“Staci, I can’t… If I do this, I’m no better than David. I don’t have much left to me, but my conscience won’t let me do this. If your marriage is so horrible, then leave him. Go divorce him and find someone to make you happy. There’s too much history between us to overcome. Too much animosity and bad blood for us to ever get over. Your dad is going to destroy me or I’ll destroy him. There is no other way.”
“I’m tired of you hurting me Staci. You have to understand I’ll always love you. All this time, all this pain, all my pretense of hating you. It’s killing me, Staci. I won’t ever forget you, but I need closure between us. I need to be able to think of you as my friend, despite what is about to happen. If we continue tonight, I promise you that you’ll hate me, or I’ll hate you for the rest of our lives.”
My explanation was the catalyst for her crying jag as we continued to hold each other.
Right in front of David Porter.
He launched a haymaker as soon as I moved away from Staci and it caught me flush on the jaw. I dropped on the seat of my pants, disoriented from the blow. In a daze, I watched Staci prevent David from finishing me off with kicks as I sat vulnerable trying to clear my head.
Lucky for me, David was followed outside with some of his minions; including Fred Carter who watched me with a sneer. The remaining group joined Staci in physically holding him back from maiming or killing me.
David continued screaming at me, threatening me with death as they finally managed to haul him away. I continued sitting on the ground as the nausea and vertigo slowly abated.
I groaned as I was finally able to get up. Again, I had the incongruous thought; Nobody would forget this 10th reunion.
I limped home literally and figuratively all the while fighting to keep the contents of my stomach from rebelling on me. I staggered up the stairs and limped to the fridge. I collect ice in a dishrag and kept applying it to the most immediate hurt.
Physical hurt that is-nothing was going to help with the newly ripped heartstrings I was suffering.
Something strange was going on with my body. I started having trouble making my body perform the commands my brain were making. I felt something wet and oozy trickling down my neck. I finally managed to get my hand up there and with a slightly out of focus vision I could see blood on my fingers.
After what seemed an eternity, I was able to punch up 911 on the speed dial on my phone and groggily told them my predicament. Fearing I was suffering from a concussion from David’s beating, I was resolved to try to stay awake for the ambulance.
Which transpired to being passed out when they arrived and took me to the emergency room. There was hustle and bustle as the medical staff had me jump through the hoops of my symptoms and how I had got in that condition. I simply told them someone had a disagreement with me and I left it at that.
The consensus was that I was suffering from a concussion exacerbated from some inner ear damage that should heal without any complications. The upshot was I would stay overnight to be monitored in the event of my condition changing.
Early next morning I had a couple of visitors. The Camden Police Chief along with the Captain of Detectives came into my room. When I saw them I assumed they were going to question me to ascertain who had beat me up. So I was mentally prepared for that scenario when they started throwing curves.
It wasn’t a matter of who I had an altercation with that warranted their concerns, but how I could account for my whereabouts after the fracas. In particular, when did I call 911 and whether anyone was with me prior to the arrival of the ambulance. I referred them to contact the ambulance service and the hospital to satisfy their curiosity of my timeline. If they had any other questions they could refer them to my attorney, I informed them. Both men left with a frown on their face.
Normally, I would have been willing to oblige the police, but the hostile attitudes got my radar alerted. Within the hour I found out why. The hospital was abuzz with the news that Staci Porter was being tended to in the Emergency Room and was assigned a bed in the Intensive Care Unit.
An unknown party had beat the holy hell out of her and she was comatose from the injuries and the medications used to treat her. My efforts to see her were easily defused by the medical staff and I felt a sense of frustration in not understanding what had happened. No doubt, my attempts to see her would add grist to the rumor mills.
My hospital stay was extended another couple of days as the tending physician wanted to be doubly sure there was no extenuating circumstances from my concussion. There were only two circumstances that I was aware of.
First, throughout the weekend, I had not heard word one from Janet, my would be fiancee. I could only assume she had heard of the spectacle at the country club and was pissed to the gills at me.
Second, I had the misfortunate of having David Porter as a visitor. I turned to see him standing in the doorway of my room. The gloating grin was testament what he thought of my predicament. I continued to look at him as he relished the results of his sneak attack.
“David, I can understand why you felt compelled to pick a fight with me, but why did you have to do that to Staci? ” I asked.
The sneer got bigger as he replied, “Do what? I have no idea what you are talking about!”
“The only one with a motive to hurt Staci is you, David. What are you going to do when Charles Buckman decides to get involved?”
“Don’t worry about that, Troy. He and I have an understanding and the police have already been given their marching orders. Some ‘unknown person’ is the culprit to Staci’s attack. When Staci gets better she’ll be shipped back out to California to stay with her sister. Charles Buckman and I will continue business as usual of running you out of town like a beaten dog.”
I sadly shook my head. “Charles Buckman hates me that much? He would allow you to beat up his daughter and try to blame it on me?”
“He can’t stand the ground you walk on. You are an ongoing source of humiliation to his family. What you and Staci did at the school reunion was icing on the cake. He approved wholeheartedly of my measures to discipline Staci.”
“David, I can almost understand why he hates me. But, what did I ever do to you that caused you to hate me to the extent that you do?”
My question startled David. For a brief second the malice in his eyes were replaced with a sense of doubt as he searched for an answer.
“Mr. Holier Than Thou. Mr. I Think I’m Better Than Everyone Else,” he harshly responded, “You thought I was going to let you get away with stealing Staci from me?”
“You didn’t let anything,” I quickly interjected, “You dumped her and I went up to you and told you that I intended to ask her out. You didn’t have a problem with that.”
“Well guess what, asshole? I changed my mind and decided I did want her and I snuck around every chance I could to get in her pants. And she still wouldn’t give it up saying that she was saving it for you. Hell, even when we went to Europe after she ran away from you, all she did was mope and cry over you. She still wouldn’t sleep with me. I was so pissed off.”
“Then we fly back into town and her father read her the riot act and told her that she would marry me, because he wouldn’t tolerate any more scandals from her. So we had our shotgun wedding and she bawled like a baby when I finally fucked her on our honeymoon!”
“So, now, I go out and have my fun and she gets to sit at home wishing that she never left her poor Troy and that is alright by me. Because when you are finally out on the street, she can have you as far as I’m concerned. I’ll be running Buckman’s Enterprises and you’ll be dumpster diving if I can help it.”
“David, I’m just going to tell you once, you got a long way to go to get rid of me,” I replied, “And don’t think you’ll be able to kick my ass. Even after you sucker punched me and kicked me, you never kept me down. I was getting up to fight back when Staci stopped the fight. I would’ve killed you.” I said matter of fact.
The implication that David lacked the ability to keep me down weighed in on him as he walked away. I wanted him to dwell on that fact.
Somehow the days passed at the hospital. Janet was still Missing In Action. I was staying in touch with Tom Jenkins, who was running things on my behalf. I was contemplating weighing revealing aspects of the bank’s affairs that he wasn’t privy to when I was informed Staci wanted to see me.
When I walked in her room I winced seeing the extent of her injuries and my animosity went to a whole new level. How could anyone do that to somebody they were suppose to love.
She beckoned me to sit by her bedside and I held her frail hand.
“I guess you’ve heard I’m being banished again,” she said weakly.
“I heard.”
“I’m sorry, Troy. I didn’t mean to get you hurt. It seems like that’s all I’m good for.”
She started to cry.
“Hush, Staci. This isn’t your fault. You need to leave. Get away from this, because however it ends, you are going to be hurt. Go out to California. Start over. Find someone you can love and put me and David and your dad behind you. Don’t look back,” I ordered.
“I have someone here that I love,” she insisted as she gripped my hand tightly.
I removed my hand.
“Will you love me if I ruin your father, Staci? Because, I intend to do that if I can. Can you stand the thought of being known in this town as the woman that betrayed her own father? I can’t put you through that, Staci.”