Guilt….Part Two

After a late night, I slept until around noon but awoke seriously pissed off and motivated to find that little sucker punching prick!

I got dressed and walked into my front yard. Looking down the street, I didn’t see Col. Ashley’s car in their driveway but decided to walk over and see if they were at home. As I approached their yard, I saw the Colonel working in his flower garden. He must have been in his mid to late seventies but he still looked ramrod straight and carried himself with a military bearing. Trying not to startle him, I made as much noise as possible as I purposely walked on pinecones and branches.

He turned around, straightened up and smiled broadly.

“Well….it’s good to see you awake before evening young man.” He said cheerfully. “Don’t see how you can live your life in the dark.”

I laughed and shook the bony hand he offered me.

“Come look at these azaleas Ron….are they not getting beautiful?” he asked. “My own special fertilizer is the secret.”

“Yessir Colonel….they are gorgeous.” I said. “What’s in your special fertilizer?”

He smiled a clever smile.

“Couldn’t tell you young fellow….my eyesight is too bad to read the small print on that damned bag!” He laughed at his own joke.

“Your secret is safe with me sir.” I promised.

“Yes well….it’s not a complete fabrication…we DO mix in coffee grounds, egg shells and of course….” He looked both ways before continuing. “Don’t tell the Mrs…..but I occasionally a drain the old lizard on the damned things!”

He roared again at his humor.

He waved a hand toward his garden table.

“Come on….sit down and have some of my Amy’s iced tea.” It wasn’t so much an offer as an order.

We sat and made small talk for a bit. After a while, Mrs. Ashley came through the garden and joined us. The Colonel popped tall and I quickly followed his lead and we waited until she was seated before we sat down again.

“It’s so nice of you to visit Ron…we don’t see much of you these days.” Mrs. Ashley said sweetly.

“Amy…the boy is a damned vampire musician.” He growled. “He’s not much on daylight.”

I laughed and sipped my tea. It was really great and I told her so which, of course, led into an in depth description of the production process behind her wonderful tea.

Turns out….she put lemon juice in it after she brewed it.

Wow….another “secret”!

After a bit, Mrs. Ashley asked if I had seen Brett that day. Of course, this question made me wince a bit and I absently rubbed the spot where he had decked me. I really didn’t want to upset them but I thought that they should know about their budding Peeping Tom. However, before I could answer her, she gently slapped the glass top of the table.

“The little monster stole our car last night!!” She hissed.

“AMY!!” the Colonel almost shouted. “Family business!”

Mrs. Ashley looked at her husband intensely but the old man’s withering glare seemed to overpower her because didn’t say another word. She stared off in the distance.

I squirmed in my seat a bit but quickly made the decision to tell them what had happened. And so I did.

The Colonel and Mrs. Ashley were quiet for minute. I thought that I had upset them and that I had better exit the scene. They had a lot to think about. Before I left however, Mrs. Ashley reached over and took my left hand in both of hers.

“Brett hit the Colonel last week.” She had tears in her eyes and she had spoken almost in a whisper.

I looked at the Colonel who appeared to be embarrassed for a second but then his eyes flashed with anger.

“My own grandson!” He shouted. “My daughter didn’t raise him to be the way he is. He’s mean as a snake. I should have shot the young prick after he hit me! He wasn’t even man enough to face me….he hit me when I wasn’t looking.”

Again, I rubbed my head.

“Yeah Colonel….that seems to be the way he operates.” I said.

For the next half hour or so, they told me all about Brett.

Man what a bastard this guy was!

I can’t remember everything they told me way back then but I do remember a few choice details.

At the age of twenty one, Brett had been out on his own for a few years before his mother Amelia died. Almost immediately after her death, he got in touch with his grandparents and gave them a long sob story about how life had whipped his sorry ass and was invited to come with live with the Ashley’s.

Within one week, Brett had stolen his grandfather’s war medals and sold them to a pawn shop.

SIDE NOTE:

Colonel Ashley had fought in World War Two, Korea AND Vietnam! Mrs. Ashley informed me that among the medals that Brett stole were the Navy Cross, two Silver Stars, four Bronze Stars, the Combat Action ribbon, three Purple Hearts, and I can’t remember the unit citation medals. He served for something like thirty plus years!

This old man was an honest to goodness hero.

Oh yeah….I almost forgot. Brett also stole Colonel Ashley’s retirement gift from his troops in Korea.

A gold plated, custom engraved 1911 Colt Automatic .45 pistol.

That was the only thing stolen that REALLY seemed to shake the Colonel.


BACK TO THE STORY….

Mrs. Ashley told how her jewelry had mysteriously disappeared since Brett had come to live with them.

Brett had stolen money and tried to forge their checks several times. He had charged merchandise on their accounts at several local stores.

The first time the Colonel and his wife had confronted Brett, he had managed to charm them with his denials.

As time went by however, Brett became menacing and threatening. He made thinly veiled references about violence.

It didn’t take long before he advanced to bold physical threats and, at times, actual physical harm.

Even to this day, I feel sadness at what those poor old folks were living through but…what the hell could I do?

I mean, it wasn’t MY problem and besides…I didn’t really even KNOW these people! Yes, they were nice old neighbors but, I felt no particular need or desire to get involved in their personal problems. I did however, feel a desire to kick Brett’s ass. Beyond that, I just felt bad for the Ahleys.

For a guy who didn’t want to air his family’s dirty laundry in public, Colonel Ashley readily told me about how screwed up Brett was and how badly he treated them. I really felt sorry for an old war horse like the Colonel…in his younger days he would have handled Brett easily. I think the death of his daughter combined with his advanced age made him feel helpless. He didn’t want to harm his daughter’s son. Even if the piece of crap was no good, he couldn’t justify washing his hands of Brett. He was having a tough time dealing with the situation.

To be honest, I remember just thinking that I needed to get out of there. This was not exactly a conversation or predicament I wanted to involve myself in. So….I made my excuses and went back home after telling them to call me if they needed me.

I remember going back home and going through my normal routine until it was time to go to the club.

I honestly don’t remember much of what happened that night except that I played all night and went home. Pretty memorable huh?

Anyway….what I DO remember is that upon my arrival back home in the wee hours of the morning, I pulled into my driveway and noticed that all the lights in my house were turned on. I knew that I hadn’t left any light on except my front porch lamp. My first thought was that my girlfriend at the time, Kathy had decided to surprise me. She knew where I kept my ‘hideout’ key so…she had probably used it to gain entry.

As I reached the front door, I realized that my assumption was wrong.

My front door looked as though someone had taken a sledge hammer to it with a vengeance! It was sort of leaning half opened and hanging off its hinges at a 45 degree angle to the floor. A large hole had been beaten through it near the handle. It was destroyed.

As I stepped into the house, I set my guitar down and grabbed an aluminum bat I kept in an old umbrella stand in the corner of the front room. I slowly and quietly made my way through the house until I reached my bedroom. I quickly went to my night stand, reached behind it and thankfully found my pistol, a .38 Special with a four inch barrel. I still have that gun.

Well, it took me several minutes to survey the small house but I didn’t find anyone lurking in the shadows. I did find lots of senseless damage and a few stolen items. Thankfully, my guitars and most of my equipment were at the club or elsewhere but whoever had broken in had stolen some money (not much because I didn’t have much to steal) and a few small items. No big deal really but I was pretty damned pissed about the holes in the walls, furniture damaged and the toilet that was intentionally clogged and overflowed!

Of course, I called the police and spent the rest of the early morning hours talking to them.

I finally made it to sleep around dawn.

Sometime that morning/early afternoon, my phone rang.

“Hello” I answered.

All I could hear on the other end was some guy laughing his ass off for a minute or so until the line went dead.

Of course, this disturbed the hell out of me but I didn’t have any idea of what to do. This was in the days before star 69 so….I just went on with my life.

I changed the locks on my doors, cleaned the house up and went about my business.

A day or so later, I noticed that the Ashley’s car was back in their driveway but saw no sign of Brett for maybe a week.

Around two in the afternoon one week day, I was mowing my front yard with an old push mower when I saw Brett walking down the street. He glared at me but didn’t stop as he walked by so I killed the engine and shouted at him.

“Hey Brett, come over here, I wanna talk to you.”

He looked at me but kept walking.

“Brett….don’t make me come after you!” I shouted.

He stopped and turned towards me.

“What?” he asked.

I slowly walked toward him.

“What do you THINK I want to talk to you about Brett?”

“How should I know?” he asked innocently.

I got to within five feet of him and looked as though he was ready to run. He wasn’t a really big kid but he was not much smaller than me. Hell, he really wasn’t that much younger than me either. He was probably 21 or 22 and I was only 27, 28 years old.

“If I ever catch you playing peeping Tom again, I’m going to call the cops on you Brett.” I said evenly. “You got lucky the other night.”

He didn’t say a word. All he did was look at me with a sort of belligerent smirk.

“Do you hear me asshole?” I asked.

He still said nothing.

Frustrated, I started to walk away when I heard him say something under his breath. I could have sworn he said something but I wasn’t exactly sure what it was so I asked him.

“What did you say?” I demanded.

He just started laughing.

It was definitely the same laugh I heard on my phone the day after my house was broken into!

I sprinted toward him and he took off like a deer! Damn that little prick could RUN!! I chased him all the way to his grandparent’s house and, I’m ashamed to say that he had plenty of time to make it in the house, slam the door and probably fix himself a glass of Mrs. Amy’s special iced tea!

I never thought of myself as a sprinter but damn….that was pretty humiliating!

I pounded on the door and screamed at him to open up to absolutely NO avail.

He wasn’t coming out.

I finally gave up and began to walk away. When I was half way across the yard, I heard the door open. As I turned around, he was standing with one foot out of the door.

“Hey man….were you trying to break into this house?” he grinned. “You know…I might just have to call the police. You could get into BIG trouble for breaking into a house in this neighborhood.”

He gave me that same horse laugh again.

I knew I was handcuffed here. I tried to calm down and catch my temper.

“Look Brett, I know you broke into my house and I know you’re an asshole but don’t fuck with me again. I’m not going to tell you again.” I turned to walk away but remembered something else. “Oh yeah….if I hear about you roughing up your grandparents again, I’m gonna kick your ass. I'm serious Brett. Don’t try me.”

“Fuck you.” Was his only response. A very calm response at that. This guy was sure of himself.

I walked away feeling absolutely useless, impotent, enraged, hot, tired and sweaty! Oh yeah….I was also a little bit….hell, I guess to be honest….I was a little bit scared. I mean seriously…the guy was obviously a bit insane. He really didn’t give a damn that I knew he broke into my house, stole his grandparents car and abused them. No shame, no guilt…no normal human emotion that I could discern.

The dude was almost like a movie villain. So yeah…I guess I was a bit frightened at the prospect of having to deal with this crazy bastard in the future. I had the feeling that he really didn’t give a shit whether or not he went to jail or not.

I DID care!

How do you deal with that?

As it turns out…I’m still asking that question.

A few more days passed during which time, I got in touch with a friend of mine who was a West Columbia cop. She was also a girl who I had gone out with for a while and we were still friendly. I asked her to check up on Brett and she willingly did just that. She came up with the fact that he had a juvenile record which she couldn’t access as well as several violations as an adult.

I met Sharon (the cop) at Maurice Bessenger’s Barbeque drive in (look up his sauce on the internet and ORDER some! Damn…it’ll make your tongue slap your brains out!). She began to tell about young master Brett.

“This guy is a freakin’ moron Ron….seriously weird.” She half laughed-half looked spooky. “We’re talking just really disturbed.”

I wasn’t feeling real good about this.

She went on to tell me that he had been arrested six times in the past three years. He had only served ninety days on one conviction for assault on a minor during a fight at a football game he had attended. HOWEVER…..his other five arrests were for suspected acts of public masturbation, indecent exposure, arson, grand theft and….get this…..rape of a child.

Dear lord!

“Why the hell is this sonofabitch still running around free?” I asked.

“I couldn’t tell you dude. All I know is that he wasn’t found guilty. They couldn’t prove anything against him and only one charge even made it to court…the arson charge.... The judge kicked it out before it really got started.” She shrugged. “He’s either innocent or really sneaky.”

I told her again what I knew about him.

“He ain’t innocent. Hell, he’s tormenting his poor old grandparents. He’s hit the old man and even stole their car but they’re not talking to the cops.” I explained. “Hell, the old man even talked about shooting the bastard but, I don’t think they’ll go to the cops.”

“Well….all I can suggest is that you stay the hell away from this punk. He isn’t someone you want to mess around with.” She warned me. “You and I both know that you don’t need the hassle!”

She was referring to the fact that, while she and I were seeing each other, I had become the unwitting focus of an investigation into alleged drug activities at a bar I was playing at regularly. Imagine that! A musician hanging out in a bar being linked with smoking pot and doing the occasional line!

There was some really fine police work going on there at the time.

Anyway…Sharon had warned me of the situation and even though she had known of my activities before we got together, she realized that it probably wasn’t a great career move to continue to hang out with me. I agreed with her and while we remained friendly, we weren’t actually involved anymore.

The last thing she asked me that day was whether or not I wanted her to have someone go talk with the Ashley’s.

I remember distinctly telling her that it would probably only serve to humiliate the old people and most likely accomplish nothing.

You know….they say that hindsight is supposed to be twenty-twenty but…in this case, I think it’s more like twenty-two hundred because I STILL don’t know the correct answer to her question.

Damn it.

Two days later, I was visiting Colonel Ashley at the Lexington County Hospital where he was suffering from several broken ribs, a sprained wrist and a broken jaw.

To Be Continued Again….sorry, gotta get some sleep!

I’ll try and finish this soon. I can’t wait to get your feedback on what happened.