ears. This was no way to treat a hero who had just saved the whole world from a vampire, or something. Sometimes grown-ups just don’t understand anything.
Get what’s coming to him? What did that mean? If the police were called, that means someone broke the law. Maybe there was a law about setting a house on fire, although technically, Alex hadn’t started the fire, the candle did, and Alex had even tried to put it out, or maybe that was Althea. But if the police were here and asking for him that meant that Alex was going to go to jail.
Jail! The word made him shiver. They’d send him to jail where a bunch of hairy guys with tattooed arms would beat him up every day and he’d have to eat stale bread and water. That was what his brother said, and he knew ‘cause he’d been to jail. Now Alex was really scared. He was going to jail for sure, and that was after his father got through with him. Alex shuddered.
“I’m very disappointed in you, Alex.” That’s what his father would say and he’d give Alex the look. Then, they’d go down into the basement, and Alex would probably get a whipping. He’d been spanked many times before, but he’d never been whipped. His dad kept a buggy whip in the basement, and he’d threatened Alex with it the time Alex got caught shaking down nerds at school for their lunch money. Surely, if the police were here, this was a lot worse than stealing lunch money.
The night was chilly, but Alex was shaking and sweating as if with a fever. Quietly, he picked up his trick-or-treating costume and “Chesterville’s Complete Book of Spells”, and sneaked back into the shadows and down the street. He would have to run away from home. Too bad he hadn’t thought to bring money or food or warm clothes with him, but how was he supposed to know that this would happen?
Alex ran to the woods at the edge of town and crouched down beside a half-dead oak tree next to Puddin’ Creek to think. After his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he thumbed through Chesterville’s looking for some spell that might get him out of trouble. Everything looked complicated and everything required stuff like strange animal parts. After about a half an hour, Alex grew cold and scared - scared of the night sounds, of being alone, of not having his parents to take care of him. So he wasn’t going to run away. He‘d have to go home and face his father somehow, but how could he? There had to be some way out of this mess. He was desperate. He needed a plan, an alibi, an excuse. There had to be a way out of this mess.
Suddenly Alex got the feeling that he wasn’t alone. He looked behind him, peered through the tall grass, behind the oak tree, but try as he might he couldn’t see anything. There was no shadow, no movement other than the wind blowing through the brush, yet Alex was positive that someone was with him. Ignoring the disturbing sensation, he thumbed through Chesterville’s Complete Book of Spells. Page three hundred forty-two caught Alex’s attention. Lying Spells. He pulled the book closer. The script was old and hard to read in the dim light.
“Remordia - The Craft to Convince.” Alex bit his lip and read farther. “The power to dupe, deceive, and mislead the multitude or the single listener. This spell bestows upon its master the power to invent reality and truth. No matter how preposterous the tale, the conjuror will be believed. The gift is yours for a price.” And here the page was smudged, and, try as he might, Alex couldn’t wipe the page clean, nor could he read through the stain. Only one word was legible at the bottom of the page. “Remordia.”
“Remordia.” Alex said it out loud. “Remordia, Remordia.” The words rang out into the darkness like bullets. “Remordia. Remordia.” Immediately he felt that something was different, as though his body were shrouded by a sense of foreboding and despair. A hopeless bog of dark fear all but consumed him, and he shook more from the strangeness than from the night chill. But almost immediately, the fear shriveled like plastic in a flame. There followed elation, wild and terrible. His clothing seemed to twitch with energy. The sensation was as if a vampire, or something akin to it, was halfway inside Alex’s shirt. “Is that you, Vampire? I’m not afraid of you. I’m a soldier. I’m not afraid of you. Remordia. Remordia, Remordia, Remordia.” As he shouted the words, gone was the sense of dread, the feeling of impending doom. With a start he realized that he wasn’t afraid of anything – of the strange buzzing in his head, or the tingling in his fingers, or the darkness and chill of the night, or his father, or getting into trouble with the police. Instead, Alex felt purposeful, confident. “Remordia,” he shouted and laughed. “Remordia. He laughed louder. “Remordia.” His laughter swept him away in spasms of utter rapture.
The craft to convince! Holy smoke! So, no matter what he said he’d been doing, his father would believe him! It was as if a fog had lifted. Alex saw clearly what he had to do. He dressed himself back into the ghost mask and sheet and ran down to the creek and splashed in the water to wash off any smell of smoke. Next he hid the Osh Koshes and shirt at Jo-Jo Vargas’s house behind a shrub in the front yard. Then, blue and shivering, he ran home. Smarter than the rest of them, he thought, smiling through chattering teeth.
The police cars were still there when Alex limped through the front door. He was wet and miserable, but holding back the tears like a little man. “It was Jo-Jo Vargas and Althea Vennable.” His teeth chattered as he spoke. “They jumped me from behind and took my clothes and threw me into the creek. I had a hard time scrambling up the bank in the dark, and I think I twisted my foot or something.” Alex leaned against the wall, taking the weight off of his left foot.
“You walked all that way with a sprained ankle!” His mother rushed to Alex’s side and sat him down on the living room couch.”
“Let me see that ankle son.” Alex’s father carefully took off Alex’s shoe and examined the foot. Alex took in a sharp breath. “Does that hurt, Son?”
“Just a little.”
“It doesn’t look swollen or anything. Just give it some rest, and we’ll see if it’s still sore in the morning. That’s my brave soldier. I’m very proud of you, Alex.” He turned to the police officers. “It’s as I told you. Alex wouldn’t be mixed up with anything like what you were describing.”
“We’d still like to hear from the boy as to his whereabouts this evening between the hours of eight and ten o’clock.” Kevin’s partner was very official and very stern.
Mr. Lidecker looked at his son. “Now Alex, I want an honest answer from you and I want it now. This is a very serious matter. Tell me exactly what you were doing this evening.”
For a flash of a second Alex considered telling his Dad exactly what had happened - the spells, the candles, the fire, the screeching, Althea’s sister’s book. He especially wanted to tell his father about the book. But the moment and impulse to confide passed very quickly. He looked his father square in the eye, searching the worried face for a clue. “I would never lie to you, Dad.” He squared his shoulders. Like a young cadet standing at attention before his sergeant. “I was trick-or-treating with Althea, but then she and Jo-Jo took my clothes and threw me into Puddin’ Creek and I spent the rest of the evening climbing out of the creek and walking home.”
“Did Althea and Jo-Jo say anything about where they were going?” asked one of the officers.
“They said something about the old house on Pine Street,” said Alex.
Alex’s father watched out the window as the police officers got into their squad car and drove off. “Stupid-ass cops!” he muttered, then turned to Alex. “We showed ‘em, tonight. We showed those dumb asses a thing or two. I’m proud of you, son.” It was the only time in his life that Alex heard his father say those words.
Chapter XIV
Over the years, Alex practiced and refined his craft. His father was fascinated by the military, and Alex found that he could use that. He’d square his shoulders as if he were standing at attention, his blue eyes looking up in concentration. It made him appear determined, powerful. And the spray of freckles remained splashed across his nose, giving him the air of innocence even after he’d become a young man.
"It's time to talk about your future, son.” Mr. Lidecker paused and sucked on the tip of his pipe. You'll be applying to the universities next year. I've given it some thought and I believe Yale would be an excellent choice."
“Yes, sir.”
"Your grades are certainly respectable, and I know some people there. A word or two from your old man certainly won't hurt your chances."
“No, sir.”
"So it's settled then.”
“Yes, sir, I think I can learn a lot at Yale.”
Mr. Lidecker sucked on his pipe, then looked up at the ceiling, as if envisioning Alex’s prosperous future. "Contacts, boy, it's all about contacts. At Yale you'll meet the families that run the nation. Make the right impressions on the right people, and you can do whatever you want with your life. You can do anything, and I do mean anything."
Alex smiled. The advice was true in ways his father couldn't imagine. “Yes, sir,” he said.
Of course Alex had visited Yale several times before his orientation as a freshman, but he was still awed by the sight of the campus and the knowledge that this would be his home for the next several years. Stone walls surrounded the campus like battlements around a medieval city. Tradition seemed steeped inside these very walls. Lofty was the best description of Yale, thought Alex, the pinnacle of the United States, and of the world, both geographically, and socially.
Alex felt like he was coming into his own. Even as a freshman, he was sure of himself. He walked around the campus probing, examining, and evaluating what of the campus he wanted to claim as his possession.
Vivian Owns sat next to him in History IA and he decided early on that, before the year was over, she would belong to him. Blond hair, done in a sophisticated bob, a slim figure, shown off by remarkable clothing, Vivian was the ultimate girlfriend. Her wardrobe cried of money and good taste. She was someone who'd look good on his arm. “Good breeding will always tell,” as Alex's father used to say.
Not only did Vivian exude taste and class, but she was also knockdown gorgeous. A girl who would look great on his arm, and a girl his father would approve of, Vivian was someone that Alex needed to cultivate. Not only that, but Vivian was also smart. More to the point, she was smart in history, and Alex was struggling with his history class. So he decided to make his move.
“You're Vivian.” Alex's eyes shone with boyish innocence. “I know a place where they serve really good coffee. Can I invite you out for a cup of coffee and conversation with a promising law student, namely me.” He said it as a sentence not a question, and after the history lecture was over, they walked out of the classroom arm in arm.
Alex had picked out a homey, cozy café that resembled a lavishly furnished living room. As Vivian sank back into the fluffy pillows sipping a steaming cup of coffee, Alex looked up into her eyes and cocked his head. “You really are a beautiful woman.” He tapped his chin with his finger and blinked at Vivian.
She smiled, and looked down. “Do you always say that to your coffee partners?”
“Only the beautiful ones.”
Vivian giggled. “Only the beautiful ones?”
Alex put a friendly hand on her arm. “And only the ones who are women.”
“So you do have lots of beautiful female coffee partners!”
Their conversation was like a dance or, maybe, more like a chess match, first one moved, then the other.
“I guess I should tell you,” Vivian tossed her head coquettishly. She took a slow sip of her coffee, putting off telling him the all-important “it” for just a little longer. Finally she looked up, and, with a dramatic sigh, she said, “I'm seeing someone. We dated our junior and senior years in high school. We wanted to get married after graduation, but decided to wait out my four years of college. His name is Richard.”
“So where is this Richard right now?” Alex smiled and looked into Vivian's eyes. He searched for clues as to what she was thinking, but they weren't forthcoming.
“He's in Maine -- Bar Harbor Maine, running his father's business. He has a fleet of fishing boats, and, in the summer, he charters fishing expeditions to tourists. See, Richard loves the ocean. He’s spent most of his life on boats, and I guess it’s just become a part of who he is.”
Did she hesitate? Did she expect more from this Richard? Like maybe a college diploma? And she was probably lonely here at Yale while Richard played sailor up north in Bar Harbor. Alex pondered. What to say next…something subtle, maybe just a tad derisive.
“So…” Alex pinched his nose with his fingers. “Do you like fish?" They both laughed. “Well, do you?”
“Actually, after living in Maine all my life, I'm rather tired of the taste, although a good lobster is still one of the best ways to my heart.”
“Then maybe it's time to try something new.” Alex, ever so gently, took her hand in his.
“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe. But can we be friends, at least for now, at least until I think all of this through.”
“Friends.” Alex took a sip of coffee. It gave him a few seconds to think, to plot. “Just friends, huh? Well, my frat house is having a kegger next Saturday. Is there anything in the friendship rules about you and me going to a party together -- just as friends, I mean.” Again, Alex said this as a statement and not as a question.
He was truly charming, and Vivian was feeling quite bored. Maine was a long ways off, and Richard wasn't going to be able to get down to Yale more often than once a month. He probably wouldn’t come down at all during tourist season.
“So what’s it going to be,” Alex asked smiling, “an evening of chemistry and history books, or a night out with a charming, fascinating... friend?”
She giggled. “Oh, sure, why not? I'd love to.” She tore off a sheet of notepad paper and wrote her address and phone number on it.
After he’d left Vivian, Alex considered his options. Waiting for her to decide to dump Richard was too uncertain, and time-consuming. He needed faster results, and the word came into him mind unbidden. “Remordia.” He said the word out loud, and immediately a plan formed in his head.
Back at the frat house, he searched out the Weasel. Jeremy Scoggins got the name Weasel because of his ability to weasel out of trouble and to weasel into unlikely opportunities.
“Can you get me Spanish fly?” he asked the Weasel. “I needed it for next Saturday night.”
“I’ll get you something like it. It’ll make her really groggy, and she probably won’t remember anything. But it'll cost you.” The Weasel had really long fingers, and, when he was talking business, he’d flex them and crack his knuckles. “I'm going to need the answers to Cavendish’s last Tuesday’s math test, along with a $230 procurement fee.”
“How will last Tuesday’s math test help anybody?”
“Bernard had the ‘flu’ last Tuesday, and he'll be making up the test next week.”
“What if Cavendish gives Bernard a different test?”
“Cavendish is retiring after this year. He’s not about to go to the trouble.”
Alex went to bed that night wondering how he was going to get his hands on the math test, (maybe by bullying Cavendish’s teaching assistant) and how he was going to get his hands on Vivian.
In his dream, Alex found himself in an elementary school classroom sitting in a fourth-grade desk and being interviewed by a man with a three-foot pointer.
“It’s time to develop your craft, now.” The man twitched, weasel-like, as he spoke.
Alex almost woke up from the shock of fear jabbing at his insides. “I thought I was doing just fine. So thank you, but no thank you.”
“You’re doing fine as far as it goes, but you’re only thinking in terms of the small picture. I have great plans for you, Alex, great plans.” Like one of Scrooge’s ghosts, the weasel-man took hold of Alex’s foot and pulled until Alex was standing alone in a desert. Sand swirled in dust devils born on the hot, dry air. Alex had the sensation of helplessness, like the feeling of being a very young child, and being very lost.
“Are you hungry?” A disembodied, weasel-voice seemed to ask.
In his dream, Alex nodded.
“Will you pay my price?”
Hunger jabbed at him. The aroma of warm yeast filled him and the bread took on a fascination, a power like an opiate, far more than any piece of bread he’d ever seen in his life.
“Will you do what it takes to get this bread? Will you pay its price?”
The Weasel-like man probed into Alex’s chest, poking between his ribs with clawed fingers and removed, not Alex’s heart, but a wedge of Swiss cheese. Weasel-like man took a bite. “Not bad,” he said. “But not that great either. Sharp, with a bitter aftertaste. A little aging, some instruction by the proper master…” Here Weasel- man laughed, threw the chunk into the air, and caught it in his needle-like teeth. As Weasel-man bore down, Alex felt the tiniest of twinges.
“Will you pay?”
But Alex shook his head. “No,” he stammered, shivering and sweating at the same time.
Then Vivian walked in and sat before Alex, not naked, but wearing filmy, translucent clothing like silk scarves, with just a hint of cleavage showing above the bodice. Alex couldn’t quite see her curves through the cloth, so he tried to picture them.(Hher breasts - slim or ample? Probably ample.) He imagined her skin, soft, curved, with a faint scent of lavender. And as he reached his hand forward to touch her, she pulled away.
Alex gazed longingly at Vivian, then slowly nodded. “I’ll pay.” The words gagged him, sticking like plaster in his throat. And as he reached his hand forward to claim his prize, he sensed a twinge, almost as if tiny teeth were nibbling at something inside of him.
Vivian, the waiters, the scarves, they all blurred, and the scene ran as paint on a canvas sprayed with turpentine.
He stirred in his sleep, screaming “yes” over and over until he woke his roommate Mathew.
“Knock it off,” said Mathew, throwing a rolled-up pair of socks at Alex’s face. “That must have been some dream. How hot was she?”
Alex smiled, still half asleep. “There’s no way I could begin to describe it.”
Saturday night Alex and Vivian walked into the fraternity house living room together, and it was obvious to Alex that every guy in the house was eyeing his girl. Vivian was beautiful, and not only was she kick-in-the-teeth gorgeous, but she was dressed up for something much more promising than “just friends.” Her jeans were cut low on her hips to show a sliver of smooth, creamy belly, and above the jeans, a tightly fitting, royal-blue blouse dipped with cleavage, just a hint of cleavage, and when she turned or stooped, her breasts jiggled ever so slightly. The look was classy and teasing at the same time. It was all Alex could do to keep from reaching out and touching her breasts right then and there. But he had to be cool. Rude and crude wouldn’t work where Vivian was concerned. “What's your pleasure, beer or punch?” he asked her.
“Punch, I think.” She smiled up at him. All Alex could think about was her cleavage. He walked over to the punch bowl. With shaking hands, he doctored up the hastily-poured punch, and got a beer for himself – beer instead of punch, just to make sure that he didn't accidentally drink from the wrong cup.
For a few moments he watched Vivian from across the room. She was chatting easily with some of his fraternity brothers. She was so beautiful! His feelings were a wild, thundering animals stampeding across his heart. She was beautiful, sexy, and yet so innocent and trusting. He remembered the warm feeling on his shoulder when she’d rested her head there, and he remembered the scent of her shampoo. He wanted to protect her and make her smile. No girl had ever left him this confused.
He looked down at the cup of punch and suddenly he was full of remorse, his hand trembling hard. I’ll have to play it straight this time, he though and turned towards the kitchen to dump out the doctored punch.
But before Alex reached the kitchen, Vivian’s laughter rang out clearly against the background of party chatter. “You’re so bad! I’m shocked and scandalized,” she giggled. Alex turned back and watched. Vivian was talking to three of Alex’s frat brothers. She tossed her hair back and dropped her eyes provocatively. Alex knew the gestures. He’d memorized them from their conversation over coffee. He had thought himself the only one who could win that toss. Alex walked back towards Vivian, with the punch cup steady in his right hand.
He could hardly contain himself, watching Vivian down the cup of punch and ask for more.
As Vivian’s mind became fuzzier and fuzzier, Alex’s grew clearer. Finally, Vivian was sufficiently drugged, and Alex carried her to the bedrooms upstairs and closed the door.
Gingerly he removed her clothes, and then stopped. She was so helpless in his arms, more a child than a woman. He’d planned the evening like a chess game, but he hadn’t counted on feelings of tenderness blocking his moves. Gently he stroked Vivian’s cheek. It wasn’t too late. He could still tuck her into bed and walk away. Or he could follow through with his plan. Remembering her laugh and the toss of her hair, Alex made his decision. He pushed aside the tender feelings - feelings of weakness as his father would say. He ran his hand over her naked body relishing the jolts of pleasure that he experienced at each new curve. He laid her on the bed and began to undress himself.
In fact, the sex was disappointing for Alex. Vivian was all but unconscious, and, although her body was beautiful, her spirit, her essence, was absent, making the whole physical encounter mechanical. Still, a beautiful body is a beautiful body. Alex relished the sight of her nudity, the scent of her perfume, and, along with the perfume, the animal scent of her body. Finally, drunk and sexually spent, Alex fell into a deep sleep.
The next morning Vivian woke up in a strange bed without any idea of how she had gotten there. Along with morning came a blinding headache, a sense of nausea, and a general feeling of exhaustion. She looked around and found Alex stirring beside her.
“What was that all about?” Alex asked her. He shook his head looking shocked.
“What do you mean?” Vivian stared at him quizzically.
“You spent the whole evening coming on to every man in the room. At least you saved the last dance for me.”
Shocked awake by his words, Vivian grabbed the sheets and tucked them tightly around herself in instinct. She heard the words, but couldn’t believe them. “The last dance?”
“Metaphorically speaking, I mean. You passed out in this bed.”
“I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. It couldn’t have happened. But what am I doing here?” She tried to stop the barrage of feelings, but her mind spun like a pinwheel, and an icy dread told her that something had happened the night before, and the safe, happy future she had expected had been erased by one horrible mistake. “The evening’s fuzzy. I can’t remember much about it.”
“Suffice to say that you had a very good time last night, and so did Joseph, Weasel, and Barney.”
“I’ve never done anything like this before. That punch must have been really strong or something. Oh my God, what’s everyone going to think of me?”
“Well, I did take a few precautionary measures. When I noticed that you were, blitzed and… you know… acting different, I made the guys all promise to keep their mouths shut. I told them they’d have me to deal with if any stories about you started floating around campus. So no one has to know about the evening. I figure the less said, the better. Then you passed out, and my bed was the only place available, so that’s where I set you down and tucked you in.”
For a second she wondered about something. Had she passed out in his bed or somewhere else? But it seemed ungrateful somehow to question his story over such an insignificant detail. “You did all that for me?” She leaned her head against his naked chest. His body felt strong, safe protective.
“Sure. Friends have to stick together, you know.” Alex reached for his bathrobe, threw it across his shoulders, and slipped a pair of shorts on under the robe. “But I wouldn’t bring up the subject if I were you - in front of Barney or Weasel or Joseph, I mean. Best if they just forget all about it and the sooner the better. I mean, we don’t want any of them inadvertently slipping up and blabbing something.”
“You’re pretty amazing!”
“For a friend.”
She thumbed the blankets for a while, frowning. “Did…did you and I… You didn’t say anything about yourself. Did you and I, you know, make love?”
”You were pretty much out of it, and it wouldn’t have been fair. Don’t think I didn’t want to. I wanted to very much. But friends don’t screw over friends – in any sense of the word.”
Vivian smiled up at him. Out of the panic, he was like a rock she could hold on to. Someone she could trust - someone strong enough and smart enough to take care of her. He’d fix the mess she’d made of the previous evening, and her future would again be safe, full of promise, and under control. She lay back down on the pillows and, for just a moment, made a mental of picture of Richard. He’d never understand.
From the bed, Vivian looked around the room for her clothes, and found them on the floor in a corner. She considered getting up and going home, then thought better of it and closed her eyes. Just a few more minutes lying here, she thought. Just a few more minutes then she’d get up, get dressed and go back to her own place. If only the throbbing headache would go away, everything would be wonderful, she thought.
From the telephone book’s yellow pages, Alex compiled a list of charter fishing boats and fishing fleets that were berthed in Bar Harbor, Maine. Numerous phone calls later, he found The Gully Wumper Fleet, owned by Oscar Cromwell and operated by Oscar’s son, Richard. It was time to write Richard a letter.
“Dear Mr. Cromwell,” he wrote.
“You don’t know me, but your girlfriend Vivian goes to school at Yale, and I’m here to tell you that she’s acting mighty friendly with a sizeable portion of the male student body. It’s probably none of my business. I just figured if she were my girlfriend, I’d want to know about it. I’ve enclosed some Polaroid photos so you’ll know I’m not just making this up.”
He didn’t sign the letter. He addressed it to Richard Cromwell, c/o the Gully Wumper Fleet, and dropped it into the mailbox, and quickly.
Back in his room, Alex jotted down some ideas of what he’d say to Vivian after Richard dumped her. Would Richard mention the letter? If he did, Alex should just plead ignorance. “They all swore they’d keep their mouth shut! I’ll see if I can find out who wrote the bloody letter. That son of a bitch will have me to deal with. I’ll find out who blabbed, and, well, let’s just say that’ll be the last time he’ll ever pull a stunt like that.” He’d look concerned, purposeful. He’d use his little soldier look, eyes up to the Heaven, and his brow slightly furrowed. That look had never failed him. She’d be scared, hurt, confused.
Alex knew he could tell Vivian anything, and she’d believe him - because she’d need something to believe in, and someone to believe in, especially if that someone could make it all be Richard’s fault. “If your Richard …” No, scratch that. “If this Richard is going to get off into a jealous rage because of some half-baked rumors and innuendoes, then, maybe, you’re better off… no, I won’t say it. Just know that I’ll always be here for you no matter what.” Alex practiced his speeches. He told the stories over and over to himself, until he believed them to be true, and he could make a smooth and compassionate spiel. He had to look sincere. Careful planning, that was the ticket - that and actually believing the story. A little preparation, some thought for likely snags as well as likely opportunities, and, with Alex’s innocent good looks and brains, all things were possible.
Alex had saved a couple of the photos as souvenirs of the evening. They showed Vivian, stark naked and kneeling in some especially subservient poses. He studied the pictures, using them for inspiration as he composed his comforting speech for the day when Richard should dump her.
Three days later, Vivian showed up at Alex’s. She had on a pair of jeans and a Yale sweatshirt, and her eyes were red. She tried a casual greeting, then broke into tears and stammers. “Somehow Richard found out. He found out about that, that stupid, miserable night. And, and he called me – he called me…horrible things. And he screamed at me. And – and…”
“He came down to see you?”
“No… No. Over the phone. He was yelling over the phone.” Vivian sobbed and cried, and Alex tenderly pulled her close to him, letting her lean against his chest. “He yelled for hours. And he wouldn’t even hear my side of the story. He wouldn’t let me say anything. He called me a – a – he called me a whore. No one’s ever called me a – a…I can’t even say the word.” She shuddered from the sobbing. Pain held her body captive, weeping into Alex’s shirt.
“Oh, Alex, what on earth should I do?” Mostly she cried. And while the feelings cut through Vivian like a knife slicing through cheese, Alex found the sensation rather pleasant. As he comforted Vivian, he could touch, smell, and taste her pain. She was moist, and trembling, and there was a faint, dank odor of tears, sweat, fear and sadness. She cowered like a helpless animal, and, as he cradled her in his arms, Alex knew he’d won her and relished the feeling of power that it gave him.
To read from the beginning, please click the photos on the right.
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