Chapter 49

the sound: AC/DC – Back in Black, Guns n Roses – Welcome to the Jungle, Nazereth - Razamanaz, Golden Earing – Twilight Zone, Three Dog Night - One

Like I said, the rest is kinda anticlimactic. We waited about an hour, er until I stopped being shocked, appalled and/or frightened and got back to the business of being raving mad.

During that period of time, I stood by the broken window and watched the “Frankie and Bennie follies” in the parking lot.

First they argued, then they fought, then they argued some more, it was very seriously like watching what you would assume people looked like in an asylum when ungoverned. Eventually they stopped rolling around in the dirt like children and got into the car and drove off.

As they drove out of the parking lot I climbed up on the wall of plywood boxes holding all the liquor and from there kicked the slats off of the broken window. I was out the window and around the hotel to the front office and calling the police before anyone could catch up to me.

I then went back into the bar and unlocked the door and let everyone out (taking the time to rescue my own personal bottle of tequila in the process) By the time the police got there I had consumed more liquor than I ever had in one sitting, but I was stone cold sober cos I was mad.

The police took statements from everyone present and as I sat up against the wall watching and listening I came to realize that every single one of the people there had known prior to the event. Even Big Jack who’d got his face kicked had known what was to transpire. Every single one of them but me had been told.

And every single one of them was lying to the police.

Not one person that was there described Frankie or Bennie, or named them, or even remotely suggested that there might be some kind of a tie in between the manager and his sons and what had gone on that evening.

Round about 5 AM when we all had finished with the police and headed to one of the barmaid’s homes nearby, I was sitting at her formal cherry wood dining room table on a full, but still quiet burn when the call came in that Amelia, the front desk clerk had lost her baby.

I got up and walked out the front door. I walked to the end of the driveway and started up the road heading towards my home. I was about a mile down the road before the tears started. But once they did, I knew what I had to do.

By the time I got home I knew 2 things, I was done with playing the game that Do-All had set up for the hotel and as such I was oh so done with dealing with the “Frankie and Bennie follies” but mostly I knew that Amelia didn’t deserve what had happened to her and her little family that night. That Amelia losing a child she and her husband had hoped and prayed for during their 8 year marriage was gonna be where I drew the moral line.

I picked up the phone and called the one person who could hold them accountable where I couldn't....one person I hadn't spoken too in years.

I called my father the cop.