Grouper's Laws

by D. Philip Miller

  Blondie heard thunder in the distance.

  “It’s going to rain,” Blondie repeated.

  “It can’t rain. It’ll ruin my pictures.”

  Soon, it was so dark Blondie could no longer see Dispatch at all. Dispatch pulled a flashlight from the pocket of his hunting jacket and switched it on. The beam shot straight up and turned his face into a Jack-o-Lantern.

  “You look like hook man now,” Blondie said. “Why don’t you put that on the ground?”

  Dispatch leaned the flashlight against a tree.

  “I’m freezing,” Blondie said.

  “You’re cold? Why didn’t you say so? I’ve got a turtleneck in my inside pocket.”

  Dispatch pulled a brown turtleneck from his jacket. It fit Blondie like a corset, but it helped.

  Soon Blondie heard a thousand tiny drums beating. Rain. The first drop landed on the end of Blondie’s nose, the second on the top of his left ear. After that, he couldn’t tell. It was a real gusher.

  Dispatch put his hood up. He looked like a sorcerer.

  “You’ll scare Meryl to death if you creep up on her like that,” Blondie told him.

  Soon, the turtleneck Dispatch had given him was soaked. Blondie’s hair was plastered down on his forehead. Rivulets of rainwater ran from his scalp into his eye sockets, then under his nose and into his mouth. Blondie stamped his feet up and down to warm up, knocking the flashlight over. It went out.

  Dispatch felt around in the dark until he found it. Blondie heard him click the switch. Nothing.

  “That’s the end of that,” Dispatch said.

  “What if they don’t come? How are we going to find my car in the dark?”

  “We can always follow the road.”

  “Yeah, but will we see the turnoff?”

  “Don’t worry. Shakes will show up. He knows we’re out here.”

  Blondie thought he heard a noise in the woods. His heart banged against his collarbone.

  “Did you hear that?” he asked Dispatch.

  “Hear what?”

  “It sounded like steps.”

  “Maybe it was the hook man,” Dispatch said.

  “Come off it, Dispatch, that’s not funny.”

  There was a crash and the sound of trees splintering. The whole forest lit up. Blondie gasped when he saw a face loom from the dark.

  “Keep cool, Blondie, I’m not the hook man,” Dispatch said.

  Huge rolls of thunder rumbled through the woods. Now and then jagged bolts of electricity ripped the night.

  “What if a tree falls on us?” Blondie asked.

  “What if we get hit by a runaway subway?”

  Blondie granted that Dispatch had a point. He was acting wimpy. He resolved to keep his mouth shut and die quietly and nobly of whatever dangers stalked them. After interminable wet moments, a shaft of light appeared.

  “Here comes a car,” Dispatch said. “Let’s hope it’s Shakes.”

  Dispatch crept closer to the road. The grill of the P-mobile emerged from the downpour like the toothy grin of great white about to snack on a swimmer. Blondie had never been so happy to see it.

  The road had turned into a quagmire and when Shakes tried to stop, the P-mobile slid another twenty feet. It stopped on the edge of the steep decline.

  “Okay, now we listen for the signal,” Dispatch instructed.

  “Are you crazy? We can’t hear anything but rain and thunder.”

  “You’re right. We’ll have to guess when they’re getting it on.”

  “How are we going to figure that out?”

  “Well, let’s think. How long does it take a guy to pull down a girl’s pants and get his dork out?”

  “You gotta leave time for foreplay,” Blondie pointed out.

  “With Meryl? Foreplay for her is undoing her garter belt.”

  The P-mobile’s inside light came on. Now, Blondie and Dispatch could see Shakes and Meryl, though the cascading rain blurred their images.

  “Shakes is smarter than I thought,” Dispatch said.

  Shakes held up a quart bottle of beer and gave it to Meryl.

  “What’s he doing?” Dispatch grumped. “He doesn’t have to get her drunk. Doesn’t he realize it’s raining?”

  Shakes and Meryl passed the bottle back and forth for about ten minutes. Then, both their heads disappeared.

  “The trap is sprung,” Dispatch said with satisfaction.

  The car starting rocking.

  “Okay, watch the window,” Dispatch commanded. “Watch for a foot.”

  “With socks or without?”

  “Be serious, will you? My life is on the line.”

  There was a movement against the window.

  “Was that his foot?” Dispatch asked.

  “I don’t know. It happened too fast.”

  “What do you think? Should we charge them?”

  “Why not? You first.”

  Dispatch jumped from the bushes and rushed the P-mobile. As he reached it, he slipped and slid on his back halfway under the car.

  Meryl’s head popped up, then Shakes’. They were both buck-naked as far as Blondie could tell. He retreated into the bushes.

  Shakes rolled down the window. The raucous sounds of Palisades Park blared out into the night, then the radio switched off.

  Meryl’s trembling voice sailed on the wind. “Who’s there?”

  “I’m t-telling y-you, there’s n-no one out there,” Shakes reassured her.

  “This is where the hook man hangs out. I asked you not to bring me here,” Meryl complained.

  “I had to.”

  “What do you mean you had to?”

  “I m-mean it’s wh-where I always t-take a new l-lover,” Shakes adlibbed.

  “Oh, Shakes, you’re so sweet. I wish I could get Dispatch to be as romantic.”

  “Let’s g-go b-back to what we w-were d-doing,” Shakes said.

  Blondie could tell from Shakes’ tone of voice that he was not without enthusiasm for his task.

  “Look out the window first and make sure it’s all right. Don’t you have a flashlight?”

  “There’s one in the g-glove c-compartment.”

  Soon, a beam of light shot from the window. Blondie ducked lower into the bushes.

  Just before Shakes pulled the flashlight back into the car, he looked down. His eyes rose from their sockets when he saw Dispatch’s face staring up at him from the mud.

  “AIEEE!”

  “What? What is it?” Meryl cried in alarm.

  “N-nothing,” Shakes said, recovering. “I j-just h-hit my wrist against the d-door.”

  “You didn’t see anything, did you?”

  “Of c-course n-not. Even the hook m-man w-wouldn’t come out on a night l-like this.”

  “I thought you said there wasn’t any hook man.”

  “J-just k-kidding.”

  “If you’re sure there’s no hook man, let’s turn the light off. It’s more romantic in the dark.”

  The window rolled back up and the light went off. The P-mobile faded into the gloom.

  Blondie heard Dispatch fumbling around in the mud.

  “The flash bulb fell out,” he whispered to Blondie. Then, a minute later, “I got it.”

  There was enough light in the roadway for Blondie to see Dispatch rise by the front of the car. The interior exploded in light as Dispatch released the shutter on the Brownie. Meryl screamed.

  Branded on the back of Blondie’s mind was the image of Shakes’ face. He’d been looking out the window as the flash had popped. He was still looking out at the night, blinded when Dispatch took another shot. Shakes began yelling, his voice muffled until he remembered to roll the window down.

  “You d-dumb s-son of a b-bitch!” he shouted at Dispatch.

  Meryl had never quit screaming.

  “It’s the hook man!” she repeated over and over.

  “Wh-where are y-you,
you d-dork? You blinded m-me.”

  “Calm down, Shakes,” Dispatch said. “I’m right in front of you.” “Darrel!” Meryl yelled.

  A booming maniacal laugh drowned out the sound of the storm.

  “Heh, heh, heh. I got you now, you cheating Jezebel. Got you right in the act with my best friend. And to think I trusted you.”

  Meryl switched on the overhead light and shrieked again.

  Dispatch’s face and body were covered with mud, his hair clumped together in frightful formations … a slime monster.

  “God d-damn, D-dispatch,” Shakes said, “you l-look like the C-creature from the Bl-black L-lagoon.

  “You scared me,” Meryl accused him.

  “Heh, heh, heh. You haven’t seen the worst of it yet. I got you right here on film. Committing adultery with my friend. It’s Splitsville now.”

  “What’re you talking about?” Meryl asked.

  “I’m talking divorce. I’m talking freedom.”

  Dispatch opened the back door and jumped in the P-mobile.

  “Shit, l-look what you’re d-doing to the s-seat!” Shakes exclaimed.

  “It’s my fucking car, isn’t it?”

  Blondie listened to them quarrel through the open window, debating whether to join them. Even the rain might be better than sitting in a car with two nudey loonies and a mud man.

  “You never said you wanted a divorce,” Meryl whined.

  “Well, I didn’t until I found out what you’ve been doing behind my back,” Dispatch said with as much umbrage as he could muster.

  Meryl stared at him for a moment longer and then began to giggle. She laughed so hard she rolled over on Dispatch, pinning him to the seat.

  “Oh, Darrel, no one will believe you just happened to be out here with a camera. Anyway, you only got our faces.”

  “I did? Well, let me get another shot.”

  Dispatch reached into his pocket for a flash bulb. By the time he put it in the camera, Meryl had donned her skirt and was holding her blouse in front of her chest.

  “Go ahead, take your picture. People will wonder why your buddy was sitting around naked with your wife.”

  Dispatch squeezed off another shot.

  As if a corresponding light had gone off in her head, Meryl turned toward Shakes.

  “You were in on this all along, weren’t you?”

  Shakes looked away.

  “I’m g-getting d-dressed,” he announced, reaching for his jeans.

  “You didn’t really want to make love with me, did you?”

  For a minute, Blondie thought Meryl was going to cry.

  Ah shit, he told himself, and wandered out of the bushes. It was just too fucking miserable to hold back any longer.

  “Blondie!” Meryl gasped.

  She looked at Dispatch.

  “Did you ask all your friends?”

  “I needed a witness.”

  “You’re so dumb for being so smart, Darrel. None of this is going to get you anywhere.”

  “We’ll see,” Dispatch said, sticking to his guns.

  “Can I get in?” Blondie asked. “I’m freezing.”

  “Sorry, Blondie,” Dispatch said. He slid over on the back seat. Blondie sat down on a film of mud.

  For a moment, they all looked at each other, as if they were four strangers in a lifeboat. Then, Blondie felt a slight shift beneath them.

  “Oh shit!” Dispatch yelled.

  “Wh-what is it?” Shakes cried.

  “We’re moving.”

  “That’s n-not p-possible,” Shakes argued. “I’ve got it in park.”

  “You parked too close to the edge of the hill!” Dispatch shouted at him.

  “I p-parked j-just where you t-told me to, d-damn it,” Shakes yelled back.

  Blondie rubbed his eyes. It couldn’t be true. He wasn’t sitting in a car with three total idiots sliding down a steep grade at the end of Fishers Lane. But he knew better. He also knew nothing could stop them from sliding all the way to the bottom — and, worse, that Dispatch would never be able to drive the P-mobile back up the slippery slope.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  America’s blonde goddess Marilyn Monroe was dead, overdosed on sleeping pills at the age of 36. The country was in shock. Blondie didn’t know what to make of it. It was as if her death had called into question the American dream.

  More upsetting to Blondie was a short announcement on the back page of The Mayhew Courier. It was an obituary notice for an Arnold Pulaski, age 23, who’d been shot by a sniper near the village of Tan An 20 miles southwest of Saigon. Mountain had been “in-country,” as Blondie had heard the expression on television, for just six days.

  Mountain was dead. But the marriage of Dispatch lived on. According to the Grouper, who’d accompanied Dispatch to court, the judge had termed Dispatch’s petition for divorce “farcical and impertinent” before delivering his unfavorable verdict.

  “Well, there could be worse things than being married to Meryl,” Dispatch said to Grouper and Blondie a couple days later.

  Blondie and Grouper just stared at him.

  “Couldn’t there be?” Dispatch pleaded.

  Frank Sinatra had sung that “love and marriage went together like a horse and carriage,” but Blondie was beginning to wonder. Maybe they weren’t as closely related as he’d thought. He didn’t like to reflect on that. If love and marriage weren’t slices of the same pie, maybe his love for her was no guarantee they’d make it in marriage — as if getting together with her was any more than the wildest pipedream in the first place.

  It was ridiculous for him to even think about her. He hadn’t seen her since graduation day. Anyway, he was still involved with Flossie, although he’d begun experiencing an edginess when he was around her. He realized he’d felt a similar feeling before, always when something was about to come to an end. He could recall several times, even before his father told them he’d been reassigned, when he’d already begun letting go of his friends. Perhaps it was the sixth sense of an army brat who’d moved every year or two.

  The following evening, with Flossie, he felt that old sensation. They were on the sofa in their family room watching television. Flossie acted skittish whenever he tried to get close.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “Will we still be going together when you’re at college?”

  Blondie hadn’t thought they were “going together” now. He preferred to think of their relationship as steady dating rather than going steady, although he wasn’t sure anyone else would grasp the distinction.

  “It would be selfish of me to keep you from dating other guys,” Blondie answered magnanimously. He’d been expecting the question.

  She returned a skeptical look.

  “Are you going to date other girls?”

  “That’s part of going to college … meeting new people.”

  “Sleeping with them?”

  Blondie shrugged. What did she expect him to say? He was beginning to feel lousy.

  She eased his hand from her thigh.

  “That’s no reason to change what we have,” Blondie said.

  “With everyone else I’ve ever known, I’ve accepted them dating other girls. No matter how I felt about it, I always made it okay. I can’t do that with you.”

  She seemed small, shy, frightened, loving. The look in her eyes tore at his heart. She truly cared about him. He’d known all along.

  He let his eyes meet hers. What could he do? Flossie was nice-looking, but not beautiful like Tammy. And she wasn’t college material. She might even love him, but what future did they have?

  “Well, I guess that’s it then,” he said.

  Why did he feel so guilty? So low? She was the one calling it off, wasn’t she? When tears came to her eyes, he had to look away.

  After he’d taken her home, he felt a hole in his heart — and his ego. For months, Flossie had been there to reas
sure him he was someone desirable, someone special. How could he let go of that? But how could he go on, stringing her along, knowing the inevitability of their parting. He told himself he’d done the noble thing.

  Loneliness assailed him the next morning. Blondie knew he could sink into the worst kind of self-pity if he couldn’t get rid of it. He needed to share his misery and he knew Grouper wouldn’t be sympathetic. Instead, he called Feller and arranged a bull session at the quarry.

  He knew he’d made a wise choice when, as the beers were going down, Feller agreed with his decision.

  “I’m in the same boat with Delores,” Feller said. “I just don’t want to cut my water off before I can get in with some sweet co-ed.”

  Blondie didn’t like hearing it that way. It sounded too cold. But wasn’t that what he’d been thinking?

  “We’re still together on Smith-Reid, right?” Blondie asked him.

  “Blood brothers to the end,” Feller answered.

  Blondie felt a little loopy driving Feller back to his house. He thought maybe that was why he was being so paranoid. He could swear he and Feller were being followed. He’d first noticed the car near the shopping mall after they’d turned onto the main road. It had been too dark to get the make, but it wasn’t hard to spot — one of its headlights was out.

  The car followed the Dart all the way through town, duplicating the one turn he made. Blondie told himself it was a coincidence. Just to make sure, though, he made a sharp turn onto Maidenspring Lane a couple miles from Feller’s house. Not many people went down it at night.

  “Where are you going?” Feller asked.

  “I think we’re being followed,” Blondie said.

  Feller turned just as the one-eyed auto turned onto the road behind them.

  “It’s missing a headlight.”

  “Yeah.”

  Feller strained to discern the car’s make, but he finally told Blondie it was too dark. It didn’t matter. Blondie knew what the car would be: a 1959 black Buick, with upswept tail fins like a bird on the wing … a dark raven sweeping along behind them, bringing doom.

  “It’s Potter,” Blondie said dismally.

  Moreover, his ploy to see if they were being followed now struck him as extremely ill advised. Each revolution of the Dart’s wheels was taking them further and further from the relative safety of Fenton — and in only a few miles Maidenspring Lane dead-ended at a deserted farm.