the Reckless Driver

At this point in the novel, "Into the Light," we've met Roxie, but don't know a lot about her. This is the first chapter to feature her. She's 20 years old and is the most beautiful girl in town. And, she comes from a family with some "rather bonkers secrets!"

August 18, 1985 – Colmar, Mississippi

Roxy kept her left hand on the wheel just long enough to keep her ’81 VW Rabbit going straight as she ambled up University Drive, swinging her arms and yanking her shoulders up and down, left up, right down, right up, left down, finger clapping, swaying her head to and fro and singing (she had a beautiful singing voice); “Karma karma karma karma karma chameleon!” She pushed in the clutch and clumsily shifted the car into third gear, then she realized she was about to come to an intersection with a light that was yellow, so she just put the car into neutral and let it drift to a stop allowing her to continue flailing her head and jerking her shoulders like a see-saw and colluding with Boy George on one of her most favorite songs, “You come and gooo! You come and go-o-ooh!” Finger clapping, arms waving, head thrashing, rhapsodically roaring, “Loving would be easy if your colors were like my dreams! Red gold and green! RED GOLD AND GREE-E-E-EEN!” She realized she had overshot the stop a little and was forced to stomp on the brakes causing the VW to come to an abrupt stop rocking it back and forth rather conspicuously.

Normally, Roxy didn’t concern herself with such things, but she looked over and noticed that there was a CPD patrolman in a cruiser sitting next to her at the intersection. The patrolman was looking right at her, smiling and laughing. Roxy broke off the dance, turned down the cassette player and did her best to give him an “aww…ya’ caught me being silly” smile which she punctuated with a little finger wave. He wiggled his fingers at her in return.

The light turned green and out of solemn regard for the divine hegemony of the CPD, Roxy drove like a chauffeur up the hilly road that ran through the western part of town. The patrolman then for some reason, changed lanes and got behind Roxy which made her think she was about to get pulled over for…what? Reckless driving? Blasting Culture Club? Then, just as Roxy suspected, as she drove past the mall, she saw the blue lights in her rearview mirror and heard the little siren commanding her to pull over. She thought to herself, “Yup, ole Officer Darryl looks like an Eddie Rabbit kinda guy, so…ya…must’ve been the Culture Club.” Roxy pulled into the mall parking lot and fumbled around looking for her driver’s license, which she found on the rear passenger side floorboard under a week old Burger Hut bag.

As Officer Blackmon got out of his patrol car Roxy noticed that he didn’t have the little ticket book, or anything, in his hands. In all the other numerous times she had been pulled over or been with someone else who got pulled over, the cop always brought the little ticket book they were all so proud of with them to the assailant’s vehicle. She thought, “Hhmmmmmm…”

She knew this cop or knew of him. He had married a girl that Roxy knew named Sheila about a year prior. Sheila was from Colmar and she had been in a class with Roxy at the University the last semester. The cop’s name was Darryl Blackmon and he had been with CPD for about two years. He was from some little town out on the edge of the county. So, Roxy knew who he was and thought he might be twenty-five or so.

She rolled down her window all the way and stuck her license out. Officer Blackmon took the license and glimpsed at it as he smiled at Roxy like a salacious sailor.

Roxy decided this could be fun, so she grinned at him kittenishly. She thought he was good-looking; he was kinda tall with broad shoulders and a square face and blond hair. With a deep lusty gaze, he handed the license back to her like he was handing her a Grammy. “Good afternoon Ms. Banahan. Roxy, is that right?” By the way he had said that she could tell he knew who she was.

“Yup, you got it.” Roxy intoned, “So…Officer, did I do something bad?” She pulled down her sunglasses just enough to reveal her eyes, turned her top lip up and furrowed her brow in a show of concern.

He leaned his arm on her driver’s side door, moved his eyes to within a breath of hers and said, “If you did, I wasn’t here for it.”

She didn’t understand what that was supposed to mean but she gave him the coquettish giggle he was plainly seeking and she told him, “Well, I certainly don’t want to be trouble…”

He was having a hard time being cool, he was going adrift in her eyes and whatever perfume she was wearing was making his mouth water. She would not let him break eye contact, which was no problem for her… he told her, “Well, my job is to keep you out of trouble.”

Again, she wasn’t clear as to what he meant, “I sure do appreciate it…I know you serve the public like a real man.” She had learned that men loved it whenever she told them that they did something, anything, “like a man,” regardless of whether or not the compliment made any sense. She hoped that this would move him to his point.

“Ya, thank you, I appreciate that.” He chuckled, “Tell you what, we should get together and do something…like…sometime.”

Roxy thought, “There it is…” She concurred, “Yeah, I don’t see anything wrong with that. You wanna call me?”

“Sure, ya, give me you…your number, yeah. Please.”

Roxy dug around in the car for a piece of paper. She ripped off a piece of a brown paper bag that had an empty beer can in it on the front passenger side floorboard. Then she dug around for a pen, which she was pretty certain she didn’t have.

Officer Blackmon handed her a pen and he snickered awkwardly, again. Roxy snickered to play along as she scribbled a phone number down on the torn paper bag. Then she handed him the number and giggled for him again. She set the pen down in her console.

He laughed as he took the number. “Thanks,” he said as he held up the torn piece of the brown paper bag like it was a lottery jackpot. “I’ll call you soon.”

“…Can’t wait!” Roxy watched him through her rearview mirror as he got back into his cruiser. She glanced at the little stale half-moon cardboard air freshener hanging from her mirror and made a prayer as she deliberated on Officer Darryl Blackmon’s fate, “Poor fool…tonight is a dark moon.” And thus Roxy declared, to all who were listening, in all the dimensions and various realities, “Edjew do esmi dhuskos louksna. Me soitos kuwros!”

He noticed her dusky eyes tracking him in her rear view mirror. He grinned and waved at her. Without turning her head, Roxy put her hand up and wiggled her fingers, “bye bye…”

He couldn’t wait to call Roxy. That night after dinner, as soon as his wife went up the stairs of their cozy little townhouse to get ready for bed he dragged the phone out to the back deck and closed the door. He took a huge breath and dialed the number she gave him.

The phone rang, “Ring.” He thought, “’Hey, Roxy…what’s up?’ No, too predictable.”

“Ring.” He had to come up with new opening, “’Hey girl? Whatchya doin’?’ No, she’s heard that too.”

“Ring.” He assured himself that she was game, “What am I stressing out on, she was totally in to me this afternoon, there was real chemistry…”

“Ring,” “Damn girl, get the phone…”

Someone picked up the phone and he thought, “Deep breath…”

“Thank you for calling Pizza Place, home of the butter garlic extra easy-cheesy pizza strips,” this is Kevin can I help you?” stated Kevin employiously.

Darryl felt as if he had been hit in the face with a hot extra easy-cheesy pizza strip. He had entered a dimension where for some reason he wasn’t the shit and it wounded him. Then, with a voice that sounded like dripping water, he said, “Ummm…is…is Roxy there?”

Kevin responded, “I’m sorry?” Kevin heard a sound that he was all too familiar with and had learned to accept with a sense of humor; the phone slamming on the other end followed by a dial tone. He responded with a stern, “Well, fuck you too.”

Yes, Darryl slammed the phone down on Kevin because he wasn’t Roxy. Darryl felt angry and insulted because he had been so nice to her. “That fuckin’ bitch…as soon as I see her she is getting that goddamned ticket!” Then, he thought, “Maybe I dialed the wrong number.” So he called again and it was still Kevin. Darryl was seething; he punched the door which also deserved its comeuppance for not being Roxy.

The night was warm and muggy and the moon was dark. Darryl wanted to get inside out of the heat and he wanted to pout. He walked into the living room and turned on the TV, plopped himself down on the couch and stared at the ceiling.

After a while, Darryl had calmed down enough to watch David Letterman and try to enjoy it. He relaxed and turned his attention to the TV sitting against the opposite wall of their narrow little townhouse. It was hot so he took off his t-shirt and his running shorts and lay down in his boxers. He was facing the front door and the large plate glass living room window next to it.

The TV blinked out just as the opening credits ended and David Letterman walked out on stage. Darryl thought the TV finally died. It was old, maybe the tube gave out. Then, just a second later the living room light went out, along with the outside light on the porch. He leaned up on the couch to look out of the window and all the neighborhood lights seemed to be out too.

The moon was dim and the musky summer night haze trapped its meager rays, preserving them in the air for brief moments and then freeing them to hit the ground. The living room sat in near absolute darkness. The sparse moonlight drifted in through the front window, bouncing in peculiar angles off of callous hovering objects and landing on languid walls sequestering Darryl amongst a menagerie of lanky spectral shadows. The air was stale and the sound of crazy chirping crickets stood out against the dead night interrupted only briefly by the sound of one lonesome car as it journeyed down some strange street at the far reaches of the neighborhood. A dog down the road began howling frantically, followed by another dog bellowing out a loud growly bark. The black lab right next door began wailing and roaring like it’d seen a creeping invader…

Some hidden hand flung open the front door causing it to slam against the wall. Roxy Banahan oozed across the threshold through the open door, into the Blackmon’s living room. She was exquisitely naked; the heat from her bronze slinky body mingled with what scant moonlight there was to form a spare sparkling band around her silhouette.

Roxy’s hair glistened from the moist air and it tumbled down her head in subtle silky ripples. Her eyes were fixed on Darryl as he lay there on the couch observing her cosmically splendid beauty. His brain was scrambled in panic, confusion and disbelief. Her eyes were lined with black mascara that was starting to run down her cheeks in little needles from the humid late summer air outside. She reached up with both hands and ran her knifey fingernails through the hair on either side of her head, pulling it back behind her ears. She regarded Darryl like a starving cat and cooed to him in her softest voice, “Ya’ ready for our date, Mr. Officer?” He didn’t respond at first, so she reached down to her vagina which was covered in shaggy onyx hair and said, “What’s wrong? You do want this, don’t you?”

He stammered, “Ya…yeah…yes.” He finally got the words to come out but he sounded like a condemned little lamb looking at an immense sharpened blade, “b...b...but...my wife is here…” Darryl didn’t have the clarity of mind to decide if he was exhilarated or terrified. It was all the same to Roxy. She was all of it.

Roxy cajoled him tenderly, “Don’t worry about her Officer…she’s my friend…” The last words had barely left her lips when she leaped on top of Darryl! She plunged her thick scratchy tongue into Darryl’s throat and he felt like she would tear his tongue out of his mouth. She fumbled at his boxers to pull out his cock, she took her tongue out of his mouth, he tried to lift his head up to kiss her but she clamped her giant paw down on his forehead pushing him savagely into the armrest of the couch. She put him inside her and she began to gyrate back and forth, it scraped him like there were barbs clamping down all around his shaft but somehow it still felt soft and wet, she sank her sharp fangs into the side of his neck, he could feel the deluge of warm sticky wet blood that splattered all over him, the couch, the wall, and the floor! She tightened her massive jowls around his little white throat and shook and shook so hard his whole body and his head swung back and forth spewing blood in all directions! He tried to scream but he couldn’t breathe! She rose up and looked down at him with stabbing amber eyes, dripping his blood onto him from the tips of her steely fangs. She dragged her claw down from his forehead across his nose and chin to his chest leaving a long bloody tear on the front of his face, she dug both her claws into his chest, gouging gaping gashes through his chest hair all the while rhythmically swinging her hips forward and back, forward and back, it hurt his dick but it felt so good and he was so hard, forward and back, up and down, her plump round breasts swinging little beads of sweat and blood off of her supple umber nipples. She clamped her jaws down on his neck again swinging it back and forth with so much force he felt like his head would snap off! He couldn’t breathe! The pain was brutal! There was so much blood he couldn’t see! He flailed his arms and kicked his feet! She bounced up and down on his dick and when he came he felt like he was shooting nuclear poison acid, it burned but at the same time it felt divine, he screamed but still, there was no sound because he had no air! When Roxy felt like he was done she propped herself up on his chest with the palms of her hands, she was gasping for air almost as much as he was. As she looked down at him the sweat pooled in her eyes and ran down her cheeks pulling her mascara down in delicate matching spikes. As he looked up, her sweat dripped on to his face from the tip of her nose. She barked, “Is that what you were after Mr. Officer?” he didn’t answer, all he could do was lay there gasping and looking at her in terror! Roxy’s voice was reaching a crescendo, “HUH? Is that what you pulled me over for? What? Was it?”

He responded sheepishly, “Ye…yeah…yeah?”

She looked him in his pitiful panicky eyes and proclaimed, “Moitmos Sakrodhokjom paukos acnos!” She leapt off the couch and on to the floor. The front door was still wide open. Darryl watched her wide hips sway side to side swinging her fleshy buttocks as she marched outside. Roxy crossed the threshold, he blinked and she vanished. He leaned up on the couch and looked out of the living room window to see where she went, but the only thing out there was a little white animal scampering across the yard towards the tree line.

Officer Blackmon, one of Colmar’s finest, rolled off the couch and onto the floor. He pulled himself up to his knees, onto his feet and stumbled into the powder room under the stairs. He flipped on the light and looked at himself in the mirror. His whole body was covered in bloody sweat and he had three long deep scratches going down his right cheek, one of which was trickling blood. His chest was also scratched in three even lines only these were a little deeper; they were all bleeding down his side.

Sheila called out to him from the top of the stairs, “Darryl is everything ok down there?”

“Ahhh…ya honey, ya, everything’s ok…”