The Legend of Wet Willy

Part One: 

He stood there trembling, fear and adrenaline stirring in him like a static charge hiding in a doorknob, waiting. William Hendricks closed his eyes in a nervous flinch as he saw Adam Smith, his long-time nemesis, hacking up phlegm to spit in his face. The circle of children around the bike racks made a groaning noise in unison, followed by laughter when the loogie made its impact with an audible splat.

When “Wet Willy” Hendricks opened his eyes all he could see was white light. He didn’t know what happened next, but Janey Turner told the principal that the events seemed “like something on TV, like when animals attack”. Or when Tom has Jerry in a corner, and it looks as though the cat may finally win, when WHAM! an oversized mallet appears from nowhere and smacks a tall, pink knot on Tom’s head. Only Wet Willy didn’t have a mallet. His tiny fists curled tightly into bumpy, little pieces of rock and came up from beneath Adam’s jaw no less than three times in hummingbird-like succession, knocking the startled bully to the asphalt. Wet Willy didn’t stop. The mouse dove on the cat’s belly, driving his knees into Adam’s ribs and guts. The bully exhaled loudly in pain, and the crowd of children by the bike racks sucked in his breath, absorbing some of his fear, for none of them moved a muscle to stop the fight. They just stood there and watched, helplessly, while the biggest kid in 5th grade got his face uglied up by the asthmatic kid with braces, who had obviously snapped completely. Eye, nose, mouth, mouth, eye, nose, nose, throat, nose Wet Willy pounded in no visible pattern. But what was visible was Adam’s face turning blue from lack of breath and red from blood.

Coach Klein finally came outside at that point, headed for his car. Curiosity drew him in. He’d seen many fights by the bike racks in his 14 years at Bethany Elementary, but they were typically easily identifiable from afar by the circle of children chattering like monkeys, and moving like a flock of birds around the squabblers as the fight took new direction. This time was different, though. Same circle of kids, but motionless and silent. As he drew nearer he heard a soft thudding sound, like a baker slapping fresh dough against a stainless steel counter covered in flour. The sound was Wet Willy driving his fists into the face of Adam Smith, a known bully, and possible future date-rapist. Coach Klein quickly broke through the ring of hypnotized zombies, and for one second he noted the shock on their faces, and found it ironic that the same kids who sat watching every horrible thing un-phased on television were completely petrified by reality. He yanked Wet Willy up effortlessly. The ten-year-old boy was probably only four feet tall and 70 pounds; about the size of many of the second and third graders at Bethany. He didn’t look at all capable of surviving junior-high school, where he was headed after the impending summer break. Coach Klein felt like he’d just picked up a 70-pound wire coat hanger- an object which would only change shape if it was physically bent. Wet Willy still had his arms and legs stretched out in attack mode for several seconds before he went limp in Coach Klein’s arms.

It was then that the spell was broken. Many kids took off running. A few went to Adam’s side. The rest spoke in a chorus of “can you believe it?” or “did you see that?” Adam Smith was taken to the hospital where he was treated for a concussion and broken nose. Both his eyes were swollen shut and he was missing three of his front teeth. Two weeks later his mother would have to put ointment on his rectum every night for three weeks because of the damage his own teeth did when his body had digested and excreted them.

Wet Willy’s reputation preceded him to junior high school. And he never received disciplinary action from Bethany Elementary School- partly because school had officially let out for the summer, and partly because none of the administration, including Coach Klein, went to bat for Adam Smith. He was a jerk. The biggest kid in class picking on the smallest! Parents and teachers alike had seen it happen for years and said “he had it coming.”

Perhaps it was a good thing that Adam had been that jerk. In some alternate timeline, Wet Willy may not have snapped on him that day. It may have been much worse for him in junior high than it actually was. His chances of pulling off an Adam Smith-style upset against a 13-year-old boy who had finished puberty a little too quickly, and was lifting weights in preparation for “triple-A” high school football, were zilch. Those boys would’ve disposed of Wet Willy like a snotty tissue. He might very well have repressed his anger, unleashing it a few years later in a school shooting, or university bell tower sniping spree. These things can happen to kids who are mistreated constantly while growing up. Instead, those types of boys let him be, and tormented Adam Smith instead. They had heard about what Wet Willy did before starting 6th grade, and it was easier to respect a kid who stood up for himself.

After 8th grade, Wet Willy spent the summer with his Uncle John in North Myrtle Beach. His braces came off. He underwent a major growth spurt. He swam in the beautiful Atlantic Ocean every single day of his two and a half month visit. The combination of clean country air and regular exercise significantly reduced his asthma. Every muscle on his body became well-defined. When Wet Willy started school at Northside High, all the girls wanted to know who the tan and lean boy with sun-goldened, wavy-brown, shaggy hair who just moved to town was. And Wet Willy had great fun introducing himself to them throughout high school. No one was surprised when Wet Willy got offered a full-ride scholarship to Penn State for swimming his senior year, after being the star of Northside’s swim team for four years. It was a coin toss between that and an academic scholarship, anyway.

…

Several years later Adam Smith was shopping for groceries at Super Wal-Mart with his son (who was born out of wedlock with a high school girl named Jennifer that Adam had prowled the school grounds to meet, several years after his own graduation from that same school). Now married to Jennifer, one of Adam’s weekly honey-do’s was buying the groceries since Jennifer neither cooked nor handled money responsibly. It was at that moment that a bright orange box’s smiling face caught his eye on the cereal aisle. It was Olympic Gold Medalist Swimming Champion “Wet Willy” Hendricks endorsing Wheaties. Disgusted, Adam abandoned his shopping cart, grabbed Adam Jr. and raced home to get drunk and feel sorry for himself. But he couldn’t even do that. Arriving much earlier than expected, Adam came home to find Jennifer engaged in one of her weekly occupations.

Adam entered the house through the back door. From the kitchen, Adam could hear a commotion coming from deep inside the house. He sent Adam Jr. to his room, then proceeded down the hallway, walked by pictures of Gran’daddy Smith and Christmas, to the door of the master bedroom. The door was slightly ajar, and through the narrow gap Adam heard Jennifer’s familiar moans, slightly intensified, accompanied by the vernacular of a black man.

“Aww yeah. Take it. Aww yeah!” Followed by more enthralled moans of ecstasy from Jennifer than Adam had ever heard her make. Adam pushed the door open and confirmed his presumption. Jennifer was riding Steve reverse cowgirl. Steve, a guy who lived down the street, had his own wife and kids, but apparently he liked Adam’s wife, too. Adam strolled into the room, and hung a sharp left toward a closed door.

Steve was unaware of the new presence. All he knew was that Jennifer’s body had stiffened, her pussy creating a vise around him. Jennifer did see Adam. He was heading for his closet door. She hopped right off of Steve and dove off the side of the bed, leaving him lying naked there on the bed, his penis standing like a veined obelisk, with a bewildered look on his face.

“What tha…?” he started, but was cut short by a scream.

“No, baby! Don’t shoot’em,” cried Jennifer. Adam proceeded to the closet door without a word and removed a 12-gauge Mossberg pump-action shotgun from a locked plastic case. Jennifer ducked her head behind the bed. Steve froze.

“I’m going buffalo huntin’,” Adam declared and left the room with his shotgun.

Jennifer and Steve stole confused glances at each other. They both mouthed the words “buffalo hunting” baffled. They both flinched when they heard the back door slam shut. Adam drove away not thinking about Jennifer or Steve or Adam Jr., but solely on Wet Willy Hendricks, and how his life had shifted on that pivotal day twenty years ago and questioned God in Heaven and Justice and Karma and Fate.

“WHY??!!” he screamed, “WHY???!!!” And it was at that moment that he vowed to kill William Hendricks.

Part Two:

When Wet Willy reminisces about Barcelona, it isn’t necessarily the thrill of competition, the drive of the human spirit, or even the elation of standing atop the tri-level platform being presented the gold. Wet Willy thinks about the stuff you don’t see on TV: life at the Olympic Camp. He thinks about the people, who are some of the finest athletes, and some of the finest physical specimens in the world. He remembers Talya, the Romanian Queen of the Uneven Bars. He muses over that Korean diver whose name he never figured out how to pronounce. He sometimes thinks about that Nigerian pole-vaulter: what legs! And he certainly vividly recalls the night he spent with the Brazilian Beach Volleyball Team and praises the Lord every time he does.

Yes, the combination of luxury accommodations, fine international cuisine being consumed at a rate of up to ten-thousand calories a day, and the miracle of tapering, resulted in twenty-five-thousand young, hard-bodied men and women, with a huge amount of stored energy that their bodies desperately craved to release, and did so in a way that comes naturally to most humans. That made the weeks Wet Willy spent in Barcelona some of the happiest, most fulfilling, rewarding, and gratifying in all aspects, experiences of his life.

After that high, coming back to the States and resuming a normal life was a big come-down. Once home in Philadelphia, he lived off TV appearances and various endorsements for a few months, but he soon realized it was over. Something would have to fill the gap in his life. He doubted he’d ever compete in the Olympics again. So Wet Willy decided to go to law school. Between his 172 LSAT scores and Olympic gold medal, Wet Willy got scholarships to pay for the program. Once he finished law school, and passed the Pennsylvania state BAR, Wet Willy didn’t know exactly what to do with himself. He thought about eventually becoming a judge, so he went to Philadelphia City Hall to talk to some of the city officials about what they thought would be the quickest route he could take to becoming a judge, and still be taken seriously, and reap whatever other fruits of their cumulative wisdom he could. He ended up taking a job prosecuting for the state’s office. That’s how Wet Willy met Francesca de la Roche. 

…

Francesca was French-Canadian, from Montreal. Her accent was divine. She didn’t shave her armpits, and the minute amount of peach fuzz that lived in that beautiful fold was almost invisible, save for the reddish sheen, though the hair on her head was midnight black. She had come to Philadelphia for her best friend from college’s wedding, but she got arrested at the bachelorette party. Oddly enough, the bachelorette party did not take place at a male strip club, because Francesca’s friend, Alicia, actually did not want to have sex with anyone but her soon-to-be husband for the rest of her life. Instead, they went to a Rush concert, to celebrate their national pride, and for some reason, Rush was touring again. At the show, Francesca got a little tipsy. She took off her top and started swinging it around like a lasso during “Tom Sawyer”. When confronted by a security guard, who, honest-to-God, was just trying to do his job, and wanted this beautiful, half-naked creature to get in no kind of trouble, Francesca rebelled. She blew pot smoke in his face, and the scene escalated from there. 

She stayed in jail overnight. (The best night’s sleep she ever got.) Her friends had gotten separated from her at the concert, and they had no idea what had happened to her that night. In court the next day, while wearing a Philadelphia Police Department Walk-a-thon ’05 shirt that was two sizes too big, looking a little rough around the edges, a hard-nosed, no-nonsense judge accused Francesca- probably one of the sweetest women on earth- of having a bad attitude, because she kept her arms crossed over her chest throughout the entire proceeding, which had only been an attempt to conceal her extremely stiff nipples that never adjusted to the frigid courtroom. 

Wet Willy didn’t want to lose the case, but he went mad for Francesca at the sight of her. He managed to get her a deal of time served, and a $150 fine for littering because she had discarded her shirt and bra somewhere. She was grateful to him and asked if he would accompany her to Alicia’s wedding. Typically, Wet Willy would not have gone to a wedding with a woman, period, much less as a first date, but he looked at her gray-blue eyes and walk-a-thon shirt, and could not resist. 

…

Francesca’s friend, Alicia, and her husband, Don, hosted about 200 people at their outdoor wedding ceremony. It was simple, yet elegant. Francesca looked beautiful in her bride’s maid dress, which broke the stigma of bride’s maids’ dresses being hideous, and “one-wears”. This dress was a simple, pastel flower-print sundress, with spaghetti straps. She wore white, open-toe shoes that complimented the tiny white flowers blooming in her wavy black hair. Francesca had tears welling up in her eyes as the vows were spoken. Wet Willy thought she was the most beautiful girl at the wedding. 

 Later, at the reception, Francesca introduced Wet Willy to the bride and groom: `Mr. and Mrs. Don Greenfield. 

“Alicia, thees iz my date, Weeyum Heendricks. Hee’s de one who told de judje not to trow de book at me wheen my freends didn’t come to my rescue.” 

“Oh, Franny! You know I’m so sorry about that. But maybe you should be thanking me, huh? Look at your hero. Nice to meet you, William, and this is my HUSBAND, Don! Ohh!” she gushed out the introduction. 

Wet Willy was glad that her friends had abandoned her, too. “Nice to meet you both. And congratulations.” 

Don looked at Wet Willy and started shaking his index finger at him. “William Hendricks: where do I know that name from?” Don asked. Francesca only knew a few niceties about Wet Willy. Just stuff they had talked about over coffee the previous day. First, Wet Willy had taken her back to her hotel so she could wash the jail-smell off her skin, and burn that walk-a-thon shirt. Wet Willy wasn’t one to toot his own horn, and “by the way, I’m an Olympic gold medalist” had not come up in the conversation. She knew he liked to swim, that he was a lawyer, that he grew up in Philly, but not much else, really. He could’ve been a raving madman or heir to the throne for all she knew.  

“You look familiar, too,” Don continued. 

“I’ve just got one of those faces,” Wet Willy told him, not wanting to get into the whole Olympic thing right now. 

“You’re far too modeest,” Francesca interjected, “you’ve got de face of an angel.”  

“Aw, come on man! This is killing me. Where do I know you from?” Don kept on. 

Wet Willy sighed. This guy wasn’t going to let it slide. “Maybe you know me as Wet Willy-” he started. 

“-Hendricks! Of course,” Don said triumphantly, finally stopping his finger. “You’re Wet Willy Hendricks. You’re a legend in this town.” 

Alicia’s face lit up at the mention of “Wet Willy” also. “Wow! You’re Wet Willy Hendricks?” 

“Fraid so,” he answered. 

“I started at Northside the year after you graduated. You really were a legend, and not just for swimming.” Alicia said, implying all the wrong things, but Wet Willy hoped Francesca wouldn’t take it that way. 

“Reallee? Were you a bad boee, Weeyum?” Francesca asked him. 

“Hell no!” Don jumped in. “He’s a local hero. Fran, don’t you know who this is?” 

“Weeyum Heendricks?” she said puzzled. 

“He’s also an American Olympic gold medalist,” Alicia offered. 

“Ah! Weeyum! Why deedn’t you tell me? I feel like a fool!” Francesca cried. 

“Don’t feel any way about it. I left it out on purpose. I just didn’t want to come across as arrogant, or like a one-trick pony. I promise I’ll tell you my whole life story later. Please, later?” 

Francesca looked Wet Willy in the eye for a good ten seconds before she spoke: “You promees you weell later?” 

“Sure,” he said.

…

After the reception, Francesca invited herself over to Wet Willy’s house. As the elevator shot up 24 stories to Wet Willy’s penthouse apartment, Francesca leaned in close to the brass panel around the elevator buttons and smoothed the corners of her mouth with her finger. Wet Willy leaned back to checked out Francesca’s butt, and she watched him do it in the shiny, metal reflection. 

“How’s de view?” she asked him. 

“Uh, uh,” Wet Willy stammered. 

“I mean, from your apartment, seelly.” 

“Oh. Well, you’ll see when we get up there,” he told her. The elevator doors opened to the black and gray stone foyer of Wet Willy’s apartment. Directly in front of them, about thirty feet away, was a wall of windows that looked east over downtown Philly. Francesca walked across the living room to the windows, and looked out over the city at twilight. 

“Eet’s beautiful Weeyum.” 

“Thanks. Make yourself at home, and I’ll fix us a drink.”

Wet Willy, not thinking she was serious, at all, about the “hearing his life story thing”, got the wrong idea entirely about her being there. And Francesca misled him further when she immediately went into his bedroom and took off her dress. Wet Willy came to the doorway of his room, and watched her standing in front of the mirror bare-chested, slipping the flowers out of her hair and laying them on the dresser. He took off his jacket and loosened his tie. 

“I’m sorry. Do you mind?” she asked him, without looking up from the mirror. 

“Not at all.” 

And with that, Francesca opened up Wet Willy’s dresser drawer and rummaged through his rock-n-roll t-shirts. She pulled out a graying Red Hot Chili Peppers shirt and yanked it over her thick, black head of hair, and poked her arms through the holes. 

“That dress was not as comfortable as I made eet look.” 

Wet Willy just stared at her for a moment. He finally snapped out of his daze and told her: “You made it look wonderful.” 

“Flattery? You’ll have to try much harder, Weeyum. Now tell me everything,” she demanded. 

“You were serious about that?” 

“Oui.”

Part Three:

Dear Adam,

It’s not like I thought you were coming back right away, and I can’t blame you. You deserved to know the truth. I didn’t want you to find out like you did, but that’s neither here nor there. 

Like I was saying- I knew you were going to leave me after that, but I sort of expected you to do it different than you did. At least come back and get your stuff- some clothes, or whatever. But nothing? I thought you’d cancel the credit cards, close out your account with the power company, file for divorce. But nothing. No phone call, or nothing, not even to Adam Jr. You just left and never came back.

 After a while I was thinking you must be dead. Why else wouldn’t you have showed up, or called, or taken out an ATM withdrawal? Either dead or didn’t give a fuck. I wanted to believe the first one. It would justify the silence. I knew the state of New Jersey wasn’t going to help much, but I figured if I tried to claim your life insurance, some lawyer or another would track you down. All I could do was cross my fingers and pray you didn’t go off and kill yourself and void out your policy. It took nine months for those sons of bitches to give me an answer. And I won’t lie to you- I wanted the forty five grand at that point. 

So imagine my surprise when they told me you’d been committed to the batty bin, and I wouldn’t get the money. They claimed you openly admitted wanting to kill William Hendricks. I believe the first response that came to my mind was “Figures.” That’s my luck. You’re lucky you aren’t in prison for conspiracy to commit murder, Adam.  

Anyways, turns out there’s a lot of red tape and expense involved in divorcing a crazy person being housed by the state. But fortunately for your son and me, that opens up other doors at the welfare office. So it looks like I’ll be remaining your lawfully wedded wife, if not all that other stuff. Maybe for better or worse. That might qualify. Now that we know where you are and everything, you might as well send your son a birthday card. He’ll be seven next month. He misses you. But we’re fine, overall. I’ve been working my ass off at the diner. I even went back and got my GED, much good it’ll do me. 

I guess that’s all. Write us back if you’re not a drooling vegetable.

Your wife,

Jennifer 

Adam crumpled up the letter and dropped it on the Berber carpet. He lay back down on his twin-size orthopedic bed in a small room with very neutral décor and barred windows. He didn’t care about Jennifer or even Adam Jr. anymore. He didn’t know for sure that Adam Jr. was even his. He didn’t have any reason to trust Jennifer, for good reason. Adam Jr. was his, but just about everything else Jennifer said in her letter was a half-truth, at best. Jennifer was indeed working at the diner still, but now she was picking up customers three or four days a week and bringing them home explicitly for sex, while Adam Jr. was at school. Some of her clients would pay cash. Some of them paid credit. Some of her clients were women. She would video the sex and broadcast it on the internet at her own website: www.jenniferthewaitress.com. She had about four-hundred members on her site paying $4.99 a month each. One time, she even blackmailed a married man she had recorded. His wife had insisted that they stop at the diner for lunch, and Jennifer was their waitress. He couldn’t protest without blowing his cover, and Jennifer used the uncomfortable situation to her advantage.

Jennifer was quite the entrepreneur. She used the money she made to send Adam Jr. to a private school, and make payments on the mortgage. She didn’t want Adam Jr. to end up like her: a multi-media whore, or a psycho, like his father. 

That’s how Wet Willy came to show up at Jennifer’s front door. The house was still under the name “Adam Smith.”

…

Adam sat in “Group” with his arms folded across his chest, slouching and sulking. The plastic, classroom-style chairs irritated his tailbone. He hated being there, in that place. They called it a “treatment facility”. They had a polite little alternate word for everything. “Group” was short for “group counseling therapy”: also known as “one-on-one counseling is too expensive, and breakthroughs rarely amount to much more than a tear-jerking moment of clarity that gets repressed subconsciously, and the only manifestation of any new emotion thereafter comes in the form of open hostility towards underpaid counselors who work with the criminally insane.” But this treatment facility- this alternative to prison- was still a prison. It was like a hotel where the guests were locked in their rooms at night. One where guests lined up three to five times a day to wait for the paper cups of pills that kept them pacified. A hotel where, if someone had a bad day, a suicide watch would be posted in case someone figured out a way to kill themselves. There were no razors. No shoelaces. No belts. The sheets were attached to the mattresses. There were no coat rods, curtain rods, or a shower rod. Nothing anyone could conceivably cut or hang themselves with or on. All the lights were flush against the ceiling. There were no electrical appliances or electrical outlets in the rooms. There was no smoking, thus no cigarette lighters. There was no caffeine. No forks. God no! There were no knives. Guests cut their chicken and potatoes with a spoon. Every window had wire mesh running through the supposedly shatterproof glass. The wires connected to an alarm system. There were bars over that. Suicide was the biggest threat to the facility. Most of the guests were too doped up to attempt to escape. If someone did want to escape, all it would take is good timing. Slip out the double doors in front while someone was making a delivery, or just sneak away during “outside time” when the patients went outside. That would be the easiest way. The big downside to that is that one would only get, at most, a 15-minute head-start before they came after you.

Some of the other patients referred to themselves as “inmates”; their rooms, “cells”. Adam tried not to fall into that pattern. Even though he could not leave this place, he knew it wasn’t prison, by far. Prison isn’t coed. There were more females here than males because women are crazy. Adam’s favorite was Lilly. She was a 32-year-old girl. She acted like a child. Adam was starting to believe that Lilly was actually a genius. That she figured out a way to just live off the government her whole life for free. She used a fairly juvenile vocabulary, except for the cursing. Her attention slipped easily and she threw temper tantrums at the drop of a hat. How hard was that, though? What led Adam to believe further that she was a faker was the way she used her sexuality to manipulate people. She wasn’t exceptionally beautiful, but in a facility filled with drug addicts, suicidals, eating disorder “victims”, pyros, kleptos, pedophiles, nymphos, shitters, spitters, bed-wetters, mumbling, bumbling, obsessive-compulsive, compulsive lying, detached from reality, stuck in the past, fearing the future, short term / long term memory deficient idiots, and borderline homicidal maniacs (like himself), a woman who constantly wore pajamas with no bra, carried around a teddy bear and sat in your lap bouncing her tits in your face till you changed the channel to “Speed Racer” was actually kind of hot. She was hot until she cried and spit and flopped on the ground, kicking and screaming over trivialities like her Jell-O color. 

Adam tried not to sweat the little things. He figured, as bad as this place was, it beat getting fucked in the ass by guys like the son of a bitch he walked in on his wife fucking the day he lost his grip on self-control almost a year ago. He had told the police he wanted to kill a man- a man named Wet Willy who had beaten him in fifth grade. An Olympian. And to make matters worse his wife was fucking the neighbors. Even though he was deadly serious, the cops thought he was comically unbalanced. The judge agreed. Adam agreed, too, when his lawyer explained that he was looking at 25 years for conspiracy to commit murder if he wasn’t crazy, versus six years of psychiatric treatment in a state-run facility if he was. The lawyer told him after a couple of years that he would be eligible for an evaluation for release back into society; maybe by way of a half-way house first, until he proved that he wasn’t a danger to himself, his family or others. 

“It depends on you, Adam,” the doctors at the treatment facility always told him. “What do you want?”

 Right now he just wanted this fucking group session to be over so he could eat lunch. It was Taco Tuesday, but Seymour, a 40-year-old insomniac who started pissing his pants every time the wind blew after his wife left, was on another one of his pitiful rants. 

“I’m not spending one more night in that cell!” he wailed, even though he was a self-referred in-patient. Adam thought Seymour’s real problem was that his wife had taken his testicles in the divorce since he had no money. He was a crying pussy.

“Then go home, Seymour. You smell like piss,” Ashley, the 22-year-old girl who’d “attempted” suicide seven -count’em, seven times- in her short life; only two of which could even conceivably be legitimate. The first possibility was her second actual attempt: vertical wrist slitting at age 14. Her father found her naked in the bath; the water murky red and warm, with maroon streams still slowly leaking out of her wrists and snaking through the tub. He called 911 and saved her life. No one ever bothered asking him why he was going into the bathroom while his 14-year-old daughter bathed, but there’s one hypothesis about that. The second seemingly legit attempt was on her 16th birthday. She tried to poison herself with carbon monoxide in her brand new Mitsubishi Eclipse, but thanks to Dave Brown & Sons’ shitty insulation job on her daddy’s new detached two-car garage, not enough gas accumulated to finish her off. The authorities estimated that she had probably started out with a little over a quarter tank and idled for 10-14 hours before she ran out of gas. Those little Eclipses are pretty fuel-efficient. The other five suicide attempts were cries for attention or intervention in what Adam suspected were some major daddy issues. Every Sunday, during “family hour”, Ashley would call home and rush through pleasantries with her mother and then ask to speak to her father. She’d doodle, and twirl her hair like she was talking to an old boyfriend. And she’d be on the phone for the rest of the hour, without fail. 

Ashley hated Seymour, but they were just different breeds of the same animal. They were both just people who couldn’t deal with life. But that’s all of us, Adam thought. The biggest difference between Seymour and Ashley was their tolerance level and their response to discomfort. Seymour failed to deal with life every other day, resulting in arguments about the need for adult diapers. Ashley had bad days, too, but she could fake it better. It would take a long series of bad days to really set her off, and they’d have to be really bad. Of course, her reaction wasn’t as easy to clean up. Four empty bottles of Tylenol and an empty bottle of vodka don’t make a huge mess, but the subsequent hospital visit was a pain in the ass, at least. And though Ashley’s reaction was much more extreme she came across as less crazy than Seymour on a day-to-day basis. “Fuck you, daddy’s girl,” Seymour blurted out. “Why should I leave? To give them an excuse for failing to treat me?” Seymour was only half right. The doctors here weren’t much help, but you had to want to help yourself. 

It all depends on you, Adam, echoed in his mind. 

“Treat you for what Seymour? Inadequacy? Invertebracy? Potty training?” Ashley challenged. 

“Fuck you, da-” he started again, but Ashley stopped him. 

“Daddy’s girl? You gonna call me a daddy’s girl again? Is that the best you can come up with? Well let me tell you a little about a daddy’s girl. I love my dad, OK? I love him so much that I stabbed him 37 times. 37 times; 37 superficial wounds. You know why I’m not in jail right now?” she paused just long enough to make everyone feel uncomfortable. Even Dr. K just looked at the floor, shaking her head. “I’ll tell you anyway,” Ashley said. “You think I was a victim, right? I didn’t attack him because he was fucking me, I did it because he stopped. He stopped looking at me. He quit coming to my room. When he tried to buy me off with a car I lost it. I never wanted to hurt him. I just wanted him to love me. Love me forever, and nobody else! He passed out from blood loss, and I went to the garage and started the car. My mother called the ambulance for him, and he refused to press charges!” 

Tears started streaming down her face, mixing with snot and saliva. The girl was a wreck. She’d been in that place for six years, and she still hadn’t gotten over her father, for God’s sake. 

“Let’s move on to something constructive, shall we?” Dr. K suggested. Adam couldn’t remember if Dr. K’s first or last name was Kay or if the letter K was one of her initials. Nice lady, though. Her heart was in the right place, but she just wasn’t stern enough to control a crowd like them. Not in a place like this. Adam thought maybe the criminally insane do need help, but if they don’t want it and accept it they’re probably beyond the reach of nice people who want to help them. Only thing left to do is medicate, subdue and send them off to the “Quiet ward”. “Quiet” was their nice way of saying catatonic.

…

Wet Willy reluctantly obliged, first telling Francesca about his nemesis, Adam Smith.

“How do people have the audacity to steell call you ‘Wet Weelly’?” Francesca seemed concerned. 

“No one who met me after the age of twelve knows I got spit on by bullies every day growing up. They just thought it was a swimming thing. And that’s what it became. Probably no one on earth remembers the actual origin. Except the jerk who came up with it.” 

“Who, Adam Smeeth?” she asked. 

“Yeah, and really, I wouldn’t be the Wet Willy I am today without being that Wet Willy back then. Adam started it all.” 

“But you feenished eet.” 

Wet Willy paused, then nodded in agreement, “I guess so.” 

“But what ever happened to heem, Weeyum?” 

“I don’t know. I never saw Adam after eighth grade. And, honestly, I didn’t really think about it too much. I had enough of my own drama around that time.” Francesca stretched out her arm and lifted the crystal tumbler of Scotch off Wet Willy’s cherry side-table, leaned up on one elbow and took a sip. Her pale, lace panties and white heart-shaped ass poked out from Wet Willy’s Red Hot Chili Peppers t-shirt as she curled up on the dark chocolate Italian leather sofa. 

“You had more drama, Weeyum? Poor baybee. What happeened to you next?” 

“Well, it wasn’t too horrible or anything. Pretty typical stuff, really. When I was twelve my mom left my dad and moved to a little town outside of Lexington, Kentucky where her parents are from. My dad totally fell apart, and hit the bottle pretty hard. I guess they sort of saw it coming, and that was one reason why they had me spend the summer with my Uncle John in South Carolina. And, of course, it was over that summer that I fell in love with swimming.” 

“I bet eet was beautiful, Weeyum. My grandparents used to own a summer home on Nantuckeet. The Atlanteeck is so wonderful in the summer.” 

Wet Willy nodded and sipped his Scotch. “You’re right. It’s great. The sun. The surf. You know, I had never really spent that much time outside before. As a kid I was kinda sickly. Asthma and whatnot, you know?” Francesca nodded and sipped her Scotch. Wet Willy glanced down at her panties peeking out from his t-shirt and unbuttoned another button from the shirt he was wearing. Tales of his tormented childhood had never once been brought up in the company of a beautiful woman, and even though his decades-old insecurities whispered in his mind that this conversation was spoiling his chances with this woman, it felt good to talk about the trauma that he’d ignored since then.  

“So anyway,” he continued, “my dad was a real mess after that. I don’t know if staying with him was right or wrong. You know, it was either gonna hurt him or my mom to be left alone. In the end it was the simple fact that the po-dunk little town my mom moved to’s high school didn’t have a swim team. I don’t think that town even had a public pool. So I stayed in Philly and just tried to operate around my dad, who was busy drinking his life away. I stayed in Philly, and I swam. I stayed out of the house I grew up in as much as possible, and I swam some more. I guess the rest is history.” 

Francesca sat her drink down on the end-table and reached up to the lamp that sat there. She turned the knob and Wet Willy’s apartment went dark except for lights of the city and the moon coming in through the window-wall across the room. She pulled Wet Willy’s raggedy shirt off over her head and straddled him.

A new chapter began in Wet Willy’s life that night.

…

Adam reflected on Ashley’s situation. The girl had been trying to fake it. She had been trying to get out for over half a decade and was still no better off than the day she’d arrived. He had no desire to wait that long just to realize he would never be free of his demons. And he knew he wouldn’t be. If the last 20 years hadn’t done it, why would festering here resolve everything? Besides, he wasn’t one of these crazy people. What was so crazy about murder? What was so difficult to diagnose about revenge? It all seemed perfectly logical, if not ethical, to Adam. Wet Willy had kicked Adam’s ass in 5th grade. Adam, who had the mentality and physique of a hardcore jock, was teased and mistreated by all the jocks throughout middle school. 

“Didn’t that kid kick your ass, Adam?” they’d ask him, pointing to Wet Willy at first, but then the joke expanded to the kid in the wheelchair or any of the short bus kids. It really fucked with his self-esteem. Adam’s dad didn’t insist on his son playing sports, even when they moved to Pleasantville, New Jersey away from the mean kids at his middle school. He figured Adam was just too sensitive for that, and that was going to have to be OK. What was he supposed to do, disown the boy for not wanting to play football? It wasn’t exactly what he wanted, but still. Pleasantville was a little bit harder of a city than the “City of Brotherly Love”. Adam, who never got support at home, sought that elsewhere. He found his niche among the wannabe gangsters, the high school thugs. But it didn’t matter how tough the boys in Pleasantville thought he was, because he knew Wet Willy was out there, laughing about the time he kicked Adam’s ass. Adam thought about Wet Willy, not every day, but a lot in high school. 

Three years after high school, after he lessened his white boy Ebonics and discarded a good portion of his jerseys, Adam met Jennifer. He was still a hip-hop fan. He wore a fat gold chain and had some nice rims on his two-tone Ford Explorer. Perhaps it was his bling that caught Jennifer’s attention. Jennifer’s father was a bigot who had sent Jennifer’s brother, his only son, into exile after catching the boy with gay porn. Her brother then admitted his sexual attraction to men, and never saw his father again. His bigotry led to Jennifer’s racism: she’d only have sex with black guys. She went through a good portion of the black guys at her high school- the football and basketball players, the gang-bangers, the supped-up cars guys, and the slow-jam serious types who wore slacks and button-down shirts every day. She wasn’t about to fuck the rare-bird black nerds- the computer geeks, role-playing-gamers, or the math-letes. She also never told her father any of this.

Adam happened along at a time when Jennifer was vulnerable. She had slept with at least 20 boys her freshman and sophomore years, and when she was a junior she was at a party where she got drunk and a line formed at the door to the room she was passed out in. She had no idea how many guys had been at that party, but she assumed most of them had fucked her. At school the next week, no guys would even talk to her. It was one thing to do a bunch of guys one at a time when hanging out, and never talk to them again. It was different to just go through all of them in one night. That’s when the rumors of VD and the discouraging remark of “that’s some worn out pussy” put an end to Jennifer hooking up with any of the guys at her school. 

That’s when Adam showed up. He was cruising by the high school, even though he had graduated three years prior, hollering at the young girls. Jennifer had seen him before, but now she saw him anew. She figured it was either this guy or she’d be waiting for the new freshmen next year when she was a senior. Adam gave her a ride home four days in a row. She had made up her mind to put out on the second day, but Adam never went for it till the fourth. He had no idea what Jennifer was up to now that he was in the hospital. Now there was no dating or flirting. It was a transaction. It was business. 

Adam was sitting at a lunch table with not enough elbow room. The metal disc chairs were fastened to swiveling rods underneath the table so these crazy people couldn’t start throwing the furniture. He ate his tacos and thought about having sex with a Mexican girl who would call him “papi” while he pressed against her. But it would be a long time before that fantasy could manifest. Sex was a huge no-no between patients. Even if one of his female comrades was interested, men and women were never left alone unattended together, except in the “quiet ward”, but if Adam got sent there, he might never get out. Adam was more determined to kill Wet Willy than ever. He just had to wait for a chance to escape. 

Part Four:

Meanwhile, in Philly, Francesca had moved in with Wet Willy. She wasn’t crazy about leaving Montreal, and would have preferred if Wet Willy would have moved in with her instead, but his job wouldn’t allow him to transfer. Wet Willy was the District Attorney for The City of Philadelphia- a job that required him to actually live in Philadelphia. Francesca was an intelligent and understanding woman, though, and being an internationally recognized pastry chef transferred to Pennsylvania just fine.

They had an enormous wedding, which made national headlines. Thousands of guests had attended the ceremony. For their honeymoon, they decided to go someplace close to home, especially close to where Francesca grew up: Niagara Falls. In the honeymoon suite, after the kind of lovemaking that wears out a former Olympic athlete, Wet Willy and Francesca counted their blessings. 

After they had thanked everyone from God Almighty to the band Rush, Francesca asked: “And what about your former nemesees, Adam Smeeth?” 

With a look of disbelief, Wet Willy scoffed. “You mean the Adam Smith who hounded me every day of my life till I was ten? The kid who pissed on my head in first grade, and made everyone call me ‘Wet Willy’? That Adam? He was just a punk kid,” Wet Willy finished. 

“But what would Odysseus be without hees odyssey?” Francesca asked him. “And, besides, like you said: he was just a keed. Not only should you forgeeve what a man deed wheen he was a child, but you should tank heem. Look how wonderful your life turned out, partially thanks to Adam.” 

Her words sang sense in Wet Willy’s ears. He knew she was right, the way women so often are. His whole life had turned at that point, that day at the end of 5th grade when he stood up to Adam. And Adam’s life had turned, too. It was what defined the rest of their lives. It was the moment.

Wet Willy never saw Adam again after middle school. Adam’s dad had gotten a job in New Jersey, and that was that. Adam was gone, and there was no one left who wanted to pick on Wet Willy, especially after his transformation into the swimmer. Wet Willy felt bad now. Though it wasn’t his fault or even his idea, he had benefited at the suffering of another person. He could have, should have, made amends with Adam in 6th or 7th grade. Now it was too late. Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe Adam Smith still resided in the Garden State. Wet Willy would find out.

Adam did still reside in the Garden State, just not where the internet said he did. Wet Willy had gotten a current street address in Pleasantville, New Jersey, which was only an hour away on the Atlantic City Expressway from his house. 

“Is that possible?” Wet Willy marveled. He was shocked that Adam could still be so close to him geographically when it felt like they were worlds apart. In fact, Adam was even closer to Wet Willy than Pleasantville. He was about halfway between P-ville and Philly in the New Jersey State Psychiatric Hospital or was yesterday, but Wet Willy didn’t have a clue about that.

Wet Willy printed out the driving directions, and decided that he and Francesca could go down there. He could apologize to Adam, do some inner-healing, then take that good karma on down the street to Atlantic City. Francesca was crazy about roulette and eerily good at it. When he got home he told Francesca about the plan. Since she had first planted the seed of apology in him, Wet Willy had really taken the reigns, and now it was Francesca who seemed almost uninterested. 

“Check this out, Franny: I found Adam Smith’s address.” Francesca was in the kitchen making what looked to Wet Willy like fancy Twinkies. She brushed some powdered sugar off of her hands, and attempted to brush the black hair out of her eyes, but only managed to get some powdered sugar on the end of her nose. Francesca looked at the piece of paper. 

“Pleasantveelle?” she asked. “How do you know thees is de Adam Smeeth you’re looking for?” Wet Willy instantly puffed up with a smug look on his face, beaming with pride over the power of his new position. 

“I had one of my buddies down at the station check it out on the database. He pulled up his driver’s license. His age and everything matched up. And the photo looked like him. It was him for sure. Plus there’s phone, gas, electric, and cable bills all in his name still being sent to that address,” Wet Willy concluded. 

“Hmm,” was Francesca’s reply. 

“Hmm? That’s it?” Francesca looked at Wet Willy with eyes like a storm at sea: beautiful and ferocious. He knew he was starting to try Francesca’s patience with all this Adam Smith talk. He had told her more than enough about his childhood bully. But Wet Willy was just trying to illustrate how he idly watched Adam sink into obscurity and isolation. He told her about a lot of things. The last bump on their road together was in gym class in 8th grade, just before Adam moved. 

“We were dressing out for gym. I always did this as quickly as I possibly could just to avoid any chance of confrontation. That semester, Adam happened to be in my class, which had been the only time the two of us shared a class after fifth grade. I wasn’t paying attention to anybody else; just putting my green shorts and yellow gym shirt on, and then getting out of the testosterone field that was the boys’ locker room. Some jocks and other boys were clowning around, and I guess they said something about not wanting Adam on their team. In retrospect, that was pretty messed up, because Adam was a big dude, and extremely athletic. None of the other guys liked him, though. Most of the time when they messed with him my name came up. It had to wear on him. Anyway, they said something, and Adam shot back a ‘fuck you’ or something. Then one guy said, ‘Better watch out, Smith, or we’ll get Wet Willy over there to kick your ass.’ And another boy yelled, ‘Again!’ The whole locker room erupted with oooh’s and laughter. I giggled a little bit on my way out of the locker room and glanced sideways at Adam. He was staring right through me, practically burning a hole in my head. I felt my smile falter a bit and I got this real nervous impulse to flinch, but I resisted. Adam hadn’t so much as spoken to me in three years, much less attempted to fight me again, but I still felt scared. Despite the way it is in the movies, there was no bully and nerd-who-defeated-bully handshake or reconciliation after our fight. You couldn’t blame Adam for that. It would have taken a lot of scruples for an eleven-year-old kid to come up and apologize for years of abuse and admit that he was wrong, much less that he got what he deserved. And as much as I believe that an ass-kicking really was what Adam deserved, that was all he deserved. I honestly believed it would end at the bike racks that day, but it didn’t.” 

After many, many of these kinds of historical accounts, Francesca was ready for a resolution. “So what are you going to do about eet?” she asked. 

“I thought we could go down there, and I’ll tell him that I’m sorry about not at least attempting to end the bad blood between us, and for standing by while other people mistreated him the way he had mistreated me, for starters.” 

Francesca blinked a couple of times and sighed through her nose. “Are you sure you want me to go weeth you?” she asked. 

“Yes. We’ll see how it goes, but I figured you would just wait in the car, at least at first.” Francesca was about to voice her opposition to what sounded like several hours of sitting in the car while Wet Willy felt out the situation, which was not going to turn into a Kodak moment, no matter what. Then Wet Willy added, “And since we would practically be there already, we could spend the night in Atlantic City. Gamble some, maybe catch a show. Whatta’ya say?”

She just began to nod, then she smiled. “Deed you think you’d married de kind of woman who duz not stand by her man?” she asked, holding back a bigger smile. 

“I didn’t think I’d married a crazy French-Canadian with a gambling problem.” They both laughed.

…

The drive was pleasant on the way to Pleasantville. Pleasantville, however, was not as pleasant. As soon as they exited the expressway the scene changed. The street was bumpy and dirty. The neighborhood was the kind of place they absolutely did not want to get a flat tire in. Francesca sank in her seat. The windows on Wet Willy’s BMW were tinted dark, but the car still stood out like a sore thumb, without the ivory faces of the driver and passenger confirming that they did not belong there. 

“Are you sure we’re een de right place, Weeyum?” she asked. 

“I’m sure I followed the directions if that’s what you mean. Adam might not be rich, but not everybody is, Franny.” 

“I know, but thees looks like a pretty rough neighborhood. I feel bad for heem already, without even meeting heem. Duz that make me wrong?” 

Wet Willy kept his eyes forward. It was a beautiful sunny day and there were a lot of people outside barbequing, kids playing in the sprinklers, and other wholesome neighborly activities. But there were also a few houses with upwards of six men standing on the front porches drinking out of brown paper bags, and doing God knows what else. It looked like a mostly-black community of the extremely low-income variety: the hood. Wet Willy began to wonder if Adam really lived here, too, and if he did, did that make Wet Willy wrong for automatically feeling sorry for him? Money doesn’t buy happiness, right? Adam could be happy here.

They continued on down the street, drawing passing glances from some; stares from quite a few. Wet Willy was looking left at the even-numbered street addresses, but not all the houses had them visible. He was really starting to doubt that this was it when Wet Willy spotted a house with a two-toned Ford Explorer in the driveway, and a Lexus parked on the street in front of it. He looked up at the house -1322- then down at his sheet of paper. This was the place. Wet Willy pulled up behind the Lexus and put his car in park. 

“Are you going to be OK out here by yourself?” Francesca looked around sheepishly, then looked back at Wet Willy and nodded. 

“I’ll be fine. Just don’t be een dere all day.” He nodded in affirmation, leaned over and kissed his new bride.

“I love you,” he told her. 

“Je T’aime assui,” she told him.

…

Wet Willy crossed the lawn to the front porch. He looked back at the car. He couldn’t see Francesca waving at him through the tinted glass. The grass was yellowing in spots from the dry summer sun, and a BMX bike was lying haphazardly on its side in front of the porch. Wet Willy ascended the three wooden steps with a creak. Just before he could knock, the front door opened. A short, balding man with glasses who was not Adam Smith stood in the doorway with untidy hair. He was red-faced, flustered-looking, and straightening his tie. 

“Excuse me,” the man said, meaning that he wanted Wet Willy to move out of his way so he could leave, but Wet Willy didn’t hear it that way. 

“Oh, excuse me. I’m looking for Adam Smith. Is this his residence?” The man broke eye-contact and nudged his way around him. Wet Willy watched the dumpy man in the wrinkled suit shuffle towards the Lexus. He opened the door, got in and sped away, leaving Wet Willy standing on the porch alone and confused. The man had not even closed the door when he left. When Wet Willy turned to face forward to the door, a young, blonde woman in a skimpy nightgown was standing there making little-to-no effort to cover herself. 

Her face was thin and clear. Her eyes were blue and sad. Her lips pouted up and she asked Wet Willy, “Are you looking for something?” It took Wet Willy a few seconds to process the question. This situation didn’t make much sense to him, and he was going back and forth about what to think as far as Adam was concerned. Was he poor? What about that Lexus? he thought. Another man left his house and drove away in it. Maybe this wasn’t his house after all. Is this woman his wife? If so, Adam was doing something right. Or maybe not, since he lived in the ghetto with a hot blonde who had old men leaving the house on Saturday morning in expensive Japanese luxury cars. Maybe that guy was the lucky one. 

“I said, ‘are you looking for something?’” repeated the woman. 

Wet Willy snapped out of it. “I’m looking for Adam Smith, but-” 

“He’s not here,” she said, cutting him short. 

“Oh, but this is his place?” Wet Willy asked. 

“Sort of. Who are you?” 

“What do you mean ‘sort of?’” 

Jennifer looked at Wet Willy sternly. “Hey, asshole. You’re standing on my porch asking me questions like I owe you something. I’m not here for your clarification. Now who are you and what the fuck do you want?” Wet Willy paused. In his excitement and haste he had come across as macho and pushy, and that wasn’t how he wanted to start at all. 

“Actually, I owe Adam something. My mane is William Hendricks, and I’m here to apologize for any wrongdoings on my part.” 

Jennifer was surprised at the name. “My husband is in a mental health facility… You’d better come inside.” 

…

Officers Donnelly and Jenkins sat in an unmarked, late-model Ford Crown Victoria, three houses down the way, watching 1322 Douglas Street for any sign of an escaped mental patient, who was suspected to possibly be heading home to hide out. What they had discovered there was Mrs. Smith’s little enterprise. They had observed several different cars coming and going after approximately one-hour visits. Now there was what appeared to be two clients actually crossing paths on her front porch. 

“Damn, it’s not even noon yet, and they’re practically forming a line at the door,” Officer Donnelly said. 

“This one must be early. There’s no way she even had time to take a shower. That’s some nasty shit,” Officer Jenkins noted. There was a vehicle in their line of sight that prevented them from seeing Francesca sitting in the passenger seat of Wet Willy’s BMW rocking out to 2112 on the symphony sound system.

…

Inside, Jennifer was pouring Wet Willy a cup of coffee in the kitchen. He sat on the sofa in the moderate-sized living room. Everything was exceptionally clean, save the red, sandy mess around a small pair of baseball cleats by the front door. A wall-unit entertainment center with books, CD’s, DVD’s and knick-knacks also housed what looked like a 42 inch Sony HDTV. A pretty nice set up, really. 

Wet Willy heard Jennifer’s bare feet shuffle across the hardwood floor of the living room, then pit-pat across the Oriental rug. The coffee smelled good, but he didn’t really want any. Jennifer held the mug to Wet Willy handle end out, slightly bending at the waist to him as he sat back against the plush cushions. The opening of her short, satiny nighty fluttered softly as she moved, flashing a quick glance of her cleavage. Her breast came right into Wet Willy’s eye level as he reached up and took the mug by the handle. The coffee was sweet, black and scorching hot. He held the mug balancing it on his knee as Jennifer sat down on the sofa right beside him. She folded her legs up under her body and looked at Wet Willy. Her closeness made him feel uncomfortable.

So, you were saying,” Wet Willy prompted her. 

“Oh yeah. Yeah, he up and left one day. I was completely mistaken about the cause. I thought it was something I had done.”  

“Naw, a nice young lady like you,” Wet Willy said. 

Jennifer’s mind flashed back to the day Adam split. She and Steve -who no longer lived on her block- had both been shocked, not just at Adam’s presence, but at his reaction that day. 

“I don’t feel nice. Or young, for that matter. But anyways, I had to piece things together over time. Adam had been practically psychotic when the cops picked him up. They tried and convicted him without so much as a phone call to me. I found out months and months later where he was. They told me he kept repeating ‘I’m gonna kill Wet Willy Hendricks’ over and over again. So you can imagine my surprise when it was you at my door.” 

Wet Willy thought about his surprise at her door, with the guy in the Lexus. But her affairs were none of his business, so he didn’t mention it. She didn’t either. She just sat there, too close, smiling.

…

Adam Smith was barefooted. He’d managed to snag a plain white t-shirt off a clothesline, but he was still wearing the baby blue hospital scrubs with STATE OF NEW JERSEY printed on the butt that he had escaped in. The alley behind his house was littered with broken glass, and he cut his foot right out back of his house. He was hungry and exhausted. He felt encouraged, though, when he lifted up a flowerpot full of dirt on the back porch to discover the spare key to the back door was still there. 

“That’s lucky,” he said to himself, inserting the key into the lock and turning. 

Wet Willy was politely guzzling his molten coffee as fast as he could stand to when he heard a momentary click come from the direction of the kitchen. 

“And those bastards from the state still own me money,” Jennifer was prattling on. She hadn’t had anybody to talk to about these things for a long time. In addition to not being interested at all, Wet Willy was beginning to feel the awful feeling of being 16 at the end of a date with a girl who wanted to kiss, but nobody knew for sure how to start. He didn’t want to kiss Jennifer, though. Not really. He really wanted to know what that noise in the kitchen was.

…

Adam walked into the kitchen from the back door. He was reaching for a paper towel from the holder by the sink when he looked through the doorway to his right into the dimly lit living room. Two heads turned towards him at once, peering over the back of the couch, their eyes as large as half dollars, and mouths agape. Adam froze with his right arm extended, just shy of the quilted-quicker-picker-upper he hoped would stop the bleeding in his foot. But he forgot all about his foot the moment he made eye contact with Wet Willy Hendricks sitting in his house with his wife. 

Wet Willy and Jennifer both shot up to their feet. Wet Willy was wearing jeans and a polo; Jennifer was wearing much less with her boobs half hanging out. Even standing there now, staring into the kitchen at the escaped mental patient, they were shoulder to shoulder. It didn’t look good. Adam lowered his arm and turned to them slowly. Like a teenage girl anticipating the fearful moment a monster pops out in a horror movie, Jennifer grabbed Wet Willy’s left arm, not knowing what Adam was going to do. Adam advanced to the living room, his foot leaving sticky red footprints on the white linoleum floor. 

Six feet and a plush sofa were all that separated him from Wet Willy. Wet Willy was trembling. It was like that day at the bike racks all over again. Even more than twenty years had not changed their proportions much. Wet Willy standing five foot eleven and weighing 180 pounds felt puny before Adam, who looked like a line-backer wearing a t-shirt that was obviously too small for him. A slight beer gut protruded from the bottom of the shirt, but it was not nearly as dominant as the barrel chest and massive arms that bulged out of his sleeves. Wet Willy guessed Adam was at least 6’2”, and 220 pounds; just a big guy who happened to be an escaped mental patient. 

 “Well, well, well,” Adam started. 

“Now, Adam,” Wet Willy shook as the words came out, “this is NOT what you think. I was coming-” 

“You can cum on her face for all I care,” Adam interrupted. 

“No- it’s not like that at all.” Adam started walking forward again, headed around the side of the couch. Wet Willy rotated to his right towards Adam, positioning Jennifer behind him. He was in the middle, shaking. Jennifer squeezed his arm, and he didn’t know if it was to support him or comfort herself. 

 “Seriously Adam, can we just talk? I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry for everything. Sorry about the way things turned out. It was partly my fault.” 

Adam paused, three feet and no obstacles away from Wet Willy. “It’s too late for talk, Wet Willy. I’m going to kill you,” he said calmly. 

Wet Willy eased back a step, moving right against Jennifer. She still clutched his arm. Quickly, he spun and put his other arm at her waist and lurched toward the front door, shoving Jennifer forward. She reached the knob at once and yanked the door open just in time to be thrust out. Adam had bolted at them as soon as Wet Willy turned. The three of them tumbled out onto the porch. Jennifer dove headlong over the wooden railing into the grass, her satin nighty covering next to nothing. Adam spear-tackled Wet Willy from behind, forcing him face-first into the splintery wooden planks of the porch. Adam pushed down on him with his left hand and dropped his elbow and his weight on the back of Wet Willy’s head. His vision went spotty, and he thought this moment would be the end.

…

Francesca was air-drumming “Tom Sawyer” when she saw the half-naked woman fly to the lawn with her pink panties showing. Then she saw her husband get elbowed in the back of the head repeatedly. She immediately jumped out of the car and ran towards the fray screaming “Stop, stop!” in French. Adam didn’t stop, but it wasn’t because of the language barrier.

…

Officers Donnelly and Jenkins saw the three-person explosion, too. Jenkins snatched up the radio and called for back-up, while Donnelly leaped from the passenger’s side door. Adam kept dropping knees and elbows into Wet Willy’s spine, skull and kidneys while Wet Willy squirmed to get free. The two policemen ran up to the house with their weapons drawn. One warning shot was fired and the two women and both cops were screaming things at once. 

“Freeze” and “get the fuck up” both contradict each other when spoken separately, and they also cancel each other out when they are shouted at the same time. So when Adam did get up, dragging Wet Willy with him, it was not in response to any verbal command. He put Wet Willy in a chokehold and started side-stepping with him toward the side of the house, out of the line of fire. 

…

Wet Willy, with fading strength and consciousness lifted both his feet up, put them on the porch railing and kicked back as hard as his swimmer’s legs could kick. The force was enough to send them both flying backward through a window in the front of the house. Adams’s back went through the metal-framed screen and the glass like a fist going through tissue paper. The window ledge hit Adam in the back of the knees, sweeping his feet out from under him. He fell into the house, taking Wet Willy with him. But Adam landed hard. Little pieces of glass poked into his back, and the force of the floor and Wet Willy’s weight sandwiched the air right out of his lungs. Adam was dazed. 

Wet Willy took his chance. He rolled off of Adam and ran out of the house. Jennifer ran and flung herself onto Wet Willy, not knowing what else to do. Francesca, who was struggling to keep the idea that Wet Willy had just gotten his ass kicked by an angry husband who caught him with his wife doing something half-naked with him, ran up and flung herself into the mix. Wet Willy’s left eye was swollen shut, his forehead was bleeding out of a gash in the center, and his nose was running like a red river. He would find out later that three of his ribs were broken, as well, but all he knew right now was that the two women hugging him were hurting him, but he didn’t care.

Officers Donnelly and Jenkins ran into the house. Jenkins holstered his weapon and flipped the escaped mental patient over to cuff him, while Donnelly stood there with his 9mm Beretta aimed at Adam’s head. Within minutes, four more police cars and an ambulance rolled up to 1322 Douglas Street. Neighbors from every house on the street began to follow the sirens and commotion to the house to gawk at the spectacle. Donnelly and Jenkins dragged Adam out of his house kicking and screaming:

“I’m going to kill you Wet Willy! You’re a fucking dead man!”

All in all, it took four cops to get Adam into the back of the squad car. Wet Willy and Francesca were led by paramedics to the ambulance. On their way to the hospital, Francesca held her husband’s hand. 

“I’m so sorry. Thees ess all my fault,” she kept saying. 

Wet Willy shook his head and finally responded, “Do you still want to go to Atlantic City after this?” and Francesca laughed through her tears.

Epilogue: 

Back at 1322 Douglas Street, Jennifer was all alone, except for the cops, news reporters and dozens of neighbors staring at her, talking about things they didn’t see, and speculating about things they didn’t know. Adam Jr. always stayed at a friend’s house on Friday nights, because it was Jennifer’s busiest night. She sat down on the steps of her porch, inches away from Wet Willy’s bloodstains that were still pooled on the wood. She closed her nightgown over her breasts and thought about Wet Willy. He had saved her. Held her. There was no telling what Adam would have done to her if he hadn’t been there to protect her. And then some black-haired bitch came out of nowhere and took him away from her. 

A female reporter in a pants suit approached Jennifer with a microphone that looked like a silver dildo and said, “Now that your husband is in police custody for attempted murder, and escaping from the hospital, what do you plan to do next?” 

Jennifer just sat there for a second, and then stood up, pushing the silver phallic object away from her. 

“I’m going buffalo huntin’.”