Read Played: “Sometimes you never know who is playing who, until the damage is done." Online
Authors: Bad-Boy Storyteller
“Me too,” she says, falling into him, kissing, trusting. They enjoy each other late into the night until they are drunk and spent, talking over every detail of their plot—their most beautiful conspiracy.
.
N
ot understanding why his son won’t answer his calls, William starts to question what has happened and if he’s been used. He also fears that if certain ones conclude that Joshua compromised the car club all over some scam, he and his brazen little whore may be excommunicated—a word that, within the tenets of the car club, takes on a whole different meaning than it does in Catholicism.
.
T
he next week sails by as Joshua and Kimberly hole up in their home, planning their future and catching up for lost time. Outside the reporters are still on twenty-four-hour watch, and inside their Facebook page is blowing up with prospective magazine photo-ops, limitless interview offers, lawyers that would like to handle their potential lawsuits, agents who are begging to represent them, and one woman who even requests to have Joshua’s seed, so she can bear his child. They only venture out at night for expensive dinners and drinks in some of Seattle’s finest restaurants, to make their appearances, using every opportunity to make sure one of them says something that borders profoundness and/or insanity, to maintain the public’s involvement. They’re living the high life with no end in sight and cherishing every morsel of their stardom. At home they cuddle and play and discuss all they’re going to do with their lives, as well as working on the final stages of their scheme.
It’s not long, and the money starts pouring in, fueling the lifestyle they’ve longed for. Nearly nine hundred thousand dollars is awarded to them, via MTV, for the exclusive rights to film their upcoming wedding, with a few reality twists of course. And they begin spending it right away, making many purchases off the Internet: expensive guitars, jewelry, clothes, and a black, almost see-through, wedding dress. And the dope man now visits on a daily basis. They have a nine-thousand-dollar hot tub put in, where they discover new ways to make love in the evenings. And by day Joshua thrives on the fascination of the paparazzi. He greatly enjoys speeding away from their vans in his Lotus and has even more fun ditching the black Mustang. Although he’s never actually seen its driver, he knows it to be Cools. And in the back of his mind, he presumes he’ll have to deal with him at some point—he just doesn’t realize how dangerous he is.
Subsequent to their R & R, they get down to business, hiring an agent and giving interviews on all the top shows—
The View, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Nancy Grace
, and
Piers Morgan Tonight
—never revealing much of their story, only hinting at the book, soon to be on the stands. Every show pays them generously as well as setting them up in premium hotels and flying them first class to new cities and awaiting limos. High-end clothiers and jewelers even pay them to wear their latest designs, and the flood of laughter never runs dry. While on the road, and in between gigs, they negotiate other deals, like the million-dollar offer for Kimberly to pose in
Playboy
. And the nearly two million proposed by an adult film producer for a full-length video of them. Kimberly consults with the attorneys representing the Seattle Police Department, who are suggesting a backdoor settlement of five million to leave certain aspects of the interrogations out of their book. And another company, which sells novelties, wants them to pose for a hot, romantic, cultish calendar for 2012, to run from January 1 to December 21, representing the Mayan calendar—the Doomsday Count beside the Doomsday Countess. They release their wedding vows on MTV and commence shooting film for their new reality show pilot. The world literally falls for the young couple, seeing the true love they hold for one another.
Finally the demand for them gets so intense they decide to go away for a while on a well-deserved vacation. So in the dead of night, they slip out the back of their hotel and, with fake passports, sneak off to Europe. There, with a couple of wigs and oversized clothes, they tour around undetected for weeks. They can do no wrong; even their abrupt disappearance gains them more notoriety.
“Where did they go?”
“Whatever happened to Joshua and Kimberly?”
And these headlines only overshadow the more aggressive commentators who are curiously asking why all of Joshua’s poems were previously copyrighted, why he was so arrogant, and how convenient it has all worked out for them. And even the tougher questions, alluding to the fact that they may have scammed, tricked, and manipulated the media, add to their intrigue.
Together they are becoming demigods.
.
C
ools again awakes in his car. This time he’s in a superstore parking lot, where within the mind-numbing fog of a hangover he tries to revisit the night before, remembering only transitory pieces.
I was at the Shelter.
Sitting alone in the dark, spiritually weary… Phone rings…I’d thought she’d given up.
I switched to coffee, put away the coke, ate part of a meal.
I knocked on her door. She was waiting with open desire; soon we were naked, united, loving.
We were resting under a thin sheet. I told her everything. It felt good to let go. For a moment I sensed another path, another destiny. She seemed to understand; her words were soft, but they held insinuations, scoffing at my feeling sorry for myself. I began to argue, hinted at future atrocities. The cocaine and anger were calling. I exploded into a scathing torrent of words—words I wish I could take back.
Then I was barreling down the highway, snorting cocaine from the palm of my hand, mad at the world, mad at Joshua, mad at Chelsea, mad at myself. I started screaming, “Fuck him! Fuck her! Fuck my life! I’m going to find some piece of shit and beat the pain into him. The only one who can stop me is the devil himself.”
I realized I was only a few blocks from the El Rancho, a drug-infested billiards bar. My tires skidded over the curb. I snorted another handful. Every cell in my body was raging. I stepped in, prepared for war. Loud music blared; women were dressed scantily; the natives were watching. I wore the stare of death, sniffed the cocaine in my nose, demanded the bartender to give me a bottle of tequila, slapping a hundred on the counter.
“I can’t give you the whole bottle, man.”
“Then take a fucking bottle and pour the whole fucking thing into as many shot glasses as it takes!”
He began to pour. I swallowed three in a row. This caught the notice of the regulars. Unsociable behavior moved my way.
“Hey! Hey, aren’t you that cop?”
I didn’t acknowledge him or even turn around, only took another shot.
“Hey! I’m talking to you. Aren’t you that cop? Mr. Cool or something?”
“And what if I am!”
“Yeah, I knew it was you.” He looked around at the other men, speaking loudly, “So how does it feel to waste your life framing an innocent man?”
I spun off my stool and punched him in the nose. Crack! Blood spurted all over his cheeks. He staggered back. I advanced, grabbed his shirt collar, and landed four more heavy blows to his face. I forced him to the ground, yelling, “Say something stupid—I dare you! Say one more stupid fucking thing!”
“Go fuck yourself, dirty cop!”
Then I cannot remember anything more. Why can’t I remember? What did I do?
.
H
iding away in Europe, the renowned duo hasn’t a care in the world. They fritter away their days without rule, blowing money like spoiled children and taking in all the sights. Joshua whisks her away to Paris on a fairytale romance. Then off to Monaco to gamble with their ill-gotten fortune, followed by a tour of Egypt’s pyramids and other ancient sights—never staying more than a night in any one place. They spend an evening in a villa off the coast of Italy, and then to Prague, where they meet another young couple who suggest they must experience Amsterdam. And the next morning they’re off and running, eating and drinking their fill of the local delights—one of them being the unrestricted Afghan heroin.
In their hotel, as they lie in bed, skin pressed to skin, and high, Joshua mumbles his love for her. He tells her how he would be forever lost without her and that if she were to die, he’d commit suicide to be joined with her once again. Kimberly, so loaded she cannot reply with words, tells him all he needs to hear with her caress. And there they stay for the next few nights, doing the drugs of the heavens and making love, bothered by no one, not even the maid who obeys the “Niet Verstoren” sign hanging outside their door.
Each day they pay careful attention to all news broadcasts. Joshua dribbles over every word, good or bad. But underneath the surface, he holds some jealous sentiments concerning the growing popularity of his new wife. Everyone is beginning to seem more interested in what life was like for her on the ranch than for him in prison. They’re now calling her the Sister of Mystery, as they repeatedly dub in segments of her interview with Tabatha Sterns, in which she vaguely insinuated some possible girl-on-girl escapades at the getaway.
Finally one evening Joshua confronts her about it. He asks softly, “Kimmy, when you were at the ranch did you…you know, did you fool around with any of the other girls?”
She smiles to him with a luster.
“Did you?”
“Well…There was this one silky woman there named Paloma. A tall, thin black woman from Georgia, she was always touching me and lauding over my figure. She made me feel warm and sexual, the way you do. And whenever I would go to her room, she would dress in my presence—she wore browns and purple lace.” Kimberly stares off, continuing, “I often felt myself wanting to touch her skin. Then one night we were up late, peering through a provocative lingerie book—it was from France or somewhere. And the girls in it were young and fresh. Paloma kept telling me how delicate I would look wearing them, and I was starting to fantasize of what she wanted from me. So I began touching the girls in the pictures, my fingers brushing over their flesh. She asked me if that’s how and where I liked to be touched, and I said—”
She then stops due to his peculiar reaction. She would have normally expected him to be turned on, but instead he appears to be preoccupied. She asks him what’s wrong.
“Nothing.”
“No, something’s wrong. Are you jealous over what Paloma and I were doing?”
“No…well, no…But is that the way Trace would touch you?”
Kimberly instantly becomes infuriated. “Do not do this, Joshua! It was your plan, remember? You’re the one who told me to do it. I did it for you. I did it for us!” She pauses for a time. With each passing moment, her emotions rise, while he feels increasingly guilty for bringing it up.
She stands over him. “I can’t believe you would ask me this when it was all your idea! This is all your fault Joshua. And now you want to ask me things. What do you want to know? How good a lover he was? Did I like fucking him? Did he make me come? I don’t even want to think about. It’s over—done!” She starts crying. “I only love you, Josh…you and only you.” Then she runs to the bedroom, and before the door slams shut, she yells, “You know I would do anything for you; then you take advantage of me like this!”
Joshua slumps quietly in his chair amid plenty of unwanted noise inside his head. His anxieties elevate as he struggles to restrain the images of Trace and Kimberly from his mind. It’s been itching at him for some time now. So he smokes some more of the heroin off of a piece of tinfoil and gazes through the hotel room’s skylight. It loosens him into a state of bliss. Then he smokes more than he should and closes his eyes. There his feelings and symbolic thoughts meld into pictures—stories of joy and boyhood fun.
It’s summertime in Idaho. The heat drops down upon the Clemsen farm by day, and
The Andy Griffith Show
plays on their color television set at night. It’s a world that is safe and fulfilling—an open meadow for the grand adventures of little Frankie.
Ever since hillbilly Abe and Sally stole him away from a life of inopportunity and left him with his new family, he’s finally been able to be a normal young boy. He spends his days playing in the sun with Billy, his new brother, and Trixter, the family dog. The two boys have in a short time formed an unbreakable bond. And although neither of them realizes it, they both benefit from being followed around by their sister, Bobby-Sue, who asks them countless questions. The three of them are inseparable in doing their chores around the farm and helping Mrs. Sue Clemsen prepare homemade meals. And Jake Clemsen even gets little Frankie his own calf, which he names Moo-Moo and tends to daily.
On weekends they go to baseball games at the high school, where Mrs. Clemsen retells her favorite story to her friends: the day her little Frankie, the boy who wouldn’t speak, said, “I love you,” to her—his first words since the incident. And how she’d responded with a burst of tears and hugs, how she held him firm, not letting go for five minutes straight, only releasing her clutch to call the fellow members of her church to report the miracle—their gift from Jesus. And that how, in just a few short weeks, he was speaking well, like he’d never had a problem. Except for some occasional crudeness, she would add in a lower tone; you know…his past learned responses that Jake and I had to deal with in short order.
Occasionally she tries learning of his past. And even though he hasn’t yet opened up to her, she finds no need to rush him. She simply trusts that someday, when he’s ready, he will share his secrets. But little Frankie isn’t holding out on her; he really cannot remember much of anything, since most of his past is hidden from him as well. He’s only left with a haunting and vivid likeness of a beautiful woman who wears long, flowing, blond hair. Though he believes the image comes from the preaching at church, the figure in his mind is that of what a worldly woman would look like.