One-Eyed Paperboy: A Remarkable Odyssey Gone Terribly Wrong

One-Eyed Paperboy

A remarkable odyssey gone terribly wrong

Copyright © 2006 by Ned Gardner

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse

2021 Pine Lake Road, Suite 100

Lincoln, NE 68512

www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

The author appreciates that certain elements may have to be changed should the manuscript be purchased and legitimately published for national distribution and sale. In all instances, the events and characters are fictitious. Any similarity to real events, real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

ISBN-13: 978-0-595-38735-9 (pbk)

ISBN-13: 978-0-595-83117-3 (ebk)

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Book One: Gretchen

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Book Two: Amber

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Author’s Note

About the Author

To Sammy, with much love.

This time I’m writing to you instead of about you. I like it better this way.

Hang in there, bro…

—Beebo

Acknowledgements

Once again, Judy Brubaker and Dick Stutsman were invaluable concerning their excellent comments and editing skills. And once again my warm thanks to my remarkable sister-in-law, Lou, who helped bring ONE-EYED PAPERBOY to life, along with her devoted husband, Char-ley-Boy, who I’m almost certain did something.

BOOK ONE

GRETCHEN

CHAPTER 1

Keaau Passavant Hospital

Hilo, Hawaii

October 15, 2005

Dear Sammy,

I know you’ve been worried sick, what with all the newspaper, radio and TV coverage running all over the place about Amber and me. And I can’t help but think it’s causing you and mom a lot of embarrassing moments back home with all the neighbors and those old bats across the street sticking their nosy beaks in our business like they’ve been doing for the past thirty freakin’ years. Mrs. Athena Sauter and her two half-dead spinster sisters! Wow, what a trip! Rail-thin Florence the Stick and the mummified, chalk white Edna the Ghost, as we always called them…God, I honestly can’t remember one day when I didn’t spot at least one of those wrinkled stuffed animals sitting in their dumb rocking chairs on that creaky old porch watching our every move like they work for the CIA and they think we’re cooking hundred proof opium or such down in the basement, I wish…

Anyway, I would have written (apologized) sooner but since your long and $$ phone call from Bronxville Monday night, I’ve been kind of down in the dumps trying to make sense of everything myself. And the more I work at it, brother, the more I feel I’m swimming through dense mud—no kidding, it’s really that bad.

Dr. Toomey keeps telling me I’ve got a very active imagination. Dangerously active I heard him tell one of the cops who sits outside my door picking his nose most of the time. Toomey keeps telling me I should write a book about everything—both the Florida mess as well as what happened out here in Hawaii—but if I did, I’m not so sure anyone would believe it. Hell, I’m not so sure I believe it when I think back about everything. Not only with all the craziness that went on out here with the young DeWitt girl, but also with all the craziness that happened with her aunt, the Danner babe back in Florida, and how she damn near tricked me into marrying her and such. That was about a month before I came out here and bought the nut farm and took the manager job at the Hilo library. About a month before I got into even more trouble with all this kidnapping business with the DeWitt girl that some folks—including the good Dr. Toomey, by the way—agree is mostly a lot of out-of-control overreaction on the part of the media hyenas about basically NOTHING! What the hell, I always intended to give her back, didn’t I? So what’s the big problem?

Let’s put it this way: Was Amber Ann DeWitt, the niece, ever intentionally hurt? I mean because of me or something I did, you know, on purpose? NO. Was she abused in anyway? NEVER. Did I ever push myself on her, including, you know, any sexual silliness and dirty stuff like that? No, not really. Except—maybe—for a few bizarre seconds the last time I saw her, right before all hell broke loose when we were having our little picnic.

Of course I’m guilty of thinking about her in sort of a spicy way once in a while, if that’s some sort of crime. I mean unless you’re a homo and such, I can’t imagine a normal person not thinking about her a little bit like that! Especially someone who looked the way she did when we were getting to know one another and we were working out a few of our problems—like the fact she pretty much hated me most of the time!

So did I always behave like a perfect gentleman (except for the brief aforementioned minor distraction)? Yes. And did I always treat her with the utmost courtesy and respect even though she didn’t behave like a well mannered young lady and usually acted like a selfish spoiled brat—no small point here—she herself admitted she was most of the time. YES, ABSOLUTELY! So again, what’s the freakin’ problem? Like Amber herself said a couple of days before the…everything ended, she pretty much looked at the whole experience as sort of an interesting summer adventure. Well, so did I! So when you step beyond all the media nonsense and such, it was essentially an interesting summer adventure for both of us. Period, end of story as far as this boy’s concerned.

And I still insist I never actually kidnapped Amber Ann DeWitt, except, maybe, in a strictly technical sense. But I know you and all those dumb cops don’t agree with me so I guess I’ll always be known as a freakin’ kidnapper for the rest of my life. Especially around the old stomping grounds at home. Along with all the other negative crap she’s been reading about me lately, this should make Mom deliriously happy and give those three Sauter hags and all the other pain-in-the-ass neighbors something really significant to yap about for a change. I’m sorry about that, but there’s nothing I can do now. I tried to apologize the other night when she graciously let me talk to her for about seven seconds but…well, you know Mom. At least I tried, which should be worth something!

Dr. Toomey tells me everything that happened is connected in some screwy way. Of course, shrinks always say that. Anyway, he thinks if I hadn’t had the problems I did with Gretchen, I would never have done the things I did with the niece. Well shoot, Sammy, I’m not so sure about that. But I’ll give you a little advice you can take straight to the bank…BEWARE OF GOOD-LOOKING DOLLFACES WITH SMALL FLUFFY DOGS! ESPECIALLY IF THEY’RE RELATED (the dollfaces, not the dogs). You’d think I would have learned that after first meeting the aunt but that would have been too easy and we both know I’ve never done anything too damn easy. What fun is that?

I suppose most people think I’m kind of an oddball and that’s fine, that’s okay. I’m usd to it by now. As you know, I’ve always been what I suppose you might call a dweeb and the book type, and I was always too freakin’ small to play any sports and such in school. I’ve never been much of a joiner and I never dated much even after I came out here to Hawaii. See I’ve never been too comfortable around girls unless I’ve known them for a long time—like maybe a million years. And that’s, of course, because of the stupid glass eye I got when you and I were kids.

I was twelve and you were nine, and I’m sure you remember that awful Thanksgiving day back in Bronxville when the refrigerated whipped cream can exploded all over the place, shooting the little yellow plastic nozzle into my face like a dart and shattering my left eye all to hell. I can still see you laughing your ass off (with my good eye) until you saw a piece of my blown out eye majestically resting like a glistening, reddish-white pearl on top of the roasted turkey. Then you, Mom, and drunk-as-a-skunk Uncle Greg threw up and such all over the dining room table but I suppose no one likes recollecting that part (except me).

You were probably too young to remember this but I was pretty shy before the accident and I became a lot worse after it. The sad thing is, Terry Leporine was my one good friend at school before I lost my eye but I stopped being his friend after he started calling me Marble-eye and Cyclops in front of the other kids. I know Terry thought it was just a joke, but it was certainly no joke to me. Kids can be horribly cruel as you know, you included, and I don’t think they always understand the hurt they cause or how long it lasts. In my case I guess it lasted for freakin’ ever, and that’s the truth because there are times I still feel it now.

I remember one summer I had a paper route and I use to do my collections on the last Thursday of each month. So this one collection Thursday, I bicycle up to the front door of the Tagwads whom you’ll recall lived over on Yarmouth Road and I ring the bell but no one comes to the door. Just before I’m about to scoot, figuring I’ll have to come back later to try to get my money, I see one of the window curtains move about an inch and I see part of Mrs. Tagwad’s ugly face peeking out like she doesn’t think I see it peaking out. See, they don’t want to pay me the freakin’ $1.75 they owe me because they know the dumb paper probably won’t cancel them because the paper needs the circulation to attract new advertisers even though a lot of cheap creeps like those Tagwads stiff poor working stiffs like me just about every month.

So knowing she’s not coming to the door like she usually doesn’t, I hop on my bike and start to take off just as I hear her say to somebody else inside the house (probably the ugly daughter who’s more ugly than the mom), He’s leaving. Hell, it’s only the one-eyed paperboy. No big deal. We’ll pay him next week. Well I got to tell you, Sammy, that hurt, and I never forgot those words, one-eyed paperboy. And I think I’ve always thought most people—especially the really good-looking girls in school as well as the aunt in Florida and her hot but bitchy niece here in Hawaii—all of them always looked at me that way. Oh don’t worry about him, he doesn’t count. He’s just one of those punk change, unimportant little guys you see hanging around the front of grocery stores all the time. What the hell, he’s just the one-eyed paperboy! Well you know what, Sammy? Maybe that’s all I’ve ever been and maybe that’s all I’ll ever be, but I’ll bet they’re talking about me a little differently now! Yeah, baby—right on, bro—the one-eyed paperboy strikes again! BIG TIME!

The one good thing that came out of my stupid eye accident was Mom got a lawyer and sued the giant whipped cream company for everything we could squeeze out of them—ha-ha, no pun intended. The can was clearly defective (like I am now), and the company eventually settled out of court for three hundred thousand dollars that we thought was a pretty hefty bundle at the time. I don’t suppose it sounds like much today—even just for one eye—but it was a shitload of dough twenty years ago, remember?

As you know, most of it was put into an interest-earning trust I received in a lump sum when I turned thirty. I guess you could say it was my blown out eye that got me that little apartment in Florida and when that little disaster finally ended, it was the rest of the settlement money that eventually brought me to Hilo on the Big Island where I bought the old Tully farmhouse that sits on three acres of a prime macadamia nut orchard in Sugarcane Falls. Harvesting those precious macadamia nuts every year gives me a pretty good income, which nicely supplemented my meager librarian wages so I never had to worry much about money and such. And living out there on the farm by myself gave me all the privacy I wanted, though Dr. Toomey says it was the constant loneliness that got me thinking about all the kidnapping business. Stinkin’ thinkin’ he calls it, but I don’t think it was so stinking and still don’t. And I don’t remember feeling that lonely very often, either. Horny, maybe, but not lonely.

So once again I don’t necessarily agree with the freakin’ doctors, but I’m sure that’s no big surprise to you. The thing is, see, I kind of enjoy being by myself and always have. And I’ve always fantasized about borrowing some girl—any girl as long as she’s real pretty and has a nice can—for as far back as I can remember. The truth is, I probably would have tried to snatch some girl a lot earlier but I never had the chance until I got out here to Hawaii—after Auntie Gretchen pissed me off in Florida by leading me on the way she did, then suddenly surprising me with a massive dose of conscience at the last second. Un-fucking-believable (more about that in a minute)!

Shoot, the only reason Gretchen paid attention to me in the first place was so she could take advantage of my good nature—plus the fact I was single, of course, a solid citizen of the good ol’ U.S. of A., and just stupid enough—or so she thought—to fall for her poor, innocent daughter who has to take care of her hounded and long-suffering father routine. When I think about it now, I don’t think Gretchen ever really cared for me that much and just used me to help her father with all that weird Jewish-Nazi stuff the old fart had been lugging around for the past sixty years. Absolutely amazing when you hear the whole story, let me tell you!

Of course once I figured out what was going on with the old man, I should have figured out what was going on with his daughter a lot sooner but I didn’t and that’s my fault. If I had, I would have gotten out of Florida and moved to Hilo a lot sooner and—you know—maybe not have done what I did with the niece once I got out here but who knows?

Actually Dr. Toomey was the one who told me to write you, thinking it might help me understand my psychosis or motivational turbulence, whatever the hell that means. He says bad thoughts have been cooking inside me since I was a kid even before I blew out my eye, and I should try to get everything out by writing to you. Maybe writing about everything will help me see me better but I kind of doubt it. I don’t think I’ll ever understand anything that happened and I’m pretty sure no one else will either but hey, let’s give it a shot. What else do I have to do?

As I said at the start, I know it’s a tawdry thing I just did with poor little Amber but let’s not forget all the good stuff I did before with her Aunt Gretchen. I mean I went out on a big limb for Gretch and felt real sorry for her once I discovered what the hell was going on with her father. And even though I realized Gretchen was no angel and her father was—God, I don’t know WHAT to call him!—I was still willing to marry Gretchen until I realized the real reason she wanted to marry me! And there are a lot of people less compassionate than me who would have gone running to the police or CIA or such once they finally put all the secret, nasty little pieces together. But I didn’t do that, Sammy. I never even thought about doing that and that’s the freakin’ truth, believe it or not!

It’s funny, but everyone keeps asking me the same question. Did I sort of detain for a few days—okay, Jesus, kidnap—the good-looking niece here in Hawaii because I was so angry with the niece’s good-looking aunt back in Florida? Or would I have grabbed Amber anyway, because I was determined to grab somebody good-looking no matter whom (who?) and Amber appeared to be the best and most available target at the time?

Well that’s not a bad question. And I keep telling them I’m really not sure what the answer is. But I think the real answer is probably a large heaping of both. I mean, knowing that Amber was Gretchen’s niece sure didn’t hurt my almost uncontrollable urge to nab her but let’s be honest…Amber was definitely hot stuff and I figured, okay, it’ll be great fun to have some who looked like her around for a while. I mean, I wouldn’t want to hang out with someone if she was fat and ugly as a toad, would you? Of course not. And I’d always respect her and there’d be no…um,

you know, funny business or anything like that unless, you know, she actually begs me for it the way some girls do these days, I’m told. What the hell, I’m only human! I mean, what guy wouldn’t want to grab a pretty little dollface like Amber Ann DeWitt for a day or two—okay, a few weeks—unless, you know, you’re screwed up or a homo which—like I clearly said earlier—I’m definitely NOT!

Anyway, they keep suggesting the stuff I did out here was likely the result of some weird thing I experienced as a kid, and freakin’ Dr. Toomey and the other shrinks love asking me about all that crap. See, I’ve become quite an expert on what shrinks like to talk about since they threw me in this place a few months ago. It’s kind of funny, Sammy, but no matter how many pompous, insolent quacks they send in here, they all seem to want to dwell on the same two things over and over: My screwed up glass eye, no surprise, and…

one wickedly hot summer—way back in the dark ages when movie theaters had only one screen and real ushers in snappy maroon uniforms helped you find a seat—I fell completely head over heels for a sensational looking usherette by the name of Helen. She was about eighteen or nineteen then, with long, flowing brown hair that was parted in the middle and flopped lazily just below her shoulders, and to me she was the loveliest creature on earth—at least on my part of the earth—which was pretty much limited to the one square mile town of Bronxville, New York.

Throughout that blistering summer, I lived in that air-conditioned movie house practically every afternoon and night, often sitting through the same dumb movie eight or nine times just to be able to talk to her when she wasn’t busy. A ticket cost twenty-five cents then, popcorn was a dime, and sometimes, when I didn’t have enough money, Helen would sneak me in the side door when her manager wasn’t looking. She always called me hon, and though I realized she probably didn’t mean much by it I always pretended she did.

To me she was gut-wrenchingly beautiful. She looked a lot like that actress Katherine Ross in The Graduate, one of my favorite films of all time that I must have seen ten thousand times. Towards the end of the movie…when Ben—the Dustin Hoffman character—drags poor, confused Elaine into that sleazy strip club and forces her to sit there with monster tears rolling down her cheeks while that big breasted dancer playfully bounces her tit-tassels against the top of Elaine’s hair (which is parted in the middle), I still cry along with her because it’s so damn sad to see her so damn sad. She was so fragile…so pure and blameless for what her mother had been doing with Ben…It just wasn’t fair and I wanted to hold and comfort that beautiful, gentle girl more than I ever wanted to hold and comfort anything. And I remember lying in bed night after night praying I might be able to do that for Helen someday…

Helen knew I was love struck of course, and I know she was flattered by the attention even though I was a couple of years younger. And she and her pretty, uniformed buddies kind of adopted me that summer, which was just fine with me. What my pals, my family, and even Helen never quite understood was that my feelings for her were as true and intense as anything I would feel for anyone ever again. And although I never even kissed her, I wept like a baby the day she told me she was moving to Ohio with her family right after Labor Day. We both promised to write but I knew it was over and I’d probably never see her again…which I never did.

For weeks after she left I moped around the house, my heart so heavy Mom thought there was something seriously wrong with me. I refused to go back to school and she eventually took me to the doctor, worried sick I might be showing early signs of polio. The doctor said I was medically okay, which was no surprise to me, although he did suggest I might have some emotional complications that might need tending if my disquieting behavior didn’t change. After a while I eventually settled back into my normal, routinely dull life for the rest of that miserably long winter without her, and that was the end of that. I guess they figured I was just going through some awkward, passing phase and such, you know, the way some kids do.

I especially remember Helen stopping by my birthday party that July and telling mom with a conspiratorial wink she was my girlfriend. She looked like she had stepped out of a cloud in her pretty, thin white cotton sundress and she smelled like fresh-cut flowers when she softly kissed me on the cheek. Right before she left, she handed me a new Murray Brothers’ fishing rod, handsomely boxed and wrapped with a huge red bow practically as big as my head. The gift was great, of course, but it was the card I cherished for years to come. She signed it, Love, Your Helen and only God and I knew how much I did.

I took a lot of kidding about my girlfriend from you and my dumb friends that wonderful day but I didn’t care. I was getting older, and before anyone knew it I’d be of fitting age to drop to one knee and properly ask her for her hand.

That was a long, long time ago and I suppose a lot longer than you ever want to remember. But for me, Sammy, it’s still as clear as yesterday. And I never want to forget that time because it reminds me of how much Helen meant to me and helps explain why I still think about her almost every day. See, she was a saint, Sammy; I’ll always believe that. Another Saint Helen(s), in lots of ways, and every bit as majestic and glorious as that great mountain once was. And she was the most beautiful creature that ever walked the planet—I’ll always believe that, too. And how many saints do you think Toomey and all those other supposedly normal baboons can claim to have loved—even met—during their boring, mechanical little lives? None, in case you’re wondering.

Now the good doctor tells me he’s convinced I was never the same after Helen moved away and he might be right about that. But what drives me crackers is that no matter how many times I try to tell him how I felt about her, the pompous ass can’t seem to accept the fact that I sincerely believed then as I sincerely believe now that I was earnestly, irreparably and maturely in love with Helen those many years ago. I mean I loved her even more than I loved you or Mom! And when you get right down to it, what the hell difference did it make