Chapter two - X strikes again!

I’m in a reverie of heyday madness. Not to mention heavy doom and gloom. I’m at Jaz’s house, knocking on her door when I notice blood on the sidewalk…and so I follow it down the path.

I tremble.

"Jazhette?"

Then I see the nosy neighbor, Horace, has just been kaboshed on the head and blood has spilt from his head. He’s laying there in a crumpled heap off to the side around the garage.

There’s just so much blood. I’m fixated on it. I can’t move…

“What’s going on?” A deep voice erupts.

I twirl to see Gil as he purportedly sees what I see because he makes a funny mirfled sound. He spins into control just as I lose my balance. Somehow. Because I can’t fucking move.

"Gil! Help me," I say. We bend over Horace, but he is completely zonked cold.

Gil is here! I realize he obviously tailed me after I dashed out of the creative writing group. If I wasn’t so Zombie-like comatose and warped right now, not to mention stumped, stupefied, and stunned by all of this, my heart would be doing gargantuan flips in the air.

The next nanillion second later – I think I’m not sure I’m still in my reverie of madness extreme-aganza – the cops are swirling around like grazing cattle feeding on this frenzied nightmare: taking notes, interviews, zoning in on the swarthy spillage of neighbors who apparently have not seen anying, or heard anything bad or unusual going down.

Well…this isn’t true exactly…of course the neighbors HAVE seen several thousand badland virtuouso pompadored husky young studmuffins flying in and out like a Quasar bullet from outer space - since Jazhette LOVES to get laid A LOT.

The neighbors actually do not take too kindly to this type of behavior, believe it or not. This is suburbia and there exist a higher echelon of unwritten sparky particularly abundant rules, you see. The proverbial housewife + husband + 2.5 kiddos, dogs, cats, etc. and all that come with that package deal in life. They follow their rules in the game of life, but Jazhette (and I for that matter) do not.

There’s really a lot of…well…JEALOUSY of Jaz’s fun-loving heyday madness quirky ways. She is QUIMMISH (being a Quirky Uncontrollable Immature Middle-aged woman) after all, in her own sluttish ways. She gets away with her boytoys galore and string of lovely short-lived love affairs. The guest may not stay long, much like a hotel, but they sure do enjoy themselves!

It’s all a sordid glorified mystery. Turns out that Horace is really comatose and they take him away on a gurney. They have no idea what happened to him. (It’s too soon to tell apparently.)

My guess is that the neighbors are used to parties all hours of the night and boytoys roaming in and out of Jaz’s house so they just don't pay attention because they've gotten used to it OR there might be a few who DO watch the comings and goings BUT they've decided to keep mum and not help us find Jazhette. Like I said, they see her as a Slut and they do not approve. But you gotta love her. She’s got lots of love to give.

I come to life finally and start yelling for Jazhette again.

She’s nowhere.

Gone.

Vanished.

Vamoose.

Sadness washes over me.

A freaky deranged thought: what if she wasn’t a REAL person and she was my imaginary friend, the same one I had when I was little?

In sixth grade, when I had no real friends, not really, unless you counted Mrs. ZeWhelderfly, who lived next door and smelled like her six Siamese cats, along with formaldehyde and burnt bacon, and yes, she was the Crazy Cat Lady that nobody in the neighborhood liked…except for me. Not only did she smell weird, but she cooked weird food, but I liked it and I liked her. She’d always told me strange stories that were dreamy and divine.

So. Back to Jazhette. What if it was like that all-time fave children’s book, The Velveteen Rabbit? What if I wasn’t real and this was all just a sordid nightmare?

The police question us and it's so surreal I don't even know what I say.

Later, Gil and I are inside the house and I crash down from my ultimate neon-thwarted high, which occurred vapidly amind post-numbness feelings.

Gil finds the alcohol and now we’re sipping vodka, the only half-full bottle of Jazhette’s.

“She’s been taken,” I say. “X got her. But who the hell is X?”

I explain to Gil getting stabbed at the Halloween party last week and who X might be: Chryssa’s ex boyfriend Ryan, who just got out of prison? Perhaps…

Gil kind of knew about my stabbing and Near Death Experience since he knows my therapist who set me up in the NDE - pronounced INDIE - program, this new type of therapy that draws in creative writing and subconscious thoughts, dealings, all for NDE's.

“How do you know it was Ryan who stabbed you if everyone was in costume?” Gil asks. A sensible question.

I ponder this.

“Well, Ryan’s been stalking Chryssa for seven years. Chryssa told me he was at the party, trying to get her.”

“How reliable is this Chryssa? She a good friend of yours?”

“Yes, she’s one of my best friends. I trust her – except, well, she has been snooping and spying on me – and really, all six of us…” I trail off, confused. Tired. Feeling ridiculed by her suddenly.

“Jara, you need to look at the facts. Did you see who stabbed you?” Gils changes the focus.

“Casper the Not-so-Fucking-Friendly Ghost!” I explode. He should have stabbed Chryssa, too, not me! I almost died from this!

“Look, Jara, I know you’re upset. And I don’t know you very well, but I can tell that you need help. I’m good at this kind of thing. I –" He falters just then and touches my hand. “I like you, I mean to say I think you need a friend. Especially one on the outside looking in.”

“Sure, Gil,” I give him a hug and he holds me for just a split second before releasing me. It feels good to breathe him in and be held in this way. He is warm and he seems tender. And kind. I really need that right now.

Later we go back outside trying to piece it together at the scene of the crime. It doesn’t help that we just had about four vodka shots each. But maybe we need more.

{Please see Chapter One on 11/15/09.}