Uncle Tex was down at Kumar’s buying stuff to make pigs in a blanket and macaroni and cheese for dinner.

I shut down Joni singing about drinking a case of you because I knew I was just torturing myself. I picked up my cel and cal ed Annette.

Annette had given up web design to open a head shop in Chicago cal ed, appropriately, “Head”. She sold bongs, pipes, incense, blankets with Celtic knots and pictures of Jimi Hendrix printed on them, psychedelic posters, tie-dyed t-shirts and hemp clothing. To her surprise, it was a huge success, most likely because she was a nut the caliber of Tex and it made her store fun to hang out in, just like Fortnum’s. After she got too busy and couldn’t do it anymore, she hired me to run the website. She sold bongs on five continents.

She had curly, ash-blonde hair, milky green eyes and She had curly, ash-blonde hair, milky green eyes and was tal , tal er even than me. She was a good friend. She was nice to Bil y’s face, never letting on that she’d once gotten so angry on my behalf (yes, after my recounting the sledgehammer incident), she threw a yard glass at a wal , smashing it to smithereens.

“Yo, bitch!” she answered on the second ring (nothing to be alarmed about, this was how Annette answered the phone al the time).

“Hey,” I said, quietly.

Then I burst into tears.

Then I told her my story, all of my story.

“Holy f**king Jesus H. Christ,” she said when I was done.

“I know.”

“He hasn’t called? ”

“Annette! Bil y kidnapped me and beat me up. This is not about Hank!”

“Bil y’s probably been whacked and his worthless, dead body is being eaten by red ants on some sand dune in Utah, goddess wil ing. Bil y’s the f**king past, this Hank dude is the future, baby.”

I told you Annette was a nut.

“I’m coming home, as soon as I get my tires fixed,” I said, skirting the issue of Hank.

“When’s that gonna be?”

“Uncle Tex has a friend who’s picking up the car tomorrow. It can’t take that long to change four tires. I figure I’l be on the road tomorrow night. Then, I’l pick my stuff up from your place and if you and Jason can come with me to the loft, just to make sure it’s safe, I’l close it up. Then I’m going to Mexico.”

“Fuck that shit,” Annette said. “Jason and I were going on a long weekend camping in Michigan. We’l make it a longer weekend and bring your shit to Colorado. We’l leave tomorrow. What do you want from the loft?”

“Annette,” I said low. “I’ve made up my mind.” She ignored my warning tone.

“Wel , I’m un-making it up.”

“You can’t come out to Colorado! What about Head?”

“I have to beg my staff to leave at the end of the day. I got no problems with Head coasting along. I could join a commune for six months and they wouldn’t even know I was gone.”

This was true. Annette’s staff was like the staff in Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity. Their whole life was Head. If someone threw a live grenade into Head, they’d fight each other for the opportunity to throw themselves on it. It was scary.

“You aren’t talking me out of this,” I told her.

“Sure I am. That’s what friends do when their friends turn into idiots and make stupid decisions on the fly,” she retorted. Then she shouted, “Road trip!” and disconnected before I could say another word.

I flipped my phone shut and stared at the ceiling.

I realized I lived on a smal island of sanity while al else around me was bedlam.

I was about to torture myself with “Both Sides Now” or real y go for the gusto and switch to Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic” when a knock came at the door.

“Yeah?” I cal ed.

“Dinner’s ready,” Uncle Tex boomed.

I set aside my MP3, rol ed off the bed and headed out of the room.

* * * * *

It was late. Uncle Tex and I had eaten our blanketed pigs and macaroni and cheese. Later, we had some cookies and cream ice cream. Even later, after-dinner drinks of Uncle Tex’s moonshine.

We finished watching Letterman and I got up from the couch and said, “I’m going to bed.”

I looked down at Uncle Tex. He had the phone (a rotary phone, by the way, its cord strung across the living room) sitting on his lap and he was glaring at it so hard I thought laser beams were going to shoot from his eyes and burn it to cinders.

“‘Night,” I said when he didn’t answer.

He looked up at me.

“He’s gonna cal .”

I smiled at him. Even I knew it was a sad smile.

I’d had a short conversation with Nancy, but I figured she’d soon be family, so she’d be safe. Eddie had cal ed again, so had Indy. I didn’t talk to either of them.

Hank had not cal ed.

I knew what it meant. I’d known it even before I went on my date with him.

It was dark in my room, he couldn’t see me last night, battered face, bruised body, but he knew. He could smel it on me. He dealt with people like Bil y every day. I was Bil y’s girl, even if it was once upon a time.

Hank didn’t want that stink in his bed.

I bent down and kissed the top of Uncle Tex’s head again.

“He’s gonna f**kin’ cal ,” Uncle Tex growled.

I touched his shoulder and walked away.

I got into the bed and lay there for a while.

Then I got out my MP3 player and found the song.

I listened to “Because the Night” from Springsteen’s Live 1975/85 box set.

Then I listened to it again.

On the third time around, I started crying. Not huge wracking sobs, even with the paper-thin wal s, Uncle Tex would never hear me.

Then I shut off my player, wiped my face on my pil ow and went to sleep.

Chapter Eleven

Pretend World of Bubble Gum Goodness

I rol ed out of bed feeling better than I had the day before, the aches and pains were subsiding.

The mirror in the bathroom showed me another gruesome concoction of bruising colors on my face but at least they were fading. The marks around my neck, arms and wrists were stil visible but not nearly as angry.

I wandered into the kitchen, poured myself a cup of coffee and saw Uncle Tex’s note saying that he’d gone to work and would be home around one.

I was wandering back to my bedroom, having visions of a morning spent performing more musical self-torture, when I glanced sideways out the picture window in Uncle Tex’s living room, and stopped dead at what I saw, coffee cup arrested halfway to my lips.