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Beef Matson Archive - Chapter 9

© 2004 Rick Chris
Illustrations and photos ©2004 Rick Chris

Chapter 8 - Little Orphan Randy

The morning was dark and rainy as Beef Matson entered the Harvey Milk Professional Building. Once in the lobby he paused a second to turn down the up turned collar on his jacket and unzipped it a bit. In spite of the weather the lobby was lively with people’s voices and footsteps. Walking across the lobby to the door for the staircase, a man’s voice called out to the detective. “Hey buddy…bud…hey big guy. Got a proposition for you.” Ignoring the man, Matson continued walking and the man called out again. “Got a way to solve the problem of your boy assistant for you. You know, get him off your hands and out of your life.” Matson turned to face the man, a nondescript individual around five foot eight inches tall with a medium build. Matson responded to the man impassively. “What do you have in mind?”

The man continued energetically, attempting to sell his proposal to Beef. “Some very important people suggested that I contact you…you know, solve this problem that you’ve been having, get rid of this embarrassment, get you out of the newspapers and the media. You might know one of these people…his name is Bill and he has a very important wife.”
“…And the problem is?”
“Your little gay assistant, “ continued the man, “and his…ah…little boy problem.”
“What exactly is your proposal?” responded Beef coldly.
“Well, we turn your little buddy straight. He gets a wife, has a kid…badda boom, badda bing. Everybody sees that he’s cured, he’s a devoted husband, father…they forget about the molestation charges…it becomes ancient history.”
“How are you going to go about turning him straight?”
”No problem there…I work with this church…they have these scientific principles for turning people straight. They have conversion techniques…and they have proven track record.”
“Like how are you going to get the kid to agree to go along with the program? I’ve heard this before…” the detective began to turn away.
“No, no…listen…this is how it works. I’ll explain it all,” persisted the man with an aggressive sales pitch. “Here’s the deal, see. The guy doesn’t have to be willing. My people tell me they even prefer it if the guy isn’t willing. Sometimes it’s a case where the person wants to go straight to advance their career or sometimes somebody wants somebody else to go straight because…you know, they are considered an embarrassment or a political liability…you know…something like that. What we do with a gay guy like your little friend is to just grab him and take him off somewhere to isolation. Then the dude is stuffed full of drugs…crack or coke or something…even some booze.” The man giggled a nasty little laugh. “Man, we’ll have the kid just flying!” The man noticed Matson’s emotionless expression and continued. “Well…” the man cleared his throat, “that’s to make him more receptive. Then we bring in some women…you know, one or two babes. We strip your little friend naked and toss him in a room with the women. We force him into some heavy X-rated heterosexual action…I mean have these babes do everything to him…heavy on the kink. Big femdom scene, you know!” The man began to break into another laugh until he noticed the detective’s stone faced expression. “Uh…well…that’s to get him interested in women and focused on normal sex…that’s the reinforcement side. Then we get into the negative side. The guy gets hooked up to some electrical current and has the hell zapped out of him every time he’s show some pictures of gay sex. Oh, you should see these guys scream and squirm, their butts shaking all over the place. A gay guy like yourself could probably get off watching something like that.” The man giggled and shook a bit himself until he glanced at the unsmiling face of Beef Matson.

“Does your assistant have a boyfriend?“ asked the man.
“He did…”
“Another thing we do is show the guys a picture of their boyfriend and shock the ever-loving hell out of them. Every time we show these guys their boyfriends photo, we pour the juice on until their freakin’ gonads just about fall off. Man, we won’t lay off until we get the poor bastard screaming he hates his boyfriend.” The man giggled again, inhaling deeply every time he laughed. “Afterwards, the guy can say he suddenly realized that he’s bisexual, but the real truth is we washed every last bit of the homo stuff out of their heads. What we’ve really done is go inside their minds and do some extensive remodeling…you might say we kind of bulldozed the place.” The man heaved another laugh. “Of course afterward, he gets paired off with a woman who’ll take a rolling pin to his head and do some more surgery if he looks at another man.”

“Ok, so you have your fun with the kid, “ replied the detective coldly, “Outside of getting my assistant out of my hair…what am I supposed to get out of this?”
“There’s money in it…” said the man, quickly snapping his head like a lizard.
“How so?”
“We videotape these conversion sessions…people will pay to see this stuff.”
“Who would want to watch something like that?”
“Women, man…you’d be surprised man. Straight women, mostly middle aged, but we get all ages. Man, you’d be surprised who these women are…exec types…even politicians. Some of these ladies…oh boy, they tout their family values, but bring on the kinky gay boy vid, they got no problem with that. They really get off on seeing some cute gay guy tortured and shocked and forced to have sex with a woman. For these women, it’s like a watching a rape flick…you know, forcing some guy to have sex with somebody he doesn’t want to and then afterward when they hear that the guy has wife and a kid…they get all warm and fuzzy knowing that they actually saw the fag get converted. Man, these women love these videos…they’re all screaming and laughin’ when we show them some gay dude in agony. In this one video, we had this femdom chick impale this guy with a huge…”
“How in the hell would you distribute something like this without getting your ass sued off?” interrupted Matson.
“Oh, we don’t make copies, “answered the man innocently, “We just do private showings.”
“Private showings?”
“Oh yeah…these gals have a great little network. They contact each other, we arrange for private showings in different cities and we take their money and show them the flick. Some good money in this. We don’t make no copies…maybe just one or two. Might send an extra copy to a woman in another part of the country to make a round of some different cities. But that’s all. No, we don’t go through no video stores or nothing like that. This is more like, you know…a Tupperware party.”
“Hmm…” muttered Beef, beginning to look elsewhere.
“This is a good thing, shamus, “ insisted the man, “This’ll remove a lot of grief from your life…I just saw on the news how some guy pulled a knife on you. That sort of stuff won’t stop until you get your little friend out of your life. You’ll get a lot of brownie points with a lot of important people if your assistant went straight.”
“The thing is, Ron,” replied Beef Matson, “I just wouldn’t want to join you at the bottom of the cess pool.”
”Hey look bud, let me…” the man paused, realizing something, “Wait a minute, I didn’t tell you my name.”
“No, you didn’t. I already know your name. You’re Ronald Michael Punko, alias Ron the Punk, alias Fast Ronnie, alias Ron the Mole, Ron the Mule and you use Webster Paddington on the Internet for your spamming schemes.”
The man let out a quick laugh. “Sounds like you’re investigating me.”
“No…not anymore. That was months ago. I was doing some work on behalf of one of your former ‘clients’…but my work for him is finished. Gave him all the information he needed.”
The man let out a quick, abbreviated laugh and apparently couldn’t think of anything to say, standing motionless with an incredulous smile on his face. Finally he thought of something to say. “I was just offering you a way out…”
As Beef Matson turned and walked towards the door, which led to the stairwell, he called back to the man, altering his voice. “That’s all for now, Ronald. However, this time I won’t be talking to you later.”
The man smiled quizzically. The detective sounded exactly like some middle-aged woman and the voice sounded familiar to him. Where had he heard that voice before? The door to the stairwell slammed as the Matson disappeared behind it. Ronald thought again. He had heard that voice on the phone…yes, that was it. He recognized that voice from some phone conversations he had…a woman he had sent some videotapes to. Suddenly, Ronald’s heart sank. “Geez…” he muttered aloud, “Oh geez!” The man quickly turned around and shuffled his way to the exit.

*********
"Season’s greetings to you, too…and to all of your wonderful offspring…who will probably all turn out to be serial killers."

Berry Starr sat in her car in a line of traffic waiting to exit the shopping mall parking lot. Berry felt accomplished. She had arrived early at the mall and managed to get a number of items on her Christmas shopping list, a few things for Bobbi, something for her mother and even a few things for her house guests, which were now carefully stashed inside the car trunk. She was very pleased with herself, the morning had worked out so well. However, as she waited in the long line of cars, her lack of a breakfast was beginning to catch up with her. She had been able to fly through most of the morning on just the piece of toast and a cup of coffee she had for breakfast. Now she began to feel a gnawing sense of hunger and knew if she didn’t eat something soon, she would probably feel wasted most of the afternoon. She probably would feel crabby as well and Bobby would nag her about being grumpy. There was more than likely something truly wonderful to eat at home. The refrigerator was chuck full of all sorts of delights that Bobbi had been preparing for the holidays, it was like they were preparing to entertain a group of foreign dignitaries. The problem was, the line of cars she was stuck in did not seem to be moving at all and with all the traffic on the streets, Berry didn’t know how long it would be before she did get home.

One minor blessing was an audio CD that Randy had sent her in the mail. It was a spare CD from Randy’s collection that he decided to send her instead of packing. The CD was a collection of vintage disco music, which Berry loved, and some of the tracks even had a Christmas theme, which had the woman rocking in her seat and occasionally singing along. Looking in her rear view mirror, Berry suddenly spotted three empty parking spaces, side by side, a short distance behind her on the opposite side of the traffic drive. Berry thought for a few seconds and then suddenly decided to use one of the spaces to park the car and head back to the mall and the food court. There were no cars coming down the drive so Berry quickly made a U-turn and coasted down the drive to the empty spaces. As she slowed to turn into a parking space, a car horn suddenly blared behind her. There was a car behind her, which had apparently speeded into the parking lot, and Berry, slowing down to turn into the parking space, was an apparent irritation to the driver. The driver tailgated Berry and blared on her horn. The woman then impulsively pulled around Berry, leaned over as she sped passed and displayed her finger to Berry while mouthing unheard obscenities. “Oh…ooo,” said Berry, gripping the steering wheel. “And a just a…totally wonderful…season’s greetings to you, too…” she muttered out loud, “and to all of your wonderful offspring…who will probably all turn out to be serial killers.”

Soon Berry found herself in the food court of the mall. She found the food court to be not very festive in the holiday sense. The court was flooded with fluorescent lighting, which lent a bland feeling to the place. It was an hour and a half before lunch but there were already lines at the restaurants in the court. Berry decided she would just get something to tide her over for the trip home and chose the shortest line.

Berry was unaware that she had been tailed and was now being watched by a woman in the food court. The woman walked up to Berry, stood behind her and began to engage her in conversation. Berry was cheerful and cordial to the woman and then the woman began to steer the conversation to a discussion of pornography. The woman told Berry she had bought a book about pornography and it contained what she considered very disturbing sadomasochistic images of women, which she described in detail. Berry was puzzled as to why this woman would be sharing this with her; it was certainly putting a damper on her holiday spirit. The woman insisted on continuing to describe the imagery and then began to ask Berry her opinions on such images and erotic images in general. Berry noticed that some of the questions seemed to be loaded questions and each time the woman asked her one, she would lean forward a bit, pointing a corsage that she was wearing towards Berry.

Berry suddenly realized what was going on. The woman was obviously wearing a microphone and recording her replies, probably an attempt to embarrass or discredit her at some later date. The lawyer blurted out loudly, “I don’t appreciate your descriptions of sadomasochistic sex…I find it very disturbing that you need to walk up to a stranger in a shopping mall and describing the books you have on sadomasochism. You do need to keep your interests to yourself.” Making a point of speaking into the woman’s corsage, Berry added a few more words before walking to another line. “I do not like having strangers touch me, either.”

Not being able to reply before Berry had walked away, the woman slowly turned to see an army of staring eyes directed at her from all directions. Putting one hand over her face, the woman then briskly walked out of the food court.

A short time later, Berry was in her car munching a meal of chicken nuggets and French fries she got from the food court. Traffic had cleared and she was on her way home with the audio CD blaring a song by Rick Astley. Berry sang along, “Never gonna say goodbye, never gonna eat pizza pie!”

*********
"You’re just perfect the way you are. Just absolutely damned perfect."

After his encounter with Ronald Punko, Beef arrived at his office to find Randy already at work doing some word processing Matson had left for him. The encounter with Punko had left the detective in a sour mood. Randy briefly swiveled in his chair, wished his boss a good morning and turned back again to the computer and resumed typing. Matson stood and stared at his assistant, remembering Punko’s suggestions regarding Randy. Not hearing the sound of Beef going into his office, Randy turned around again to find his employer staring intently at him. “Uh-oh,” said Matson’s assistant, “What’d I do now?” Matson erased his firm expression in favor of a slight smile. “No…” he said gently, “Nothing to do with you…just some jerk I talked to in the lobby.”
“Anybody I know?”
“No…this was somebody you wouldn’t want to meet.”
Matson turned his glance in the direction of his office and then suddenly looked back at Randy. He rolled a chair over to Randy’s desk. Instead of sitting down, Beef put one foot on the seat of the chair and held on to the back and proceeded to speak with Randy. “I should probably tell you a little bit about where I’m at with your case. Pretty close to a breakthrough…but it will probably put your extended family…you know, that Sharon and her family…in a pretty bad light. I want you to know that you’re not responsible for any of this. From what I’m finding out, Sharon’s been very close to getting herself into a lot of hot water for a long time. So whatever comes to light…you should realize that she has to take responsibility for her own actions. It’s just ironic that her effort to make problems for you might turn around and make a lot of problems for her.”

“I always suspected that there were a lot of things going on with Sharon and her family,“ admitted Randy. “I never found out anything specific. I just heard about stuff like stolen property and drugs and so on. But the way that everybody in that family always yelled at me…I got to feeling that I was the bad guy and they were the holy ones. So funny. They were kind of abusive towards their kids and I was always trying in my own little way to protect their kids…and then I was the one who ended up being accused of hurting them. I was trying to be the catcher in the rye. That’s really funny.” Randy looked away a moment, took a short breath and looked back at Beef.

“When Sharon would drink she could get pretty nasty…you know, violent. One night I decided to stand up to her. Big mistake. She kicked the crap out of me. I felt so bad afterward…emotionally; I mean…that I let her do that and that it didn’t even bother her to do that to me. I guess I still regarded Sharon and her family as my family…just because I didn’t have anything else. No family of my own…nothing. I guess I felt that I didn’t really deserve anything better than a family like that.”

“Randy…” replied Beef softly, “Whether you realize it or not, you have built a family here, your friends…our little cast of characters in the building. You will continue to build your family. What you need to do is discard something that never was.” Matson then released the chair, telling Randy he needed to do some work. As he walked towards the door of his office, Beef thought of Ron Punko again and Punko’s suggestion’s regarding his assistant. The detective stopped, turned and gazed at his assistant for a bit until Randy looked up, puzzled. Another smile broke on the detective’s face. “Randy,” he smiled, “Don’t ever let anybody tell you that you should be something other than what you are. You’re just perfect the way you are. Just absolutely damned perfect.” Matson gruffly turned away, headed into his office and closed the door behind him. Randy slowly turned back to the computer. “I suppose some day I will find out what that was all about,” he said quietly to himself.

*********
"…it’s so beautiful…God had answered his prayers."

Gloria’s teammates, Amber and Heidi sat facing her desk, in their chairs fidgeting. It was another morning briefing and Gloria appeared to be in a sullen, quiet mood. Gloria spoke. “Well, the paintball incident certainly turned out to be a fiasco. Fortunately, this time I was allowed to coordinate things and insisted that our people use third parties to contact those street gang types and our association with the matter will not able to be traced back to us. We should look upon the positive aspects of the failure, because of that policeman getting shot; we stirred up great public sympathy for the police. There was such an overreaction to the whole incident…don’t you think? The way that policeman wailed just because he was shot in his…male area…what a show he wanted to put on. Men are much more tolerant of pain than women are…so I don’t know what his problem was. Of course, this being San Francisco, he probably was a homosexual.”

“That homeless woman who grabbed me…my dear! I think I had to take three showers before I removed her smell from me. You did smell how badly she reeked? That’s why I insisted we head to a dry cleaner right away so I could drop my coat off for cleaning. My dear…goodness only knows what…creepy crawly things she was infected with. Again, I seriously do not know why we do not put the homeless into camps and put them somewhere where they are not a nuisance and just out of sight. Or perhaps they could be used in some way. This country was built on slavery and indentured servitude; I don’t know why we can’t put those concepts to use again. Those people could be cleaned up a little and put to some use…yard work or running errands or something. I know personally, how overworked I am…I certainly could use some household help.” Unseen by Gloria, Heidi gently tapped her foot against Amber’s and Amber tapped back.

“On the positive side,” Gloria smiled, “I do have some good news. My husband called this morning with some wonderful news about one of our neighbors back in Colorado Springs. There is this couple who are the only non…well…real Christians on our block. The wife uses such earthy language and whenever that couple goes out, the wife paints herself up with makeup something awful and wears these revealing dresses…no sense of modesty at all. One evening I believe her husband and her were heading off to some event at the Broadmoor…and she had to nerve to just walk up to my husband and I right in our own front yard and chat with us…in a low cut black dress…just showing herself off. My husband and I could not believe it…what was she going to do next…walk around naked?”

“We’ve already talked with the neighbors so that no one in the neighborhood talks to them…to get that couple to move. Well, that hasn’t worked… so my husband has been praying for some weeks now that God punish this woman. Finally, he called me this morning with some wonderful news. We haven’t seen the woman out for a couple of weeks or so and this morning her husband told my husband that the woman has cancer. I don’t remember exactly what…cervical cancer or something…and it’s spread and she doesn’t have that much longer to go…a few months or so. My husband was so pleased…it’s so beautiful…God had answered his prayers.”
Risking Gloria’s wrath, Amber interrupted, “Your husband is pleased that this woman is going to die from cancer?”
Gloria shook off Amber’s complaint and arching her eyebrows she replied. “The body is simply a temporary husk and means nothing to our Lord. The human body is offensive to our Lord. So if someone is doing something that is offensive to we Christians…we have the right to ask God to take their body away. Since we are doing God’s work and only Christians are God’s representatives on earth, we have the right to petition Him to remove people who displease us…or even do it ourselves.”

*********
"No is not an option."

Beef Matson abruptly opened the door of his office and stood facing Randy with his arms folded. As Randy turned from his computer he saw an expression on the detective’s face that told him that this was one of those rare occasions when Beef was thoroughly angry.
“I hope I didn’t screw something up really bad,” smiled Randy.
“What do you mean,” said Matson, matter of fact, “you never ever screw anything up.”
“Is there uh…something you’re kind of upset about?”
“Remember you told me you were just down the block when someone shot that cop with a paintball?”
“Yeah…?”
“I got a call a little while ago from the police. They apprehended the guys who shot the cop. The guys said they never intended to shoot the cop…it was an accident. They meant to shoot you. Somebody paid them to shoot you.”
“Me…why? Who paid them?”
“The police aren’t sure…the guys were paid through a third party. I think I know who probably put them up to this but I can’t prove it…just yet. Whacking you on the street with a paintball was probably intended as a form of harassment and intimidation, plus the embarrassment…makes it look like everybody hates you. ”
“Why should anyone go to that trouble…everybody probably already hates me.”
”Randy…no.”
“You could fool me.”
“What this tells me is that I need to make you disappear for a few days. I don’t want you staying at your apartment. I made a few phone calls and I’m going to have you put up in someone’s house. You’ll also be safer that way. I’m also giving you a few days off, so I want you to stay off the streets for a few days. What I’m going to do is hide you in plain sight…you’ll be around, but not in public view. Some guys I know will take you to your place and all I want you to do is grab enough personal belongings to tide you over for a few days…and that’s it. I don’t want you to stay at your place any longer than necessary.”
Randy got up from his chair and walked over to Matson. “And what if I say no?”
“No is not an option.”
“Look,” said Randy, making grand expressions with his arms, “I am tired of this whole business…I really don’t want to play this game anymore. Who am I…nobody…and my name and face are plastered all over the media…in supermarket tabloids even…for something I didn’t even do. I’m just tired of the whole damned, stupid mess!”
“Randy…” replied Beef with a bit of anger in his voice, “I’m very close to having this whole business wrapped up…and it will work out to your favor. I just can’t tell you right now what’s going on. But it’s best to have you in a protected place until all the loose ends are wrapped up.”
“Loose ends…thanks for trying to kid me about having things wrapped up. Maybe I should just quit…at least I won’t be making problems for you. I can just go home to my apartment and figure things for myself. I’ve always figured things out for myself…I’ve always taken care of myself. I’ll just quit and that’ll solve everything…”
Randy held his arms up with his hands clenched in fists. His face was beet red and his head was shaking. Matson quickly grabbed his assistant and surrounded him in a bear hug, burying Randy’s face in his chest.
“Randy…cut this shit out!” The detective gently rubbed Randy’s blond hair. “Everything’s going to be ok. Just try and have a little trust in me. I’ll fix things for you, I’ll make sure life gets good for you.” The two stood quietly for a few seconds bathed in the light from the Christmas decorations hanging on the doorway.

The door from the hallway suddenly swung open. It was Tony from Just Desserts. “Hi guys…” Tony stopped, observing the intertwined pose of the two men. “Am I interrupting something?”
“Not really,” replied Beef glibly, “Randy was trying to teach me to two-step. Do you think I’ve got it yet?”
“You’ve almost got it…maybe just a few more lessons,” replied Randy.
“Ok…” said Tony, slightly puzzled, “I’ve got some discount certificates for lunch at the Ruby Slipper. Just came up to see if you guys want to join me…they’ve just put up their Christmas decorations too, you should see the place. They’ve put up a big, fresh evergreen tree in the restaurant and decorated it with white lights and ruby slipper ornaments. All the tables have centerpieces of evergreens and a candle, pretty ritzy. They’ve got a collection of Wizard of Oz ornaments hanging up behind the bar…you’ve got to get a look at that, Randy.”
“Why not?” announced Beef, “It’ll be nice to lunch upscale for a change.” Matson put his arm around Randy and led him to the door and the three made their way to the lobby and the Ruby Slipper restaurant.

*********
"I wasn’t playing with myself in the bathtub, I was just cleaning it and it went off!"

Blanche trudged back to a rear booth with yet another tray of food. The breakfast rush seemed to have never ended and now the lunch crowd was already coming in, a small line had formed in the waiting area near the cash register waiting for booths to be available. Apparently, a lot of the locals had friends coming in from out of town and it seemed like they all wanted to take their friends into the Cozy Cup as part of the tour of the Castro. Someone had just played “Blue Christmas” by Elvis Presley on the jukebox and Blanche had to wade her way through a couple of Elvis impersonators as well as a pair of hugging and kissing male couples. The out of town visitors and the holiday season seemed stimulate the urge among the gay boys to play kissy face. The hugging, kissing and shenanigans of the gay men reminded Blanche of her brother, the times when she used to be a fixture at his house during the Christmas season and how she used to get a kick out of watching his friends carry on in a similar manner. So long ago but still fresh in her mind.

As Blanche reached her destination the young gay men in the booth were in a very animated and lively conversation. As was the custom, one of the gay men in the booth said something outrageous just to get a sarcastic comment in return from the waitress. He spoke obviously as if he were continuing a conversation with his friends, “I wasn’t playing with myself in the bathtub, I was just cleaning it and it went off!” This time Blanche totally ignored the comment, just placing the dishes on the table and quietly asking if the diners wanted anything else. The young men suddenly flashed concerned looks to each other, wondering if they had hurt Blanche’s feelings. The men began to eagerly offer compliments as to how good the food looked. They reassured one of their group, apparently an out-of-towner, how great the food was at the Cozy Cup. Blanche offered an abbreviated smile, and returned to the front of the restaurant with the empty tray. On her way, another young man who was saying farewell to a friend, abruptly turned, heading to the restroom and bumped into Blanche on his way. “Would it bother you so much to just for once, to watch were you’re going?” she protested loudly. The young man, with a surprised and embarrassed expression, gently touched Blanche on the arm and apologized. Blanche continued to plod ahead to the front waitress station where Dorothy stood.

"Sweetie…why don’t you take a break,” suggested Dorothy, “The part-timer and myself can take care of things for awhile.”
“I just took a break.”
“Well, take another break. Nobody’s keeping score.”
“No…I’m fine.”
Dorothy paused a second and then sighed. “You know, it might do you real good to head back east and spend Christmas with one of your kids. The owners said they wouldn’t mind if you took a week or two off to spend with your kids. I even heard Glenn say that he and Dan would even buy a plane ticket for you as a Christmas gift.”
“My kids have their own families now…their own lives.”
“Oh Blanche, don’t talk like that. I know what this is about. It’s about your brother…you’re like this every Christmas.”
“It’s not that bad, I just get a little moody now and then.”
”Blanche, hon…memories are good things to have, but your brother passed on a while ago. You shouldn’t let that mess up your enjoyment of the holidays…let alone throw you into a blue funk.”
“I know…it’s just that I had such good Christmases when he was…alive.”
”There’s no reason why you can’t have a good Christmas now.”
“I know, I know…it’s just a silly sentimental time of year…all the gay kids in here keep reminding me of my brother and his friends. Don’t worry…I’ll snap out of it, I’ll be good.”
“You better hurry.”
”What…you mean I better be good or Santa won’t bring me any toys?”
“No…” Dorothy pointed behind Blanche, “Your order’s up…it’s getting cold.”

*********
"Girlfriend, if you want Christmas shoppers, it should look like Christmas in here."

Minerva sat behind her big wooden desk inside her lotions and potions shop. Business for most of the week had been dismal and this morning when Minerva had opened up the shop, she felt so disheartened that she merely put on the overhead lights and not the holiday lights she had strung. Today, no one came into the store, only two people in the lobby had stopped to look at her store windows. Minerva leaned forward and buried her face into her hands. Her wife, Angela, had obtained a job as an office temporary somewhere so that was bringing in some money but that wouldn’t go far and certainly wouldn’t help the shop any. It was becoming obvious to Minerva that she probably would not be able to meet the next month’s rent for the store space and that the new year would mean the end of her shop. She would have nothing to show for nearly four years of hard work.

There was a soft plop on her desk, the sound of one of her cats jumping onto the desk. The cat brought its head close to Minerva’s and daintily touched its nose to her cheek. Minerva lifted her head from her hands and gently scratched her pet behind its ears. “Hi Cotton, “ Minerva smiled, “Sorry…didn’t mean to bring everybody down.” The cat seemed pleased to have gotten a reaction and then turned away, either losing interest or hearing something from the back room. It jumped off the desk and leisurely walked to the back. Minerva sat up in her chair staring off into space. Suddenly, she heard a sound, like a thumping on a drum. The thumping became louder with each thump and then stopped after the third noise. Having grown up in Hollister, California Minerva immediately realized what the thumping could portend…an earthquake! She gripped the desk tightly, waiting for the shaking to begin. But none did. The shopkeeper dismissed the noise and relaxed in her chair, once again her thoughts turning to worries about her shop. A song drifted in from the radio in the backroom. It was “I Fall To Pieces”, sung by Patsy Cline.

Minerva leaned all the way back into her chair and began to quietly sing along with the music, “I fall to pieces…” then, in just a speaking voice she muttered, “My store falls to pieces.” Then a voice, quiet but clear and close to her ear said, “Turn on your Christmas lights.” With a start, Minerva quickly sat up straight in her chair. She turned to her side in the direction of the voice and saw no one. She looked behind her. No one was there. She stood up and looked about the deserted store to see no one. The entrance bell would have rung if anyone would have entered the store and it had not rung all morning. Minerva sat back down to contemplate the voice. It had sounded vaguely familiar and then she convinced herself that she probably had heard nothing. “Turn on your Christmas lights…”, what could have that possibly meant? She was probably getting too stressed out. She smiled and shook her head.

“Turn on your Christmas lights,” the voice repeated, this time slightly louder, “Girlfriend, if you want Christmas shoppers, it should look like Christmas in here.” Minerva quickly turned her head from side to side. Bolting from her chair, Minerva scanned her entire store, gripping her chair and intending to push it careening on its rollers into any possible assailant…but no one was to be seen. Her heart beating, Minerva checked out the tiny backroom but it was empty except for stored inventory and her two snoozing cats. The cats were too calm for anyone to be in the store. Puzzled, Minerva returned to her desk. It could not be stress for her to hear the voice a second time…unless she was really, really stressed. The voice sounded so familiar too, a man’s voice, but no one she had talked to recently. “Ok, I’ll take the bait…who’s here…and if you’re trying to get me to think you’re a…ghost, what’s the game you’re trying to play?” Silence. “Oh, what the hell…” thought Minerva and walked over to the switch for the holiday lights and turned it on. The Christmas decorations immediately bloomed with light and added a colorful energy to the store. “That does make a difference,” Minerva mused to herself and even turned off one row of fluorescent lights in the middle of store. Perhaps, thought Minerva, it was her subconscious mind that wanted to speak with her…her mind was trying to figure out some last ditch effort to bring business into the store. Her board…thought Minerva. She would bring out her board and do a self-reading. Self-readings did not work as well as readings for others, but it might tell her if there were any forces at work in her store. As Minerva bent to fetch the case containing her board, the entry bell rang and a woman entered the store.

“I saw your holiday lights go on,” said the smiling woman, “and I realized that I’ve never been in your shop. Something just told me that I should just come in and check your store out.” Minerva turned her attention to the woman and forgot about her board. The woman immediately brought some items that she wanted to purchase to the sales counter and then decided she also wanted to purchase a number of other things. The entrance bell rang again as another customer entered, and then another and still another. “Customers always come in packs…” thought Minerva. However, the procession of customers remained steady for the entire day, at times there was even a line at her sales counter. Minerva even stayed open a little late because of business. At the end of the day, Minerva found herself well on her way to paying next month’s rent. Too tired to drag out her board and do a reading, Minerva instead lit prayer candles symbolizing abundance, protection and thanks and said a prayer before closing up her shop.

*********
"Now I can see you for what you really are…your true self is coming through."

Sharon Ledbauer had C.D. over for some chitchat and coffee. Sharon felt very comfortable with C.D.; the woman was not too bright, naive and eager to please Sharon. C.D. had totally bought into Sharon’s plan to get rid of C.D’s stepmother so C.D. could then inherit and sell the house her stepmother lived in and then buy another house that Sharon and her could move into. Then all Sharon had to do was figure out a way to get rid of C.D.

When C.D. had first told Sharon about her stepmother and her house, Sharon had Rocky tail C.D. when the woman went back to her house down state. Rocky reported that the house and property turned out to be just the way C.D. had described it. C.D. also showed herself to be just as Sharon described, “not the brightest bulb in the chandelier”. As Rocky watched C.D. went into the house and then opened and hollered out a side door looking for her stepmother. Finally, a woman, looking a bit like C.D., but more slender, older and white haired, appeared from a back door with a bag of garbage. The woman limped her way to garbage cans out back and then stopped, apparently hearing C.D’s voice looking for her. She yelled back that she was taking out the garbage since C.D. had neglected her chores because her stepdaughter was too busy taking trips. Finally, the old woman threw the garbage bag at the side of the garage, with the bag splitting and the contents flying every which way. The woman limped back to the house, yelling her displeasure with C.D. “If you’ve finally decided to take the garbage out,” yelled the old woman, “you can clean up this mess too.” Rocky did not want to stick around too long in case C.D. would notice his truck and later recognize him, so he was about to leave when a few minutes later he saw C.D. open the back door of the house carrying a couple of bags of garbage. The sad looking woman deposited the bags in the garbage cans and then began to clean up the mess the older woman had made.

It was late Saturday morning and C.D. was one of a number of visitors to Sharon’s house. The first was Sharon’s stepson, Rocky. Rocky was a tall, muscular blond man wearing a leather jacket over a white t-shirt. Rocky preferred not to enter the house, seriously and quietly chatting with Sharon in the back hallway. Sharon explained that since Rocky’s father died, he did not like coming into the house. Misty, the little girl that Sharon said was Rocky’s child, wandered around the house crying. Sharon and Rocky ignored her for the most part. When Rocky left, the little girl continued crying, ignored by Sharon until she finally gave her a bottle of milk.

Sharon wanted an update on C.D.’s mother, if C.D. was continuing to slip the medication that Sharon had given her into her food. C.D. said that she was and that her stepmother’s health was continuing to worsen. Sharon was pleased. Then she said to C.D., “Now I can see you for what you really are…your true self is coming through.”
C.D. coughed on her coffee. She looked horrified. “What do you mean…by that?”
“Oh, don’t get so upset,” laughed Sharon, “I’m not accusing you of anything…I just mean you’re just like me. I think it’s about time I told you some of my secrets.”
However, there was a knock on the front door and one of Sharon’s sisters came in. The sister, Evelyn, had very long hair and wore a heavy winter coat, which she never removed. The sister came to complain about the idea of Randy moving back in with Sharon.
“Oh, that Randy boy,” exclaimed Evelyn, “He can be marryin’ my Carol Lo girl. He make a real good husband for my Carol Lo girl. Oh, he was real good in making sure everything was real nice and clean. Oh yeah…he did good work. That Randy boy…I bet him got a lot of money, too.”
Sharon refused Evelyn’s request to pair off Randy with Evelyn’s daughter and Evelyn became rather angry. “I don’t want that Carol Lo girl in my house no more, “ she exclaimed, “She’s almost eighteen, I want her to be out of my house.”
Sharon stood her ground and Evelyn left, still angry.

“Is Evelyn kind of slow, you know…upstairs?” asked C.D. sheepishly.
“Oh no,” replied Sharon, “that’s her granny hillbilly routine. She just does that when she wants sympathy. She tries laying the old woman in a shoe with too many kids thing on me. I just ask her why she had to have so many kids in the first place.” Misty was crying loudly again and walked up to Sharon who stuck a pacifier in her mouth and told to go play.
“Evelyn once tried to tell me she didn’t realize what made her pregnant. She tries to lay these really stupid lies on you. I told her with as much as she watches the Jerry Springer show, she should be able to figure it out just from watching that show. She’s just too lazy to use birth control. Then she tells me she trying to be a good Catholic. Give me a break; the last time she went to church was when she was in grade school. Just too lazy. Now that I’ve done all the work to bring Randy back she wants to use him to get rid of one of her kids. Talk about lazy. My sister is such a lazy girl.”

Next, another of Sharon’s sisters, Idell showed up with her two daughters. Idell was a nervous chain smoker and kept yelling and occasionally hitting her blond daughter. C.D. sat quietly while Idell kept asking Sharon to loan her some money. Sharon refused and Idell finally left. “She thinks I got all kinds of money when my husband died,” complained Sharon, “All I got is this house and his pension…and there wasn’t that much money in that.”

During her conversations with her sisters, Sharon had switched from coffee to beer and her tongue had become a bit looser. At first, because of her sister’s demands, the woman was angry and she ranted about how stupid people were. Then she told C.D. about her mother, that her mother was a great “player”. It was her mother that told her people who worked hard to get ahead were losers and suckers and the real way to get ahead in life was to find someone who had money and figure out a way to get it from them. As a teen, Sharon ran away from home when she found out her mother was going to play her, having Sharon go to work for one of her mother’s girlfriends, with her mother collecting all of Sharon’s earnings. Sharon used a young man to help her run away and then discarded him when she no longer needed his help. Through one of her many odd jobs Sharon met an older woman who had many connections to the shadowy part of life and introduced her to some streetwise ways of getting money. Sharon regarded this woman as an important mentor; she was a far better player than her mother ever was. The woman had taught Sharon what she regarded as valuable skills, skills Sharon had since used to get what she wanted out of life.

Sharon told of her involvement with mobsters, prostitution and even a bit of drug running. All these activities told her that the way to make money was to break the rules. This was Sharon’s simple philosophy, if you followed the rules you ended up poor, if you broke the rules, you’d make money. Once you disregarded the rules, the only important thing was not to get caught. Sharon confided that the reason she never got caught was that she was that most people were stupid and that she was smarter than most people. If she ever got into trouble, the simple way to get out of it was to lie. People always wanted to believe her, so she just told them what they wanted to hear and she lied about everything and other people’s belief in her lies protected her.

The toddler, Misty, who had been wondering about the kitchen, occasionally crying now approached Sharon. The little girl tugged on Sharon’s leg wanting to be picked up. Sharon lifted the little girl up and sat her on her lap. “Ok…” said Sharon, “Mommy will hold you for awhile.”
“Mommy…” asked C.D., puzzled, “I thought she was Rocky’s kid.”
“She is…and mine too”
“You mean you’re going to adopt her?”
“No…” Sharon shook her head out of irritation, “She’s my daughter…I gave birth to her.”
“But if she’s supposed to be Rocky’s daughter…” C.D. looked incredibly puzzled.
Sharon found C.D.’s slowness very irritating and decided to tell her the whole story.

“Rocky and I made a baby together,” revealed Sharon. C.D.’s expression became one of shock. Sharon dismissed C.D’s reaction and continued. “We’ve been sleeping together off and on for sometime. I think it started when he was in his late teens, I forget. “
“But…but…” C.D. protested.
“Oh, please…yeah, I know…you’re not supposed to sleep with a stepson. That’s just another one of those rules that you break if you want to get what you want. My husband Sam was a lot older than me, and the older he got, the less pretty he looked. And right there in my house was Rocky, looking just like his father did before I married him, and unlike his father, he had beautiful blond hair. Rocky was a horny little bastard so it didn’t take much to seduce him.” Sharon laughed. “That’s when Rocky started feeling guilty…when he started having sex with his father’s wife. Not because of the three or four times he wrestled in his underwear with that Randy.” Sharon laughed again. “I thought that having Rocky’s baby would force him to lock up with me. But no, he had to go and tied up with that bimbo he’s living with…and she doesn’t want no part of Misty. So Rocky and I have this agreement where we take turns taking care of Misty. We came up with the plan to get Randy to move back her with me. That if I'm the one who has to raise Misty, I would have Randy here to help me. He was always so with kids, where as I can take 'em or leave 'em. Randy would be my new husband." "If this Randy is gay…and has a boyfriend, won't…"
"Nah…Rocky's lawyer told us that part of Rocky's settlement means that Randy has to get cured of that stuff. Last time I talked to Randy, he told me that he didn't have no boyfriend. He had a boyfriend named Brett once, but that Brett died of AIDS…serves him right."
"What about your own son…" asked C.D. "you told me you had a son with your husband Sam."
"Oh…he married a woman who’s as old as me…and she won’t let him have anything to do with me.”

C.D. was looking down at her coffee and avoiding looking at Sharon.
“Oh gosh, don’t give me no looks…” dismissed Sharon, “When I was out on my own I got to know a lot of women who were doing this sort of thing…except they weren’t doing it with no stepsons, they were doing it with their real sons. Those women taught me that rule about not having sex with your sons was something men came up with…and it was o.k. as long as nobody found out. Oh yeah…this one woman had a couple of kids by her oldest son and her husband, nobody…ever got wise to it. It makes sense…you don’t have to go out of the house looking for sex with a stranger when you can get it right at home. Just a lot nicer and more convenient that way.”
“How could Sam…your husband not find out?” asked C.D.
“I stopped sleeping with Sam years ago and I can’t remember the last time we had sex. I don’t care for sex that much anyway…it’s like having to go to gym class. Sam had his own bedroom and I had mine. We even had our own separate TV sets. We hardly ever talked and he never noticed I was pregnant. He mentioned once that he thought I was getting fat. Before I gave birth, I faked an argument with him and went to stay with one of my sisters. I told him that Misty was the result of Rocky knocking up one of his girlfriends and that we should take care of the little girl for Rocky. Sam believed it and thought Rocky was a real stud. What a total idiot he was.” Sharon laughed again.
C.D. still looked uncomfortable.

“I don’t know why you should have an attitude,” continued Sharon, “Life will be a lot better if you just accept the down and dirty part of it. Otherwise, you’ll have to part of that nine to five crap. Those career chicks…they’re all dykes. You don’t want to be no fucking dyke, do you?”
C.D. shook her head meekly.
“Besides, you’re one of us now…I’m helping you get rid of your stepmother, right? That’s exactly what I did with Sam.”
C.D. arched her eyebrows.
"Sam was just getting old and disgusting and was getting crabby about me spending too much money. Rocky told me he was in trouble because he owed some money to some of his drug dealing buddies and they were not the kind of people you wanted to owe money to. So we decided just to get Sam out of the picture…the same way you’re helping your mother leave the scene, Rocky helped me get some stuff to put into his dad’s food. Sam dropped dead of a heart attack and no one was the wiser.”
C.D. looked shocked again but Sharon no longer was bothered and in fact, was finding everything amusing.
“That’s the other reason big man Rocky feels so guilty…because he helped me off his daddy…not because Randy touched his pee-pee.”

Sharon laughed heartily and a nervous smile came to C.D.’s lips. Sharon was showing a little buzz from her beer drinking and pointed a finger at C.D. I don’t want you to feel funny about this business with your stepmother. I went through the exact same thing years ago. I told you about when I lived at the Hardwicke house…how I wanted that house for my own. Well, some of my lady friends told me the best way to do it was to get rid of that Marty Hardwicke. I worked at a nursing home at the time and started fingering some medication and brought it home with me. I started to feed it to that old geezer, Marty. Talk about having the constitution of an ox. Took me the longest time, but he finally went to sleep and never woke up. I would have had the house too, if that stupid Aunt Pamela hadn’t got her nosy ass involved and messed up everything. Some people can be so stupid!”
C.D. shook her head in nervous agreement.

*********
"Of course she’s not a practicing Christian…she’s Jewish!"

With a sighed “Oh, dear,” Berry leaned back into her chair. It had been a long day. First the shopping, then running to her office to pack some Christmas gifts for Bobbi, then hiding them in her office closet and then heading back home to do more work in her home office. There she sat, in her home office. Since her office was a former sunroom and faced the street, Bobbi had strung Christmas lights along the windows and the small decorative bulbs twinkled gently. The December dusk came early and was fading fast with the neighborhood washed in blues and grays. Some of the streetlights along with Christmas decorations on the neighboring houses had come on and it was windy outside with an occasional leaf catching on a window and fluttering there until it was blown away. Though the shrubs were still green, the scene had a midwestern winter look to it.

The two cats had joined her in her office, the Lady Astrid was stretched along the top of her chair like a furry headrest, sleeping, and she was making sounds almost like snoring. Mr. Jingles was also sleeping, on top of her left foot with his front paws locked around her ankle. He felt like a delightful warm slipper. The entire scene was too comforting; the lawyer was struggling to keep focused on the work on her desk as the fatigue of the day began to catch up with her. Berry had just finished a very good dinner with Bobbi and their houseguests and on top of that, she had brought into the office with her a large slice of a cake that Bobbi had made. It was thoroughly decadent, fluffy devil’s food cake covered with a butter cream chocolate frosting with a whipped cream filling. Berry had finished every bite of it and now, in spite of a large cup of steaming coffee, the sugar rush was catching up with her. She found herself almost dozing off in her chair a couple of times. She could hear some music from a CD Bobbi and Sheila had put on…was it k.d. lang, Melissa Etheridge…she couldn’t remember. Her mind was turning to mud. Now, Berry found herself just staring at the windows, sleep was a seductive temptress…everything was going out of focus.

Suddenly the phone in her office rang. Without looking at the caller ID, Berry quickly picked up the receiver. It was Bessie. Until now, Berry had successfully screened and avoided her phone calls. The lawyer tried to get her groggy mind to think of a way to quickly end the call…Bessie would probably try to invite herself over. Bessie did not bother with much of a greeting, in her high-pitched voice she went right to the heart of the call. Bessie complained how difficult it had been to try to reach Berry and though she had intended to set up a time so she could come over and visit, now that she had Berry on the line, the phone call would suffice. Berry breathed a sigh of relief.

Bessie

Bessie continued, relentlessly rattling on and ignoring whatever comments Berry might make, which was the woman’s style. Somehow she had heard that Berry had refused to settle out of court in Randy’s case. Bessie emphasized how important it was that Randy’s case be settled immediately and that the other side be given everything they wanted. That Randy should be forced to take the cure and go straight…Bessie expressed how concerned she was that straight women were having a difficult time finding clean-cut, blond, blue-eyed men like Randy. Bessie lectured that it was also important that Beef Matson no longer have any contact with Randy and that Matson’s assistant no longer have any contact with the gay community and devote himself completely to straight women. That getting Randy to convert to heterosexuality would set an example to other young gay men to avoid the gay community and devote themselves to straight women, especially Christian straight women. Bessie preached that getting rid of homosexuals was the number one issue to all women.

Berry knew Bessie’s capacity for extended lectures and tried to get her sluggish mind to think up a way to end the call…or maybe just hang up on her. Next, Bessie lectured on another issue she had…she wanted Berry to go straight! Berry knew Bessie had an audacious talent for inconsiderate rudeness but the lawyer was curious as to why, after knowing her for so many years, this woman needed her to go straight. Berry didn’t have to ask, Bessie simply rattled on. “Don’t you understand,” announced Berry, “You’re really out of the loop, aren’t you? That’s what the women’s movement is about, to show that we have the power to get rid of the homosexuals for once and for all. To totally eradicate the disease.”
Bessie reaffirmed her view that gay men needed to repress their homosexuality and become perfect, supportive husbands, anticipating his wife's every mood, providing financial security and doing everything to insulate her from the discomforts of the outside world.
"What…" injected Berry, "You're telling me that the woman's movement is about fostering codependency?"
Bessie ignored Berry's comment and continued on about how the primary duty of lesbians should be to help alert gay men of their duty to be sexually receptive to straight women and to pair off gay men with needy straight women who were in need of a 'really nice' husbands as well as making a determined effort to avoid the lesbian lifestyle and find themselves a good husband.
"What you seem to be advocating…" added Berry, "is that lesbians are merely a pimp procurers for straight women and that the entire gay community is just some sort of brothel."
Bessie continued to march forward in her lecture, ignoring Berry's comment.
"You're not listening to a word I'm saying…are you dear?" observed Berry.
Bessie continued, revealing that she had been instructed to tell Berry that some important women wanted Berry to become involved in a heterosexual relationship, as if telling Berry that women wanted her to go straight would somehow motivate her into doing so. Bessie began to rattle on about how important it was to conform, how important it was that notables in the gay community start turning straight could it could be shown that women had the power to eradicate homosexuals.
"Bessie…" asserted Berry, "I don't know where you're getting this crap from, but forcing people to deny their sexual orientation, encouraging codependent relationships…I can't see how that would be to the benefit of women. Bessie…Bessie…"

Bessie continued her lecture of shock and awe. The woman stated that Berry could be paired off with a suitable husband and that if Berry still needed sex with a woman, she and her husband could participate in swinging couples sex encounters, even then that sort of thing would be frowned upon…unless it was to get her husband aroused. Anything like a gay marriage would be out of the question in the future.
”Is that what you are…” protested Berry, “a swinger?”
“No…uh…I’m really not into sex.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me…” muttered Berry.
Bessie continued. “All you need is a forceful man to show you the ropes and get you into normal sex.”
“Show me…? What about you?”
“This is not about me, I'm giving you advice…er, where was I? Oh, yes. Plus, homosexuals can just forget about having a job in the future, no one will hire them.”
“Should mean more work for me…lawsuits, litigation and all.”
“What would be good also…is if you say you were molested and coerced by Bobbi into a lesbian relationship.”
“Excuse me…?” the words ran from Berry’s lips in amazement.
“Well, you know…” said Bessie innocently, “it’s good to show homosexual relationships in a bad light…then no one feels bad when you break one off. Besides, I’ve heard how Bobbi has been involved in witchcraft.”
“Witch…?” yelled Berry, “Who in the hell told you something like that?”
“Well…I’ve just heard it around. Everyone knows how rampant witchcraft and Satanism are among lesbians.”
“I for one don’t know that, in fact, I have never heard anything like that at all…, “ Berry’s comment was unheard by Bessie who continued to prattle.
I’ve also heard Bobbi is not a practicing Christian.”
“Of course she’s not a practicing Christian…” growled Berry, “she’s Jewish!”
Bessie began to continue with her lecture ignoring Berry until the lawyer offered the woman a tidbit she could not refuse.
“You’ve always wanted to know my opinions on abortion…how would you like to hear one now?”
“Yes, yes…” said Bessie eagerly, “I would certainly like to hear your opinions…on abortion!”
“Well, regarding abortion…” said Berry calmly, “I think your mother should have had one.”
"Bessie made one last desperate rap with an irritating, high pitched chalk on chalkboard squeal, "You know you're part of the problem! You defending homos like Randy Hardwicke! We're gonna be swamped with porno, child molesters, sex offenders and then what will women…"
Berry slammed down the receiver.
"What a monumental moron," exclaimed Berry aloud, "and now I feel like a bigger one for trying to reason with her! Arrgh!"
The Lady Astrid jumped onto Berry's desk, cocked her head and looked sympathetically at her and uttered a soft meow.

*********
…she could go to San Francisco, shoot Matson and come back without any suspicion.

C.D. was having another visit with Sharon Ledbauer. Sharon seemed to be a bit irritated and after getting herself a cup of coffee she sat down at her kitchen table and shared her concerns with C.D. Sharon told C.D. that she had gotten a call from Rocky, that things were not going well in his lawsuit against Randy. First, Randy’s lawyer seemed to be stalling and now the woman representing Randy, who at first seemed very agreeable, now had gone on the rampage, telling Rocky’s lawyer that she would see him in court.
“Oh…that’s no good,” said Sharon, “Rocky says that’ll cost us a lot of money. When we were gonna settle out of court, that was gonna cost us hardly nothing. But going to court…oh, I don’t like that. You got to take an oath and they start asking you all kinds of questions.”
Sharon further explained that Rocky’s lawyer said that Randy’s employer, the gay detective Beef Matson was probably behind all of it. That the detective was not somebody to fool with. That even if Randy moved back to live with Sharon, Beef Matson would probably make a lot of problems and be snooping around like crazy.

“Now with our little secrets, we can’t have nobody doing no snooping around, can we?” asked Sharon. “That would be a shame, you know, to have everything get messed up…especially what you’ve been doing with your stepmother and all.”
C.D’s eyes opened wide with an expression of fear. “When we’re sharing a house together…after your step mom dies…and that Matson guy shows up and starts asking a lot of questions…you…we…could all end up having a lot of problems. That guy could ruin everything we’ve been trying to do.”
C.D. sunk her head and started biting her lip.
Sharon then related how she and Rocky had been talking. That if the Beef Matson guy were suddenly out of the picture…like if he got killed…they wouldn’t have to worry about him and the problems with Rocky’s lawsuit would probably go away to. Beef Matson lived in San Francisco, a big city with a lot of crime and shootings, plus because of a private investigator’s line of work there were probably a lot of people who wanted to do away with the detective…so if he were found shot to death, it would probably be expected. Sharon further intimated that she and Rocky both thought of going to San Francisco and doing just that, but since they were too closely connected to Randy, that wouldn’t be a good idea. However, nobody would suspect C.D., if she were to do the deed, she could go to San Francisco, shoot Matson and come back without any suspicion. Rocky had some friends in Reno who would give her a revolver. All C.D. had to do was fly to Reno, get the gun and then drive to San Francisco and put Beef Matson out of the picture for once and for all. After a bit more coaxing, C.D. finally agreed to the idea.

*********

After asking Heidi to join her in her office, Gloria produced a shopping bag and proceeded to pull a package out to show her teammate.
”I got a little something here for Chantay,” Gloria smiled, “Obviously we won’t be taking her to Disneyland so I got her this little gift as a substitute. I have it set up for her to do her little performance in just a couple of days, and after she does that, there will be no need to keep her here with us…so she can return to her mother.”
“About her performance…” queried Heidi, “Should we really go through with that? I mean, she would be doing that out in public…it might be exposing her to danger. I mean…I know we are doing God’s work, but after all, she is just a little girl.”
“Oh…no, no, no,” insisted Gloria, “We’ll be close by…she’ll be wearing a microphone. It’s not like we’re sending her out on her own. She will be strictly supervised.”
“I guess I might have some concern about the adult nature of this…” Heidi continued.
“With all the little beauty pageants Chantay has been involved with…” interrupted Gloria, “I think she is much more aware of the adult world than we even suspect. I think when she is dressed up to look like a woman in her make up, hairdos and gowns…she already had more than an idea of why men like to see women like that. So I believe this will be just another role for her, where she acts like an adult woman. She’s such a quiet child…if she were more vocal, I’m sure we’d find out how much she really is aware of. Besides, the end result is that we will be exposing and locking up a child molester.”

Gloria then called out to Chantay to come into her office. Chantay strolled quietly into the office and Gloria stretched out her arms to show the little girl a package. The little girl accepted the box, somewhat puzzled by it. “I know how disappointed you were that we’d come all the way to California and not be able to take you to Disneyland. So I got you this little present. It’s a little portable CD player for you. There’s also a CD in the box of the world’s most beautiful merry-go-round music. You can put the CD in the player and pretend you’re at Disneyland. I’m sure with your imagination you can pretend you’re on some wonderful ride. Isn’t that nice?”

Chantay politely thanked Gloria and left the room carrying the box containing the CD player, a somewhat sour expression on the little girl’s face.

*********

As the private detective ran up the flight of stairs from the lobby to the floor where his office was located, Beef Matson heard a couple of thumps. He quickly concluded that the sounds came from the aging elevator in the building. Matson opened the door into the hallway and headed towards his office at a brisk pace, in a hurry to start on some work. He saw a woman heading towards him. She smiled cordially at Beef and spoke with an air of great familiarity. “You’ve really done wonders in fixing up your office…looks so much better than the days when I hung my coat in there.” Beef slowed to talk with the woman, but she just smiled and rushed past in an apparent hurry. Matson continued to walk down the hallway and spoke out loudly to the woman, “Actually, Randy is the one who deserves all the credit, and he did all…” Matson stopped in his tracks. There was something odd about the woman. Her hair, her makeup and clothing were all impeccable but the styles, especially the bright red lipstick, were out of place, the woman looked like she had stepped straight out of the late 1940s. Beef turned around to take another look at the woman, but she was gone. The woman had probably already gone through the door to the stairwell. Matson shrugged the incident off and continued to his office.

*********
"I can’t stand to hear people whine about their problems."

Beef had a couple of friends, Lee and Craig, pick Randy up at the office and take him directly to his apartment. Lee stayed with the car while Craig went up with Randy to help him get some belongings. As Randy grabbed some clothes to pack, he thought that maybe this stay at somebody else’s house might not be so bad. Thoughts of sitting around a big lit Christmas tree with a bunch of people listening to ghost stories or doing something similar drifted into his mind. Standing in his apartment doorway with a couple of suitcases in his hand, Randy gave one last look at his little place and headed down the stairs with Craig to the car. Getting into the car, Beef Matson’s assistant said, smiling, “Just call me Little Orphan Randy.”

Several minutes later the car pulled up in front of a group of nicely painted row houses. Craig helped Randy carry his suitcases up to the front door of one of the houses while Lee again, stayed in the car. “Is this your house?” queried Randy.
“No,” admitted Craig, “This is a friend’s house, George. We have friends staying over the holidays and we just don’t have room for you. But George has plenty of room.”
The door opened and Randy was introduced to the middle-aged owner of the house, a man with salt and pepper hair and a slightly overweight figure. Craig and Lee quickly drove off and George showed around Randy. George walked with short, plodding footsteps and had little to say except when he described his many aches and pains.

George’s house was like a museum with the drapes and shades pulled down and the rooms filled with dark Victorian furniture and artifacts. The theme from the TV show, “The Addams Family”, started running in Randy’s mind. The look of the place was antithesis to Randy’s personality, cold, dark and creepy. One room, however, held interest to Randy, one wall held shelves filled with mint condition vinyl record albums. Randy paused to look at the find. There were many classic disco recordings from the seventies and early eighties as well as other musical styles and artists going back to the early 1960s. “Oh wow,” exclaimed Randy “Here’s some Jane Oliver albums…oh look, Christmas albums by the Carpenters and the Salsoul Orchestra.” Randy spied a stereo setup with professional grade turntable in perfect condition. “Would it be alright to play some of these?” he asked.
“I’d rather you’d not,” replied George.
“Quite a collection you have.”
“My lover collected the records. He died of AIDS back in 1984.”

The house matched George’s excessively dreary personality. He preferred drapes and shades were to be kept closed, so that the antiques would not be exposed to outside light. The effect was that the interior of the house seemed to be in perpetual nighttime. There would be no telling of ghost stories around a Christmas tree. There was not Christmas tree or decorations of any sort. The house itself was a ghost story.

George allowed Randy the use of an upstairs bedroom. Though the bedroom was clean, it smelled musty from years of disuse. Randy felt terribly uncomfortable. George confined himself to using one of the bedrooms and one room downstairs, which he used to watch TV and to eat food he ordered in. George never used the kitchen and would go out to eat or order in. Whenever Randy tried to engage George in conversation, the man would simply ignore whatever Randy had said and simply report all of his many aches and pains. It became obvious to Randy that George was a hypochondriac. In fact, George became determined to use his houseguest as a sounding board for all of his aches and pains. George reported that his feet hurt him, as well as his legs, lower back, shoulders; he also had a stiff neck, frequent headaches, scratchy eyes, an ingrown toenail, athlete’s foot, rashes, bad breath, foot odor…and the list kept expanding every time he talked to Randy. George would stop at the little bedroom Randy was in to tell the young man about whatever aches or pain that George was currently feeling as if Randy could do something about it. Finally, Randy asked George if there was anything about his life that he actually liked. George replied that he liked watching TV, web surfing, eating and taking pain pills and other medications that he was getting from his doctor. Indeed, all George seemed to do was sit in the little downstairs room slurping down food he had delivered and sitting in front of a TV set, with a little electric heater next to him.

George also preferred the rest of the house to be kept very cool. Randy found himself sitting in the bedroom he was given, wearing his jacket and feeling very dismal and abandoned. His boss, Beef Matson, had given him a cell phone to use and he used it to call some friends to hopefully arrange another situation for him, however, it seemed everyone he knew was out of town and his boss was not returning his calls.

After a dreadful day, Randy had an equally dreadful night in the chilly, scary bedroom. Randy tried to sleep fully dressed, with his jacket on and the musty smelling bedspread pulled over him in an effort to keep warm. The next morning, Randy asked George if he could take a shower. George said that would be alright as long as Randy did not use too much water and then George, once again began reporting on his many aches and pains. Randy simply washed his face, shaved and retreated once again into the bedroom. Finally, Randy decided that whether or not he was supposed to be in seclusion, he needed to go out to have some breakfast. As he went out into the upstairs hallway, George approached him.
“I was told by Lee and Craig that you needed to stay here because your boss thought that somebody might try to hurt you,” said George nibbling on one of his fingers.
“Well…kind of, sort of,” smiled Randy.
“I noticed that you have a cell phone,” continued George, “if someone does try to harm you…I don’t want to get involved. So don’t rely on me…just dial 911 on your cell phone. Ok? By the way, whatever you’re problems are…I don’t want to hear about them. I can’t stand to hear people whine about their problems.”
Randy agreed and walked back into the bedroom, dazed.

Several minutes later Randy found George in his downstairs TV room, munching on some chips and watching TV.
“George…” called out Randy, standing in the hallway with his suitcases, “I just want to let you know that I’ve called a cab and I’m leaving. I’m going back to my apartment so I won’t be getting in your hair anymore.”
“Oh, you weren’t in my hair,” said George, puzzled, “but if you want to leave, that's fine by me.”
Without saying goodbye, Randy hauled his suitcases out to the waiting cab. George seemed not to notice, rocking in his chair and giggling at some comedy show on the television.

*********
"That was a wonderful adventure…NOT!"

Randy unlocked the door to his apartment, walked in and slammed his suitcases on the floor and threw his toiletry bag on a chair. “Oh God…” he said out loud, “That was a wonderful adventure…NOT!” Randy then had a sudden determination. He would force everything to be alright. He would take a long shower to wash every scent of George’s dank house from his body, then he would dress up, have a late breakfast and do some Christmas shopping. This enforced normalcy and going out and getting some gifts for his friends and notably, his boss, would fix everything. He would show Beef Matson, that he, Randy Hardwicke, through his own personal determination and grit, would be able to fix everything and make everything work, just like he always had.

After showering and putting on fresh clothes, Randy stood in front of the hallway mirror. Satisfied with his reflection, Randy began to head for the door when the phone rang. It was his boss, Beef Matson who wanted to know what Randy was doing back at his apartment. Randy told Beef of his displeasure of being sent to stay with the extremely neurotic George.
“That was not my intention…” rebutted the detective. “You were supposed to stay with Lee and Craig. They got this big idea that having you stay with George would cheer him up. The only way you could make George happy is if you were a large bottle of what ever medication he’s addicted to.”
”I think George already has access to all kinds of drugs,” commented Randy.
“I’ve made arrangements for you to stay at another place. Now that I know you’re at your apartment, just stay right there…I’ll need to make a phone call to have someone pick you up…”
“No…”
“What…?”
“I said no…”
”What do you mean no…I thought we went through this all before.”
”I am…going out to do some Christmas shopping. I intend to take some control over my life. I decided I’m not going to let this whole business destroy my Christmas, so I’m going to spend the afternoon shopping:”
“Randy, I would really advise against this.”
“I’m going to spend the afternoon shopping and then after that we can discuss where you want me to stay.”
There was a few moments of silence and then Beef spoke again.
“Ok…but then this afternoon I want you to stay with some friends of mine…and they’re not anything like George. By the way, where are you going to go to shop?”
“I’ll probably end up at Macy’s, you know, Union Square…but I need to go to the bank and get breakfast first.”

Randy left his apartment, withdrew seventy-five dollars of the eighty dollars he had in his bank account, had breakfast and headed downtown to do some shopping. Randy was unaware that his movements were being observed.

Randy was in good spirits as he emerged from the Powell Street subway station, he was determined to find something really nice for his boss in one of the big stores downtown. Something special along with some special gift-wrap that he could present to his boss for Christmas in appreciation for all of Matson’s help. Randy first began to head up Powell Street towards Macy’s and maybe some of the other stores around Post and Geary streets. Later, he could head down to the San Francisco Shopping Centre and maybe look around Nordstrom’s. Randy not only felt good, he looked good, his handsome young face had a nice glow to it and he dressed well for the trip downtown.

The streets were heavy with shoppers and as he headed for one of the entrances to Macy’s, Randy attracted the attention of a dowdy, slightly overweight woman. The was a small crowd of people of people at the entrance to the department store and people slowed in order file through the doorway. The woman worked her way in front of Randy and stood in front of him, not moving, so he simply walked around her. “Excuse me, excuse me,” she shouted, determined to attract attention, “I have the right to demand validation from men! I demand to be acknowledged!” Randy froze momentarily, wondering if he was being targeted for something. Randy gave the woman a cautionary glance, “Ok, I acknowledge you,” and he walked into the store shaking his head. The woman then spotted another young man down the block that attracted her. She walked up to him and announced, “Excuse me! I will not be ignored. As a woman I demand to be acknowledged!”

The inside of Macy’s was very crowded and it was a bit difficult to just browse with so many people standing about. Another woman spied Randy, this time a young woman standing with a man. As Randy walked closer, the woman decided that the young blond man was someone she was very interested in. Just as Randy walked past the woman suddenly darted out towards him, arched her back and shoved her breasts into him. “Lots of nice stuff in here, don’t you think?” she said. Randy simply muttered a slightly irritated, “Excuse me” and walked around the young woman. The woman gave Randy a dirty look and called out loudly to him, “Freakin’ little fag…” The woman’s young male companion, leaning on a display case, turned to the woman. “What are you doin’?”
“I’m horny,” replied the woman.
“You’re whore-nee? replied the young man. The woman walked back to the display case walking a sexually provocative walk. “With all the money I spent on my implants,” said the woman patting the underside of her bosom, “I want to show off my puppies. It’s hard to do that when there are so many fairies running around.” The man returned to gazing at the display case while his girlfriend stood next to him posing for the passing crowd.

Randy made his way to the men’s department feeling in less of a good mood. Perhaps he could pick up his boss a nice shirt or two. Randy found some shirts he thought Matson would like. The prices were reasonable and browse through the selection, trying to decide which shirt to buy. Randy attracted the attention of yet another woman, this time an older middle-aged female wearing a heavy winter coat and lots of jewelry. The woman quickly approached Randy and attempted to strike up a conversation with him. As the woman picked through the shirts on display in a rather disinterested manner, Randy noticed the rattling sound of her jewelry and the strong scent of her perfume. The woman told Randy her husband was in another part of the store and she needed to pick up a shirt for him as a Christmas gift.

“My husband is a totally dreadful shopping companion. Oh, he’s just about dreadful in anything he does. A young man like you looks like he likes to shop.”
“Sometimes,” smiled Randy.
The woman moved closer to Randy and looked him over as if she were about to devour him. As the woman half-heartedly picked through the shirts, she kept moving closer to Randy and rubbed up against him with Randy moving away each time. The woman looked Randy over with one more lascivious look and decided to confide in Randy about a personal fetish, breathing heavily. “You know what really turns me on…smelly feet, the worse the better. I never wash my feet…my toes are covered in toe jam. By the way…are you cut or uncut?”
Randy flashed a surprised expression. “Oh please, enough…” he sighed and simply walked away from the woman. The woman was indignant. She yelled after Randy attracting the attention of nearby shoppers, her jewelry shaking and rattling. “I don’t think you know who I am…how rich I am…No one just walks away from me like that…Since when do the perverted fags have a right to be offended a by normal woman’s desires? Or maybe the little fag is married,” the woman continued speaking with a mocking tone, ”and he’s going to run home and cry to his husband.” The woman danced around, doing her imitation of a effeminate walk.

Now in a bad mood and in fact feeling downright antisocial, Randy attempted to do more shopping another part of the store. He found a display of new, trendy electronic gifts. As the young blond man attempted to refocus his attention on shopping and put the rude behavior he experienced out of his mind, Randy noticed two men on both sides of him who seemed to be closing in. One was a longhaired and bearded younger man who looked a bit out of place in the store, wearing jeans and sandals. The other man was approaching middle age, kind of mousy looking wearing a flannel shirt and khaki slacks. Without saying a word, the two men kept getting closer and closer until they were both rubbing up against Randy as if in a competition to see who would be first to hit on him. Randy had enough and he snapped, stepping out of character. “Look guys,” he said loudly, “I am not in the mood for any cruising right now, but apparently the two of you are. So here…why don’t the two of you get to know each other.” Randy shoved the older man into the younger man and promptly walked away. The two men looked at Randy and then looked at each other. The older man spoke to the man next to him, “Hi, my name’s Howard.”
“Why don’t you just go to hell,” was the response from the other man.

Deciding he needed to get out of the store for a breather, Randy headed for a store exit. Heading out to the street, a man coming into the store collided into Randy. The man rudely snapped at Randy, “Watch where you’re going, jerk!” Randy decided to just walk down the street and look at some store windows for a while.

*********
"…all I can say is that I’m glad that you’ll be going back home to your mother."

As Randy walked down the street he observed that a smiling homeless man carrying a duffle bag seemed to following him. Randy did not need to be bothered by anyone else. Randy hoped that the man would not bother him and ask him for change or something, the way he felt, he would probably just tell the guy to go to hell. Fortunately, the man kept his distance. A short ways down the block Randy came upon a display window. The window was a nice distraction, in front there were some animated teddy bears dancing in front of a mockup of a fireplace. Stockings hung from the fireplace mantel and a small nicely decorated Christmas tree was off to one side. Next to that display a model train ran through a wonderfully detailed landscape of mountains, tunnels and a marvelous miniature city with lighted buildings including department stores, churches and theaters. Randy stopped and found himself fascinated by the display. As he watched the model train make its way around the winding track, disappear into a tunnel and reappear on the other side of a mountain than make its way through the little city, Randy’s mood lightened considerably and he felt better and more at ease and stood for some time watching the display. Other people stopped too, and stood for a while, fascinated by the display.

Randy became aware of a little girl standing beside him, she seemed to be taken in by the dancing bears. The little girl was dressed like a miniature beauty queen, in an elegant little gown and wearing makeup. It was if she was a little princess out of a storybook. The little girl looked up at Randy and smiled at him. Randy smiled back a gentle smile and gave a slight gentlemanly bow. “Isn’t that a wonderful place in there? Is that your kingdom, your highness?”
The little girl like this young man’s gentle smile and politeness. What a nice prince he would make. The little girl heard Gloria’s voice coming through the miniature speaker placed behind her ear. “Now get ready Chantay…I want you to say your line just as your rehearsed it.”
Randy looked down at the little girl and seeing the concerned look on her face he asked her, “Can you see everything alright?”
Gloria’s voice came through the speaker. “Ok now, Chantay…I want you to say your line now, and remember, I want you to give him a big smile first.”
Chantay flashed a big smile up at Randy and spoke, “Would you like to fuck me?”
Randy’s mouth dropped open and his head shuddered slightly. He looked at the little girl with an expression of hurt, shock and disappointment. Chantay saw the sudden change of expression in Randy’s face and it scared her. Mostly what she saw in the young man’s face was hurt. She had hurt the young, handsome prince who had been so gracious to her. The little girl began to feel that she had just done something terribly wrong and felt her bottom lip beginning to tremble. Randy quickly turned away from the window display and began to walk down the street, turning back once to flash another look of hurt and dismay at the little girl. The homeless man also stood nearby, watching with amazement.
“Well, that’s it Chantay,” said Gloria’s voice once again, “I guess we aren’t going to get any reaction out of him. You might as well come back to the SUV.”
However, Chantay remained at the window looking at the display. She began to sob. Finally, Gloria emerged from the nearby SUV and walked over the retrieve the little girl. “Chantay,” Gloria admonished, “If you insist on behaving like this, all I can say is that I’m glad that you’ll be going back home to your mother.”
Gloria found that the homeless man with the duffle bag was blocking her path back to the SUV. “I don’t know what it is about me that attracts you people. If you think you’re getting any money from me, you can forget it.”
"Left a good job in the city," announced the homeless man loudly, "Workin' for the man every night and day!"
"Oh, good dear Lord," complained Gloria, stepping around the homeless man and made her way back to the SUV with the sobbing Chantay in hand.
Randy now felt totally fed up about everything. He no longer felt any self-loathing, he just decided that there was something wrong with the world itself. This was not a good world and he certainly didn’t want any part of it. He walked past a liquor store on the way back to the subway and impulsively walked in and bought a bottle of whiskey. A few doors down was a drugstore and Randy, just as impulsively stopped in and bought some sleeping pills. Now heading back to his apartment, Randy realized that he had not bought any of the Christmas gifts that he had intended to buy. That no longer mattered to him.

*********
"I've come all the way from Illinois with something I've got for you."

Beef Matson sat in his semi darkened office. He had just finished a phone call and was examining a video camera sitting on his desk when there was a knock on the outer office door. Beef had left his office door opened to the outer office and he yelled for the knocker to come in. A plumpish woman wearing a heavy winter coat walked into the outer office, closing the door behind her. She paused a second, looking around the outer office. "In here!" yelled Beef. The woman trudged into the detective's office, her purse dangling from her arm. She stopped and shot a look around Matson's office apparently to see if he was alone. Beef looked up at the figure, and a puzzled smile came to his face. "My name is C.D.," spoke the woman, "I've come all the way from Illinois with something I’ve got for you." She reached into her purse and pulled out a shiny object and pointed it at the detective.

*********
"It would be like he never existed."

Randy trudged into his apartment and firmly closed the door behind him. He looked at the bag he carried in his hand. His shopping trip had been a cruel disaster. He had meant the trip to be a way to turn things around by himself, to show his boss how strong of a person he was, that he could take control of his own life. Primarily, he had intended to get Beef Matson a nice Christmas gift to show his appreciation for everything his boss had done for him. Instead, the shopping bag he carried only contained a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of sleeping pills.

The optimism that Randy felt earlier in the day was now replaced with depression and anger. He felt a deep contempt for the world and his life. The people in his life he regarded as family and placed his trust in had betrayed him and made false accusations against him. The memories of everything else that had happened in the past few weeks were replaying in his mind and seemed to be ganging up against him. The hate mail, having his name mentioned in the media, the supermarket tabloids, and the people who hurt him both emotionally and physically…the ignorant, rude people in the stores and finally…the little girl who had propositioned him. What kind of world was he living in…how could the world have gotten so corrupt that a little girl would say such a thing…how could the little girl or anyone, think that he would want to have sex with a child? Randy felt anger and disgust and at the same time, great sadness. What a terrible world this way. How hard he had worked to make a good life for himself, and in spite of all his efforts, this is where he ended up. He looked at his apartment. All the effort he had put into it to make it livable. Now, with nearly everything in boxes, what a sad little place it was. Randy began to think all of his efforts to make the place livable were merely self-delusion. Perhaps all of his efforts to make something out of his life were a self-delusion. All he ended up being was an embarrassment to his boss and maybe to everyone else. He had tried to be a good guy, lead an honorable life and treat people honestly and fairly, yet not of that seemed to matter now, he was branded as a child molester and people were trying to hurt him.

Randy took off his jacket and threw it on a chair. He went into his bedroom and placed the bag on his nightstand, removing the whiskey and sleeping pills. He then went into the kitchen returned with a glass filled with ice cubes and poured whiskey into the glass. Randy then opened up the bottle of sleeping pills and dumped a few onto the table. He then got a framed photo of he and Brett from the shelf in the closet and placed it on the stand. He turned on the bedside clock radio. The song playing on the radio was “Is That All There Is?” by Peggy Lee. Randy laughed a gentle laugh. How ironic, the song was so close to the way he felt. Emotionally, Randy was beginning to feel numb, it was beginning to be difficult to feel much concern about anything anymore. Still, he felt sad that he had not gotten Beef something for Christmas…he really had wanted to get his boss something really nice. Perhaps he should leave a note for Beef. At least most of his belongings were boxed up. After his body was found, it would be easy for whoever cleaned out his apartment to just haul out the boxes and dump them somewhere. It would be like he never existed.

Another song began playing on the radio, it was “White Christmas” by Bing Crosby. As Randy listened for a while, tears began to well up in his eyes until finally one fell, splattering on his leg. He quickly wiped the wet from his leg and then from his eyes. Dutifully, Randy lay down on his bed, pulling the blanket over him. The room was cool, yet the bed felt warm and comfortable. Randy closed his eyes and feeling more and more groggy, he let the days events slip from his mind and gradually fell off to sleep with the radio playing “Silent Night” by Barbra Streisand. The radio continued to play softly a short while longer until it automatically shut itself off.

*********
"…it was almost as if he were offering himself to be assaulted."

Larry Doolan had positioned himself outside of Randy’s apartment building. From previous surveillance he knew which windows belonged to Randy’s apartment and the lights were on in those windows. He had caught a glimpse of Randy a couple of times through the windows and finally saw Randy in his bedroom window apparently preparing to go to bed. Larry had received instructions to plant a bug in the young man’s apartment. Since Larry operated alone, no one knew when he was going to place the listening device in Randy’s apartment, so no one knew he would be there tonight. Earlier in the evening Larry had decided to take a more direct action against Beef Matson’s assistant and for that reason he had brought a heavy metal pipe with him. He would plant the bug in Randy’s apartment…and then he would bash the young man’s skull in. That would solve the problem of the child molester permanently and no one would know it was him. Even if his superiors suspected he was responsible…Larry thought they would probably quietly approve of his actions. Smugly, Larry thought that since Beef Matson’s assistant was so prominent in the media, that it would be thought that the culprit was simply somebody who had gotten stirred up by the news media and decided to take matters in his own hands. Like his other attacks, he would be far from suspicion.

As usual, Larry did not walk directly to the apartment building, he would walk two blocks in the opposite direction then double back towards the building, an attempt to make his objective a bit less obvious in the outside chance someone might observe what he was doing. It was a cold night and the man walked into a brisk wind, holding the metal pipe and the small vinyl bag, which carried his tools. Just before he rounded the corner onto another block, Larry heard singing. Walking around the corner, he saw a young man, standing alone on the sidewalk, singing a Christmas carol, “I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day” with a crystal clear angelic voice.

The lone caroler

The young singer was handsome and clean cut with a mustache and dressed a bit in the fashion of the 1970s with a waist length jacket and jeans. “What an oddball fruitcake, singing alone on the sidewalk by himself,” thought Larry, “only in San Francisco…” The young caroler continued singing as Larry approached, valiantly standing posture perfect with his chest out, his eyes staring directly into his. This man was obviously gay and Larry tightened his grip around the metal pipe. The street was deserted. It would be very easy to swing the pipe across the singer’s face, he would not even have a chance to scream…tonight’s carol would be the very last song he would sing. The innocent, trusting air this young man had…he was presenting himself as such an easy target…it was almost as if he were offering himself to be assaulted. However, Larry reasoned that if he attacked this young man, he would have to leave the area immediately to avoid discovery and could not continue with his original plan. He decided instead to continue to Randy’s apartment, walking past the young man and flashing a quick mocking smile at him. A few steps further the singing suddenly ceased and Larry quickly turned around to see what the young man was doing. The youth had disappeared and there was no sign of him. Larry shrugged his shoulders and continued to walk into the wind towards Randy’s apartment building.

*********
"How do you do that…take pills or something? You’re turning even more cute!"

“Randy, wake up!” said a nagging voice. It repeated the urging. “Come on guy…wake up! Let’s go out and party.” Randy gradually opened his eyes, blinking a couple of times and shaking his head. He looked at the person sitting on the side of his bed. “Brett…” said Randy in calm surprise. Randy blinked a couple times more. It was his old lover all right. Brett’s face had a healthy glow, he was dressed in a fresh white polo shirt and jeans. Brett suddenly leaped onto the bed and over Randy, straddling him. “Come on sleepy head, you’re not going to go to bed this early. The night’s still young. Let’s go out and do something…go out for dinner, some dancing.”
“Let me think for a second…” said Randy rubbing his eyes.
“What’s there to think about, Shugabug? Huh, Shugabug? Let’s go out and party.”
“Oh Brett…I’m trying to figure this out…”
“What’s there to figure out? Just like old times. I want to go out but my Shugabug wants to take a nap.”
“No…I didn’t say I didn’t want to go out.”
“Oh-uh”, said Brett seriously as he bent over Randy and looked into his face. “Look at you, you’re doing it!”
“Doing what…?” responded Randy with a slight expression of exasperation.
“You’re turning cuter!”
“Oh Brett…stop it!” Randy turned his head away from Brett’s stare, smiling.
“Uh…look! You’re doing it again. How do you do that…take pills or something? You’re turning even more cute!”
“Will you knock it off.”
Brett leaned closer to Randy’s face, placing his hands on Randy’s wrists and restraining him. “My Shugabug is so very good looking. It’s so good to be able to see you again, like this, in the flesh.” Brett stared closely into Randy’s eyes. “My Randy. My beautiful Randy. My Randy…nobody else’s. I’m not going to let you go until you tell me…that you love me. C’mon, tell me that you love me.”
“You don’t have to pin me down to get me to say that,” smiled Randy, “You know I love you…it feels good to say that…I really love you.”

Brett released his grip on Randy’s wrists and put his arms around Randy’s head bringing it to his. Brett grabbed the hair on the back of Randy’s head with one hand holding it tightly and hugging Randy firmly. “I love you, Randy…I love you so much.”
Randy threw his arms around Brett and held on to him tightly. “I love you too, Brett. I never stopped loving you. I always loved you.”
The two held their embrace silently for a while, then Brett suddenly let go and sat up, his legs still straddling Randy’s midsection. “Come on, get up and get dressed…we really need to get you out of this apartment and go out and party and get you into the holiday spirit.”
Randy continued to lie in his bed trying to make sense of things.
“I remember a way to get you out of bed…” Brett began to poke Randy’s sides with his fingers. “Oh…hey!” Randy responded, laughing, trying to protect his sides from the tickling. “See," taunted Brett, “I remember all the sensitive spots…so you’d better get up.”
“Alright, alright,” surrendered Randy, propping himself up on his elbows, “I’ll get up, but you’ll have to get off me.” Brett hopped back off the bed, sitting on the side again and began to pull the blanket off Randy.
“You know what…” observed Randy, “this is the most vivid dream I’ve ever had.”
“You’re not dreaming, “said Brett, smiling a serious warm smile, “I’m really here and this is for real.”
“This isn’t a dream?”, Randy replied, grabbing onto Brett’s arm and hoisting himself up from the bed. Randy looked at the nightstand and the whiskey and sleeping pills and then looked back at Brett. “Then I guess that means I must be dead.”

Chapter 9 - Is Randy dreaming or is he dead - or neither?

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