Memoirs Of An Unknown Poet:
Memoirs Back To Memphis
by Joseph C. Hinson

        I left my parents a note explaining that I was going back home to do some work for the Memphis Times.  I apologized for not being around to tell them goodbye in person, then threw my things together and left town.  I couldn’t wait to get back home and into my own bed.
         I made it to Memphis by midnight, went to my apartment and fell asleep on the couch.
         The phone woke me up the next day.  “Hello.”
         “Ray, I’ve been trying to reach you for the last week.”  I tried to place the voice, but couldn’t; I was still half-asleep.  “I was about to give up on you doing anything for me at the Nirvana show.”
         “Oh, yeah.”  I couldn’t remember her name, but she was an editor at the Memphis Times.  “I went back home for a wedding.”
         “Oh, well I’m glad you’re back.  Will you shoot this for me?”
         “Yeah, no problem.”
         I left the apartment once before the concert, to restock my refrigerator.  My telephone didn’t ring again and I didn’t call anyone.  I just watched TV, ate and drank.
         The concert went great.  I didn’t have as much free roam as I did at the U2 show.  But that was fine; I was playing on their turf.  The kill shot turned out to be one right before the band went on stage.  I caught Cobain through my long lens looking distraught and bored, like this was the last place on earth he wanted to be at.  That’s not the shot the paper ran, but in a few years, in April, 1994, the shot found a wide audience as new reports of the man’s untimely death was playing out.
         I didn’t have to develop these shots, just turn them into Derek Thomas as soon as I got out of the show.  After that, I went straight home and went to bed.

         And woke up early.  I was depressed.  I didn’t like it, remember the last time I got this way.  I finally wound up on a bridge because I didn’t catch myself first.  I decided then I would never get to that point again.  But I realized I was here in Memphis nearing the same point.
         I decided to get out and do something, anything.  I found myself in east Arkansas sitting in my car waiting for a train that I knew was coming.  My mind drifted to Stacie.  I wasn’t ready to admit that it was over between us, no matter how it looked.  I told myself that maybe today she would call me.  And if it wasn’t today, then maybe it would be tomorrow.  As long as I could convince myself that she might call, I was all right.
         Boring of the train watching, I decided to go visit Charles Foster.  It had been entirely too long since I saw him last.  I pointed my car toward his apartment.
         When I knocked on the door, Disario opened it.
         “Mr. Edwards, I was going to call you.  Charles passed away in his sleep yesterday.  We’re going to the funeral home now.”  In the background, I could see his sister and a man I assumed to be his brother.  The well-dressed man was obviously from the funeral home.  When we walked down the steps, I saw the black Caddy for the first time.  I felt sick to my stomach.
         “What did he die of?”
         “Who knows?  The man was very sick.  He never let it show though.  I should have called sooner…”
         “It’s all right.  Could you tell his family how sorry I am for their loss?  I just knew him a short time, but he was a fine man from what I saw.”
         “Yes, he was.  He liked you, too.  Said he saw something in you that he saw in himself a long time ago, that same intensity in your eyes, the fire in your pit.”
         I stood there nodding.  There was nothing to say.
         “Mr. Edwards, this might not the time and place.  And if I’m out of line, just tell me.”
         “I don’t think I’m going to be in school this fall, Disario.”
         “That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.  I was wondering if you had seen Mizz Cooper lately.”
         “I saw her the last day of school,” I said.
         “I know she’s taking summer school classes, but I’ve only seen her around campus.  I’m worried about her, though.”
         “Yeah?”
         “Ray,” and it was the first time he had ever called me by my first name, “I suspected there was something between the two of you for a long time.  Now I’m all but sure of it.  Now that’s none of my business.  From what she’s told me, and that hasn’t been lot, her husband is a real winner.”
         “He’s a real something,” I agreed.
         “I just wonder what he’s putting her through now.  She walks around in a daze, almost a stupor.  You don’t think he’d…?  How well do you know him?”
         “Just enough to know that he hired a private detective to follow us around.  He’s got a lot of money, definite control issues.”
         “Maybe I shouldn’t have brought this up.  It’s just on days like this, I realize how fragile life really is.  I don’t have anyone in my life right now because I can’t say the words that she wants to hear.  As an English professor, she can’t understand that.  I’m not sure I can understand it either.”
         The door opened behind us and the man from the funeral home was there.  “I’m sorry, Mr. Disario, we do need to go though.”
         Disario said to me, “Will you be at the funeral tomorrow?  Right now, we’re going to view the body.  We’re holding off on the funeral so some distant relatives in Texas can make it here.”
         “I’ll be there.  When is it?”
         “One in the afternoon tomorrow at Sunset Baptist Church.  Do you know where that is?”
         I had just passed it twice up Highway 77.  “Yeah, I’ll see you there.”

         There was hardly anyone there to say farewell to Charles Foster.  His two surviving siblings, a man and woman who I guessed where his niece and nephew, Disario, the minister, the pianist, a soloist (who sang “Amazing Grace”) and myself.  It was a short ceremony and he was put to rest in the cemetery adjacent to the church.
         I sat in the parking lot thoroughly depressed.  I had barely seen Charles for months, too busy in my own life to take a few hours to spend with the man.  But that was the story of my life.  Too self-centered for my own good.
         I had to talk to Stacie.  I could wait until school on Monday.  I could track her down there.  But what I really wanted was to see her now, to somehow find out where she lived and somehow manage to see her alone.  I saw Disario about to come to his car.  Would he know where she lived?  Would he even have her new number?  I started to pull off, but by that time, he had already seen me.  He walked up to the car.
         “Mr. Edwards, are you all right?”
         “I’m fine.  You?”
         “Well, I thought highly of the man.  He was like an uncle to me if not a friend.  Mind you, he was 25 years older than me.”  He gave me a searching look.  “Mind if I sit with you for a minute?”
         “No, come on and get in.”
         “This is really none of my business.  I’m not sure if I even want to get involved.  I like both you and Mizz Cooper, but the whole sordid affair makes my skin crawl.”
         “OK.  Now that you have my attention…”
         “She’s not happy.  She hasn’t been happy the whole time I’ve known her.  And then you came along.  I saw the chemistry between the two of you early on, maybe even before either of you felt it.  But I stayed neutral.  I pretended like I didn’t notice anything.  Because after all, what business was it of mine?  Can I ask you a few questions?”
         “Sure.”  I still wasn’t sure where he was headed with this.
         “What happened at the end of the year?”
         I took a deep breath.  “Well, that last day of school, I argued with her again, trying to get her to leave her husband.  She told me again that she wouldn’t, that she couldn’t.  I stormed off and went home.  After that, I got a visit from the man himself.  He had done a lot of investigation into my past for some reason.  He had also hired a private detective to follow me and Stacie around.”
         “I won’t ask what he found.  But I will ask you if you love her.”
         “I love her a lot,” I replied.  “More than I’ve loved anyone before.”
         “He told her that he paid you to leave her alone.”
         “What?”  I was irate.  “God damn him!”  I punched the dashboard twice, then caught myself.  Disario was looking at me like he was shocked that I had done that.  “I’m sorry for that.  I just hate him.  I hate him for what he does to her.  He treats her like she’s his daughter, not his wife.”
         We sat there for a minute.  Disario smelled like an old pipe.
         “How much did he say he gave me?”
         “Ten thousand dollars.”
         “Bastard.”
         “She came to me the day after he saw you.  She’s not working for me this summer, you know.  She was very upset.  She said that she loves you, not him, but she’s scared and doesn’t know what to do.”
         “All she has to do is leave.”
         “An easy thing to do from your point of view.  But for her, this is all too new.  She said it happened to fast.  It goes against her upbringing and everything her parents taught her.  I think you need to talk to her about this.”
         “He probably still has his goons on her.”
         “Maybe so.  Of course, she could get in touch with me.”
         “I wouldn’t be so sure.  I’d imagine he’s keeping a pretty tight rein on her.  Wouldn’t you think?  Look, this is beneath me.  I’m an old man whose wife left him years ago.  But you’re a good guy regardless of whether you’re coming back to school in the fall.  And I think very highly of Mizz Cooper.  I just want to see both of you happy, and that can’t happen if there’s this thing hanging over your head.”  He opened the door, patted me on the shoulder and got out of the Jeep.  I turned the ignition, backed out of the space and pointed the SUV toward home.

         I got up early the next morning after sleeping a full ten hours the night before.  I showered, dressed then left without eating breakfast.  I drove to campus.  I parked across from campus where she usually parked in case Gregg’s goon was still lurking around.  I pulled my hair under a cap, got my bookbag out, and headed over toward Admissions.
         There was no one there other than two people behind the desk, one a young girl, probably a student, and the other an older woman I had seen there before.
         “Hi, can I help you?” the student asked.
         “I hope so.  I’m looking for a friend I haven’t seen in a while.  I know she’s here, I just don’t know where.  I’d really like to surprise her.”
         “OK.  How can I help you?”  She seemed pleasant enough.
         “All I need is a list of her classes this semester.”
         “Oh, I can’t do that.  It’s against policy.”
         I smiled at her.  She was pretty.  Maybe I could, well, flirt with her.  “Sure you can.  I promise I won’t tell.”
         “I’d like to do it.  But if Mrs. Hafy finds out, that’s my job.  I really need this job.”
         “What if I bought you lunch?”  I reached in my billfold and got out a fifty dollar bill.  “It shouldn’t take a second for you to look it up for me, would you?”
         “Well, you put up a strong argument.”  She took the money and discreetly put it in her front jeans pocket.  “What was the name again?”
         “Cooper.  Stacie Cooper.”

         I was sitting in the hall down from the class she was in.  By now, I had taken my hair out from under my hat.  I’m not sure how well that had actually concealed my identity anyway.  These summer classes lasted twice as long as normal year classes.  Luckily, I had caught this one as it was about to end.  The girl in the admissions office noted that both of Stacie’s classes were on Monday and Wednesdays.  If I missed her this time, I’d have to wait another two hours.
         Students started trickling out of the class. I stood up to get a view of the door.  If she turned left, I’d have to follow her.  I took the chance that she’d head this way.
         There she was.  She was walking with her head down but heading my way.  She looked amazing, just like I remembered her.  I had to laugh.  It had only been a few weeks, but it felt like years.
         She glanced up and saw me.  She paused for a second to let a few others pass, then walked up to where I was.
         “I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again,” she said.
         “I wasn’t you’d want to see me again.”
         “Why would you think that?”
         “Gregg told me some things that I wasn’t sure I should believe.”
         “He told me some things to.  But I wasn’t sure I should believe them.”
         “I talked to Disario this weekend,” I said.  “He said you thought Gregg paid me ten thousand dollars to stay away from you.”
         “That’s what Gregg told me.  He even showed me the carbon of the check he wrote out.”
         “He could have wrote that check, then tossed it away.  He couldn’t pay me enough to stay away from you.”
         “Where have you been then?”
         “I had a wedding to go to.  But you already knew that.”
         “I forgot.”
         “I’ve only been in town a few days.”
         “I saw your picture of Kurt Cobain in the paper.”
         “My first day back.”
         “I’ve missed you,” she said, suddenly relaxing a little.
         “Me, too,” I said.  “These last few months were fantastic.  I never wanted them to end.”
         “All good things come to an end.”
         “Not of you don’t want them too.”
         She looked around as if she suddenly didn’t think we were alone.  She moved me closer to the wall.  “There’s things I haven’t told you about Gregg.”
         “OK.  But none of it matters.  This shouldn’t be about him.  It’s about us.”
         “But it is about him.  There’s things about him that you don’t understand, things that I didn’t understand until after I married him.  See, when I met him, he played himself off as being this Christian man who had just lost his wife.  The last part of that was true.  But he wears his religion on his sleeve only because it suits his purpose.  Everything is a business meeting to Gregg.”
         “OK, I can accept that.  But what part don’t I understand?”
         “He’s evil.  He’s very possessive.  His first wife didn’t die in a tragic one car accident coming home for church.  That’s what he told me, but I did some research.”
         “He didn’t…?”
         “No, he didn’t kill her, not in the ordinary way.  He drove her crazy.  I talked to her mother a few months ago.  First time I had ever called her, even though I had thought about it before.”
         “Gregg drove her to suicide.  She killed herself because it was the only way to get away from him.”
         “Stacie, you can’t believe that.  If you want to leave him, it’s easy.  Just leave.”
         “Don’t you think I wanted to take you up on your offer?  Every time you asked, it was all I could do not to accept by running into your arms.”
         “Stacie, listen to me.  Staying with the man doesn’t accomplish anything other than letting him win.  It’s your life.  Claim it as your own.”
         She looked at her watch.  “I’m already late for my next class.”
         “Skip it.  We need to talk.”
         She looked at me quickly when I said that and I realized she had taken it as an order.  A moment before, I had told her to claim her life as her own.  Now I was telling her what to do.
         “That didn’t come out right.”
         “Forget it.  I can miss my next class.  That will give us some time to talk before I have to be home.  Disario won’t be in his office today.  Meet me there in fifteen minutes?”
         “Yeah.”
         “I don’t think we should even be seen together on campus.  So just wait here for a few minutes before coming out.  I’ll go out the side door.  You go out the front door.”
         “You really are scared of him, aren’t you?”
         “I am.  But I’m terrified at what he’ll do if I leave him.”
         She walked off.  I went down the hall to the nearest bathroom.  I stared at my reflection in the mirror, questioning if I wanted to go any further with him.  It was just a momentary doubt though.  I was in love with her and would do anything for her.

         I opened the door and expected to find her at the desk she had practically been glued to for more than a year.  She wasn’t there, but her books were on the couch.  The door to Disario’s was closed.  I knocked on it.
         “Come in,” Stacie’s voice called out.
         I opened the door.  Disario’s chair was turned facing away from the door.
         “Stacie?”
         The chair turned around and Stacie was sitting in it.  Naked.
         “Close the door, Ray, and take off your clothes.”
         In times like these, one must ask themselves a few questions.  For example, what if someone, such as Disario, catches us?  In a split second, I ignored the questions, closed the door and started undressing.
         She stood up and joined me in the middle of the room.  We looked into one another’s eyes for a long minute, then hugged tightly.  It felt good to be in her arms again.
         “I love you, Ray,” she said.  “I want to be with you forever.”
         “Does that mean…?”
         “Shhh.”  We’ll talk later,” she said, kissing me on the lips.  She began backing us up toward the desk.  She sat on the end of it, then pulled me onto her…..

          We were dressing fifteen minutes later.  “Finally this office was used for something useful,” I said.  “I wonder if Disario’s stash is somewhere around here.”
         “Ray, I can’t go home.”
         I fastened my belt and sat down to put my socks and shoes on.  “Oh?  Why is that?”
         “Because there’s somewhere else I’d rather be.  I mean, if you’re serious about me moving in with you.”  She was standing there in just her shirt and panties.
         I stood up and took her hands in mine.  “I’ve never been this serious about anything, Stacie.  But I want you to be sure about this.”
         “I am sure.  I just can’t figure out how to do it.  There are things at the house that I need.  But I can’t get them out.”
         “Are his kids there?”
         “They’re at his parents house.  He’ll pick them up when he gets off from work.”
         “So no one’s there?  What time will he get home?”
         “A little before seven, maybe.  But you’re forgetting about my shadow.  He’s been having me followed the entire time that you were away.  I know what kind of car the guy drives.”
         “Are you saying he’s out there now?”
         “I figure he is.  Gregg knows what time I get done with school.”
         “Then I have an idea.”

         Stacie went to her car.  I followed behind at a safe distance so I could keep an eye on her.  She put another book and notebook in her car, then begin looking through the car as if she had lost something.  She even slammed the door behind her as she stormed off back toward the building we had just come from.
         I had been scanning the parking lot for a pick-up truck.  Finally I saw it parked beside an SUV that was partially blocking it.  But  could clearly make out a man smoking a cigarette, the same man that had been following Stacie for weeks.
         Stacie and I met back up at my Jeep, looking over our shoulder at the entrance into the parking lot, hoping that somehow the man hadn’t had a hunch.  Without speaking, we got in the Jeep and drove off in the direction toward the house that Stacie was about to move out of.
         She gave me directions and the closer we got to her house, the more I realized I had no idea where she was from.  The neighborhood was filled with six-figure two story houses with two and three car garages and pools in the backyard.  I realized that if I didn’t know her, I might think she was rich just as my friends had thought of me back in high school.  In my case, my parents had all the money.  In her case, her husband has the wealth.
         I still was not expecting the house she shared with Gregg to be so grand.  It must have sat on an acre of land, mostly brick with siding, not painted wood.  “It’s got five bedrooms, one for all of us, and I have been sleeping in the guest bedroom for months now,” she said as we pulled into the driveway.  “A living room and a den which Gregg uses as his office and a patio room on the back that used to be a deck.  We kept talking about getting a pool put in, but he never did.”
         “It’s nice,” I said.  What else could I see?
         “It’s a prison,” Stacie said.  “I’m going to run in, throw some things together and be right back.  It won’t be ten minutes.  You better stay in the car.  Blow the horn if I need to hurry.”
         I blew the horn.
         “Funny,” she said, kissing me on the lips.  “I’ll be right back.”
         She bounced out of the car and ran to the door behind the garage.  I looked at the clock.  It was just past noon.  I glanced down the street.  Nothing.  Gregg was probably still at work and the idiot in the pick-up almost certainly was still at the school.
         I looked at the clock again.  Barely three minutes had passed.
         My whole life was about to change in ways I couldn’t fathom at the moment.  I was nervous, but no part of me wanted to back out of this.  Even though we had not talked about it, I was sure that this was the start of a long relationship.  I had found the one I wanted to spend my life with.
         A car passed slowly, but it was just an old man in a car entirely too big for him driving down the center on the street.
        I looked at the clock.  Eight minutes had passed.
         Three minutes later, she ran out of the house with an over sized duffel bag.  She threw it in the backseat and I sped off.  I had been sitting with the engine on the whole time.
         “To tell you the truth, I had most of the things in my bag already hoping you would get in touch with me.  I just had to throw in my bathroom stuff, then write him a note.  I didn’t want him trying to say I had stolen the car.  So I left a note. ‘Gregg; I’m leaving you. It’s been over for a long time. Your car is at school. Don’t try to find me. Stacie.’ Short and to the point.”
         “What do you think he’ll do?”
         “First, he’ll sulk.  He’ll send his boys to their grandparents house and he’ll sit around feeling sorry for himself.  He probably won’t go to work tomorrow, maybe not the next day.  After that, I’m afraid to know what he may do.”  She looked at me with a serious expression on her face.  “How far are you willing to go for me?”
         “What are you talking about?”
         “I just think this is going to get ugly.  That’s why it took me so long to leave.  Because I honestly don’t know what he’s capable of.  I’d kill myself if he did anything to you.”
         “He’s not going to do anything to either of us.”
         “How can you be sure?  You don’t know him like I know him.”
         “I think he’ll do like you said.  He’ll sulk some.  He’ll feel sorry for himself.  He may blame you for all of this and call you terrible things.  But in the end, this will blow over.”
         “He’s not going to give me a divorce, not easily anyway.”
         “Have you checked Tennessee law?”
         “No.”
         “It may be he doesn’t have much of a say.  If you want a divorce, you get one.  South Carolina is like that, according to my friend Sydney anyway, where ever he may be.  If it’s not that easy, it doesn’t matter.  We’ll do what needs to be done.”
         “You’re really going to be there for me, aren’t you?”
         “As long as you want me to, I will be there.”
         We held hands in silence until we neared Riverside Road.
         “Are you ready to go home?” I asked, just before my turn approached.  Then I caught myself.  “I mean, you know, to my apartment?”
         “I guess it is my home now.  And I think I need to go study.  I don’t know what’s going to happen later.”
 I helped her with her things upstairs.  It was only the third time she had been to my apartment.
         “I don’t want to be an inconvenience.”
         I just looked at her.  “You could never be an inconvenience.”
         “I just know that you’ve lived alone for more than two years now.  I just don’t want to invade your space.  Do you use the guest bedroom often?”
         “That’s where my computer is.  I store some stuff in the closet.  There’s a bed in there, but no one has ever used it.  It’s small.  A neighbor gave it to me when they moved.  I think their teenage daughter slept on it.”
         “Maybe I should study in there then?”
         “Out here is fine.  I was going to do some writing in there.”
         “Oh.  OK.”
         “If you need anything, I’ll be right here.”
         “OK.”
         I walked into the guest room and sat down at the computer.  I took a deep breath.  Then I stood up and walked back into the living room.  Stacie had just sat down on the couch.  “If you want to use the bed to study while I’m at the computer, that’s fine with me.  I mean, if you can study with me going to town on the keyboard.”
         She broke out in a broad smile.  “I was hoping you’d ask.”
         We walked back into the room.  I sat down at the desk and she put her books on the bed.  “Before you get to writing and I start studying, there is something I want to do first.”
         “OK.  What?”
         “You have to stand up though.”
         I stood up and she wrapped her arms around me tight.  We hugged like that for at least two minutes, her arms wrapped around my back, my hand softly stroking her hair.
         “I love you, Ray,” she said.  “I want to be with your forever.  But I’m scared.”
         “I know you are, Stacie.  But I’m here.  We can get through anything that Gregg throws our way.”
         “I think I’m starting to believe you.”
         She backed away and sat down on the bed.  I sat down at the desk.  We smiled at each other, then turned around and began on our work.
         Thirty minutes later, I was engrossed in what I was doing.  But I turned around to see what Stacie was doing when I realized I hadn’t heard her in a few minutes.  She was asleep.  I stood up, took the book out of her hands and left the room so I wouldn’t disturb her.

         An hour later, she caught me cleaning the kitchen.  She walked up behind me and wrapped her arms around me.  “You don’t have to clean on my account.  I don’t want to be too much trouble.”
         “I want you to live with me.  I don’t want the roaches to live with me.”
         “I already feel comfortable here,” she said.
         “You should.  You’re home.”  I turned to face her.  “Do you think we should talk about moving?”
         “Out of Memphis?”
         “Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.”
         “I have.  I’ve thought we might have to.  Gregg won’t make it easy on us.  But I have to finish school first.”
         “How long do you have again?”
         “Two weeks.”
         “So we have two weeks to think about it?”
         “I guess so.”
         But I already knew where I wanted to move.  Colorado Springs.

         She went back to studying while I cleaned the bathroom, then flopped down in front of a Cubs-Expos game on WGN.  At some point, she walked into the doorway.  She looked white as a ghost.
         “He knows.”
         “What?”
         “He’d be home by now,” she said.  “His parents were going to bring the kids over.  They may have walked into the house at the same time.”
         I didn’t know what to say.  So I didn’t say anything.
         “It’s like I knew I had to leave or I would simply die.  But now that I have left, I just want to run and put my head under a pillow.”
         “Then let’s do it.”
         “Do what?”
         “Run.  Or at least go away for the night.  We’ll get your mind off things.  We can go to our special place in Little Rock.”
         She almost smiled.  “I could use a swim.”
         “Then let’s do it?”
         “I have a big test day after tomorrow.  I need to study.”
         “Then study.  You can take your books.”
         The telephone rang and she literally jumped off the ground.  I went to answer it.
         “No!  Don’t.”
         “It’s just the phone, Stacie.  It’s not going to hurt you.”
         “It’ll be him.  He knows your number.”
         The phone kept ringing.
         “Do you want to run from him or what?  At some point we will have to face him.”  Which I thought was interesting.  I had just suggested that we get out of town for a day.  Now I was arguing the opposite point.
         The phone was starting to get on my nerves.
         “Let’s go to Little Rock.  We will, or I will, have to face him some time.  I just don’t want to do that now.”
         “I guess I need to pack then.”
         Neither of us moved.  The phone kept ringing.
         “Go ahead,” she said.  “Answer the phone.”
         I picked the phone up.  “Hello.”
         “I know she’s there, you freak.  Put her on.”
         I made a split second decision on how to react.  “You need to be nicer to me.  First of all, I might answer to creep.  But never to freak.  At least not today.”
         “You sorry son of a fucking bitch.  I just came home with my sons and their grandparents expecting to see my wife there.  Instead I find this note.  Are you telling me she’s not with you?”
         “I’m not telling you anything.  Please don’t call this number again.”  I slammed the phone down.
         “What did he say?”
         “He wished us well.”
         The phone started ringing again.
         “Hello.”
         “I just need to talk to her.  I want to hear it from her that she’s leaving me.”
         “If I see her, I’ll give her your message.  Until then, don’t call this number again.”
         “Listen, you’re nothing.  I can walk over you in about five minutes.  Your life as you know it will be over.”
         “Are you threatening me?”
         “It’s not a threat.  I know how to make your life a living hell.  Check your bank statement.  Next week, it might look a lot different.”
         I slammed the phone down again.
         “What did he say?” Stacie asked.
         “Just ignorant threats.”
         Her eyes got big.  “Like what?”
         “Look, Stacie, he’s going to give us shit for a little while.  There’s no use in going over it with a fine tooth comb.”
         “Don’t under estimate him.  You never have seen him when he’s angry.”
         “Has he hit you before?”
         She looked away from me.  “There’s no point bringing that up.  I’m not with him now and I’m never going back.  I just don’t want you to underestimate him.  Now can we talk about something else?”
         I wasn’t sure this was over.  What was stopping him from coming here?  But I played along.  “What do you want to talk about?”
         “Well, for one, there’s what we’re going to eat tonight.”
         “There’s a great place in Little Rock.  We should have eaten there when Disario took us on the Little Rock world tour.”
         She smiled, but it was interrupted when the phone rang again.
         “Hello.”
         “Is that little tramp there?”  It was a woman’s voice, sounded like she was older.
         “Excuse me?”
         “This is her mother-in-law.  Put her on.”
         “You have worst manners than your son, old woman.  Don’t call this number again.”  I hung up and looked at Stacie.  She came to me and wrapped herself in my arms.
         “They’re never going to leave me alone.”
         “Let’s go to Little Rock.  We’ll stay there until late tomorrow, then come back and you can go to class on Wednesday.  All I have to do is throw together a few things.  It won’t take me fifteen minutes.”
         “OK.  I’m convinced.”

         It had taken a little longer than I had thought.  But the Jeep was packed and I was about to go upstairs to get Stacie when I heard a car swerve into the parking lot.  It was coming right toward me.  Behind the wheel was Gregg Cooper.  I stopped right where I was, in the middle of the entrance way and stared him down.  There wasn’t anywhere else for me to go, so I figured standing there staring him down was the best option.
         He slammed on brakes right in front of me, then got out of the car.  I was positive he was about to hit me.
         “Where is she?”
         “Look, she doesn’t want to see you.  She doesn’t want to be with you again.  Just accept that it’s over and move on.”
         “You little shit, where the fuck do you get off telling me what to do?”
         “Look, Gregg, the last thing I want is any trouble between us,” I said.  “I don’t know you and I don’t have anything against you.  But Stacie has made her decision.  Respect it and move on.”
         He lunged at me and grabbed my collar.  “Do you know what you’ve done?  You’ve taken the second mother to my boys away from them.  What have they done to you?”
         “Let me go, Gregg.  I was hoping we could be gentlemen about this.”
         He let my collar go, but did not step back from me.  “You don’t have it in you.  You always think you have to have your way, don’t you?  By the way, did you tell her about the night you spent in the hotel room with your high school sweet heart?”
         I knew I had heard him right, but it still didn’t connect.  “What are you talking about?”  I backed away from me so I’d have to room to get a good swing if it came to that.
         “Her marriage didn’t go as planed, and you may remember I told you a little about that, so she spent the night together in some little hotel room in South Carolina with you.”
         “Don’t you think you could spend your money more wisely than hiring some creep to follow me around?”
         “One of these days, I will find out something about you that makes her turn away from you.  It’s just a matter of time.”
         “And what happens then?  She comes running back to you?  I’ve seen guys like you,” I said, thinking of Sammy.  “You control your women.  You don’t love them.  And when they leave you, and they always do, you make their lives hell.  You don’t want them back as much as you want them to pay.  Well, I tell you, that games not going to work here.”
         “And what are you going to do about it?”
         I stepped into him.  My nose was almost touching his.  “Do you want to find out?”
         I wasn’t actually expecting him to use any kind of force against me.  Sammy had been a pushover, so I reckon I was expecting Gregg to be one, too.  But he pushed me back.  I stumbled on my own feet, then hit the ground.  Before I could react, Gregg had reached down and picked me up by my collar.
         Still holding me by the collar, he punched me in the stomach and for a brief moment, I couldn’t breath.  He hit me again, then let me go and I slumped down on the ground.  The wind was knocked out of me.  This was not going as I had planed.
         Suddenly Jim was holding Gregg from behind.  “Do you know this fat boy, Ray?”
         “Yes,” I said, standing up, but still not fully able to catch my breath.  “I’m fucking his wife.”  I swung at him, hitting him square in the jaw.  Blood instantly shot out of his mouth.  Jim pushed him and he landed on the ground on his knees.
         “Don’t come back here anymore,” I said.  “Don’t call here either.  And call off your private dicks.”
         “Fuck you,” he said.  “This is not over.”  He raised up and walked to his car.
         “Gregg, another thing,” I said.  “Tell that bitch your mother not to call here anymore either.”
         He got in his car, backed into the street, then sped off in a hail of rubber.  Jim looked at me.  “That was one mad muthafucker.  You sure you know what you’re getting into?”
         “He surprised me.  That’s all.  Next time I’ll know what’s coming.”
         We walked into the building.  Before we split up, he said, “I hope she’s worth it.”
         “She is,” I assured him.

         As soon as I walked in the door, she could tell something was wrong.  When I looked in the mirror, I could tell why.  My hair was out of place, I was whiter than usual and was sweating profusely.
         “He was here, wasn’t he?”
         “Yeah, he was here.”
         “And…?”
         “We had a talk.”
         “A talk?”
         “Punches were thrown.”
         “Damn it!  Is he ever going to let me go?”
         “Just give him time, Stacie.  He must have found the letter little more than an hour ago.  I’m sure this will blow over.”
         She gave me a searching look.  “Do you really believe that?  I’ve never know Gregg to let anything blow over.  He practically drove his first wife to suicide.”
         “We keep having variations of the same argument.  Stacie, are you going to kill yourself?”
         “No!  Of course not!”
         “Good.  Then he can’t drive you to suicide.”
         “That’s not the point I was trying to make, Ray.  The point is that he is never going to give up.  He will make our lives a living hell.”
         “He has to give up sometime.”
         Stacie rubbed her eyes.  She was tired.
         “I tell you what.  Let’s forget this for a while and just get out of here.”
         She nodded.  We headed toward the door and left.  I made double sure that the door was locked, then looked carefully around the parking lot as we walked to the Jeep.  We got in, then I pointed the car west.

         The ride to Little Rock was almost completely silent.  Stacie fell asleep about half way there and I was alone in my thoughts.  Part of me thought we should have stayed in Memphis to show Gregg that we weren’t running from him.  Another part thought Stacie might feel better if we were away from Memphis.  It was her first night away from Gregg.  While I knew she wanted to do this, I had to remind myself that it could not be easy on her.
 I felt uneasy about Gregg.  I knew in a one on one fight, that I could take him, regardless of what had happened this afternoon.  But Stacie had kept telling me not to underestimate him.  That’s what I had done and it landed me at his feet clutching at my stomach.
         Now I wondered what his next move would be.  I wasn’t putting anything past him.  And that was why I was keeping one eye on the rear view mirror.  So far, I had not seen anything that resembled either his car and his goon’s pick-up.
         We arrived at the motel.  I went inside while Stacie stayed in the Jeep.  When I asked for the same room I had been in for the seminar, the girl behind the counter looked at me like I was crazy.
         “They’re all the same, you know.  Same drab colors and everything.”
         “Will it be a problem?”
         “We’ve got less than ten rooms occupied.  That ain’t one of them.  I don’t foresee a big problem arising out of this.”
         “Thank you.”  I paid for the room, then went back out to the Jeep.  We got our things together and went upstairs.  Stacie wasn’t speaking.  This was upsetting her more than I thought it would.  Frankly, I wasn’t prepared for any of it.  She got her books out, sat on the bed and pretended to be studying.  I decided to take a shower.
         When I got out of the shower, Stacie wouldn’t even look up at me.  I dressed, even put my shoes on.  I was mad.
         “I was thinking of going out for an hour or two, maybe down to the rail yard.  Do you mind?”
         “Nope.”  She didn’t look at me.
         “You have your key, but I’d feel better if you didn’t go anywhere.  Don’t open the door without looking to see who it is.”
         “Anything else?  Maybe you want to just chain me to the bed.”
         “Stacie, why are you mad at me?”
         She softened a little.  “I’m sorry.  I’m not mad at you.  I’m just… pissed about the circumstances.  I just want this to be all over.”
         “It will be,” I said.  “I tell you what, you study for an hour or so.  I’ll go do my thing.  And then we’ll go out to a nice restaurant.  Does that sound good?”
         “That sounds great.”
         We kissed, the hugged, then I left out of the room, making sure the door locked behind me.  I took inventory of the cars in the parking lot from the second floor.  Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary.  I made my way to the Jeep, then pointed it toward the Union Pacific yard.  I felt secure in the knowledge that Gregg did not know where we were and that Stacie was safe in the hotel room.

         I saw him sitting in his car just as soon as I pulled back into the parking lot.  I wasn’t sure how to react.  Should I confront him or ignore him?  He was either dumber than I thought or arrogant.  He was sitting in plain view, though on the far side of the lot from the road.  I would have had to be blind in one eye and not able to see out of the other not to have spotted him.
         She was on the bed studying.  From the way she looked at me, I could tell she didn’t know we had a visitor. “Whatcha doing?” I asked.
         She looked at me like I was an idiot for asking that question.  “Washing dishes.”
         “I’ll be right back.  I need to go to the front desk.”  I walked the opposite way that I could come, knowing that he could see me from his car the whole way.  I went to the office.  The girl from before was talking on the phone.
         “Listen, baby, I’ll call right back,” she said into the phone.  “I need to get some work done before William shows up.”  She put the phone on the hook and looked at me.  “Need something?”
         “You see that car in the parking lot?”  From our vantage point, you could see the back of Gregg’s car clearly and through the windows of another car could see him sitting in the drivers side.
         “Yeah, I guess.”
         “How long do you guess it’s been sitting there?”
         She shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I haven’t been keeping time.”
         I could see this was getting me nowhere, so I simply smiled and walked away.  This time I again went the opposite way from Gregg and now from the room.  I walked to the store that Stacie and I had walked to when we were there for the seminar.  I picked up a six pack of beer, a pack of twinkies, a bag of potato chips and a Playboy.
         Then I walked back to the hotel and straight to Gregg’s car.  Somehow he had not seen me coming as he was busy reading the Wall Street Journal.  I was steaming mad.
         “We’re about to go out to eat,” I said.  “After that, we’re coming back here and we’re probably going to have sex.  In the meantime, I got you a few things to take your mind off things.  If you’re still here when we leave out in fifteen minutes, I’m calling the police.”
         “Big man.  You’ll call the police on me.  For what?  Unlawful sitting in a public parking lot?  Little Rock is so nice, I thought I may just get myself a room.”
         “Look, what kind of trouble are you looking to get into?  We can go twelve rounds if you want.  Or you can be a man and walk away.  What’s it going to be?”
         He put his newspaper down, then started the car and pulled away slowly.  I was still holding the bag.  When I started back to the room, I saw Stacie standing on the balcony.
         “How did he find out we were here?”
         “Who knows?”
 She nodded over my shoulder.  I turned around and saw that Gregg had simply pulled into a space on the other side of the lot.  I handed the bag back to Stacie and turned back down the hall.
         “Ray, don’t go.”  She took me by the arm.  “Let’s just go out to eat.  Maybe he’ll be gone when we get back.”
         I didn’t say anything, but let her lead me back into the room.  She looked into the bag.  “Beer, twinkies and a Playboy?”
         “I thought he may be hungry, thirsty and lonely.”
         “I’m surprised he didn’t take the twinkies.  He usually stocks up on them.”  She put the beer in the mini-fridge, the twinkies in the trash and left the chips and the magazine on the bag, which she put on the table beside the bed.  I went to the window and stared across the lot at Gregg’s car.
         The telephone rang.  Stacie answered it.  “Hello.”  I couldn’t hear what the person on the other side was saying.  “Yeah, well, kinda, he followed us from Memphis.”  Stacie stood there for another minute listening intently.  Then she put her hand over the mouth piece.  “It’s the girl from the front desk.  She wants to know if she should call the police.”
         I looked back out the window.  Gregg was reading the paper again.  “Yeah, tell her to go ahead.  Tell her to give the cops out names and room number in case they want to talk to us.”
         What I didn’t say, but thought while she was relaying the information to the front desk, was that these situations sometimes turn ugly fast.  I thought of my sister and her son dead and buried.  A cold chill went up my spine.
         Stacie hung the phone up.  “Ray, I’m sorry.”
         “What?”
         “I should have known this could happen.  I got you into such a mess.”
         “Stacie, there’s no place I’d rather be right now than where ever you are.”  I took her into my arms and ran my hands through her hair.  “This shit will blow over eventually and then it’ll be just the two of us.”
         She hugged me tighter.  “I can’t wait,” she said.
         The phone rang again.  I took it this time.
         “This is Detective Green from the Little Rock P.D. “  I could hear papers shuffling in the background.  “Now if I understand this right, you have someone stalking you.  Do you mind telling me everything from the start?”
         “It’s pretty easy.  His wife has just left him for me.  He followed us from Memphis.  There was an altercation at my apartment between him and me.”
         “An altercation?”
         “He hit me.  I hit him back.  Then he followed us from Memphis.”  I hoped if I repeated myself, he would understand that I thought this fact alone was more important than anything else.
         “OK.  I have a description and tag number from the lady at the hotel.  I’m on my way.  Stay in the room until I get there please.”
         “OK.”  I placed the phone on the receiver.
         “So what now?”
         “We wait.”  I went back to the window.  Stacie stood there for a minute, then sat on the bed and pulled her books over toward her.  I could tell she wasn’t happy about this.  My stomach rumbled.  I wasn’t exactly thrilled about it either.  Gregg was still reading his fucking paper.

         The cop pulled up about ten minutes later.  He pulled in beside Gregg and got out of his car.  They talked for another ten minutes, then Gregg pulled off.  The cop looked at his notes, then came up to the room.  I let him knock on the door before opening it.
         “Mr. Edwards?”
         “Yes.”
         “I’m Detective Green.  Are you Mrs. Cooper?”
         “That’s my married name.  I’ll soon be Stacie Jenkins.  You can call me Stacie.”
         “I talked to Mr. Cooper.  He was cordial, but wouldn’t tell me what he was doing sitting in a parking lot in Little Rock.  He said that he was in a public place not bothering anyone.  I reminded him that it wasn’t public property, that it was the property of the hotel.  That’s when he left.”
         Stacie and I nodded and looked at the man.
         “That’s all I can do for right now.  How long are you two going to be in town?”
         “Just tonight and tomorrow,” I said.  “We were wanting to get out of Dodge for a day or two, hoping things would cool down a bit.  Wishful thinking, I guess.”
         He reached into his shirt pocket and brought out a business card.  “Well, this is my number.  I’m on duty until six in the morning.  After that, this number will reach my boss.  If you need us, don’t hesitate to call.”
         “Thank you, officer,” Stacie said, heading for the door.  She closed it after he left, then turned back toward me.  “So is it over?  Or does Gregg just move his car to somewhere that actually is a public spot?”
         “I don’t think trying to guess Gregg’s next move is really going to accomplish anything.  But it’s late and I’m hungry.  Besides.  He may just go home.  He has to be at work in the morning.  But now on to really important matters…. such as, where are we going to eat?”

         We were at a steak house and were just finishing up when the manager locked the doors.  It was later than I thought, but I wasn’t tired.  The day had been long and stressful.  But what I had been waiting for and hoping for had happened, Stacie decided to follow her heart and come with me.
         “How do you feel?” I asked.
         “Tired.  Mentally tired, not physically tired.  It’s been a tough few years.”  She reached over the table and took my hand in hers.  “These last months, of course, have been different.  But now that I finally left, we have a shadow follow us to Little Rock.  That cop didn’t really come out and say it, but what he was really telling us was there’s not a damn thing he can really until Gregg does something stupid.  I mean, you know how this plays out from what you told me about your sister.”
         I recoiled.  She shocked me by not only remembering something I told her months ago, but for the simple fact that she brought it up.
         She noticed my reaction.  “Ray, I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t have said that.”
         “No, it’s OK.  And you’re right.  There is a certain similarity there.  My family was very adept at looking the other way.  Of course, there were differences.  He hit her for years.  She finally stayed away from all of us, not just my mother, because it was getting hard for us to ignore it.
         “Looking back on it, I don’t see how we could pretend he wasn’t a monster.  There was no redeeming feature about him.  And the fact that he was a cop made it worse.”
         “You don’t see anything in Gregg that worried you?”
         “Well, I didn’t say that.  If anything, I know things to look for.  At this point, he could turn out to be nothing than a pain in the ass to us for a few days or a few weeks.”
         “Or he could turn into a monster,” she said simply.  “If he hasn’t already.”

         Five minutes later, we walked out of the steak house and immediately saw Gregg’s car at the end of the lot.  We stopped in our tracks.
         “How the hell did he find us?” I asked.
         In a split second, Stacie was storming toward his car.  I went after her.  “Stacie, this isn’t a good idea.”  But she wasn’t listening.
         “You piece of shit,” she yelled.  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”  She was pounding on the hood of his car with both hands.  Gregg stepped out of the car.
         “Having fun, Stacie?” he asked.
         “Stacie, let’s leave.  This asshole can wallow in his ignorance on his own.”
         “Hey, I wanted to thank you for calling the police on me this evening.  I moved to the parking lot at the store next door.  I managed to find a shaded space.”
         “Why don’t you just leave us alone?” Stacie screamed.
         “Stacie,” I said again, not really thinking she would listen to me this time either.
         “I hate you.”  She was waving her finger in his face now.  He was standing there looking like he was having a grand old time.  “You never did a thing for me from all those lies you told me at church.  You put on this front as a pious man.  But you are evil.  You’re the worst kind of sinner because you go around claiming to be a saint.”
         “At least I don’t fuck around,” he said.
         “If you had been half the man you had claimed to be, I wouldn’t have had to find someone else.”
         I tried to put that comment out of my mind.  Essentially she was saying – or at least I was hearing – that she’d rather still be with him.  Or at east the person she thought he was at one point.
         “Oh, that’s just great, Stacie,” he said.  “Blame me for you being a whore.”
         She slapped him hard across his face.  He just stood there, seemingly shocked.  Then she put her finger back in his face.  “Leave us alone,” she said again.  “I’m with the person I want to be.  You can’t change that.”
         She turned on her heels, grabbed me by the hand and we walked to the Jeep.  We didn’t speak all the way to the hotel.  I kept one eye on the rear view mirror.
         “Well, I am drained from the day.  I hope you be offended if all I want to do is go upstairs and go to bed.  Hopefully when I wake up, Gregg will be just a bad memory.”
         “It has been a long day,” I agreed.  “Tomorrow will be better.”
         We went up to the room and got ready for bed.

         I couldn’t sleep.  Stacie had little problem getting to sleep.  She had come in, undressed and fell asleep on top of the covers.  She had been exhausted.  I put the light hotel-issue blanket over her, then undressed and climbed into the beside her.
         And now at just a little before 2 in the morning, I realized sleep was not going to come easy.  I wanted to go outside, but I figured I would see Gregg’s car.  I got out of bed and went to the window.  His car was not in the parking lot.  Just a few cars were other than my Jeep.  I looked around for my jeans and pulled them on.  Quietly, I stepped out of the room and walked down the hallway.  From here I could see the store next door.  It was open and there were a few cars in the parking lot, but no sign of Gregg.
         I walked back down the hallway and looked at the pool.  I smiled.  Not long ago, I had spied Stacie skinny-dipping from this vantage point.  I thought about taking a swim myself.  Instead, I went back to the room and slipped in bed beside Stacie.  This time, I was asleep in minutes.

         We woke up at ten.  Stacie was in a bad mood.  I looked out the window.
         “Is he there?”
         “No,” I replied.  “I guess he’s at work.”
         “Doubtful.  He’ll use this as an excuse.  ‘Well I would come in today, but my wife left me high and dry.’”
         “Want to go get breakfast?”
         “Not really.  But I wouldn’t mind picking up a few things at the store.  What I would really like to do today is to just lie beside the pool with my sunglasses on and not say a word to anyone.”
         “Do you mind if I eat something?”
         “Yes, I do mind, Ray.  You can’t eat anything.  Are you kidding?  Of course I don’t mind.  I’ll bring my notes to look over.”

         There was no sign of Gregg on the way to the Griddle House or to the mall after that.  By this time, it was nearly noon and it looked like Gregg was nowhere to be found.  If the man loved his work as much as Stacie said, I figured he was back behind his desk.
         We went to the mall where Stacie picked out an incredibly small two piece bikini.  She said she could never have worn something like it around Gregg.  I knew she wanted to buy some more clothes.  I could tell just by the way she walked through the women’s department.  But I also knew she wouldn’t do it until she could afford it herself.
         I bought a new suit for myself, then we went back to the room to change for an afternoon by the pool.  We had not mentioned Gregg since we first woke up, but I knew he was on her mind as he was on mine.  I thought of calling his bank and asking for him.  But I imagined as bank president, he might not take phone calls from just anyone.
         I hated what he was doing to us.  In just a few hours time, he had made us look over our shoulders at all times.  We couldn’t concentrate on being happy with each other; we had to concentrate on making sure he was not around.  And though I wasn’t sure how, I knew Stacie felt guilty for leaving, as if what he was doing was payback for her sins.  In a way, I felt it too.  If Stacie had not left the man, he wouldn’t be putting us through this.  The logic was all wrong, I knew, but that was a little of how I felt.
         We were by the pool now.  I was consoled when I realized that no one in the parking lot could see us by the pool.  You would have to be on a balcony above.  The only people I had seen so far were the two Hispanic ladies going from room to room cleaning them.
         Stacie took her notes for her test and I took a paper back I had just bought at the mall.  We hardly talked for an hour.  Then she turned over on her stomach and reached around and undid her top.  I was aroused suddenly after contenting myself with the words on the page of what was not a very good book.
         “Could you put some oil on for me?”
         “Yeah, no problem,” I said.  I took the cap off the bottle, squeezed a little into my hands… then began applying it to my chest.
         She lifted herself up on her elbows and looked at me with a bemused expression on her face.  “I meant put it on me, Ray.”
         “Oh!  I’m so easily confused.”  I got some more oil, then began applying it heavily to her back, then to her legs.
         “Your hands feel so good on me,” she said.  “I’m sorry I’ve been such a bitch lately.  I shouldn’t be taking it out on you.”
         “It’s an awkward situation we’re in.  You don’t have to apologize to me.”
         “You’re so sweet.”
         “Shhh.  Don’t tell anyone.”
         “I think they already know.”  She leaned over and kissed me, then lay down on the lounge chair with her face turned toward me.

         We went to the room an hour or so later, took a shower together, then rode around Little Rock some.  Stacie pointed out that she had never really seen much of the city, Disario’s “tour” while we were lost notwithstanding.  We did a walking tour of downtown that evening, then found a hole in the wall bar and grill to eat at.  We still had not decided if we were going to go back tonight or wait until the morning.  If we waited, we would have to wake up no later than five in the morning.
         We both ordered a beer with our food.  “Seems like I can only drink in Little Rock,” she said.  We were sitting on the same side of the booth and I had my arm around her.
         “Oh, you can drink anywhere.  There’s no law against it.  I mean, you are 21, aren’t you?”
         “Almost.”
         “They didn’t card you.  So you are 21.  But how can you be about to get out of college with a degree and you’re not 21 yet?”
         “I do everything early.  I graduated high school before I was supposed to, too.”
         “Cool,” I said.  “But somehow you’re making me feel old.”
         “And how old would that be?  I mean, I already know.  I was just wondering if you knew.”
         “I’m 25.  Or something like that.  But I got me a young girl.  That’s all I care about!”
         “You’re silly,” she smiled.  “But don’t get any ideas about drinking a lot tonight.  We have a long ride to Memphis.”
         “Yeah, I wasn’t sure if we were leaving tonight or in the morning.  I surely was not looking forward to being up that early.”
         “Tomorrow, there’s no reason for you to take me to school if you don’t want to.  You could let me take the Jeep instead.  I mean, if you trust me with it.”
         “I had thought about that.  But right now, I’d feel more conformable if I did take you.  Maybe by next week this will have blown over.  In fact, I was thinking about getting a new car.”
         “And trading in your Jeep?  I thought you loved it.”
         “I do.  So I wouldn’t trade it in.  I thought about getting an old Mustang convertible or something.  You could drive it; I’d have my Jeep.”
         “Oh, you’re good,” Stacie said.  “I almost feel for that one.  How about I get my own car when I actually get a job?”
         “That’s fine.  But you may need a car before then.  I have gotten used to having the freedom I have with always knowing my car is out there.”
         This was obviously tough on her.  She got quiet and pulled a strand of hair into her mouth.  “I didn’t think about that,” she admitted.  “OK.  Here’s what we do, I mean, if you’re all right with it.  We get me a car, but as soon as I get a job, I’ll pay you back.”
         I smiled.  I wasn’t expecting her to pay me back, but I decided to go along with it.  “OK.  It’s a deal.”

         We went back to the room, made love, then took another quick shower, gathered our things and made to leave.  As I was walking to the car from the front office, I saw Gregg’s car at the store beside the hotel.  I decided to ignore him and not let Stacie know he was there.
         When I pulled onto the interstate, I was facing the opposite direction from Memphis.  I went through some back roads to get me along the Union Pacific yard.  And when I was certain there was no way in hell that Gregg was still behind us, I headed for Memphis.
         We got there at 11 p.m.  It would be Stacie’s first night in her new home, temporary as it would be before we moved away.

         I took her to school the next day, then sat down the hall from both of her classes.  It was boring even if I took a book.  But there was no other choice, at least not now.  A few students looked at me as if they were wondering what I was doing.  My history professor came up and struck up a conversation with me.  That was marginally less boring than just sitting there watching the carpet grow.
         Stacie was telling me about how she thought she did on her test as we walked through the campus.  As we neared the car, we saw Gregg again.
         “Stacie, just ignore him,” I said.  “One of the reasons he’s doing this is that he knows it’s pissing us off.”
         “One of the reasons?  What would another one be?  To drive us insane.”
         “We’re already insane, Stacie.  It’s not going to be a long drive.”
         “Don’t make me smile,” she said, looking in the general direction of Gregg’s car.  Then her demeanor changed again.  “So I’m supposed to pretend like he isn’t there?  We’re supposed to just go about our day like nothing is odd?”
         “If we let him get to us, then he wins.  The least we can do is not to let him know that he is, in fact, getting to us.”
         “So what do we do?”
         “We get in the car and go.”

         We got in the car and drove around aimlessly.  Gregg was right behind us the whole way.  Stacie sat in the passengers seat with her jaw clenched tight.  I had the radio on the local news talk station.  People were calling in either for or against Clinton.  One side was as passionate as the other.
         When I had had enough, I drove to the police station.  Gregg kept driving.
         “Do you really think they’ll be able to do anything?” Stacie asked.
         “What do you suggest instead?  That we do nothing?”
         She slumped back in her seat.  “I don’t know what to do.  That’s the problem.  I’m at a complete loss.”
         “I say we go in here and at least get something on paper.  If he goes any further than what he’s doing now, this might help.  Somehow.”
         She was not convinced, but said, “Fine.  Let’s go.  You first.”

         I should have listened to her.  First, we had to wait until a detective could see us.  That took about an hour.  We went over the story with him.  He mostly just sat there.  Then he asked a question which I thought he had no right in asking.
         “Don’t you think that the fellow might have a hard time accepting that his wife has left him and is now living with some other guy?”
         “What does that have to do with anything?  Does that give him the right to stalk us?” I asked.  “Does it give him the right to assault me and then follow us to Little Rock?”
         He rubbed the bridge between his nose.  We were obviously taking important time out of his busy day for no reason.  “Do you want to file charges on him?”
         “No.  I want him to leave us the hell alone.  But all I’m getting from you is how he’s not doing anything wrong.”
         “According tot he law, he’s not.”
         “So what do we do?  Wait until he does something stupid and someone gets hurt?”
         “These things usually don’t come to that.”
         “Yeah, that’s what I thought you might say.  I’m sure they told my sister the same thing.  Then her husband killed her, their son, then turned the gun on himself.  He wore a badge too.  Come on, Stacie.  Let’s go.”
 We walked toward the door.  He was watching us from behind his desk the whole way.  Asshole.
         “That went well,” Stacie said as we drove off.  “Any other bright ideas?”
         I just looked at her.  “We’re doing it again.  We’re turning on each other.”
         “I hate this.  I hate Gregg.  I hate that he’s following us around.”  She looked over her left shoulder out of the back window.  “Is he back there?  Have you seen him yet?”
         “I’ve been looking.  I don’t think he’s back there.  Look.  We can go somewhere again.  You don’t have class until Monday now.  We can go to Kansas City.  Or anywhere else you want to go.”
         She was silent for a long time.  “Right now, all I want to do is go home and lie down for a while.  I think I need a nap.”
         I headed toward the apartment.  I never did spot Gregg again.

         She went to my room, our room now, to lay down while I decided to try to write some.  Fifteen minutes later, the phone rang.
         “Hello.”
         “Hello, son.  How are you?”
         “Mom, I’m doing fine.  How are you and dad?”
         “We’ve been busy.  He’s finished packing up his office and I just closed on two houses.  We’re actually celebrating both of those now out in Hawaii.”
         “You’re there now?”
         “Yes, and I’m glad I caught you.  I didn’t want to leave a message.  We hated that we missed you the other week.”
         “Yeah, but something came up here that I needed to take care of.”
         “Oh?”
         “Yeah, I needed to help a friend out.”
         “Is that why you were in such a funk when you were here?”
         I laughed.  “I didn’t realize it was that apparent.”
         “Ray, I am your mother.  I can tell these things about you, even if we don’t see you nearly as often as we’d like.”
         “I guess we don’t.  How’s Hawaii?”
        “Gorgeous, just like we’d heard it was.  Your father is walking around right now.  I suspect he’s paying more attention to the hula dancers now that I’m not around.  I don’t have long to talk.  We’re going out on a tour of the island in thirty minutes.  We'll be passing through St. Louis on our way home this Sunday.  We'’ love to see you at the airport.”
         “I’m not sure I can.  I think we have plans to go to Kansas City this weekend.”
         “You think?”
         “Yeah, we didn’t make specific plans, but we were wanting to get out of Memphis for the weekend.”
         “Who is this we?  Is it someone your father and I should meet?”
         “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Mother.”
         “I’ll be honest here, Ray,” Mom said.  “Your father and I would really like to see you in St. Louis on Sunday.  Our plane gets there at 2 in the afternoon St. Louis time.  We have something we need to tell you.”
         “What is it?”  I figured she had talked the old man into building a new house, maybe even one at the beach.
         “Not over the phone, Ray.”  Her tone had turned foreboding.  Now she had me worried.  “Will you be there?”
         “Yeah, of course I will be.”

         Stacie and I left for Kansas City a few hours after that.  The further we were away from Memphis, the more relaxed I could tell she was becoming.  Though we didn’t say anything about it, both of us kept one eye on the road behind us for the first two hundred miles or so.  There had been no sight of Gregg at all.
         We got to Kansas City after dark.  The fact that we did not have to go outside to get to either the bar or back to our room was very nothing like Little Rock.  The ice machine at the end of the hall didn’t even make any noise.  We went straight to the first hotel we found off the interstate, got a nice room and went to the hotel bar to get a bite to eat.  We both ordered screwdrivers.
         “Have you thought anymore about moving?” I asked.
         “Nothing specific as to where, but I think it’s obvious we can’t stay in Memphis.”
         “There’s no reason for us too.  We can go anywhere we want.”
         “I just don’t want to feel like I’m running because of Gregg,” she said.  “I like Memphis well enough.  But the thing that would really get me is to think that Gregg will automatically assume that he won, that he made us run.”
         “It’s not a game, Stacie.”
         “Yeah, I know.  I just can’t stand the thought of him smirking over his presumed victory.”
         “Anyway, where would you like to move to?”
         “How far are you thinking about going?  Little Rock is obviously not far enough away to keep him from tracking us down.”
         “Well, I had decided to move to Colorado Springs at one time.  It’s a nice place.  Beautiful beyond words.  The mountains are simply amazing.”
         “Funny.  I always pictured you as a beach type of guy.”
         “Don’t get me wrong.  I love the beach, too. But Colorado has to be seen to be believed.  When do you want to go?  I mean, I wouldn’t expect you to move there sight unseen.  How long do you have in school again?”
         “Three more days of classes.  That means next week and then the Monday after will be my last day.  I can get them to mail my diploma to where ever I’ll be then.”
         “Stacie, you have to go to your graduation ceremony?”
         “No, I don’t,” she said.  “Besides, it won’t be held until December.  The most important thing is the piece of paper, not the ceremony where they give out the piece of paper.”
         “OK, so you’re open to going to Colorado?”
         “Ray, I’m open for moving anywhere if you’re there,” she said.  “Colorado sounds like a nice place.”
         “Then it’s settled.  We’ll leave out on your last day of school.”

         The next day I showed her around Kansas City, at least the parts that I knew.  Since the parts that I knew was mostly the railroad aspects, she accompanied me on a railfanning outing for the first time.  She was a good sport about it.  She changed film when I needed her to – such as the time we were chasing a Kansas City Southern train to a point where I could get a shot of it crossing a trestle – and took all the notes of the afternoon.
         “It was fun,” she said over drinks while waiting on our meal in the hotel bar.  “And you’re so dedicated to it.  It was cool to see you in action, so to speak.”
         “You wouldn’t be patronizing me, would you?”
         “No!  Of course not!”  The way she said it didn’t convince me, but I let it pass.  She went on to say, “It was nice not having to look over our shoulder.  It makes me look forward to moving.  At first, I was kinda sacred.  I don’t know why.  There’s nothing keeping me in Memphis.  My grandmother and I have never been close and when she finds out I left the evil, she literally will disown me…”
         “Have you called her since you left?”
         “I haven’t talked to her in more than a year.  Like I said, there’s nothing keeping me in Memphis.”
         “Is she your mother’s mother…?”
         “No, I never knew my maternal grandparents.  Never knew my paternal grandfather either for that matter.  She lives over in Nashville.  She sits alone in her one bedroom apartment, watches wrestling, cusses at Bush and never has a nice thing to say about anyone.”
         I thought about my grandfather wasting away in the nursing home the last few years of his life, and then about Charles Foster.  I shook the thought off as the waiter brought the food.  I made sure to order another round of drinks before he managed to sneak off.
         Stacie finished her screwdriver just as the short-haired waiter brought the next round.  “You do realize that I never drank until the first time we went to Little Rock.  Now I’m drinking all the time.”
         “I’m such a bad influence.  I even made you leave your husband.”
         “You seduced me and made me walk naked down a hotel hallway – outside at that!”  She was smiling now, and then took the first sip of her second drink.
         “Don’t forget that you went skinny dipping.  Somehow I made you do this while I was asleep.”
         “Must be psychic powers.”
         We started laughing, then Stacie threw a napkin at me.

         I had three more screwdrivers; Stacie had another two.  We were pretty drunk as we went back to the room.  “You got your camera in the room?” she asked through slightly slurred speech.
         “No, I don’t think so.”
         “Go get it.”
         “Huh?”
         “Go get your camera?”
         “Why?” I asked.  “It’s after midnight.  I thought we’d go back to the room and have us some hot sex.”
         “Oh, we will.  Just go get the camera.  I’ll go on to the room.”
         “Fine.  OK.”  I turned around and went to the Jeep.  I had no idea why I was supposed to bring my camera into the hotel.  I hd left it in the car buried underneath a protective tarp to keep it out of sight.
         I stumbled to the Jeep, got the camera bag, then went back to the room.  Stacie was lying on the bed nude.  “Want to take some pictures of me?”
         “OK.”
         I got the camera out and put the external flash on.  She stood up, looked at me, then walked out of the room and down the hall.  It didn’t faze me at all.  I simply set the aperture and shutter speed and started taking pictures.  She would turn to me, then away from me, walk toward me or from me.  One time she called the elevator and when it opened, she stepped into it.  I quickly snapped some pictures and she stepped off as the doors were closing.
         We were out in the hall for nearly twenty minutes, moving further and further away from our room.  No one came out of a room or off the elevator.  And after four rolls of film, we went inside and had us some hot sex.

         On Sunday after a few days of driving around Kansas City and walking around downtown, we hit I-70 and headed toward St. Louis.  I had never been that far into St. Louis mainly because I was always on the road to someone else.
         “It’s been a great few days,” Stacie said.  “I wish I didn’t have to go back to school.  I’d love to be able to go on to Colorado.  I’m so excited about it.”
         “Me too, Stacie.  I could never do it justice by telling you how amazing it is.  It’s just something you have to see.”
         “I’m also kinda nervous though,” she said.  “I mean about today.  I didn’t realize I was going to meet your parent so soon.  What do you think they want to talk to you about?”
         “I’m at a loss really.  I know that Dad did just retire.  Maybe they’re moving out of Longview.  Or out of the house at least.  When I was there last, they really wanted me to move back to town.  I don’t know why.”
         “Oh, well.  I guess we’re about to find out.”

         We had agreed to meet at the airport bar.  We got there a full hour before the plane arrived.  As they walked toward where we were, there was something about them that I could not put my finger on.  They looked older, more weathered, my father especially.  He also looked like he had put on more weight.  I wasn’t sure how this could be.  I had just seen them a few weeks ago.
         “Mom, Dad, this is my friend, Stacie.  Stacie, this is my parents.”
         “It’s nice to meet you,” my father said.
         “I wish we could say we had heard so much about you,” Mom said.  But I can’t.”
         We sat down at the table.  “We met at the University of Memphis.  She’s about to graduate.”
         “Graduate what?  You can’t be more than 19,” Mom said.
         “Almost 21, but I’ll take that as a compliment.  I graduated high school a year early and I’ll graduate college early too.”
         Mom looked at her watch.  “We’re stretched for time.  Our connecting flight leaves in less than forty five minutes.  Stacie, do you mind giving us some time alone?”
         Stacie and I looked at each other.  “I think she can hear whatever this is to be said.  We’re that close.”  I also thought it was very rude to meet her, then a minute later tell her to get lost.
         “It’s nothing personal,” Dad said.  “It’ll be easier if it’s just the three of us.”
         “It’s no problem,” Stacie said as she stood up.  “I’ll be at the news stand down the hall.  Mr. and Mrs. Edwards, it was nice to meet you.  Ray, I’ll see you in a bit.”  She kissed me on the cheek, then walked out of the bar.
         “Ray,” my father said.  “There’s no easy way to say this.  And frankly, we should have told you already.”
         Now I had the same sense that I had gotten when I talked to my mother for the first time.  I had been trying to play it off since then.  “You’re worrying me, Dad.”
         “I’m not trying to, son.  It’s just that…”  He stopped speaking for a moment and looked at Mom, who looked away.  “I have a tumor in my stomach.  My new partner, Alex Devane, diagnosed me a few months ago.”
 I swallowed hard.  “What does this mean?”
         “She gave me a year to live.  The tumor will just keep growing.  At some time, it’ll…  There’s a couple of ways this thing could take me.  But there’s nothing we can do about it at this point.”
         “Dad, there has to be something.  Can’t you get a second opinion?”  I was not sure what I was saying.  At points like these, it seems sometimes you’re not in control.  You go on auto-pilot and find yourself asking things like, Isn’t there something that can be done?
         “I’m a doctor, Ray.  That was the second opinion.  But she and I decided that I should see a specialist in Charlotte.  He confirmed what she had said.  I’ve been seeing him since then and things have only gotten worse.”
         I leaned back and took it all in as best I could.  It was as if I understood what he was telling me, but I couldn’t register it at the same time.  I looked across the table.  He was my father.  He wasn’t supposed to die.  I still saw him the way I did as a pre-teen, someone who could not be defeated, a good man doing what he loved to do, helping other people.  In many ways, I looked up to him back then like he was a saint, like he was Superman.
         “How long have you known?”  I couldn’t help it.  I had to do the only thing that made any amount of sense at the moment --  get angry.
         ‘Does it matter?” my mother asked.
         “It’s a fair question,” Dad said.  “We found out in early March.”
         I looked up at the ceiling.  “More than three months ago.  And you’re just now telling me?  Does this have anything to do with what happened a few years ago?  I wasn’t there when Lydia died, so now you’re repaying me.”
         “How dare you say that?” Mother asked, rising up in her chair for a moment.  No one said anything for a few minutes.  We just sat there not looking at each other.
         “I’m going to get some air,” Mother said.  “We only have a few minutes, James.”  She walked away from the table, letting her hand linger on my shoulder for a moment.
         “How do you feel?” I asked.  I was ashamed for getting angry.  This wasn’t about me.  And while I certainly did not understand why they let so much time pass without telling me, I decided it wasn’t an important issue at the moment.  But I also wasn’t ready to apologize for the comment either.
         “I feel fine.  I get tired more than I am used to.  It takes a lot out of me.  Alex said that later there may be some pain eventually.  But all in all, I’m not doing too badly.  The trip went well.  We’re hoping to get up to the mountains and down to the beach again before I…”  He stopped speaking suddenly and choked back tears.  It was the first time I had seen him emotional since his own father had passed away.
         He looked at his watch.  “I feel like we rushed in, laid this on you and now we’re about to rush out again.  But I would love to be able to crawl into my own bed as early as I could.”
         “I understand that.  Don’t worry about me.”
         “We still have five or ten minutes.  Are you coming to Longview this week?”
         “I don’t think I’ll be able to.  Stacie doesn’t finish school until a week from tomorrow.”
         “I don’t understand.”
         “I don’t want to get into it.  She’s having some problems with her ex.  I don’t want to leave her alone right now.  He followed us to Little Rock last week and followed us around town.”
         “He’s stalking her?”
         “Yes.”
         “Jesus.  When do you think you’ll be there?”
         “Tuesday of next week at the latest.”
         Dad nodded.  “Son…”  I could tell he was about to get sentimental, but then his gaze fell behind me.  I turned around and Mom was walking up.
         “Are you moving back to Longview now,” Mom asked.
         “I was just telling Dad that I wouldn’t be able to make it back until Tuesday of next week.  Stacie and I have some things to wrap up here first.”
         “She’s coming to?”
         “We had already talked about moving out of Memphis together.  I’m hoping she’ll move east with me instead of west, which was our original plan.”
         “Do you love this girl?”
         “She’s the one,” I replied.
         “Well, good.  She seems to be a sweet girl and I’m sure she feels the same for you.”  She looked at her watch, then at Dad, who stood up.  Following his cue, I stood up as well and the three of us walked to ward the door out of the bar.
         “Are you going to be all right?” Dad asked.
         “I’ll be fine,” I answered, thinking that I should have been the one asking him that question.  I hugged them both, then watched them walk down the huge hallway.  I walked to the news stand.  Stacie was paying for a number of magazines.
         “Hey,” she said brightly.  “What was that about?”
         We walked out of the news stand and stood near the wall.
        “I just found out that my dad has less than a year to live.”
        “Oh, Ray…”  She took me by the hand.  “Are you all right?”
         “I’m fine,” I answered, still numb by the visit with my parents.  “I’m not the one that knows he is about to die in a few months.  They were going to tell me in Longview, I guess, but they didn’t get the chance.  It’s a tumor in his stomach.  The doctors have given him no hope."
         She wrapped her arms around and me.  I hugged her tighter.
         “Don’t you need to get back to South Carolina then?”
         “Yeah, I told them I would be there next Tuesday.  I hope you don’t mind if we cancel the trip to Colorado.”
         “Of course not.  This is obviously much more important.  Do you even think you should wait a week?”
         “I don’t have another choice.  You have school and I’m not about to leave you here unprotected.”
         “I can take care of myself.  Gregg might be out of this anyway.  He didn’t follow us to Kansas City, did he?”
         “No, but probably just because he didn’t happen to be at the apartment when we left out.  I’m not leaving you out here alone.  I can use the time to wrap up some stuff here.  We’ll get ready to move.  I have to call the rental people about the furniture anyway.  I need to tell Curtis and Disario.  This will give me some time to wrap things up here.  You too, for that matter.  I mean, if you don’t mind moving to my crappy South Carolina hometown instead of wonderful Colorado?”
         “Ray, I’d move to Iraq if I were with you.  That’s the only thing that is important to me right now.”
         We walked to the car holding hands.  I told her some things about Dad from the past, like how I could always talk to him when I was a teenager, how it seemed like he always had time for me even when he was at work.  It was nice to remember these things.  Here I was a young man in his twenties, but I was remembering my childhood.  It felt nice to put myself back in an old pair of shoes.
         “I’ve always had problems with my mother,” I said.  “But one thing I tried to remember, and Dad has brought this up to me to, is that there has to be something in her that maybe I can’t see, that Dad would not have spent his life with her if what I saw about her was the only thing about her.
         “She drove Lydia away from home practically the moment she graduated high school.  Lydia was never good enough for her.  I don’t know why.  I at least got the feeling that I was good enough for her, even though still a disappointment.  She always told me I could be better than I was.  Hell, she was right, but she never did it the right way.  She always made me think the reason she wanted me to be better was because it would look good on her and Dad.
         “But Dad was always accepting of both me and Lydia.  He was always good natured.  Nothing seemed to bother him too much.  Which I guess is the best reaction to some of the stunts Mom pulled.  I just can’t believe he’s not going to be around much longer.”
         “I know this is going to be rough on you,” Stacie said.  “I know how much both of your parents mean to you.  But consider this a blessing in some ways.  I know you don’t want to lose him.  No one wants to lose their parents.  But at least you’re going to get to say goodbye.  I didn’t get that with my parents.  They were just gone.  They didn’t even know they were about to die when they got in that car.  And with your sister, you didn’t know that was going to happen.  At least now you know.”
         “I guess if he has to die, this is a good way for those around him to be able to say goodbye.  I’m not sure it’s best for him though.  Depends on his point of view.”
         We were in the parking lot now.  “Do you mind driving?  I’ll give you directions back to I-55 if you need them.”
         “No, of course not.”
         I handed her the keys.  I was numb.  We climbed into the Jeep.  I made sure she knew how to get back on the interstate, then drifted off to sleep.

         I woke up a little over and hour later.  I had to get my bearings.  I had not been asleep in a moving car since I could remember.  I concentrated on trying to remember whether I had fallen asleep in the back of Disario’s car.  I’m not sure why I thought that was important.
         “How do you feel, sleepyhead?”
         “I was hoping I would wake up and we’d be headed to St. Louis.  That way the airport could have been a bad dream.”
         She put her hand on my knee consolingly.  “So what now?”
         I saw the sign for the Little Rock exit coming up and knew she was asking if I still wanted to go to the hotel.  “If you’re up for possibly going to jail again, I’m up for it.”
        She laughed.  “So you really think they’d arrest me?  For what?  Indecent exposure?  Do you find me indecent?”
         “I find you extremely decent,” I replied.  “I just wanted you to know that if we ever get caught, aside from someone seeing you up close and very personal, you could get arrested.”
         “If I do, you’re going down with me, buddy.”  She was laughing.
        “For what?  Solicitation to commit nudity?”
         “Why is nudity wrong anyway?  Who came up with that?”
        “You mean why is it wrong to commit nudity?  I don’t know.  It just is.”
         “And that’s a good enough reason?  It just is?”
         “Maybe it’s a conspiracy between fashion designers,” I said.
         “Have you seen what Calvin Klein is selling?  He’s not selling clothes.  He’s selling skin.”
         “Which was the point I was trying to make.”
         “It was?  Ray,” she said, “I was just asking why is it that nudity is wrong when that’s all we want to see.  It’s natural to be nude.  It’s natural to want to see other people nude.  Especially if they look like you.”
         “Stick to the point.  Which is…?”
         “It’s freedom.  Or lack of.  We pay people -- cops, lawyers, politicians -- to tell us what we can or can’t do.  We can’t do drugs.  Why?  Because Uncle Sam tells us we can’t.  Why do they tell us we can’t?”
         “It keeps them in business,” I said.  “The more laws they make, the more people they need to enforce those laws, the more money it brings in, the richer they get, the more money they can stuff into politicians pockets.  It’s a never ending cycle.
         “Plus, there’s the morality involved.  Their morality, they think, is better than ours.  They tell us what we can and can’t do because their version of god allows them to.”
         “God gets blames for a lot,” Stacie said, “when really it’s the people that claim to be doing their work.  Like Gregg, for example.”
         “But none of this is going to help if we ever get caught.”
         “We?  As I recall, it’s always you behind the camera, buster.  But anyway, that’s what makes it fun.  We’re, that is, I’m doing something that I’m not supposed to.  It’s part of the game.  It’s exciting.”
         “I must say that I like it from my side of the camera too.”

         We got our room again.  From the looks of things, it was going to a quiet night.  From my times out west, I knew Sundays were generally not a busy night for hotels.  The tourists were already home and the business men hadn’t left yet.  We went out to eat, then came back to the room and waited.
         Finally, the time seemed right.  I already had my camera ready.  There was enough light that I didn’t need a flash.  We walked onto the balcony and I got shots of her walking away from me.  She had a towel, but she was holding it to her side.  Otherwise, she was nude.
         Then she was out of sight until she was on the ground floor on the pool deck. I got shots of her walking to the pool, dropping the towel, then diving in.  As I had told her, she swam a few laps, then a few more laps backstroke.  I changed vantage points a few times, trying to find the best spot.  I ended up at the end of the pool framing it length-wise.
         Then she climber out of the pool and toweled her self off before coming back upstairs.  The whole episode didn’t last longer than five minutes.
         “How was it?” she asked when we were in the room.
         “It was fine,” I answered.  “The light meter was fine.  I’ve shot on days that weren’t as bright as this.”
         “Do you want me to do it again?”
         I smiled.  In other words, she wanted me to want her to do it again.  I shot her three more times over the next thirty minutes before we called it quits.  Sop far no one had ever caught us.

         We had to get up early the next morning, get biscuits at the nearest fast food mart, then high tail it back to Memphis for her classes.  I stayed in the hall outside each class again.  I wasn’t sure what the few days away would do for Gregg.  I figured he would either let it drop or would somehow let is escalate.  I was worried what that would mean.  We didn’t see him on the way back to the apartment.  Once there, we undressed and crawled into bed for a two hour nap.

         I saw him as soon as I walked out of the apartment.  He was sitting in plain light across the paring lot reading a newspaper.  Stacie was upstairs studying.  She had to days of classes left and finals were less than a week away.
         I started not to leave.  But I knew there was nothing he could do.  Stacie had locked the door and knew not to open it for him.  The hall didn’t offer much privacy either.  If he tried to make a scene outside the door, the neighbors would hear it and call the police.
         I had a few errands to run.  I had to contact the people I was renting my furniture from so they would come get it next Monday.  I had to get utilities cut off and figured the paperwork needed to be in as soon as possible.  Plus, I had some processing to do at Curtis’s house and needed to get the supplies.  He said I could borrow his darkroom one last time while he was out of town.  I spent a better part of six hours getting all the processing in that I could, including the shots from the night before.
         When I got back to the apartment, Gregg’s car was gone.  Maybe he was home with his kids, I wondered.  But his goon was out there in his pick-up.  I was going to ignore him too, but the man got out of his truck and called my name.  I looked at him like he was insane.
         “I don’t know if you know who I am,” he said.
         “I know who you are…”
         “Well, I’ll make this short then.  Gregg Cooper has a screw loose.”
         “OK.  Tell me something I don’t know.”
         “I’m a private detective, Mr. Edwards,” he said.  “You don’t have to like what I do.  But I’m good at what I do.  Of course, I guess you know that, don’t you?”
         I started to walk away, but he grabbed me by the shoulder.  When I turned around, he let go of me.
         “Look, I’m here because Cooper asked me to do something I’m not about to do.  I just thought you should be aware of it.  The man is mad.  He’s angry and looking for revenge.  I’d be on the look out if I were you.”
         “Why tell me?  You could tell Memphis’s finest.”
         “I don’t have a lot of respect for the boys in blue around here,” he said.  “And if you tell them I told you a thing, I’ll deny every word of it.”
         “What have you told me that I don’t already know?”
         “Do I have to spell it out for you?  He wants you dead.  He asked me to do it, but I’m not like that.  Then he asked me if I knew someone who would do it.  I told him that I didn’t.  That’s actually a lie, but that’s beside the point.”
         “And why should I believe you?”
         “Look, friend, I’m here because I don’t want to see anybody get hurt.  I’m just a guy with a camera and a telephoto lens.  I would feel right if one of my cases was murdered by my client.”
         “Thanks for the information,” I said.  “You can go home feeling much better about yourself now.”
 I turned around and walked off.  I wanted to make sure Stacie was all right.  It felt like it had been a long time since I saw her last.  When I got to the apartment, I could hear her from outside.  She was not alone, but I couldn’t hear what was being said.  I opened the door – it was locked – and found her and Terrie sitting on the couch.  They both had a beer.  Terrie had a joint in her hand.
         “Hey,” they both said at the same time.
         “Now I see why you’ve been hiding from me,” Terrie said.  “I came out here to surprise you but I was the one surprised.”
         “I was going to call you and tell you.  I don’t guess I have to introduce you now.”
         “We’ve been getting acquainted,” Stacie said.  “You want a beer?”
          “Or some weed,” Terrie said.
         “Yeah, Ray, you never told me how good this stuff was.  I would have hit Disario up for some if I had known.”
         I took a hit of the weed and was about to pass it back to Terrie who instead went for her purse and brought out two more.  She lit one up, then handed it to Stacie, then lit another one and kept it for herself.
         “Disario would have shit in his pants if you’d ask him for a joint.  He thought you were breakable.”
         “He liked my ass too,” she said.
         “What?”  I was shocked.
         “Come on, Ray!  Don’t tell me you never saw how he looked at me.”
         “I think I need a beer.”  I walked into the kitchen.  Stacie and Terrie followed me.
         “I hope I’m not imposing.  I told Stacie that I often just popped up unannounced.  Naturally I’m not inviting myself to stay.  But she was gracious enough to offer to let me come in, especially when she learned I had come from Atlanta.”
         “Terrie, you don’t have to explain yourself to me,” I said.  “I guess you realize now that I have told Stacie about you.”  I opened my beer and took a long swig.
         “We had a good discussion,” Stacie said.
         “Good,” I nodded.  I felt weird, standing in the same room with two beautiful girls, one that I had slept with and one that I was sleeping with.
         “I can leave now if this is just too odd,” Terrie said.
         “No, not at all,” I said.  Stacie shook her head in agreement.  “We should order a pizza or something.  Or we could go out to eat.”
         “Let’s go out,” Terrie said.  “Nothing like sitting down to eat and not worrying about a thing.”

         We went to a bar and grill on Beale Street.  I had lived in Memphis for a little more than two years, but I had not spent much time on Beale Street except for the few times that Terrie had visited me.  We all ordered drinks and appetizers.
         “So, Ray,” Terrie said, “Stacie and me were talking about this creep, her husband.”
         “Soon to be ex,” Stacie chimed in.
         Terrie continued, “I’ve had a couple of stalkers in my line of work.  I’m lucky because the bouncers at the bar will take care of them for me if I need them to.”
         “Take care of them?  How would one go about doing that?”
         “It’s easy really.  First, these are big guys, the bouncers at the club.  Usually if they just approach the guy with a mean look on their face, it’s all over.  But if that doesn’t work, they’ll rough them up a time or two.  The first time, they may just punch them in the stomach, maybe slap them around a little.”
         “OK.  And the second time?”
         “There’d definitely be some blood,” she replied non-chalantly.
         “I don’t think we want to go that route,” Stacie said.  “We just want him to understand that this marriage is over.”
         “He doesn’t want you back, honey,” Terrie said.  “Not from what you’ve told me about him.  He’s mad.  He’s doing this to control you still.  But he may be planning to take it further.”
         This was the last thing I wanted to be talking about right now.  I just wanted to forget about everything for a few hours, have a few drinks and laughs.  “I said, “We’ve gone to the police about this.”
         “Oh, please, they’re not going to do anything.  Look, most of the cops I know are losers.  They spend most of their time at the strip clubs and doughnut shops.  Hell, sometimes, they’re the bad guys.  You’ve got to take this into your own hands.  Look at you, you’re not a pushover.”
         “Terrie, can we find something else to talk about?”
         “I’m just trying to help.  I’m worried about you.  That’s all.”
         “And we appreciate it.  But right now, the only thing I want to concentrate on is drinking and eating.”
         “Fair enough,” she said.  “So what do you want to talk about?”
         No one said anything for about thirty seconds.  Stacie finished her drink before either me or Terrie.  I cocked an eyebrow at her.
         “It’s your bad influence, Ray,” she said.  “How else could you explain it?”
         “Just call me The Evil,” I smiled.
         “Oh, I could tell you some things about how evil he is,” Terrie blurted.  “Neal used to tell me some of your adventures too.”
         “Neal only heard of them second hand though,” I said.  “He was always passed out in the backseat somewhere.”
         “Tell me some of these stories,” Terrie said.  “Ray never told me much about his past when he thought I was this fragile little angel.”
         “I never thought that.”
         “Bullshit,” she laughed.  “You and Disario both thought I was the dutiful housewife.  When all I was was a party girl waiting to break out.  Anyway, Terrie, tell me some of his secrets.”
         Terrie looked at me.  “She knows most of everything.  I may have skipped over a few details though.”
         “A few details?  Like what?”  Stacie moved in closer to each of us, as if we were about to share our deepest darkest secrets with her.  Which, I guess, we were.
         “What about that Amanda girl?  I remember the party that Neal and I threw at your apartment.  She looked like she couldn’t believe what was going on.”
         I took the lead.  “Well, that was like being involved in a car wreck at super slow-mo.  We had Sammy around, we had Carla slinking around just waiting to get Neal alone.  I was in a bad mood the whole time back then.  It was right before I moved out here.”
         “Who is Sammy and Carla?”
         “Carla was my roommate,” Terrie said.  “She was my ex-roommate by then really.  Let’s just say we weren’t the best of friends by then.  She found out about me and Ray…”
         I took over the story then.  “…And told him at this party we had where Neal and I lived.  Neal made this big scene in front of everyone.  I guess you can’t really blame him.  It was pretty awful.  He still hasn’t spoke to me.”
         “Part of that was my fault,” Terrie said.  “I should have told him that I was having second thoughts about us already.  It was the only time I ever dated someone who was one of my customers.”
         “I’ve been wanting to bring that up.  So you’re a…”
         “Dancer, stripper, whatever you want to call it.  I make great money.  I have a pretty decent boss.  He lets us take off pretty much when we want to.  I know a lot of people don’t understand it.  But I paid cash for the car I drive, I pay for my own health insurance, I have a savings account and I’ll probably buy my own house in the next few years.  Most of the friends I went to high school with aren’t as well off as I am.  And the others who are going to college, no offense, won’t make as much money as I do either.”
         “I think it’s cool,” Stacie said.  “I definitely don’t look down at what you do.  It’s like being paid for being an exhibitionist.  Which is what I am, but Ray never pays me.”
         “Ray, why is it that you’ve never taken nudes of me?”
         “I don’t know, Terrie.  It never came up.”
         The waitress brought our appetizers.  We ordered our dinner, then I asked for another round of drinks.
         “I never really thought about it until Stacie started posing for me.  Back when I was in the teleproduction course, we had nudes come in for us.  So when I wasn’t in class, I didn’t think too much about it.  Would you have posed for me?”
         Terrie started laughing.  “You would have had to pay me.”
         Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Stacie reaching for my drink.  I almost let her get to it before picking it up and finishing what was left.
         “It’s too bad we can’t go back to our spot,” she said as if nothing had happened.
         “What spot is that?” Terrie asked.
         I let Stacie answer.  “Ray took me to the perfect skinny dipping spot north of Memphis.  We went once or twice.  He took shots of me the first time, and then the second time…”
         “Yeah, the second time was when Gregg’s private dick found us.”
         “What were you doing?” Terrie asked.
         I laughed.  “I guess you could say my skinny was dipping.  Not bad shots actually.  He had a nice telephoto lens.  He probably just clicked autofocus and went with it though.”
         “Gregg sounds like a real winner,” Terrie said.
         “You don’t know the half of it,” Stacie replied.  The waitress sat our drinks down and took our empty glasses.  I was already starting to feel a buzz from the lack of sleep.
         “I think we’re talking about him again.  So, Terrie, what new and exciting things are happening in your life?”
         “Well, I’m taking a few weeks off.  I’ve decided to head out west.  This is the furthest west I’ve been.”
         “I’m glad I’m not the only one,” Stacie said.  “Although we did just get back from Kansas City.”
         “We were supposed to go to Colorado next week to see if it was someplace we wanted to live.  But something came up and we’re moving to Longview instead.”
         “Back to Longview?” Terrie asked.  “Nothing against the area, but I would never move back.  I was stuck in Charlotte for too long as it is.”
         I didn’t say anything thinking the conversation would continue.  Stacie realized this and also realized that Terrie was expecting an answer.  “We met his parents in St. Louis over the weekend.  His father is in bad health.”
         “Oh, Ray.  I’m so sorry.  I didn’t know.”
         “No offense, but this is something else I really don’t want to talk about.  It’s still too fresh in my mind.”  I was already finished with my second drink.  I motioned to the waitress for another one.  “I was just there a few weeks ago, the first time in two years.  I can’t say I was expecting to go back so soon.”
         “They say you can’t go home again,” Terrie said.  “I think it’s more like who wants to?  I personally can’t remember one good thing about growing up in North Carolina.  My family was a bunch of fucking freaks.  My friends thought I was from outer space.  Boys didn’t look at me because I had freckle, wasn’t filled out yet and wore glasses.  It was not a good childhood.”
         “That sounds like me,” said Stacie.  “I was a nerd until basically my senior year in high school.  Just when it looked like I might be popular, my parents get in a car crash and I have to move to Nashville with my mean old grandmother.”
         “You parents were killed?”
         “Yeah.  One night coming home from church.  I wasn’t with them because I was baby sitting for the neighbors.  I usually would be with them, but they called at the last minute needing someone to sit for their four year old when they went to the hospital.”
         “Stacie, that’s so awful.”
         “It took a long time to get over it.  My grandmother didn’t help.  She didn’t want me to live with her, but there was nowhere else for me to go.  So there I was stuck with this woman.  And here comes who I thought was my knight in shining armor.  Believing in fucking fairy tales got me in trouble.”
         “Gregg?”
         “Yep.  I graduated high school early, got married right away and then we moved to Memphis.  Of course, as evil as Gregg is, if I hadn’t been with him, I never would have met the man who was destined to lead me down the highway to hell.”
         “That would be me,” I said, raising a toast with the drink the waitress had just brought me.
         “I think I’m going to the little girls room before the food comes,” Terrie said.  “I’ll be right back.”
         I waited until she was out of ear shot before turning toward Stacie.  “You all right with her around?”
         “She seems to be a great girl.  I can see what you like about her.  She’s very pretty.”
         “That’s not what I meant.  I mean, it has to be a little weird for you.”
         She had been there for more than an hour when you got back.  By then we had gotten to know each other real good.  I like her.  She’s cool.”
         “So no insane jealousies at work here?”
         She playfully punched my in the shoulder, then leaned over and kissed me.  “I missed you today.  It’s the longest we’ve been apart for a week.”
         “I started to come get you.  But you would have been bored when I was in the darkroom for hours at a time.” “Maybe we could have found something to spend the time?  I seem to remember a really nice garden tub in his house, big enough for two at least.”
         “I was pretty busy in the darkroom though.  Work, work, work, you know.”
         Terrie bounced back up.  “Did anyone miss me?”
         “You were gone?” I asked.
         The waitress came up with the food at that time.  We ate and chatted about nothing in particular for the next few minutes.  After dinner, we went to a blues bar down the street and sat in a corner booth drinking and watching some white band try to do Robert Johnson songs.  They failed, but the music was loud, the air was thick with smoke and sex.  My clothes were starting to stick to me.
         “Why have we never been here?” Stacie asked.
         “That’s odd.  For someone who has led you down the path to ruin, I’ve never taken you to Beale Street even though I live so close to it.  Lucifer is going to be so pissed.  I’m doing the work of Satan, but I’m doing it so badly.”

         It was after two o’clock when we left out of the beer.  We were drunk, laughing and hanging onto one another for balance.  When we got to my Jeep, I couldn’t find my keys.  Stacie thought this was hilarious.  She and Terrie were leaning against the back drivers side door.
         I found my keys.  They were in the wrong pocket.  I held them up in the air and scolded them for not being where I had left them.  Stacie and Terrie kept laughing.  I unlocked the Jeep When we got to my Jeep, I couldn’t find my keys.  Stacie thought this was hilarious.  She and Terrie were leaning against the back drivers side door.
         I found my keys.  They were in the wrong pocket.  I held them up in the air and scolded them for not being where I had left them.  Stacie and Terrie kept laughing.  I unlocked the Jeep and we climbed in.  They both sat in the passengers side front.  None of us were using a seat belt.  I think I realized that I should not be driving, but I used the rationale that we were just miles from the apartment.
         I must have been doing ten miles per hour down Riverside when a car pulled in directly behind us.  Terrie said, “Oh, shit.  We’re busted.”
         “What do we do?” Stacie asked.
         “Take off your top.  Maybe we can get out of a ticket that way.”  That was Terrie’s brilliant strategy.  Which might have worked if it had been a cop.  I pulled to the side of the road and got out.  Gregg stopped right behind us.
         “What the fuck do you want, bitch?” I asked.
         “Are you sure you should be driving?” he asked.
         “You my daddy, or something?”
         “Just get in the car, Ray,” said Stacie.
         “Who the fuck is this guy?” I could hear Terrie ask.
         “I just don’t think you should be putting Stacie in such danger,” Gregg said.  He looked in the car.  “Or your friend either.”
         “We can take care of ourselves,” Terrie said.  Stacie was staring out the windshield, biting her lower lip like she would when she was angry.
         “You’re out pretty late, Coop,” I said.  “Where are your kids?”
         “My children are none of your concern.  But I am worried about my wife.  Stacie, do you want me to give you a lift?  This guy obviously should not be driving.”
         Stacie just glared at him.  Traffic, meanwhile, was having to slow down to get around us.  I figured it would not be long before a cop showed up.
         “This is insane.”  I got in the Jeep and drove off.
         “What’s his problem?” Terrie asked.
         “He doesn’t know the meaning of the phrase ‘letting go,’” Stacie replied.
         Gregg had pulled in behind us again.  I thought about what his private detective had told me that evening.  Suddenly I felt much more sober.  Bummer.  Nearing the apartment, I wasn’t sure whether to turn into the parking lot or not.  Gregg was still behind us.
         “Keep going,” Stacie said, seemingly reading my mind.  I took the 55 exit into Arkansas and got up to speed.  Terrie put her arm around Stacie as much to get comfortable as to comfort Stacie, it seemed.  I had lost Gregg’s headlights among the cars, but I knew he was back there somewhere.
         I took the West Memphis exit, made the first light, then pulled into an empty parking lot and turned my lights off.  Gregg came by in a minute and kept going.  For a brief second, I thought about following him for a change.  Instead, I quickly hopped back on the interstate and went home.
         We were walking toward the apartment when Terrie stopped and looked at her car.  “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do.  Should I get a room somewhere?”
         “Don’t be silly,” I said.
         “Of course not,” Stacie chimed in.  “You already have a room upstairs.”
         Stacie and I helped her with her bags and then went to the apartment.  I went straight to the bathroom while Stacie helped Terrie get settled into the guest room.  They changed the sheets and pillow cases, then got a blanket for her out of the closet.
         “I really don’t mean to imposes,” Terrie said.
         I threw up my hand.  “If you were imposing, you’d be going to a hotel room now.  You’re more than welcome to stay here.”  I didn’t know how long Stacie would consider her welcome, so I didn’t put a time limit on it.  “If you girls don’t mind, I’m going to bed.  You coming, Stace?”
         “Be there in a minute, dear.”
         I walked into the bedroom suddenly very tired.  I took of my clothes, then stretched out in bed.  Stacie came in a moment later, closed the door, then took off her clothes and joined me.
        “One more week and Gregg’s bullshit will be over.”
         I didn’t let on that I was worried it really would not be over then, that eventually he’d figure out we were in Longview.  I wondered if he would follow us that far.  I decided not to think about it.
         “I hope you didn’t mind me telling Terrie she could stay.”
         “Mind?  Why should I mind?”
         “Isn’t it a little odd?”
         “Maybe a little,” Stacie replied.  “But I think she and I could be friends.  It’s been a long time since I really had a close friend.”
         “She is a cool person.  I still remember the way she played go-between for me and my friends when they were crowding me after my sister passed away.  Oh, and she cooked for me.”
         “I can cook, too,” Stacie replied.  “I just never have before.”
         “That’s not what I meant, Stace.  I meant that Terrie was a better friend to me than my friends were back then.”
         Stacie leaned her head back on the pillow and looked at the ceiling.  I knew she was thinking about Gregg the Stalker.  I didn’t know what to say.  So I said nothing.  I felt myself slowing fading out.  At some point, Stacie turned the lamp off and I fell asleep.

         Stacie woke me up at some point the next morning.  I’m not too sure when.  She and Terrie were going out shopping and wanted to know if I wanted to tag along.  I answered no while I rolled over in bed and went back to sleep.
         When I got out of bed, it was almost 11 o’clock and they were gone.  I went to the bathroom, went to the kitchen for a glass of water, then went to the guest bedroom.  I had not had time to do any writing in more than a week and though I would do some now.  I cut the computer on and stared at the screen while the computer woke up.
         I opened the document and stared at it, too.  My mind wasn’t running yet.  I went back to the kitchen to see if there was something to eat.  I made some toast and eggs, then washed it down with a glass of Coke.
         Then it hit me.  I should make a phone call.
         “Hello.”  Mother answered.
         “Hey, mom.  I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time.”
         “No, not at all.  I was just making some notes, then about to head out,” she said.  “I’m closing on a house today with a doctor and teacher from Ohio.  I have to pick them up in a little more than an hour.  Your dad is in the backyard playing with a neighborhood cat.”
         “I was calling to see how he’s doing.”
         “He’s doing fine.  He’s had a good couple of days.  We were worried that the trip and all the flying we did was going to wear him down for a few days.  But if you looked at him, you wouldn’t know he was ill.  I can get him if you want.”
         “No, there’s no need to take him away from his cat right now.”
         “The little thing seems to take his mind off of things,” she said.  “I myself can’t stand the little furballs.  There’s a reason you and Lydia never had pets as children.”
         “I never wanted one.  But I remember Lydia bringing that puppy home one time.  It didn’t go over very well.”
         “There’s a lot of things I would change if I could.  But not allowing you or your sister to have a pet is not one of them.”
         We both laughed briefly over that.  “That reminds me, James said Stacie is having some sort of problem with her husband.”
         “Yeah, they’re separated and he’s not taking it too well.  He followed us to Little Rock one night.  He’s basically our shadow here in Memphis.”
         “Have you called the police?”
         “Yes we have.  We had a pretty good cop in Little Rock.  But the idiot we talked to here was no good at all.”
         “We really want you to be here as soon as you can.  That’s when again?”
         “Next Tuesday.  We’ll actually leave Monday, but it won’t be until after midnight before we get there.”
         “Well, we’re looking forward to seeing you.  I hope we can be better towards each other.  I know I’ve done some things and said some things in the past that I had no right saying.  I also know we should have told you about this sooner.  I think it was a subconscious thing, like if we didn’t tell anyone, that it would go away.  We know better now.”
         “I understand, Mom.  I was angry at first.  But that went away real quick.  There’s more important things to worry about right now.”
         “Oh, your father just walked in.  Here he is.”
         In a moment, it was Dad’s voice on the line.  “Hey, Ray.  I was going to call you this afternoon.  I didn’t know when I could reach you.”
         “You could have left a message.”
         “Yeah, I suppose so.  Well, it was good to see you the other day, even if it was under horrible circumstances.  I hope we didn’t scare Stacie away.”
         “No, not at all.  She understood.”
         “And you’re bringing her with you?”
         “Yeah.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
         “That’s great.  I’m happy for you, son.  I’ve never doubted you would lead a happy, productive life.  Naturally I wish I could be a part of it.  But I know you’re going to do great things.”
         I didn’t like the finality of his tone of voice.  Part of me thought I should hop in my car and get to Longview ASAP.  Maybe Terrie could stay here with Stacie until next Monday.  Then I could come back out and pick her up.  I shook the thought off.  I wanted to be with Stacie as much as I could to make sure Gregg was not going to pull anything stupid.
         “I’ve got good blood in my veins.  I think I’ll be all right.”  It was the only thing I could thing to say at the moment.  I had never been in this situation and I was not very good at it.  Dad didn’t say anything for a long minute.  I tried to read the silence to figure out what he was thinking, but I couldn’t do it.
         “So you’ll be here next Tuesday?”  In other words, it’s time to hang up.
         “Yep, we’ll call that morning from the hotel.”
         “Great.  I’m looking forward to seeing you.  Would you like to talk to your mother again?”
         “Yeah, put her on,” I said.  “Love you, Dad.”  By that time, I don’t think he was on the line anymore.
 In a second, Mom said, “I was just about to boot out the door.  Our next door neighbor’s daughter is coming over.  I don’t like to leave James alone, even though he says he'll be all right.”
         “We’re going to need a place to rent,” I said.  “I was wondering if you had any places in mind.  Not an apartment complex. A house preferably with some yard.”
         “I think I could find somewhere like that for you.  But if I understand this right, you and Stacie will be living together?”
         “Yes, Mom.  We’ll need at least two bedrooms.  I have my computer to think about.”
         There was a beat on the other end.  “I think I might already have a place in mind.  Is there anything else?”
         “Nope.  Go sell a house.”
         “I love you, Ray.”
         “Same here, Mom.”
         I placed the receiver on the hook, then walked into the guest room again.  I sat down at the computer.  I was still naked mainly because it had not occurred to me to put anything on.  I stared at the computer screen.  I was almost finished with another manuscript.  I had been editing others.  When this one was finished, I would have three in the can.  That number changed from time to time.  I would go back and find things wrong with one another and it was lose favor with me.  Sometimes I felt like throwing them all away and wiping out the hard copies.  Other times I felt like I should be sending them out to publishers.  Most of the time I did nothing.
         I decided to get dressed and go downstairs to shoot some ball.  Maybe Jim or some of the high school fellows would be there.  I dressed, then left a note for the girls. got my ball and went downstairs.  The court was empty, though the pool was filling up.
         I warmed up with some short shots.  I was still at the age where I could have been a third or fourth year pro in the NBA if my life had taken me that way.  But that had not meant to be.  Now I felt I had the chance to make something of my life.  I had a woman who loved me as much as I loved her.  And though I hadn’t said it to anyone, I felt that my writing or my photography was going to soon lead to a career.
         But there were still storms on the horizon.  My father was a dying man.  That would leave just me and my mother.  And then there was Gregg.  I felt that this was going to come to a head soon.  The private detective had told me as much.  Was Gregg really that crazy?  And what could I do about other than wait for him to make a move?
         I shot for maybe fifteen minutes total, then went back to the room.  I dressed in t-shirt and jeans, then went downstairs.  I looked for Gregg’s car.  Somehow I wasn’t sure if I was hoping to see him or not.  If he had been there, then at least I would know he was not following Stacie and Terrie.
         There was no sight of Gregg as I got in my Jeep.  I went to the nearest pawn shop, walked right in and asked the old man behind the counter to see his best gun.

         I bought the same basic gun that I had bought a few years ago, the one that was at the bottom of the Catawba River somewhere.  I bought bullets for it, a case for it and a shoulder holster to wear it if I wanted to.  It was illegal to carry a concealed hand gun in Tennessee the man reminded me, but not illegal for him to sell me a holster.  I didn’t much give a fuck.
         I actually wondered if I should have bought two guns.  One could have been left in the Jeep at all times.  The other would go where I went as much as possible.  I realized I needed to start thinking faster.  I also thought I should have hired the private detective who warned me about Gregg, but I thought this as I was walking up the apartment, too late to do anything about it now.  It would have been ironic to hire the man who had been hired to follow me to follow the man that had hired him to follow me in the first place.  If he could have gotten prove that Gregg was following us, it would have been worth it.
         Of course, for all I know, Gregg had put this man up to it.  Maybe Gregg wanted us to be in mortal fear for no good reason.  In his demented mind, he would still be controlling Stacie.  However, my gut told me that wasn’t the case at all.
           I went back to the apartment.  Still no sign of the girls.  It was almost one in the afternoon.

         They found me at after five o’clock in the guest bedroom.  I had finally hit on a writing streak and had not budged from the computer in four hours.
         “Hey, babe,” Stacie said, kissing me.  “Were you worried?”  Both she and Terrie were wearing matching shirts, dark blue with light blue writing across the chest, “babe.”  The shirts had been cut to make into a tank top baring their waist.  They were also wearing tight shorts made to look like they were home made cut-offs.
         “No, of course not,” I said, lying.  “I knew you were in good hands.  Nice shirts though.”
         “Thanks.  Terrie bought some stuff today out of the kindness of her heart.  She cut these shirts this way in the car.  Do you like?”
         “I like very much,” I said.  “Did you see anyone we recognized while you were out?”
         “Not a sign of our shadow.  Maybe he’s given up.”
         “Maybe,” I said, non-committal.
         “Come in the den.  Let me show you some of the stuff she bought me.”  She took me by the hand and led me to the couch.  There must have been six bags in all.  “Some of this stuff is Terrie’s.”
         “I like to shop,” Terrie said.
         Stacie had to show me everything that they bought, then tell me what it would look good with and how she’d have to fix her hair.  I knew it would all look great on Stacie.  But the thing I couldn’t stop thinking about was how much all of this had cost.  It seemed odd that Stacie would not let me buy her much of anything, but it was all right for Terrie to.  Terrie must have better skills of persuasion, I thought.  It didn’t make me mad.  I just didn’t know why Stacie ad not wanted to let me buy her anything.
         “I think I need to take both of you out to an expensive place to eat after all of this shopping.  I have to pay you back some way, Terrie.”
         “No, you don’t,” Terrie said.  “It was nothing.  I told Stacie she should consider it a present for leaving that creep and making the right choice, you.”
         “Well, thanks.  I think.  That said, I am hungry.”
         Stacie said, “Why don’t you go shave that pretty face of yours, put on some nice pants and a nice shirt.  Terrie and I will show off some of what we bought this afternoon and the three of us can go to a nice place to eat tonight.”
         I faked an apprehensive look.  “I have to shave?”
         Stacie nodded reluctantly.
         “Are we going to drink tonight?”
         Stacie nodded enthusiastically.
         “OK.  That’s fine.  I have to take a shower first.  I shot some ball today.”
         “You know us girls,” Terrie said.  “It may take us a while to get ready.  So take your time.”

         Two hours later, we were seated in one of the finer restaurants in Memphis.  Stacie looked fabulous in a low cut, tight white dress.  It matched her now-blonde hair.  Terrie was in a matching navy blue dress, more suited for her dark hair.  They were seated across from me in the booth.  We each order our first drink.
         “So you’re moving back to Longview?” Terrie asked, trying to make conversation.
         “Yep.  At one time I never wanted to visit the place again.  Today, I told my mother to look for a place for us to stay.  Funny how things change.”
         “Are you planning to stay there… forever?”
         Stacie was just watching us talk.  “No,” I replied.  “But at the same time, the faster we move out of that town, the sooner it means my father has died.”
         “I guess it’s a blessing in an odd way that I never knew my parents.”
         “Oh?’  Stacie asked.  “What happened?”
         “She died when I was young.  I knew her as well as anyone knew my mother.  But she was a junkie.  She was gone for months at a time sometimes.  And then she was gone for good.  I moved in with my aunt.”
         “My parents were killed in a car crash when I was 16,” Stacie said.  Terrie was giving her undivided attention, but Stacie didn’t seem to be talking to anyone in particular.  “I talk about like it happened so long ago.  But it was barely five years.  So much has happened since then.”
         “There’s a lot of pain at this table, isn’t there?” I asked.
         “There is,” Terrie stated matter-of-factly.  “But there’s a lot of resiliency, too.  We all have shown it.  I saw it in your eyes, Ray, when we first met.  And Stacie, I haven’t known you long, but you have to have it to get through the shit you’ve been through.  As for me, drinking helps.”
         Nervous laughter all around as we each went for our drinks.
         “So how is Atlanta?” I asked.  “Do any of the Braves come in to the club?”
         “Atlanta is nice.  I like it a lot.  It gets hot as hell in the summer, but then, it gets hot out here, too.  As far as the Braves, let’s just say I have come to know a few of them casually when they come into the body shop.”
         “The body shop?” Stacie asked.
         “It’s the club.  The full name is Uncle Joe’s Body Shop.  Joe is a pretty good guy, a little creepy if you don’t know him.  That was the first club he opened, but he’s got them in Orlanda, Fort Lauderdale, Myrtle Beach and he’s buying one out here soon.  I don’t know if they will all be co-ed though, as he calls them.”  Terrie answered Stacie’s next question before Stacie had a chance to ask it.  “One side of the club is the girls side, the other is the men’s club.  In the middle is a great, giant bar.  Joe’s idea was that people could go to either side they want to, then meet in the middle, get drunk and go home and have sex.  I think those were his exact words.”
         “It seems to be doing great business,” I said.
         “I’m doing so well stripping that I’ve given up my desire to become a lawyer.  I’m investing my money wisely.  I’m actually doing pretty well for myself.  Maybe in ten years, maybe more, I’ll go to school.  But until then, it’s party time.”
         “Here, here,” I said, raising a toast.  Our waiter came by at that moment and took it as a cue that we wanted refills.  He was right.

         Just after midnight, I pulled into the apartment parking lot.  We were all drunk and none of us had a right to be driving.  That had never stopped me before though.  I forgot to even look for Gregg until we were to the door leading into the apartments.  I glanced back to the parking lot, but didn’t see him.  Whether or not he was there could have been an entirely different matter.
         We went upstairs.  I unlocked the door and let the girls walk in first.  They both went for the couch.  I went straight to the bathroom.  When I came out, Terrie was lighting up a joint.  She took a hit off of it, then passed it to Stacie and lit up another.
         “Ray,” she began, “when was the last time you actually paid for your weed?”
         “What year is it again?  Hey, what can I say?  I have great friends.”
         Stacie said, “I have a great friend and a great guy.  Life is good.”
         “Ah, a Hallmark moment.”  Terrie took another hit.
         “You know the saying, a friend with weed is a friend indeed,” I said.  “Now which one of you are going to share?”
         They both laughed, then cleared space for me between them on the couch.  I took a hit off Stacie’s joint, then another from Terrie’s.
         “Are you going to ask or do you want me to?”
         “He’s your boyfriend,” Terrie said.  “You ask.”
         “Ask me what?”
         “Terrie and I were talking and we think it would be fun to pose for you.”
         “You do, huh?”
         “Yeah,” Terrie said.  “And I won’t even charge you.”
         I took the joint from Stacie.  “And here I thought this was going to be something I didn’t want to hear.”
         “I was telling her about the waterfall.”
         “It sounds lovely,” Terrie said.
         “It is,” I replied, passing the joint back to Stacie, then taking the one from Terrie.  “I’m not sure it’s so wise that we go back there.  The last time Stacie and I went, we weren’t alone.”
         “Do you think he still has his private eye on us?”
         “I don’t think so,” I answered.  “But we can never be too sure about when the shit head himself will be shadowing us.”
         “He’s such an ass,” Terrie said.
         “There is another option, though,” I continued.  “Curtis is gone for the week again.  We could use his studio, I mean, if you two are up for it.”
         “I’m game,” Terrie said.
         “You know I am,” said Stacie.
         “Well, cool, what about tomorrow?  Stacie and I will come back after school and pick you up, Terrie.”
         “I get to sleep in,” she said.  “Cool.”
         “You get to sleep in everyday,” I reminded her.
         “Oh, yeah.  I do, don’t I?”
         Stacie stood up.  “I have to be at school in less than eight hours.  Second to last day.  I can’t wait for Monday to get here!  But I do think I need to go to bed.  Could someone unzip me?”
         I did the honor, then Stacie walked out of the room and into the bedroom.
         I looked at Terrie, who was grinning wide at me.  “What?”
         “You know.”
         “I do?”
         “Yes, you do,” she said.  “Look at you, the man with the black heart is falling in love.  Or maybe already has.”
         “Is that so hard to believe?”
         “I don’t know.  You tell me.”
         I chuckled, then put out the joint.  “Sometimes it is.  I’ve never felt anything like this before…”  Then I caught myself.  “I mean…”
         “Ray, it’s me, Terrie.  Remember?  No rules, no absolutes, no fate and all that stuff.  I’m happy for you.  I think it’s great.”
         “Thanks.  I think it’s great too.”
         She kissed me on the cheek, then hopped up.  “Unzip me?”
         “Certainly.”
         I watched her walk into the guest room, then stood up, stretched and walked into my room.  Stacie was passed out in bed.  I pulled the sheet over her, set the alarm, then undressed and got in beside her.  In no time, I was asleep too.

         The alarm scared the shit out of me.  I literally jumped out of bed, then had to gather my wits to realize that it was, in fact, the alarm clock.  Stacie, meanwhile, was still asleep.  It felt like I had been asleep for five minutes.  I reached over and shook her arm.  She wouldn’t budge.  I had to go to the bathroom and didn’t want to have to kiss her awake.
         “Stacie, Stacie, wake up!”
         She started to rouse awake, but I couldn‘t wait.  I half ran, half walked on my tip toes to the bathroom to piss out all the alcohol from the night before.  I had to concentrate so I wouldn’t miss the mark.  I was glad that it wasn’t me who had to go sit in a class for nearly two hours.
         I walked into the kitchen.  Terrie was standing at the sink drinking a glass of water.  Before either of us had a moment to react, Stacie bumped into me.  She was yawning when trying to find her way into the kitchen.  We were all naked.
         “Oh, hey,” she said.
         “This isn’t what it looks like,” Terrie suddenly blurted out.
         Stacie cocked an eyebrow at her.  “It looks like we all stumbled into the kitchen at the same time.”
         “Oh, then it is what it looks like.”
         No one said anything for a second.  It seemed like we were all trying to decide whether to leave the room or not.  Then Stacie leaned against the wall.  She may have been enjoying this.
         “Isn’t this kind weird?” I asked.  “I mean, y’all are going to pose for me this afternoon?”  I went to the refrigerator to get the milk.  “Anybody want some?”
         “Want what?” Terrie asked.
         “Milk?”
         “Oh,…. uhm  No!  Thanks.?”
         “Stacie?”
         “Yes, please.”
         “I wasn’t expecting anyone to be up so soon.  It’s barely past six o’clock.”
         “I have to be there at 8, so we get up early.  Ray usually rolls over and goes back to sleep while I get dressed.”
         “Oh.”
         “That in itself can take a long, long time.  And then there’s her hair.”
         Stacie shot me a dirty look.  Terrie continued to look uncomfortable.
         “I’m going back to sleep before I wake up,” Terrie said.  “Or something like that.”  We both watched her walk back to her room.
         “What was that about?” Stacie asked.
         I didn’t answer her then.  I just played it off, then we took a shower and got ready to leave.  On the way to school, I said, “Terrie likes you.”
         “I like her.  I think we get along real good.”
         “No, I mean she likes you.”
         Stacie just looked at me.