I'll Stand By You

by Sharon Sala

Frankie’s lawyer, a man named Guidry, showed up three hours after Frankie had been booked and tossed in jail. He got Frankie out on bond and read him the riot act as they exited the jail.

  “But you told me to come here,” Frankie whined. “You told me to gain public sympathy for my case.”

  Guidry threw up his hands in disgust. “And instead, you wind up getting your ass whipped by the woman you will face in court, and the whole pitiful event is on YouTube. At last count, it already has over a half a million hits and the blood has yet to dry up on your face.”

  “I need to go to ER,” Frankie moaned.

  “Where’s your car?” Guidry asked.

  “Still in front of the café.”

  “I’ll drop you off on my way out of town. Get in. I need to be back in Oneida before seven. We have guests coming for dinner.”

  Frankie frowned. “I am your client. Am I not more important than dinner guests?”

  “No,” Guidry said. “Get in.”

  They drove back downtown. Guidry paused to let Frankie out and gave him one last piece of advice. “Stay out of trouble until the hearing or forget it. I won’t be coming back to bail you out again.”

  He drove away, leaving Frankie to stumble to his car alone. He started to unlock it, then remembered he’d done that just before he got hit. He opened the door and slid inside, his body one massive ache.

  He had a vague idea of where the hospital was, so he started the car and began to back up, but realized something was wrong. He put the car in park and got out to look. All the tires were flat.

  “Son of a holy bitch!” he moaned, then got back in the car and drove off.

  By the time he got to the hospital, he was driving on the rims. He called for roadside assistance to come change the flats, and then he went into the ER. When he came out later, he found the car up on blocks, all four tires missing.

  At that point, he got the message. He was in enemy territory, and he needed to lay low. He got his stuff from the car and called a cab to take him to get a rental. He paid the cabbie and made his way into the rental office. The woman behind the counter looked up, saw his wounds and his limp, and then took a slight step backward. It was the only hint she ever gave that she knew who the fucker was.

  “How can I help you?” she asked.

  “I need to rent a car.”

  “We’re really short right now.”

  “Please, lady, I just need something that runs and has wheels. Anything but a motorcycle and I’ll take it.”

  “Well, we do have one car. It’s small but gets good gas mileage.”

  “I’ll take it,” he said, grateful that something was finally working out.

  He filled out the papers, presented his identification, and paid extra for insurance—the way his luck was going, he would likely need it.

  He followed the lady outside and across the parking lot, past two very large vans, a Cadillac, two pickup trucks, a Town Car, and two midsized sedans. Then she stopped and pointed.

  “Here we are. Let me check it out for scratches and such before you get in. Wouldn’t want you having to pay for someone else’s fender bender.”

  Frankie was in shock. It looked like a clown car from the circus.

  “What the fuck is that?”

  “It’s a hybrid. I told you it was small. Don’t you want it?”

  “No, no, it’s fine. It just looks like a clown car. And it’s yellow.”

  She laughed. “That’s what everyone calls it. They’ll see you coming in this one, right?”

  He rolled his eyes. Just what he needed. A sign on his butt saying, Here I am. Kick my ass again.

  After a few more signatures and a copy of the rental, he got in. It took a moment to acquaint himself with the controls, and then he drove away, cursing his luck and wishing he’d never left Savannah. He drove straight to the motel, and as soon as he got in his room, he took two of the pain pills the doctor had given him and collapsed.

  * * *

  Johnny drove into Blessings a little after five and parked his rig inside the fenced lot, then headed for the office.

  His boss grinned when he walked in. “The excitement at your house never ends, does it?” he said.

  Johnny blinked. “What do you mean?”

  “You mean you don’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  “About your little wife taking a cane to that man. Boy, did she ever put a whuppin’ on him. I haven’t seen that much fury since Sherman marched through Georgia.”

  All of a sudden, he remembered that missed call from Dori and headed out the door.

  “If you want to see it, there are a dozen different versions of it already uploaded to YouTube. She’s really something, that girl. You got yourself a winner!” Clawson yelled.

  Johnny kept on moving, trying not to panic. The minute he got in his car, he called home, but his call went straight to voice mail. He didn’t bother leaving a message and kept on going.

  He pulled up in the driveway, relieved to see she was there, and smelled something good as he rushed up the steps. He walked into what appeared to be normalcy. The boys were side by side, fixated on the television. They didn’t even look up. Luther was in his playpen close by, talking to the ceiling fan. Dori walked out of the kitchen with a dish towel in her hand.

  “Hi, Johnny. I’m glad you’re home.”

  “I missed your call. I forgot to call back. What the hell happened?” he asked.

  “Look, Johnny!” Marshall said. “It’s the bad man who hurt Dori. She caught him for the cops.”

  He turned around just as Marshall upped the volume on the evening news and saw a blow-by-blow video of what she had done.

  When it was over, he turned around, looked at her like he’d never seen her before, and then took her in his arms and held her.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t here. I’m sorry I wasn’t the one who laid into him. I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” she said, her voice so calm and matter-of-fact after witnessing that rage gave him a chill. “I needed to do that. I had no idea I’d been harboring so much pent-up rage until I got that summons. After that, I sort of lost it.”

  “You got a summons?”

  Her shoulders slumped. “It’s why he’s in town. I have to be in court, day after tomorrow, for a hearing. He’s suing me for joint custody of Luther and money for maintenance, so to speak.”

  “Thank God you filed that report,” he said.

  Marshall got up on his knees and looked over the sofa at Dori.

  “Mama caught a bad man. I won’t ever be afraid again. If Johnny’s not around, we got ourselves a mama who knows how to whip ass.”

  Dori tried to look serious.

  “It’s not a good idea to be violent. We don’t like what happened to Beep, right? What I did to that man happened for a very special reason, and I can promise it won’t happen again.”

  “If he needs whipping again, I’ll be the one doing it,” Johnny said and pulled her close again.

  Dori sighed. If felt good to be loved and even better to know she didn’t have to fight another battle alone for the rest of her life.

  “Supper is ready. Everyone go wash,” she said.

  “I already washed,” Beep said, holding up his fingers. “I licked them with my tongue.”

  “Do it again, and this time use soap,” Johnny ordered and off they went.

  Dori picked Luther up and set him in his high chair. He greeted the rooster clock with a squeal and supper was served.

  * * *

  When Frankie woke up, it was dark. His belly was growling from hunger, but his jaw was too sore to chew.

  He opened the door to look out and saw a fast-food restaurant nearby. Ignoring his clown car, he walked across the parking lot and then across the street to get a milkshake. No chewing invol
ved. He had to wait in line for almost fifteen minutes, but the cold, sweet ice cream was worth it.

  When he got back to his room, he saw the door was ajar and groaned, certain he’d been robbed. He pushed it open, expecting to see the room trashed, but to his relief, nothing seemed to be missing. When he went inside and tried to shut it, he discovered it didn’t catch properly and decided that was what had happened. He leaned against it to make sure the dead bolt caught and then sat down on the bed to watch TV while he drank his shake.

  An hour later, he peeled off his clothes and took a shower, hoping the hot water would ease his misery. Then he took two more pain pills, crawled between the sheets, and turned out the lights.

  Within minutes, his head began to itch. He scratched and rolled over, punched the pillow into a new lump, and once again closed his eyes. Then the back of his ear began to itch, then his shoulder, then the hair around his dick. He threw back the covers and turned on the light, thinking he must be breaking out in some kind of rash. To his horror, there were spots on his body. But when he looked closer, they weren’t red like a rash, but they were moving.

  Fleas! He’d heard of fleabag motels but thought it was just a phrase for “cheap.” Obviously he was mistaken.

  He ran into the bathroom, cursing and moaning, and scrubbed until his skin was raw. Then he put on clean clothes, threw his suitcase in the car, and headed for the front desk.

  The clerk, a fifty-something woman with a cigarette stuck to her lower lip, looked up as he entered.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “My room has fleas,” he cried.

  She took a puff on her cigarette and squinted as the smoke she exhaled lifted upward past her nose.

  “Really? What room were you in?”

  He slammed the key down on the counter.

  “Room 122.”

  “Ah. The haunted one,” she said.

  “Haunted! What the hell does that have to do with fleas?” he asked, then scratched his head and checked under his fingernails to see if he’d missed one, but there was nothing.

  “It’s haunted by the motel cat that got run over in the parking lot last year,” the clerk said, and this time when she took a draw on the cigarette, she blew smoke back in his face.

  “Like hell,” Frankie said. “I want another room.”

  “We’re all full up,” she said.

  “There aren’t but six cars in this whole parking lot,” he argued.

  “They walked in,” she said, leaning forward and shaking ash on the back of his hand. “Just like you better be walking your ass out of this office. We don’t take to people who rape young girls around here.”

  The skin crawled on the back of his neck as he backed up. He turned and ran to his clown car, crawled in, and drove away, thinking he’d seen a bed and breakfast coming into town. It might cost him a little more, but by God, he was going to sleep in a decent bed or know the reason why.

  Rachel Goodhope checked Frankie Ricks into the B and B without prejudice for what he was driving, even politely ignoring his wounds. She gave him the key to the first room up on the right and offered to bring breakfast to his room in the morning around nine, since he seemed to be ailing.

  Frankie accepted the offer, settled into his room, and fell asleep.

  By the time morning came, Rachel had figured out she was harboring the bastard under her very roof and set about preparing him a meal he would not forget.

  She carried the tray of food up to his room and knocked promptly at nine, then waited for him to let her in.

  “That sure looks good,” Frankie said as he tried flashing her one of his best Johnny Depp smiles, but his lip was too swollen and his nose was leaning just the teeniest bit off to the right.

  “I hope you enjoy it,” Rachel said. “I didn’t ask you last night, but will you be staying long?”

  “No, ma’am. Just one more night, and then I’ll be leaving.”

  “I don’t serve meals at noon, but if I have guests at night, I will make dinner unless they have other plans.”

  “No plans, and dinner will be fine,” Frankie said.

  Rachel smiled sweetly and closed the door behind her as she left.

  Frankie dug into the fluffy scrambled eggs, popped a sausage link into his mouth along with it, and then buttered one of what appeared to be a blueberry and chocolate chip muffin. He wouldn’t know until later that the chocolate chips were Ex-Lax, and by then it would be too late.

  He ate until everything was gone and then set the tray out into the hall, crawled back into bed, and turned on the television. To his horror, he caught just enough of the morning news to realize he and Dori Pine were trending on social media. There was a moment when he thought about quitting and leaving, and then he realized things had gone beyond that. Besides the upcoming court date he’d scheduled, he had another hearing to face: the one where a judge decided if they had enough evidence to bind him over for trial. If he left town now, he’d be jumping bond. It was the first time he realized a good dose of Rohypnol did not automatically guarantee amnesia. He wished he’d known that sooner.

  He fell asleep during a game show and woke up about an hour later with a bellyache of massive proportions. He wasn’t sure if he was going to throw up or blow up. He barely made it to the bathroom and fell onto the commode with a groan.

  First he got his butt whipped, then flat tires, then fleas, and now diarrhea. No way did he think this was an accident, but he was in desperate shape and couldn’t get far enough away from the bathroom to run away. It was late afternoon before the trots finally dried up. His butthole was sore and his innards were clean as a whistle. He was pretty sure that if he took a drink of water, it would run right through without stopping and wet his pants.

  Rachel wasn’t around when Frankie paid up and made his getaway. He drove until he found a bar on the outskirts of town and slunk inside, grateful for cool air and low lights. He sat down at the back of the room and ordered a beer. The weary barmaid who waited on him barely gave him a glance. He felt safe, his identity was unknown. But he was wrong. Word had spread. The bastard trying to get Dori’s baby and scam her out of her money was driving the clown car.

  A short while later, two brothers named Bo and Billy Weaver came into the bar. They glanced his way and then sat down at the bar and ordered beers. When the bartender passed them over, they took them to a nearby pool table and began to play.

  Frankie watched them for a while until he’d finished his beer, and when the barmaid came back around, he ordered another and asked for peanuts too. He was working on his second beer and wishing he had an ice pack for his nose when he began feeling a bit dizzy. He popped another handful of peanuts in his mouth and then went about the business of trying to chew them enough to swallow. In the back of his mind, he began thinking that drinking beer on a completely empty stomach might not have been such a good idea. He chased the peanuts with another swig of beer and then decided he needed air. He left money on the table and staggered out to his car, rolled all the windows down, and then took off from the graveled parking lot as fast as the little car would take him.

  Bo and Billy left their pool cues on the table, threw down a twenty for their beers and the game, and left the bar right behind Frankie. He was headed out of town, which they considered perfect. They stayed just far enough behind him so that he wouldn’t be alerted to their presence. And when his car began to weave back and forth, they knew he was just about gone.

  “Think we oughta try and run him off the road before he hurts someone?” Bo asked.

  “Maybe,” Billy said.

  But before they had the chance, Frankie ran himself off the road, right into a ditch, where he stopped the car, managed to get it into park, and then passed out behind the wheel with the car still running.

  Bo pulled off to the side of the highway, beside Frankie’s car, and then
stopped.

  “We couldn’t have done a better job,” he said.

  They got out, waded into the brushy ditch, dragged Frankie Ricks out of the car, and killed the engine before dragging him up onto the road.

  “How much of that drug do you suppose May put in his beer?” Billy asked.

  Bo shrugged. “She didn’t say when she called. She just said he’d pass out soon.”

  “What do you want to do with him?” Billy asked.

  Bo looked around and then looked farther down the ditch and pointed. “I see a patch of poison ivy.”

  Billy grinned. “Why, I do believe you’re right, Brother.”

  They grabbed Frankie by both arms and set to dragging him down the blacktop toward it. When they reached the edge, they started to toss him in, but Bo piped up with a new idea.

  “We could pants him first,” he suggested.

  Billy grinned. “Why don’t we just pull them down around his ankles? When he wakes up, he’ll think he did it to himself, and we’re both in the clear.”

  Bo grabbed Frankie’s belt, and Billy undid the zipper. They yanked his pants and underwear down past his knees and then rolled him off the shoulder of the road, down into the ditch again, where he landed facedown in the patch of poison ivy.

  “I believe we’re through here,” Bo said.

  “I think you’re right, Brother,” Billy added.

  They walked back to their truck, made a U-turn on the blacktop, and headed back into town, leaving the yellow clown car in the ditch with the door open and the key in the ignition.

  * * *

  Frankie woke up hours later and rolled over onto his back, but when he went to open his eyes, they felt weird. He looked up, saw the sun was heading toward the western horizon, and then realized he was half-naked and lying in a ditch.

  “Oh man. First time I ever got drunk on two beers. I shouldn’t have had them on an empty stomach,” he muttered, scratching at his privates…then his leg. Then he remembered the fleas and crawled out of the ditch on his hands and knees before he realized that, this time, he did not have fleas. He had a rash. A bad rash. He looked back down at the ditch and the poison ivy and yanked up his pants, but it was too late. He was already poisoned.