A Rose By Any Other Name Ch. 02

The sheriff brought Buddy home from jail. Dixie Christmas, his mother, was waiting for him in the living room. "You need me for anything else tonight, Senator?" Wilford asked.

Dixie looked at the sheriff, her complexion was red. "No, I appreciate your help, Wilford. I'm sorry they got you out of bed for this monkey business."

"Not a problem; his car is parked at the office. I'll have someone bring it by in the morning. Good night, Senator."

"Thank you very much," she smiled as he left. When the door shut behind him she turned to Buddy and slapped his face. "Do it again and I'll throw your ass out; do I make myself clear? What was it this time?"

"The girl I took to the dance," he replied.

"Rose?" Dixie asked.

"Yes," he said.

"What happened?" Dixie asked.

"Damaged goods," he sighed. "After we got to the dance she spent the entire time with other guys. I tried to talk to her about how bad it made me feel, and she laughed at me."

"Lot's of young girls are like that; common and vulgar," Dixie frowned. "But that's no reason for you to act like a goddamned sissy."

"I got a belly full of it and told her I wanted to go. She said 'adios'. So I got some beer and drove to the pier to cool off," he said.

"Is that where the police stopped you?" Dixie asked.

"Uh, huh," he said.

"There's plenty more fish in the sea!" She said.

"I know," he said.

"And every time the sheriff does me a favor it costs me a bigger favor when he wants something in return. Go to bed and get out of my sight," Dixie said.

-----

As Jack drove away Rose unlocked the front door, went inside, and locked the door before going upstairs to bed. She looked in Melissa's bedroom, she wasn't home yet. She listened at door of her husband's bedroom, and heard him snoring. She went to her bedroom and locked the door behind her before disrobed and got ready to sleep.

"To die, to sleep -

To sleep, perchance to dream - ay, there's the rub,

For in this sleep of death what dreams may come..."Shakespeare

Rose awoke in a ditch along a dark and lonely road. Disoriented and puzzled, she sat up and assessed her situation. Her head pounded. She was raw and bruised. She vaguely recalled being sodomized; she thought the man was Buddy. She tried to orient herself but couldn't. Anxious, she decided to think her way out of the enigma. Her purse was missing. A full moon shone high above her.

The mist and darkness thickened; she couldn't see far. Her chest tightened and her stomach churned a little. And she started walking along the road until she grew alarmed, stopped, and checked her watch. It was five AM.

Confused, she looked around, saw a few trees clearly; others she saw dimly, and beyond them nothing but the mist.

She walked on, came to a wood filled with cedars, crossed it, and came upon an old brick drive with an old house of the Queen Anne Style at the end. The drive was covered by a canopy of ancient oaks.

"Maybe they have a phone!" Rose thought, thanked her good fortune, and turned off the road onto the drive that led to the house.

When she passed beneath the wrought-iron arch, and through the open gates, the mist dissipated and the Moon shown brightly. A strong breeze pushed through the oaks, sounding like heavy breathing; every limb and bow swayed causing the moonlight lace on the bricks to swirl and shift about in strange and fleeting patterns.

The old house formed a silhouette against the bright sky behind it; outside it a light was ON.

The brick road passed through an old cemetery congested with crypts and monuments and tombs. At times Rose's peripheral vision sensed motion, her ears heard muted groans and screams and wailing, and she felt unseen eyes scanning her body.

She calmed herself with recollections of how wind acts and how beams of moonlight appear to move in forests of ambulant trees. But some of the moonlight did seem ghostly when seen from afar, especially the woman in the silver cape and gown standing on the drive ahead of her, and the ghostly form of a younger woman standing behind her near the gate.

Rose limped toward the house, and the spirit-forms dissipated with her approach, when the clouds passed across the face of the Moon.

The drive terminated in front of the old house, and the front door lay beyond a path of stumble-stones, that passed beneath a vine covered pergola; the door was open and Rose knocked. Inside the house was as silent and still as a tomb. No response. She knocked louder.

No one responded.

Rose stuck her head inside the open doorway. A bright fire snapped and popped inside a large brick hearth. The air was larded with the aromas of expensive perfume, good cigars, and better alcohol.

Standing outside, she admired the room and waited; her nails drummed a tattoo on the door-jamb. The tightness and queasiness in her stomach returned.

It was filled with Victorian art and antiques and illuminated by oil lamps; the room reminded Rose of a bordello, especially the paintings of nudes reclining on divans or bathing.

"Hello!" She called again.

"Back here," a female voice beckoned her.

"Where are you?"

"Follow the candles," the voice replied. Rose looked around. A lone flickering candle sat atop the bottom staircase baluster.

Rose cautiously navigated the room to the staircase and the candle; at the top of the stairs was another candle. Rose ascended the stairs slowly. At the top she looked right and left and saw a third candle upon a small ledge attached to the corridor wall. Across from the candle was a longer corridor with rooms on either side of it. The corridor was dark except for a patch of light coming from inside a connecting room. Rose walked to the light and entered the room it came from.

Rose looked about and spotted a woman sitting at a table with a crystal ball upon it, behind a beaded curtain; a younger woman sat on the floor at the woman's feet stroking a cat that looked as limp as a fresh killed rabbit.

The woman at the table had long black hair and wore a wispy silver gown that shimmered in the candlelight. Her eyes were large and black and empty, like an open grave in the moonlight . The room was cool and stagnant, and artfully decorated; it smelled of cut flowers, "Like a funeral home," Rose thought.

The woman looked directly at Rose but said nothing at first. She then eased one leg up onto the other, and the hem of her gown rode up her thighs.

"You're Rose Rafferty, no?" The woman's pleasant National Public Radio voice seemed to come from a ventriloquist.

Rose felt stunned, and looked around the room. When Rose looked at the woman again, she had moved her body to face Rose directly.

"Come closer. You're a professor at the college, right?" Her eyelids fluttered rapidly, like butterfly wings. The woman touched Rose's hair with her fingertips. "Sit," she said.

Rose looked at her then sat at the table.

The woman then faced the transparent globe and passed her hands over it; the globe filled with boiling black smoke.

When the globe cleared and the scene inside the crystal ball was plainly visible, Rose saw herself lying on her bed dressed in a thin negligee, looking at a younger man standing in the doorway. She didn't recognize him.

The crystal globe then filled with scarlet smoke that swirled about and hid the scene inside. The woman passed her hands over the ball and the scene materialized once more. Rose saw herself impaled on the man's cock fucking him furiously as he held her hips steady.

The scene slowly faded until the crystal globe filled with green smoke, and became transparent again when the woman passed her hands over it.

In the scene Rose was heavily gravid and walking through a rose garden. Moving along the path she stopped to inhale their fragrance, and immediately became dizzy and giddy, like the first time she smoked. She extended a hand to steady herself until her head cleared, pricked a finger with a thorn, then collapsed to the ground.

"Someone is bringing you a souvenir from your past," the woman said.

Rose blinked her eyes and was suddenly alone in the room.

"Wake up, Rose," the vanished woman said.

-----

Rose opened her eyes. Her bedroom was dark, the house was quiet, and the clock on the night table read five-thirty.

Two hours later she stopped at the college student center for coffee and saw Jack Grant sitting alone at a table working descriptive geometry problems.

"Good morning," she smiled.

He looked up and smiled back at her. "Hello! Have a seat,"he said.

"You're my white knight, and thank you so much!" She said.

"You're welcome," he replied.

"I just knew I was doomed to walk all the way to town; do you mind me asking what you were doing out there so late?" She asked.

"I live out there," he replied.

"Live out where?" She asked.

"Near the pier," he said.

Melissa wandered up and stood beside Rose.

"I need some money," Melissa said.

Rose looked at her surprised, then opened her purse to get the money.

"Do I know you?" Rose asked.

Melissa looked at Jack and turned red.

"I'm sorry, my name is Melissa, and I guess you already met my mom."

"Hi, I'm Jack," he said.

"You a student here?" Melissa asked.

"Yes, civil engineering," Jack said.

Buddy walked up and interrupted, "You didn't call me this morning," he said.

"No, I didn't. After last night I won't be calling you at all," she said.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" He asked.

"What it means is please leave me alone," Rose said.

Buddy slapped her face, breaking her glasses and cutting her nose.

Jack calmly stood up, stepped over to Buddy, and hit him in the stomach. Buddy sat down on the floor and farted; his right kneecap collided with his chin, and he started crying.

"Friend, it looks to me like the count for you is two strikes and no balls," Jack said.

Jack was arrested and booked into the county jail.

Rose was suspended from teaching.

Jack posted bail and was suspended from school.

Jack went home and had a visitor that evening. He was sitting on his porch reading when the Audi drove up the drive. He didn't know anyone with an Audi, and didn't recognize the driver when she got out of the car.

"Hi," Rose said.

"Hi,"Jack replied.

"I came out to apologize," she said.

"No need for it; yikes, your nose looks awful!" He looked concerned.

"It's okay," she said. "Coulda been a lot worse. Uh, I guess you think I'm nutty being with a person like Buddy, and I suppose I am, or was."

"It's none of my business," Jack replied.

"Well, it's a long story but he was a lot of fun until a few days ago when he revealed his immaturity," she said. "But he's in the past, now," she twisted her wedding ring around as she talked.

"Wanna come inside?" He asked.

"Sure!" She said.

The house was a ocean front cottage with a veranda, a large living room, a sleeping loft, a kitchen, and bath.

"Care for something to drink?" He asked.

"Please," she replied.

"I'm having Southern Comfort and Sprite," he said.

"Can you make a high-ball?" She asked.

"No problem," he said, and made the drinks while she looked the cottage over.

Jack brought the drinks and sat on the large sofa. Rose sat beside him/

"Thank you," she said, and took a sip from her drink. "Your place is lovely, are you renting?"

"Oh no, I bought it," he said.

"You must be loaded!" She said.

"I won some money from the lottery, bought this place, bought the car, and enrolled in school," he said.

"Where you from?" She asked.

"Savannah," he said.

"That where your folks live?" She asked.

"I'm an orphan," he said. "That is, I was adopted and my parents died, and I went in foster care."

"Oh, my! I'm so sorry," she said.

"I'm from Atlanta, got married when I was a student, and my husband disappeared two years ago while fishing," she said. "He went out in our boat with two friends, and never came back."

"That's awful," he said.

"Yes, it is, and so I recently decided to get out of the house a little, to enjoy life," she said.

"Want a re-fill?" Jack asked.

"Sure," she said. "I meant to ask if you'd like to come over for dinner one night soon? I'm a good cook."

"Just let me know when," he replied.

"How about Saturday night? Say, seven?" She suggested.

"Works for me," he said.

"If you have a girlfriend, bring her along," she said.

"No girlfriend," he said.

"Or a guy friend," she added.

"No guy friend, either," he said.

"The view here is beautiful," she said. "I'd love to go for a swim in the moonlight."

"We can if you want to," he suggested.

"I didn't bring a suit," she said.

"I won't tell if you don't wear one," he looked at her.

She drained her drink and handed the glass to him. "Fix me one more drink, and maybe I will."

"I'll get a blanket and some towels after I get your drink," he said.

On the beach Jack spread the blanket and on the blanket they left their clothes.

In the surf he took her hand and watched the moonlight on her skin. "Kiss me," he said.

"Will it hurt?" She asked.

"Do you want it to?" He replied.

"A little," she said.

"Say WHEN," he said.

"Is that our safe word?" She asked, and pressed her lips and body against him.

-----

Inside the courthouse a rodent-eyed security officer stepped into the path of the crowd and succeeded in pushing them back outside to wait while she scrutinized each of them. Her associates watched the crowd press against the glass to escape the worst effects of the rain, and sneered at them. Their sergeant then appeared and they came alive; he surveyed the scene and walked to the entry doors, gently moving the officer to the side and waving the people in.

When the crowd was inside, and past the body scanner, the sergeant whispered something to the rat-eyed officer and waited for a response; she then mouthed something back, maybe she said 'yes, sir;' the sergeant then said something back to her and left. Her small head and little eyes followed him until he disappeared down the corridor. Then she walked over to her smirking associates, poked one of them on his chest with her fleshy finger, pointed her other finger down the corridor, and jabbered without smiling.

An old man straggled in the door.

The rodent-eyed officer scrambled and flew to him, where she stood with both hands pressed on her hips blocking his way. The other officers couldn't hear her but watched her wave her right arm around like a baton while the old man stepped out of his shoes, removed his coat, belt, and accouterments, then raised his arms above his head like a captured Nazi.

The old man was ninety or close to it. He looked thin and wasted from cancer or something, and his pants probably fit him 20 years ago; now they looked as baggy and loose as harem pantaloons, and a full eight inches of belt drooped from the buckle. When he removed his belt the pants slid down his hips and stopped precariously on his pelvic bones. He grabbed the waistband in front and pulled the pants up enough to cover his pubic area; he wasn't wearing boxers or briefs.

'Jennifer,' the name on the officer's tag, made him release the waistband, and the pants fell to his knees. Jennifer rolled her eyes and frowned. Jennifer saw people watching it and forgot about the old man.

"Hey! You! Got a problem with me doing my job?" she pressed her face close to one of them, then poked the woman's stomach with the tip of her wand.

"Please don't do that," the woman asked.

Jennifer's pupils contracted and she poked the woman again, harder. The woman then snatched the wand out of Jennifer's fingers and tossed it away. Jennifer slugged the woman in the stomach then tried to pull her pistol from its holster. Someone screamed. Jennifer, tackled from behind, collapsed to the terrazzo floor with the sergeant atop her.

"Get out of here!" he yelled to the gawkers.

He and Jennifer struggled for control of the gun. It fired, shattering the glass in the entry door. The other guards then jumped into the fray and helped him take the pistol away from Jennifer. She bit two of them and kicked another in the groin before the sergeant sucker-punched her into oblivion. The crowd stepped around the pile and scooted down the corridor to find their courtrooms.

In Judge Lynn Peters court room a kid sat at the defendant's table. He looked to be sixteen or so. Two lawyers sat with him; one had large holes in the soles of his shoes. The kid looked sullen, maybe; almost a dead-ringer for Harpo Marx.

Judge Peters looked to be about fifty. Thick blond locks to her shoulders; heavy war paint; size DD tits poorly concealed inside the black robe and visible from the gallery. Peters leaned over the bench as far as possible, like a girl trying to impress a date with her charms. She weighed 200 pounds, or so, and many swore they'd seen less make-up on corpses.

Peters emptied the papers from Todd Jackson's file, shuffled them like poker cards, and looked over the top of her glasses to frown before speaking. "Todd why are you back here?" Her hair fell across her face and she pushed it back.

Todd ignored her and smirked.

"Hey, buster! I'm talking to you!" Peter's face was scarlet.

"I dunno," he whispered.

"What?" Peter's looked around at everyone as she asked the question. "Todd speak up!"

"I said I dunno! Are you fuckin' deaf?" He smirked again.

"That's enough! Mister! Another outburst like that and you're gonna have a major problem! Do you understand?"

"Fuck off," he mumbled and smirked.

"Don't push your luck, young man! Does someone want to let me know why he's back in my courtroom?" She asked.

"Adam Sanders, your honor." The assistant state attorney rose from his chair.

"I know who you are! So would you mind telling me why Todd Jackson is here today?" Peter's asked.

"Aggravated battery on his foster mom." Peter's stopped him.

"I know that! I got the file right here!" She lifted the file and shook it, then dropped it on the bench.

A woman in her mid forties sat in the gallery, holding hands with a man sitting beside her. Her hands were bruised purple and maroon, and her left eye was swollen and black.

"Mister French! Can you tell me why Todd is here today?"

Frank French, children's legal defense attorney, looked at the state attorney and Todd's criminal defense attorney, Clive Fessler, then cleared his throat and said, " I have to agree with what Adam said; Todd beat up his foster mom."

Peter's twirled a pen in her fingers and drummed the bench with the other hand. She let the pencil fly and leaned forward again. "This isn't rocket science, gentlemen. Maybe I need to speak slowly so you understand me. Why isn't Todd receiving the services he needs to keep him at home and in school?"

The lawyers remained silent.

"Todd! Come up here, baby!"

Todd, dressed in an orange jump-suit and pink prison slippers, walked up to Judge Peter's and stood beside her.

Peter's put her arm around his waist and pulled him close. "Look at me, baby; before I send you home will you tell me why you hit Mrs. Jones?"

"Cuz she's a fuckin bitch!" Todd glared at the injured woman in the gallery.

"Tell me what happened," Peter's cooed.

"I wanted my allowance and she wouldn't give it to me. The law sez I get an allowance!"

"What about it, Mister French, do these people know that every foster child gets an allowance?" Peter's twirled another pencil.

"Your honor, he wanted a month's advance on his allowance, and he's already in the hole for like two months from previous advances," French said.

"I see," said Peter's. "Mrs. Jones do you maybe think you bought yourself a hundred dollars worth of problems by being rigid and insensitive?"

Mrs. Jones' mouth opened wide and she looked at her husband.