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| Channel Three fountain that night |
“They’re both in Mensa, Mary. Not retards, just crazy,” Vincent whispered back as he rolled the baggie back up. “Crazy runs in their families. But they’re crazy in the nice way, Lindsey. I saw Martin trying to get next to you, and earlier he told me you looked like Stevie Nicks. I think he’s really dreamy, don’t you?”
“I do like his pretty blue eyes and blond hair, but I’m saving my stuff for someone like Mick Jagger, maybe, or Patrick McNee.”
“Ew!” Vincent laughed out loud and said in a perfectly loud voice, “They’re older than your parents!” Martin heard Vincent and moved back in to see what Lindsey might have said to Martin.
“Okay, Vincent," she went on with a sigh of indignation. "All’s I know is I’m not gonna be a slut like the Catholic girls, and then raise a child by myself up under some bridge, scroungin’ scraps from the dumpster behind Steak & Ale; oh hell to the no! Maybe I'll hold out for Prince Charles. Those English guys have cool accents, and every last one of 'em is rich."
Vincent thought Lindsey was as dream-stricken as Motsie's Cousin Garnet who always swore she'd marry a price, too, but one who kept her waist-high in pot and never made her leave the house before her royal beauticians had gotten through pampering her into gorgeousness. There was a long space before Lindsey continued out of context, "Plus, I don’t feel all that comfortable hangin' out here with the ghosts of dead Catholic orphans Baptized with an Amway bottle instead of the real way. All that satanic stuff gives me the shivery creeps, y’all.” She darted her eyes from one of them to the other, seeking someone's approval, but Vincent was Episcopalian and Martin was Unitarian, so neither was quite sure what the right way was.
“I wouldn’t let the mother of my child live like that, baby," Martin eventually chimed.
"Vincent is my back-up husband," Lindsey quickly announced to Martin. "Right Vincent?”
Martin ignored her and insisted that he could smell the ghost fire and hear the orphans crying, and Lindsey suddenly felt a cold chill pass through her, pretty sure she really smelled a little smoke, too. There was also a funny sound that didn’t fit with summer insects.
“Maybe it’s a cat?” Lindsey was hopeful, but not very.
Vincent was trying to strike a Blue Tip on his zipper. “I’ll probably remain a confirmed bachelor, but we’ll always be friends. First I want to get a college degree in something. Are you going to college, Martin?”
“Oh, hell no, not yet anyway. I was thinking of heading up to the mountains to Penland, play in the mud and make some pottery. Ashtrays and bongs. And take up the banjo, haha!” Martin had just been handed the bong out of turn, universal signal to shut up for a minute. He thrust it back to Vincent's hand and went over to try to crawl into the broken window after Motsie. He dangled there for a minute, Vincent’s eyes on his behind and Lindsey’s eyes on Vincent’s profile.
“Gyah, Vincent. I just assumed we’d eventually end up together, Lindsey hissed, starting low but her volume rising gradually with growing fury, "I can’t believe you just dissed me like that in front of 'lover-boy'. It’s not like you have anything better planned; Motsie’s a nut-case, and you said yourself that that slutty Micheline practically forced herself on you, and that she had way too much pussy juice! I mean, you said! I’m not sayin’ anything, or anything, Vincent, but I mean, I’m just sayin’. You said!”
Vincent gagged on a hit and coughed smoke out his nostrils. Martin came back over from the window and told Lindsey he’d walk her back around front like a true Southern gentleman, offering Lindsey his arm which she ignored, and Vincent followed behind them holding the blue lucite bong like a standard. Martin dared to put his arm around Lindsey, gently guiding her around the corner of the building, glancing over their shoulders at Vincent and then leaned in to whisper, “There’s just no such thing as too much, baby.”
“Oh my God!” Lindsey wrenched free of Martin, sudden;y aware he'd heard her remark to Vincent. She froze a second before whimpering, “I smell brimstone and sulphur... it's the ghostly smoke, y’all, And I don’t mean the weed; that was way back there.”
Vincent dramatically whiffed the air with his eyes closed. “I only smell sandalwood, Lindsey." He clearly was savoring an aroma. "It’s Martin’s soap. Delicious, Martin!”
Martin slid nearer to Lindsey, and Vincent slid nearer him, but Lindsey slid right up next to Vincent, so they were all huddled under a huge oak between the front windows and the patch of dirt and sparse grass where sat the Jeep, cutting their eyes back and forth and wondering who should say something. Suddenly, they all laughed at the same time and spread apart again.
Vincent passed the bong to Lindsey and loaded the bowl out of Motsie’s stash baggie. He got out the Blue Tips to give her a light, and Martin stood right next to her, scanning from the front door to the side door for Motsie
Lindsey felt him against her side and instinctively looked at his face, and followed his gaze to the window. She had her lungs full of weed smoke, but she yelped and saw the same ghostly apparition Martin saw in the front window. She huddled next to him now as Vincent begged them to tell him “What? What?”
It seemed like an eternity they waited behind the giant oak, barely speaking above whispers, searching the entire facade for some sign of poor Motsie, trapped within, probably dead, possibly being tortured by ghosts, maybe even halfway to hell already in the devil’s hand-basket.
There were sudden cries from deep inside, followed by slapping and then the side door exploded as two dark creatures flew out into the night like vampires, practically knocking Lindsey down as they passed, and disappeared among the trees lining Crybaby Lane.
That was all Lindsey needed to see; in about one second she was in the driver’s seat and starting that Jeep whether she knew how to change gears or not. Martin leaped into the passenger seat and Vincent swooped onto his lap, no time for formalities like climbing over to the back. Even the car must have been scared; it had never peeled off before. Then it also had its first epileptic seizure, as Lindsey missed the sweet-spot where clutch and accelerator kiss during shifts, but they still made it the couple of blocks to Channel Three in seconds flat.
There was some arguing over there under the bright lights of the parking area, regarding the fact they had left Motsie. Vincent and Martin were both pretty insistent that they ought to go back. Lindsey pointed out that someplace in the Bible Jesus had said to turn your back on Satan and all his ilk, or possibly his minions, she couldn’t remember the words or the exact verse for sure. What she did know was that it had been Motsie who had decided to do the whole Scooby-Doo thing.
“Y’all better come get born again in this fountain so we can be saved!” Dead serious. she hopped right in over the low wall and sat in the shallow pool, showered by she spray.
Martin followed Lindsey right into the water, and Vincent didn’t waste any time behind Martin, but both boys nagged Lindsey on and on about going back for Motsie. Lindsey didn't want to get out of the Jeep over there again, and they agreed she could even drive. Martin and Vincent made a plan to perch in the door opening, scanning for hide or hair of Motsie, and snag her on the fly. Lindsey would hardly even need to slow down.
Even with all that, Lindsey thought it was unwise to tramp back through that ill-fated Crybaby Lane, and resisted going back to look for Motsie. Still haunted by the devilish figured who'd brushed by them, and exhausted from arguing, they all sat dumbly in the fountain facing the orphanage, separated only be their thoughts. Vincent and Martin felt pretty strongly that they should probably go back for Motsie. Martin hated to look chicken in front of Lindsey. Vincent wasn't about to go back alone, or without Vincent, anyway, but If Martin made the first move, he'd follow along. As far as Lindsey was concerned, though, she was sorry she'd ever come out with these nuts, that she'd even gone to see Five Points High’s graduation, and most of all, that she hadn't stayed at home watching Love Boat and Fantasy Island with her parents and some handy firearms, safe from whatever spooks might lurk about in Cottondale; if crazy ol' Motsie got carried off by the devil, then it was her own damn fault.
