20140621 Sara's birthday
Saturday, June 21, 2014, 9:40 PM. It's been a day. I was going to say a bad day. But i guess it wasn't entirely bad.
Today is Sara's birthday. 40 years ago today, I had anew baby girl, the new love of my life, the happiest day of my life to date, Erin's birth being the second happiest. I tried calling Sara 3 times to wish her a happy birthday. First I got a wrong number. Second, I got an answering machine with no infor to say if it was the correct number. I sang a quick happy birthday. The third was a second attempt at her cell (first, cell, wrong number, second, landline, unknow), third cell, got a voice message saying it was Sara Stebbins in a voice that did not sound like her, but the name was rights so I sang happy birtjday again. I sent three e-cards. I'm hoping to see them all next week.
I have a box which I hope is presents for Sara but which I have not had time to open.
I feel succulous at the mometnt which is part of why Iw as thinking this was a bad day. I am all bloated for some reason. My stomach feels as if it might pop! And I didn't even eat that much for dinner, I'd say I ate less than Usual. I ate a fairly normal lunch, but I did eat some pecans, quite a few, actually, but that was hours and hours ago. And I few grapes. Maybe 4 or 5 at ML's.
I am also very tried because I did not go to sleep until after 3 AM. I took an ambien at 2:30 wheen it became obvious I wasn't going to go to sleep on my own. I also (today) had a sip of Keith's beer at ML's.. And three very small irish soda bread biscuits without ccurrants or raisins. We had corned beef and cabbage for dinner, which was OK, or seemed OK. It's not my favorite food, by any means, but it didn't taste like there was naything wrong with it.
Yesterday, We spent the day helping ML move in to assited living. The whole day and early evening. Keith and Graham did the heavy listing. I did some packing, carried samll things, called about transferring the phone, talked with the medical team to sign ML up for her call button and talk about assistence options, and helped unpack and put away things. We had lunch out at Applebees. That may have contributed to me sleeplessnes.
nyway, I fianlly took Graham home while stayed to do more stuff, run back to ML's return the U-haul Trailer, etc. I went out for a short walk in the rain and then sat and rested because I was tired and cut veggies for dinner and then went out for another short walk (sadly, my totla walking time was only about 30 minutes. It rained while I was walking, harder the the second outing than the first. The rain ahd "low ceiling" made the smell frangrance of the Linden trees very strang and concentrated and I was cpativated by it and by some rabbits that stayed near me as I walked and robbins and grackles that sisn't seem afarid, even less than usual.
I wrote a "prepoemm" or extremely rough first draft *prepoem is what Phillip Boot called the notes a poem that weren't yet ornbanized into a poem. While I was taking my second walk, Keith came home exhuated and starving and made his part of dinner (hamburgers0. !We had a very late dinner, read and went to bed late and this morning, I lay in bed alittle late after not sleeping until after 3 Am, as I mentioned. When I got up, I wanted to ornanzine my prepome/poem notes into a poem, and began working on it.
I was having the perception that Keith was being a big jerk, but it was mostly me. The less sleep I get, the more assinine he seems.
I lack patience, companssion and forbearance when I don't sleep. I went down to read him my poe but he said something at set me off (which I no longer remember( and instead lunch with him (it was around noon by then), I went upstairs in a huff and worked on the poem some more, then emailed it to a few people, posted it to Cowbird, facebook and twitter, which I probbaly wouldn't hav done had I not been angry with Keith, and then finally went down and a late lunch when he removed himself from the litchen I'd finsihed processing the current version of the poem, which is currently called, "A Room in the Rain".
I remember what I was upset anout. When I came down the stairs, I heard him washing my pan which I'd adventeantly left in the sink. I've been trying to keep my stuff out of the sink when he's at home. Yesterday, I caught him using soap on the omelet pan, which ruins the pan. I've asked not to do that, so I was afraid he was doing it again. I was more annoyed at myself for forgetting to clean up because I was involved with my poem I prefer to wash my own dishes, my way.
Unless I am sick. Or overly bsuy. Then I like to hide certain things so he doesn't wash them.
I walk under some flowering Lindens. It's a very still might and they are almost as aromatic as last night.
There are explaosions from fireworks while I am walking, then the extended "artillary fire" of teh grand finale. But then more inividuals. I have no idea who had firweworks tonight, or why.
Ut is very dark out at 10:11 PM, and I cannot see what I am typing so it may not even be legible.
Keith informed me tha5t it was "a pleasant night," the implication being that I should go out and walk. He's so clueless I want to slap him. He probably thinks I am exagerating my exhaustion and stomach ache. I am walking, but very slowly. My stomach feels like a bowling ball. Like a huge bowling ball, heavy and painful. And I am tired from lack of sleep and a long day.
After I had my late lunch, we went to Village Ace Hardware and got a bunch of stuff for ML's new apaprtment sunc as new shower cuurtains, a toilet seat xtended (which turned out not to fit and has to be taken back), and a bunch of other thinsg which we then drove up to MK's. It's about a half hour drive each way. Then we hung the shower curtain. Keith hung most of it, and I did part of it (like 3 holes worth) while he was resting and rinking beer, but I only threaded them onto the hooks, I could not clasp the clasps. I got two curtains, one clear inner one and a pretty greenish turquoise out cloth one. We also brought one cooler full of food from the freeze and fridge at her house and one bag of food and a small saucepan so she could cook noodles if she wanted. And some other stuff. We (Keith) fixed the answering machine, which I'd set up wrong, but mainly because I got interrupted midstream--I fialed to plug it in and knew it had to be plugged in, but had gotten off track.
I am home now, sitting on the front porch. It is, in fact, a fairly pleasant night, a little humid, but not too hot. It's Saturday night, and noisier than it would be most other nights at 10:22 PM. (or later, as this Psion's clock is a little SLOW). I wasled 45 minutes, but I walked very sowly. Still, that's probably better than not walking at all. My stomach still hurts.
My husband is perverse or perverted, whenever I am exhausted and have a stomach which NO is not all the time, that's when he decides to saty up for hours having sex and crushing my stomach. It's almost inevitable, seriously.
Oh well, I suppose I should go in. I would have liked sometime today to make up my missed time from yesterday and from three days ago, but that's probably ain't gonna happen.
I tried to call Ellen back, did I mention that? I think I did. Huge failure
Goodnight.
He did whash most of the dishes and kind of clean the kicthed after dinner, though.
(He did not read to me)
Sunday, June 22, 2014, 4:25 PM We are riding in Keith's car after stopping by ML's house to pick up her garbage can (Kitchen wastebasket ) and then to Ml's apartment to drop off the wastebasket and a largish planter we bought for her balcony and now we are on our way to meet Ellen and Warren at Romano's Macaroni Grille in Livonia. I'm afraid we'll be late. We took so much time figuring out what to do.
On the way here, keith had one of his childish road rage tantrums of immature riving, passing cars too fast, rage, and giving finggers. Ive asked him not to do that whe I am driving nd he perisists in doing it from time to time and it frightens me. I truly ish he wouldn't.
Later, on the way back, I see another bunny and realize I forgot to warch for handicapped one.
Monday, July 7, 2014, 4:33 PM I am walking to Village in brilliant sun and light wind but a few minutes ago, when I was trying to leave, it started raining hard, great plops of rain. I ducked inside, waited a few minutes and went out while it was still raining lightly and watched the trailing edge oft he cloud disappear and sun appear. The cloud is still up there, looking ominous and black, but two thirds of the sky looks blue with puffy white clouds. A perfect summer day.
* * * * end journal EJ ££
* * * * Brainstorming Taming Uncle Beast
I think that there's going to be a convergence of the "fictional" and nonfictional parts of the story at the church where Harmon is going to preach a guest sermon about the role of God in Iraq and Betty Sue is going for refuge. There will be some kind of scene, may during the sermon. Shannon is tangling with the wrong guys, since Harmon and Jake were in the army and know what they are doing.
Betty Sue runs to Harmon for protection, but it is Beast who actually protects her from Shannon.
In a way, it would be nice for Jake to have a girl, but for some reason, I see Betty Sue with Harmon. That still leaves Jake without a partner.
Shannon has a knife and is high on meth and acid. He comes after Betty Sue right up on "stage" at the church. Jake disarms him.
Betty Sue has taken on an assumed name, a pseudonym, and unbelievably, it is Prissy. Tiny writes in her memoir that "truth is stranger than fiction," but admits that she chose the name Prissy for Betty Sue because once Betty Sue said she wished her name was Prissy. (like some famous singer or movie star).(look one up)
* * * * Taming Uncle Beast, Chapter ?, Disarmament
Harmon put on his black suit. They'd stopped at the Laundromat and fluffed it with a couple damp T-shirts and pressed it with an iron attached to a chain. Tiny thought he looked incredibly dapper and handsome and not at all like the wild bum on the raft.
Monday, June 23, 2014, 7:26 PM, I am out walking a short walk from Rolandale. We have not had supper and it's late, but the day disrupted by my having to drive down into the city and pick up Graham. I tried to reach Keith to discuss dinner options, but he didn't answer the phone. I was downloading opera at R'dale after downloading 5 cameras and cleaning cards. I hope I cleaned all the cards. Pandora took a LONG time. I did not delete the bad pictures, which I need to do.
I was going to propose to Keith that I walk home and he start dinner and then after dinner, he drive me halfway back to walk back and retrieve my car.
I wasn't able to walk earlier because my fibromyalgia pain was so bad I could hardly hobble around the house. I finally gave in and took Meloxicam AND applied Voltaren get to my left hip, where the most pain was. My whole self was very stiff.
So anyway, even though it's so late, since I couldn't get Keith on the phone and left him a message to call me, I decided to walk 15 minutes and then finish the Opera download and try again to reach Keith. Then If I walk home he can just drive me back to get my car.
I may have to call him again, because neither of us are very good at checking the phone messgaes.
A complicating factor is the rain. It's not raining at the moment, but it has been raining off and on all day.
I think I am going to say that that very long walk I had yesterday at Kensngton makes up for the two misssed walk portion in the last week. I can aim for 45 minutes a day again, and do more if and only if I want to or have to.
I wonder if Keith has been stuffing his face with nbuts, chips or cheezits.
It's been warm today, but's cooled slightly and there's a breeze. The sky is completely grey and lightly mottled.
Yesterday, we had dinner at Macononi Grill with Ellen and Warren and then walked a long ways at Kensington. The food made me sick.
8:56 PM, getting dark. I tried to call keith and got no answer, so I drove home after downloading aand isntalling Opera. He was there making dinner so I never got to walk so I am walking now. The sky is still grey, and few sprinkles of rain are falling, very few, and small.) It's gotten dark enough the most of the leaves on the trees except at the top look black instead of green and puddles of darkness gather under the trees. Colors are
fading and greying. Except a runner goes by with a bright ornge shirt that still looks pretty ornage.
People have their trash out, and their recycling.
A comes aroun the corner with his red and blue strobes blodging my eyes. It takes me a moment to see that he's after a blac guy drving a green truck full of lawn equipment. Now I hear the the black guys gentle voice. I can't make out what he's saying because I am walking further and further away.
I think I hear crickets, but there is a loud buzzing sound, so I'm not sure. I do hear bird cheeping their evening songs.
I think I am writing this in the wrong area of the documentl.. But it is too dark now to try to edit anything.
As I am walking along in the half dark, I pass some small bunnies, young ones, on a lawn. as I approach, they run off a little ways, but one of them keeps rilling on its side as it attempt to make an escape. Is it damaged genetically, or did it get hot by a car or snatched by a cat or dog or hawk? It may not be long for the world, because it runs to poorly it culd be easily caught, unless it's a temproary problem that heals up quickly, poor thing. It looks otherwise helathy.
Saturday, June 28, 2014, 8~11 AM, I suppose I could be asleep, but I am up and dressed and sitting in "my" bedroom at Sara's while the rest of the house sleeps. That is, to the best of my knowledge, Sara, Erwin and Frankie are all asleep, or, if awake, not making any noce. I washed up, dressed, did my hair, and was going to work on my novel, but it's at a cruical point were Betty Sue, aka Prissy, is about to reveal some piece of information to the cops that could (will) change the course of the novel. Depending on what I decide that Shannon has done or that Prissy knows.
I just heard Frankie cough, a sign that the entire household may be leaping into action at any moment.
* * * * EJ 2
Taming Uncle Beast, 2. * * * *
I started a chapter with Tiny, Trey and Jake sitting in a pew waiting for Harmon to begin preaching. Tiny is writing on her iPad mini, She goes off on a long thing about herself that ought to used earlier when they're riding down the river.
* * * *
We didn't get to hear what Harmon said to the peeople in charge here at the ***** Church. They whisked him away. I wanted to hear what he had to say about being defrocked. My guess is, if he tells them at all, it will be after he collects his money. Well, I guess that's okay, because it's not my business anyway, and if he could preach before he was defrocked, he probably still can.
I do know what the sermon is about. It's called "God in Iraq". That's a pretty scary topic, I hope he doesn't get stoned, tar and feathered or run out of town on a rail. The congregation seems to be divided into two types, 3/4 ultra rednecks and 1/4 gentle intellectuals. There's an artist's colony practically adjacent to the church, and Harmon said some of the poets and painters had turned out to hear what he had to say.
The choir gets up and sings "Holy Holy Holy, Lord God Almight" and after the first berse, we all stand and sing along. The version in their hymnals is different than the one I learned. Not entirely different, just a little different, so I keep forgetting and singing the wrong words. A few people turn and look at me, so then I try harder to follow along, but after I sing it a little wrong one more time, I stop singing.
When the song is over, Harmon walks onstage (wait, they don't call it onstage in a church, do they?) (What do they call it?") Anyway, he walks out near the altar with another man. They are both wearing black robes with some gold things dangling, like graduation gowns.
They lead us in a long prayer where we answer what it says in the book, and then we say Lord's prayer onlu they say that differently, too. We say trespasses and they says debts, but something else seems different too.
Then the choir sings Amazing Grace. After they sing the first verse, they start over and we sing along and luckily the words are same as ours, so I get to sing. I like to sing, but I am not that good at it.
Then the regular Pastor, Dr. Winsome, introduces Harmon as Pastor Xyz, and Harmon stands at the podium (I'll have to ask him later what they call it at a church) and begins to preach. I am surreptiously writing on the mini iPad, but I stop to listen.
He says, "Good Morning, dear children of God," and his voice sounds deep and resonant in the church. He pauses to look around the church, and seems as if somehow, he takes the time to look at each person. He certainly looks right at me, and I shiver a little with expectation, even though I didn't expect to.
"God is everywhere," he suddenly thunders. I jump back, shocked and surprised at the rapid change from a quiet resonant voice to a loud thunderous one. And then quietly again, he says, "Do you truly believe that, in your heart?" And then he waits, cocking his head as if listening for an answer.
"Amen," aa scattering of people say,
"Yes, suh," a few others day.
"God is in you. And God is love. You can feel God's love if you open your heart. Open it now, and receive his boundless love." He pauses again, and again the amens.
I think about my heart, opening to God. I am trying to keep an open mind, but I am not sure I believe in God. Sometimes, I think I do, and sometimes I think I don't. I tend to believe in God at church. I think I am a big sucker for sermons and persuasions of various kinds.
I imagine that my heart is a little native hut in the jungle, and I throw open the door and in flows all this sunshine and love. I can feel it sweeping through me like one time I was little and I took a big drink of Grandpa Latham's whiskey thinking is was coolaide or something good, and all this heat went through me in waves. I kind of giggled and passed out. Now I am more careful.
But the weird thing is, I feel like I can feel God inside me. And God feels like love. Like love and joy, happiness and peace.
"God is in everyone," Harmon repeats. God is inside every person in this church, lighting each of you with deep love. And God is also in the people outside the doors of the church. God is inside the lawyers and the beggars, the cab drivers and the fisherman.
"There is only one God," Harmon Thunders, his voice rising to a fever pitch. "But he is not our God, he is everyone's God." He pauses and looks around again. Some People are nodding and some are shaking their heads and looking confused. "Some people would have you believe that is one true God and he is our God," Harmon continues. "This is a failure of understanding. There is one all powerful God and he loves the earth and all the people on it and there is no other God. We all worship the same God, but we give him different names and he has different prophets and seers in different places.
"God is huge and essentially unknowable, so we attempt to humanize and diminish Him to we can understand him. Different peoples diminish him in different ways. Even calling Him 'Him' is a diminishment.
"But his love is one love and his law is one law. Even the people we call our enemies are full of the spirit of God."
A couple people boo and someone sitting behind hisses. I wait until Harmon begins speaking again and steal a peek at the guy behind us. He looks like a redneck type. He has a shaved head, a shaved face, and really red face. He has a tan that ends just below his shirt sleeves.
"Some of the actions carried out by people in the name of God are misguided." Harmon continues, apparently unperturbed. Some heinous acts are carried out in the name of God, and not all of these acts are perpetrated by our enemies." More boos.
"We have only to look in our own history books to see terrible things that we have done in the name of God. Ask yourself, what would Jesus do? Would Jesus murder little children and defenseless women and elders?"
Someone in the back stands up and boos loudly. A couple other try to tug him down and shush him. Harmon stands quietly, his arms at his side, looking sad and patient. I swear, he seems to a halo around him. The multicolored but mainly yellow glass of a window behind him adds to that effect.
"I came here to talk about Iraq," Harmon says, when the church grows so quiet I am almost afraid to breathe. "It was not the Iraqi children who took down the twin downs on 911. It was not the Iraqi mothers or the Iraqi elders. It was a group of individual fanatics for Al Qaeda ((sp)), that is, terrorists."
"Amen," some women in the front say.
"We have fanatics in our own country, people who kill numbers of innocent peopel, including children. Think about ((give a few examples))."
"Amen," say a larger group of women.
"Iraq did not make the first strike against us, we made the first strike against Iraq." Boos.
Someone yells, "that's a liel" And several other men shout things that so scrambled I can't make them out. I think I hear someone near me say, what about ((?))
Harmon unrolls a piece of cloth he produces from somehwere on his person. He unfolds it and unfolds it and holds up a black and white image of a woman carrying a limp child.
"This woman and this child did not attack America."
"Kill the infidels!" Someone shouts.
"Nits!" yells another. "Destroy the nits before they become lice!"
Harmon stands quietly again, for a long time. So long I get nervous.
Finally, he speaks again, "'Suffer the little children to come unto me,' Jesus said. And, 'Thou shalt not kill.' and ((add other quotes from the Bible)) ((Turn the other cheek))((Judge not, lest ye be judged.))
At first, there is some grumbling and then people settle down and listen.
"When I was in Iraq," Harmon continues, in different voice, a sort of storytelling voice, and everyone sits back and relaxes a little, still looking somewhat wary. "When I was in Iraq," he says, even more softly, "there were soldiers who worked hard to help communities where they were stationed. They built schools and churches. They helped repair people's homes.
"I set up a school near the army base. I had a few of the men who had been trained in Farsi volunteer to help. We didn't have too many students, and they were all boys. Many of the people didn't trust us, and with good reason. There was one boy, ((Iraqi name)), who was twelve yeras old. He was small for his age, but very quick, smart and cute. We used to feed the kids, because they were often hungry, and we played baseball and soccer with them, in additon to teaching them how to read, how to write, how to do math. Some of them already knew a great deal and helped to teach other. One of my volunteers was Alan, and he was dedicated to doing whatever he could to help.
"One day, Alan was building a fort for the kids and saw (()) coming and rushed out to greet him, and they blew up and were killed. (())had a bomb attached to him, under his shirt."
At this point, the church erupted in boos, and Harmon waited.
"The bomb, we found out, was attached by forced and remote detonated. It was not (()) who chose to kill, but another man.
"You may ask yourself, if God is love, how could he allow such terrible things to happen?"
He pauses again. Cocks his head. Everyone seems to hold their breath, though it seems to me they must know the answer. I do.
And he points at me. "Free will," I say. "Choice."
"Yes!" shouts Harmon. I shrink down in my seat. "God gave us free will to make choices, and not all choices are ones he likes. He wants us to choose love. He will help us choose love."
At that moment, there is a commotion outside the church, some shrieking in a female voice, an angry male voice, and the door bursts open and a girl runs down the aisle up onto the stage, smack into Harmon's out-stretched arms.
* * * * end chapter
A man is following, running fast, and wielding a knife, a huge knife, like one of those Bowie knives, or deer hunting knives. He is hollering, "I'm going to kill you, Betty Sue. (Prissy?)
Jake vaults over the wooden barrier in front of our pew. He tackles the man, who I now see has flaming red orange hair. He grabs the man's wrist and wrestles the knife away from him and twists the man's arm behind his back.
The man is cursing mightily in a loud coarse voice. He turns his head toward me and I see that it is Shannon Beckwith. The girl, whose face is pressed against Harmon's chest and sobbing, is Betty Sue. This can't be happening. Real life never works this. How did they end up here, in ((??)) just now, when we're here?
Harmon is rocking Betty Sue in his arms. Jake drags Shannon to his feet. "I know you, he says, you're Shannon Beckwith." Shannon spits in his face. He is shaking all over, and suddenly begins wailing. Jake wipes his face on the shoulder of his shirt and twists Shannon arm higher up his back. Shannon shrieks.
The church is in an uproar. Some people have run out of the church. Some are dialing 911. Some are shouting, some have joined Shannon in wailing. Betty Sue wailing too. Harmon is rocking her. Weirdly, with all the pandemonium, time seems to be standing still.
*
I turned off the Ipad mini and leaned against Trey and he put his arm around me. Then, after a minute or so of just breathing in the smell of him and feeling comforted by him, much like I did with Harmon, I told him that I knew those people, and that I was going up to talk to Betty Sue.
Trey followed me up, and I think he was keeping an eye on Shannon.
"Harmon," I said, loudly, almost shouting above the din in the church, "This is my friend, Betty Sue. That's Shannon Beckwith. They're our neighbors. Betty Sue," I yelled, even louder, because she hadn't stopped wailing long enough to see or hear me. I grabbed her arm and shook it and she turned her head away from Harmon's chest to look at me.
She stopped wailing. "Tiny." she exclaimed, her eyes popping like in a cartoon, with surprise. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm rafting the river my Uncle Jake. What are you doing here?"
The other minister, Pastor Wrs, interrupted, saying, "Let's take the old home days into the back room so we can try to establish order." He tugged on Betty Sue's arm, and she clutched Harmon as if her life depended on holding on to him. "Okay, Pastor Wrs said, "you take her in the back room and I will finish the sermon."
Harmon and Betty Sue, Jake and Shannon and Trey and I went into the room that Pastor Wrs indicated, and he shut the door. I could hear him outside trying to regain order in his church. There was shouting and mumbling and suddenly a loud chorus of music from the choir. Then the people were singing and things seemed to be settling down.
It was quiet in the back room, too. Jake stood holding Shannon's hands. Shannon stood with his head down. Betty Sue was still clinging to Harmon and looking over her shoulder reproachfully at Shannon.
Jake spoke first, "And what, may I ask, was going on here?"
"He threatened to kill me," Betty Sue said. "We were camping, right on the shore of Lily Lake, in his little orange backpacking tent, and he took some . . . " here Betty Sue stopped and stuck her lower lip like a little kid and looked at everyone's faces.
Just then, we heard sirens. The police were coming.
"Listen," Shannon said urgently, "I can explain. Can we go out a back door or anything? Let me explain." He wrenched free of Jake and took off with Jake and Trey in hot pursuit. The first door he opened was a closet full of vestments (?) and other clothes, but the second door led into the back of the church. I stayed with Betty Sue and Harmon. I had no desire to tangle with Shannon, in case he knew about my suspicions regarding his dog fighting and the grave behind his garage.
I sat down in an old wooden desk chair, but Harmon and Betty Sue remained standing. Tell us what happened, Harmon said quietly, but just then, the door opened and cops came in.
So we started over again, and told the cops that Shannon Beckwith had chased Betty Sue Fgh through the church with a knife, but he'd escaped and was being chased. They wanted to take Betty Sue down to the station for a statement, but she refused to go. One of the cops went out and got a form with had some info at the top and then a blank areas to write a statement in triplicate, and they took her statement.
This is what she finally said, "Shannon Beckwith and I were camping at Lily Lake in campsite number 159, right by the lake, in his little orange backpacking tent. First he smoked some marijuana, then he dropped acid, and then snorted some crystal meth. He lay on his back staring at the ceiling and suddenly picked up a knife and held it to my throat.
"I was very scared. I tried to remain calm. I said, Shannon, 'give me the knife,' but he didn't. He just held it there, next to my throat. I could feel the tip of it against my skin. He pressed it a little and then a little more. I said, 'Shannon, give me the knife,'
"He said he might have to kill me. I asked him to give me the knife. At one point he sat up and I scooted out under him. I ran to the lady's room, thinking I would be safe there. Silly, I know. I guess it's left over from the innocence of childhood. When you're a kid, boys don't go in the girl's room.
"He did come in though. I went in and slammed and locked the stall door. There were other women in there, and one of them, in the next stall, had her pants down around her ankles, and I could see her feet shaking. Shannon was crawling over the bathroom door and I was saying, over and over, like a broken record, in my calmest possible voice, "Shannon, give me the knife."
"I was trying to be composed and reasonable. Meanwhile, one of the other ladies in the lady's room started shrieking for help. I climbed on the toilet and went over into the next lady's stall just as Shannon was dropping into mine. I bolted out the bathroom door and ran across the campground. I ran down the entrance road, across the main road and into the church with Shannon right on my tail.
"I was hoping the minister would save me," she said, looking adoringly up at Harmon. I rolled my eyes, because it wasn't Harmon that had saved her, but Jake.
At this point, Jake and Trey came back into the room without Shannon. Trey had a bloody nose and a black eye. "He got away," Trey said, sounding disgusted and disappointed.
"Officer Friendly," one of the cops said, "what happened?"
"Trey is a faster runner than I am and he caught up with Shannon and tackled him. But Shannon is about twice his size, and before I could get there, Shannon thrown a few punches, immobilized Trey, and escaped. I couldn't catch him. He disappeared in the woods. I'm a fairly good tracker, but I wasn't sure if I should be tracking him without backup."
"He's probably headed back to the campsite to break camp," Betty Sue said. "Keep in mind that he's armed and dangerous. And he may have killed someone before."
"What do you mean?" Officer Friendly asked.
"I found a human hand in Shannon's back yard. It was severed and bloody. It looked like a man's hand. A black man."
*End chapter*
"If you found a human hand in Shannon's back yard, why on earth did you go with him? I'd be terrified."
"He told me he didn't kill anyone. He seemed to be honest. I believed him. He was so earnest. But then, today, he said he might have to kill me—and I thought maybe it was because I'd found the severed hand and could tell someone about it. I was really scared."
* * * *
Brainstorming
OK, I now "know" what happened, back-story. Shannon Beckwith's dogs killed two people. It was an accident, but one that occurred in part because of an argument and a miscalculation. The people who were killed were bad guys. I have to figure out the logistics of all this however. Could it have happened at his house when bad guys were attempting to steal the dogs? How did the cover-up happen? Where was Tine Lee? Why didn't' she hear something? Maybe she was staying at her friend's house? Why didn't other people hear something? Maybe they did, but it took the cops too long to get there and Shannon (and accomplices?) hid the evidence. How did Betty Sue find out? Was she there? Did she stumble in on the burial? Was she there for another burial (dog) and see evidence? Did she overhear something? She found a human hand! "I found a human hand in Shannon's back yard. It was severed and bloody. It looked like a man's hand. A black man."
Maybe it happened in the basement? That might contain the sound. (and Tiny Lee and Betty Sue weren't there.) Would there be enough dogs loose down there, and enough space? Did the bad guys attack Shannon and the dogs defend him and then go crazy?
How does this subplot affect the main plot, which is about Tiny lee and Uncle Beast? Do he and Harmon go after Shannon? And if so, should that happen immediately, at the church? And if not when? Perhaps Shannon comes back for Betty Sue? In what ways is Tiny Lee's "fiction" the same as and in what ways is it different from the reality of what happened?
Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.
C. S. Lewis
Mary
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