Howdy! Thanks for checking this out. This is a work in progress. It started as a short story, then kept growing. I'm just curious as to if I should keep it up, as it will be rather large upon completion and I have other projects going on...




I opened my third beer, shifted my weight in the lawn chair to keep my left butt cheek from falling asleep, and stared intently at the door to Room 102 of the Inn on the Green. I'd been here for about an hour and only now was the sun creeping slowly upward to clear the chill from the morning air. Traffic from nearby Highway 441 was starting to pick up. This made it increasingly difficult for me to hear Gina as she fucked her latest boyfriend on the other side of the door.

The beer was sliding down my throat quite easily now. I hated what I heard on the other side of that door. I hated sitting here in a beat up lawn chair in a beat up parking lot so close to the road that diesel fumes attacked my every breath. I hated my piece of shit van sitting crookedly in a parking space not fifty feet away. I hated Gina for doing this. I hated today, yesterday, and tomorrow.

And I hated myself most of all. For letting it get this far. For letting it go on so long after I had figured out that Gina was what she was, for not realizing that I couldn't change her. And that she didn't give a shit. And that I didn't either.

Now, sitting outside the hotel room door listening to Gina impale herself on the phallus of her current affection, I wasn't at all surprised to realize that this was it for me. I now had nothing. I, Marty Cooper, could now consider purchasing a one way ticket to Suicide City.
A screaming climax issued from behind the door, followed by laughter. Hers.

I drained the last of my third beer and stared down at the cooler. I wasn't sure why I was here in front of Room 102, nor why I had decided to make today the day of confrontation. But I was suddenly sure that another beer would be good. I reached for the cooler-

And noticed a flick of cloth curtain from the window of Room 102 just before the door flew open and a naked, heavily tattooed, bald mountain of muscle poured through the door like a flood bursting through a dam.

He was on me before I could even think about standing. Hands the size of hams gripped my shirt and neck, heaving me up. The lawn chair clattered to the asphalt behind me.

Naked-Bald-Tattooed-Mountain-Hamfist-Man hauled my face right up to his. I could smell the acrid odor of X on his breath as he spoke through clenched teeth.

"You sick little fuck."

I felt the hand on my neck release and saw it angle up before my eyes. The word "LOVE" was tattooed on his fist, one letter per finger tainted in roughly carved homemade ink. The word got smaller as the fist drew back.

For a split second I considered struggling.

Then LOVE bashed my face in.



After what seemed an eternity, Gina stopped Naked-Bald-Tattooed-Mountain-Hamfist-Man's barrage.

"Stop hitting him, baby."

Her voice was soft, matter-of-fact. She was close by, probably right next to him. I couldn't really tell because the parts of me that weren't in pain didn't seem to be operating properly.
"Sick fuck jerking off to us," said Hamfist.

I got a kick to the ribs as special emphasis to the word "jerking".

"He ain't jerking off," said Gina.

A scrape of feet on asphalt and she was closer.

"He'd have to be a man to jerk off," she said quietly. I felt her hand gently brush my cheek, smelled years of nicotine stain from her fingers.

I heard her stand and move back next to him.

"He's my husband," she said.

"Husband?"

Hamfist's voice was farther away now - possibly just inside Room 102, possibly under water. My mouth tasted like copper and things were getting quite fuzzy.

"I'm sort'a married, baby." The flick of a lighter was the last thing I heard.



I awoke with a splitting headache, a sharp pain in my side, and ears that felt like they were stuffed with pads of butter. My left eye felt swollen, but at least it opened with the other one. Squinting against the sun, I took a look around.

My gaze settled in the near distance, on the candy cane striped mini-tower of the Mount Dora lighthouse. Squatting on a thin point that jutted like a crooked finger into Lake Dora, the lighthouse was a tourist favorite during snowbird season and festivals. A few geese mingled around the base of the lighthouse, squabbling among themselves and honking. I fleetingly hoped they would stay where they were. Mean little fuckers liked to bite.

With a groan I shifted my weight, feeling the rough, city-built brace of a park bench dig into my left butt cheek. My leg bumped into something and I looked down to find my cooler sitting on the ground beside my foot. Slowly, with every creaking movement reminding me of Hamfist, I bent and opened it. Still had ice. Still had beer. Thank God for small favors. Guess Gina wanted to hold on to that lawn chair...

The howl of a speedboat filtered through the distance and I shifted my gaze to see a spray of water arc up behind the craft as it cut through the calm currents. As the sound diminished, I was left with only the gentle sighs of the lake caressing the shore. A mild breeze from off the water kissed my cheek.

I'd somehow gotten from the parking lot of Inn on the Green in Tavares to Gilbert Park in Mount Dora - at least a fifteen-minute drive. In the scheme of things, it wasn't a bad place to be ditched. A hospital might have been better. At least this wasn't too far from the house that I wouldn't be living in for much longer.

Standing proved to be a bit of a problem and upon accomplishing this I realized that my soon-to-be ex-house might be too far away after all. The world swam in my vision and I braced myself against the bench until things stopped moving and the urge to vomit had sunken away. Closing my eyes made things worse, so I opened them again and looked toward the horizon.

It was then that I saw the girl staring at me. She stood at the edge of the water near the lighthouse. A sundress mirroring the color of the lake clung to her slight form. Dark brown hair flowed from beneath a red baseball cap to hang just above her shoulders.

I couldn't see her face clearly. She was too far away. But I could tell she was staring at me by the position of her body, how she stood stock still, how her head remained cocked at a slight tilt.

The temptation to go to her abruptly welled up inside me. Then I realized how I must look - all bruised and swollen from my aborted introduction to Hamfist - and I just waved instead.

And found myself waving at nothing but the lighthouse, the lake, and the mild autumn breeze.



In the five years that I had called it my home, I had found the town of Mount Dora, Florida to be something of an anomaly. Nestled snuggly in Lake County (named - and rightly so - for the over 500 lakes in the region; you could board a boat in Lake Dora and travel all the way to the Atlantic Ocean via these lakes), the town was something of a time capsule. Due to a moratorium on growth, it had managed to escape the aggressive development that swallowed up many tourist locations in Central Florida. Chain restaurants, mega-stores, and clogged veins of highway circled the town, but could not enter. Instead, lush greenery, oaks, palms, and tropical hardwoods combined to house Mount Dora in a semblance of solitude and rendered downtown into a near picture-perfect rendition of Mayberry from the Andy Griffith Show.

This atmosphere made the darker elements of the area all the more disconcerting. A thriving drug culture, a healthy dose of individuals that made the banjo-playing kid from Deliverance appear natural, and an overabundance of mansion-dwelling, pampered snowbirds created quite a juxtaposition of lifestyles. Numerous festivals held in the town merged these elements together into a temporary, yet somehow cohesive, whole. I never tired of watching bejeweled little old ladies in red hats (with purple feathers, no less) slam down beers alongside big-bellied rednecks and leather-clad bikers.

My cooler dangling from one limp arm, I hiked my way past the Mount Dora Marina and up the hill toward the town center. I crossed the railroad tracks and turned by the two-level parking garage to cut down on the distance to my destination. I found I was limping rather badly, my left leg not wanting to cooperate with the right one. My eyes no longer swam in their sockets, though my head still felt like it was stuck in a vise.

I turned left at the train station (a touristy railway car structure that sold tickets to an on-again off-again dinner train) and continued working my way up the slight hill past The Gables Restaurant, a bakery, and a hotdog/launderette combo until I was within sight of the Renaissance building.

At three stories in height, the Renaissance had the dubious distinction of being one of the tallest buildings in Mount Dora proper. A block-like structure coated in fading white paint (some of which had fused to the old windowpanes, effectively gluing them shut), it housed several shops that offered goods ranging from jellybeans to jewelry. But it was the basement that held my destination - and I couldn't think of a better halfway point for my journey to my soon-to-be ex-home.

I crossed a small parking lot and alley, and then limped beneath the swinging wooden sign adorned with The Forres Pub and descended the flight of stairs into darkness.



I stopped and stood about three steps from the floor to let my eyes slowly adjust to the narrow beams of light that cut through narrow, barred windows set at street level in the alley. A large rectangular bar, all teak and brass, dominated the center of the pub, complete with beer taps, pint glasses, and ceramic jars of large dill pickles. Splayed around the bar were tables of different sizes, each decorated with a candle and seasonal flowers. Beyond these was a narrow corridor leading to the bathrooms (the Men's Room had a perpetually broken toilet) and another staircase that led into the center of the Renaissance's first floor. A low ceiling hung menacingly over these, displaying a labyrinth of water and gas lines that fed the entire building.

When busy, the Forres did exactly what it was designed to do: provide a warm, comfortable atmosphere for conversation, good food, and healthy imbibing. When empty - as it stood now - the pub still retained some of that warmth. I had always imagined it to be some sort of residual "fun" from the night before that had somehow lingered in the pipes that coursed along the ceiling.

I loved this place.

Though the Forres wouldn't be open to the public for another hour or so, I felt sure Harrison wouldn't mind having a little company. I realized that it wouldn't matter if he had a problem with my presence or not. I couldn't go farther right now if I tried.
I shuffled over to the bar and dragged out a stool.

"We're not open yet!" The voice came from the small kitchen near the other staircase.

"Just me, Harrison," I said. Wincing, I pulled myself up onto the stool and plopped the cooler on the bar.

"Marty?"

Harrison emerged from the kitchen, his eyes questioning. A handsome, rugged guy in his late-forties, Harrison posed a bit of an enigma for Mount Dora. He showed up about three-years-ago, bought the pub out from under a sweet little Icelandic woman, and settled in. Nobody really knew anything about him except that he had a daughter, was a widower, and owned a house somewhere near or on Lake Dora. Hell, I'd known him for almost two-years and still didn't even know his last name.

"A bit early, isn't it?"

I allowed myself a little smile. It actually didn't hurt. "Not in my universe."

Harrison moved closer, then drew up short. I could tell by his expression that he'd gotten a good look at my face.

"What the hell happened to you?"

"My wife's new fuck happened to me."

I could feel Harrison's dark eyes studying me and found that I could not look up to meet his gaze. An overwhelming sense of shame and self-loathing washed over me. After a moment, he walked behind the bar. I heard the clink of glass sliding on glass.

"Why don't you go to the bathroom and wash up a bit," said Harrison. "I'll be right here when you get back."



The face that stared back at me from the mirror was not my own. Oh, sure, the hair was the same - light brown, and slightly too long, though now quite disheveled and matted. I recognized my right ear (the lobe had been partially bitten off by a beagle when I was but a wee lad of ten). And I recognized my right eye as well; blue to the point of being almost gray. But the rest of my face appeared quite different. It had been... modified.

My left eye, though not entirely swollen shut, threatened to be so soon. The area around the eye sported a bruise of deep purple that overlapped a narrow, vertical slit in my nose. This had scabbed over, but had left a rust-colored stain from the bridge of my nose that had expanded until reaching my left ear. The hair around that ear was matted and sticky. Yep. Marty Cooper was a changed man.

At least all of my teeth had stayed in my head.

Leaning over the sink, I drenched my face. The shock of the cold water sent a dull ache through my head. After using a few paper towels to scrape the dried blood from my face, I checked my reflection again. The image in the mirror had improved, though not drastically. I wet my hands and ran them through my hair, roughly combing it into some semblance of order.

Closing my eyes, I let out a sigh and prepared to walk back to the bar.

Suddenly I could feel each individual drop of water on my face, feel the slight breeze caressing off of the lake, smell the coppery essence of water drifting through the air. And she was there in my mind's eye. The girl from the edge of the water near the lighthouse. The gentle breeze affectionately teased her hair across her face, hiding her eyes from me. But I could sense her still looking across the distance at me. She slowly raised one arm, the delicate fingers of her hand curling to me in a gesture of beckoning.

My brain exploded, searing pain behind my eyes. I staggered backward and fell against the wall. It took a moment for me to realize that the booming in my ears came from the rush of my own heart.

I stood alone in the harsh florescent light of the bathroom, struggling to catch my breath.



A pint of Harp waited for me at the bar. Next to it sat a mug of hot, black coffee. I sat and, after a short internal debate, I picked up the coffee... then decided the beer would be better. Free coffee is one thing-free beer is rare.

"Knew you'd do that," said Harrison. "Figured I'd give you the option anyway."

"Getting the shit kicked out of you makes you thirsty," I said.

"Ah," he said. He moved around the bar to sit beside me.

"So. What happened?"

I broke. When I tried to speak nothing came out. I'd never experienced tears flowing from a swollen eye before.

"It'll be okay," said Harrison. He sighed. "Shit happens to good people. Sometimes really bad shit."

I cradled my head in my hands.

"How did I fuck up so bad? How? We were happy once..."

I glanced at Harrison and was met with an expression of profound misery, an etching of pain and lost promises, a sorrow so complete and dreadful that I had to look away.

"People fuck up," he said quietly. "That's what we do. We always lose the things that we love the most. And no matter how hard we try to get them back, they always stay out of reach. Always."

I felt his hand gently rest on my shoulder.
"But we get by. We move forward and live."

He clapped me on the back and I heard his stool slide away from the bar.

"That's what makes us special. That's what makes us true."

I cried then. Hard, wracking spasms of pain and tears. I rested my head on the bar and let it all go. Suddenly the beer didn't help anymore.



At some point I realized I had turned into a drooling, snot-leaking pathetic mess and I lifted my head from the bar. Self-pity. I hate self-pity-and I couldn't help but think about how good I'd become at it lately... A near professional, I would wager.

Wiping my eyes, I reached for a napkin and gave my nose a good blow.

"Better?" said Harrison.

"A little."

"Good. Can't have you blubbering like a little girl during the lunch rush."

Looking around, I couldn't help but notice that, aside from Harrison and I, the place was empty.

"Yeah... Big rush."

I toppled the rest of my beer in the proper direction, then ordered another.

As Harrison poured I said, "Had something weird happen today."

"No shit. Involve fists?"

"No... no, not that." I worked on trying to find the right words.

"I saw a girl. Then she... I dunno. Was gone."

"What. Like, vanished?" He placed the beer in front of me.

"Poof. Gone. Then... I saw her again. Sort of. In the bathroom."

"My bathroom? Here?"

"Yeah. Only I didn't see her see her. I just... Fuck. I dunno. It was like a dream or something."

Harrison stared at me, his expression a little more intense than I would have expected from my words.

"Where was this?" he said.

"At the lake. By the lighthouse."

Harrison shifted his gaze to somewhere beyond the walls of the pub, his lips pursed in thought.

"Was she wearing a red hat?" he said.

"Yeah. But how-?"

"Stay away from the lake. As far as possible."

"Why? What-?"

"She and I go way back."

He paused, his expression clearly struggling with how much knowledge he wished to part with.

"Ex-girlfriend?" I asked.

"Worse. Far worse."



The walk to my soon-to-be-ex-house wasn't nearly as rough as I had expected. My leg had finally decided to cooperate with the rest of my body, so walking was no longer a serious chore. My eye had swollen shut, but didn't hurt as much as I thought it would. Maybe I'd just gotten used to it.

There was no sign of Gina at the house. Her car had probably returned to the hotel parking lot after dropping me at the lake. I twisted my key in the lock, opened the door, and just stood there for a bit. Though it felt like stalling, it wasn't. My brain was trying to wrap around how much of my shit I should take on this first round of many. And where to take it.

Harrison had been kind enough to offer me sleeping space on his couch, but I had politely declined. He'd done enough for me already. I hated feeling like I owed people-though truth I owed more people than I could ever pay back.

On the flip side, however, I always came through in a pinch for my friends. With that in mind, I knew just who to call.

After dropping the cooler just inside the doorway, I took the few short steps into the kitchen and picked up the phone. I glanced about the area as I dialed. From where I stood I could see part of the living room and into one of the bedrooms. Nothing appeared different from when I had woken up around five A.M. to find myself alone.


************And here's where it stops... LOL. Sorry. Lemme know what you think! Thanks!