Lilly Joy

                                     Chapter One

Thin as a twig, Maywood Sloper slouched against the only window in the room. Quiet and sorrowful, he stared through the filthy glass at the train tracks below, then turned and squinted at me. A pair of torn and muddied, black lace panties draped the clipboard in his hand. “I’ve lost her.” He coughed deep in his chest, rasped, and swallowed. A rivulet ran down his soiled cheek, “This time, I fear it’s for good.”

           “Don’t get so damned dramatic,” I said. “There’s nothing to get riled about. You don’t even know those are hers.”          

           Maywood shook his head, raised the lacy thing towards me and leaned close. “Make some damn sense,” he said, “I’m her husband. I know these are hers.” His hand shook as he paced and waved it above his head. “I’m gone tell you one thing; I got a bad feeling…real bad.”

           I tried to reason with him. “Where did you say you last saw her?”

           He stopped walking and pointed at me. “You. Where was she when you saw her last?”

           “I didn’t last saw her, you jealous, backwoods hillbilly. But I might know where she is. Quit playing sheriff with me.”

           “Then find her for me,” he said. The flush of his sunburned neck rose, reddening his cheeks and forehead. Maywood put that damned fist in my face again, and hissed, “I need for you to bring her back to me.”

           “I ain’t got her, Maywood.” I looked at him and narrowed my eyes just as he had. “Yeh, I’ll just run out and find her for you – don’t bet much I will. She’s your wife, and your problem. You’re still jealous of me? That woman is going to drive you insane. Anyway, she and I…that was years ago, we were just dumb kids.”

           Maywood leaned back, his eyes drooped, and his body went limp. He picked at a drip from his nose sighed, then wiped his finger on the cuff of his faded uniform. “Find her for me,” he said. “Find my Lilly Joy. She’s gotten into more trouble than she can handle this time.”

           He stood there drained. My friend, the Sherriff of Serene with his “official” uniform, clipboard, and snot-stained cuff. I stared at him with a mix of pity and disgust. “Your wife isn’t lost,” I said. “She’s been back, what? Maybe ten or twelve years? They stopped looking for her.”

           Maywood didn’t respond. He spun and watched the evening train disappear into the trees. We just stood there. Him, worried and broken, me…the same.

           “Lilly Joy Sloper can be found anytime you want,” I said. “Take a good whiff of that black lace. Go ahead do it, Maywood, breathe them panties in deep, then follow the stench of sex, sweat and cheap perfume. That’s where she’ll be. It’s her well-worn path through Serene.”

                                        Chapter Two

The town of Serene was dying, amid the waxwings and banjo picking. Located in an obscure corner of South Carolina’s low country, it was where mud roads squished between your bare toes, where it’s hard to breathe in the heavy summer air, amid blankets of Spanish Moss that bearded century-old oaks. Not many cared…fewer wept. The inbred apathy is passed along through generations like a port-wine birthmark.

                                                         * * *

           Beyond the swamp, in every direction, the fields are strewn with shacks, derelict farm gear, and rubbish. Over there is an old RV on cinder blocks with a makeshift canvas overhang, covering a tin-roofed porch. To the left, not far away, is a shed-barn combination, and further away, an outhouse and a barnwood shack.

           The shack is identical to the one where Lilly Joy was born, forty-two years ago, forced out onto a filthy mattress. There she lay, in her Aunt Mildred’s arms, blood-smeared and corded to her dead-drunk mother, Wilma Dee Howlett. Lilly Joy’s conceptional father, was a native-born Serenian by the name of Eustis Fletcher. Eustis was seventeen at the time, a truck mechanic and full-time degenerate. He was six-feet three inches of grimy-hair, gap-teethed stupid. What Eustis couldn’t steal, he scrounged from others. When Eustis entered a room, you could tell from the odor of roadkill that he picked-up and stewed.

           One night, Eustis just happened to be one in a lineup of rowdy disports that took turns with Wilma Dee’s generosity. Lilly Joy was conceived, and Eustis fell in love with Wilma. He asked her to marry up with him, all due to their forty-three second coupling on the pool table at Everett’s Grill.

           Wilma did marry Eustis, and everything she got from that night was nothing but more trouble, including chlamydia and Lilly Joy. Their marriage didn’t last long. Eustis Fletcher met his end by way of a rusted bait knife, jammed repeatedly into his gut. He was ambushed by a couple of the Delbert kids, whom he had cheated out of four dollars and twenty-two cents. The Delberts left Eustis to bleed-out in the brush under the Nehi sign on Route 438.

No one cared that Eustis went missing at the time, nor was anyone bothered by the growing smell. For the first few weeks, the drifting aroma from Eustice’s corpse wasn’t that much different from roadkill.

                                          Chapter Three

From some of the ugliest seeds, exquisite flowers grow. For example, take the White Dove Egret Flower. That plant has the ugliest, most obnoxious seed on earth, a gray-green, vile, shriveled lump, that grows into an unimaginable delicate blossom.

           If science had relied on the blend of Wilma Dee’s ovum and Eustis Fletcher’s seed, Lilly Joy Howlette would have emerged a smarmy, noxious weed. Instead, she was born a stunning wonder. She was a gift from the heavens, all wrapped up in white tissue paper with pink ribbons around it. As a young girl, Lilly Joy was perfect. At sixteen, she was a sun tanned, golden-haired supernatural. Later, she wasn't quite so perfect. 

            Don’t blame exquisite women like Lilly Joy, for they were created that way. They may be premium, but therein lies the whole soul, a devoted love to self that knows no limit. Find one, and she is entranced and beyond herself, by herself. Her egocentricity makes all possible allowances for imperfections.

           I am about to share the secrets of such a woman who sold her otherworldly radiance, at first for fame and fortune, and then for survival.

                                            Chapter Four

I lied to the desk clerk at Motel 6, said my age was twenty-one and Lilly Joy was nineteen. He smiled, took my three dollars, threw the key to #11 on the counter, and went back to reading the Police Gazette.

                                                 ***

Through the bathroom door, I could her laughing and singing. The shower was running, and Lilly Joy was cleaning up. A pile of her fancy horseback riding clothes lay in the corner of the room. On the floor next to the bed, she had dropped her helmet, pig skin crop, sports bra, padded underwear, and knee-high riding socks. Lilly Joy’s prized boots stood in the corner.

The shower stopped abruptly, followed by a long silence. The door to the bathroom stayed shut, until finally, Lilly Joy emerged - wrapped in a towel.

           “Close your eyes,” she said.

           I did.

           Lilly dropped her towel, pulled the covers back, climbed on top and straddled me. “You can open your eyes now.” She whispered.

           I did. Looking up at her eyes, I nearly fainted. Here was this blue-eyed goddess, just sitting on me…as if it was nothing. All she wore was a pair of lace panties. My mind couldn’t wrap around her being so shameless.

Lily Joy smirked at me, “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “None of your damn business. You just lean back and enjoy.”

           I lie on the bed mesmerized, silently watching every move she made.  

           “You just lie there and be a good boy,” she said. “I ain’t finished riding.” With a wink, she turned her back to me, wiggled out of the lace and flung it over one boot.

           I don’t rightly remember what I was thinking at the time. “We were the same age, and I never had cash. Where did a girl in Serene get the money to take riding lessons and buy fancy riding gear? Her mom didn’t have much to leave her.” I’d ask her later. For now, I was more nervous than a Clydesdale in stud. The fresh sheets were cold and that helped dampen my excitement a little.

           “First, I’m going show you how I trot,” she said. “You just lie still. I’ll do the work.” And with that she moved her body in a slow post.

                                            Chapter Five    

Lilly Joy was born twice. First, during a rainy, humid afternoon, on the back porch of the tin-roofed shack. And again, at the age of 18 as the winner of the “Miss Low Country South Carolina,” contest.

           I watched with my friend Maywood, as the train left for Charleston in a lazy climb toward the mountains, through Civil War battle fields and then faded and disappeared northeast toward the shore.

“Son of a bitch,” Maywood whistled and pointed to the sky. “I was hoping to hitch-up with that gal. Now, she’s on a gol-damned train, going 9000 miles an hour, away from Serene and me.”

           “Hold it a second, Maywood,” I said, ignoring his whining. “I got to find Route 15 to get us home.”

           He scowled, “You don’t give a pail of piss. My dream girl is gone. She’s headed for Sodom and Gamora – Charleston, maybe New York and New Jersey.”

           “Just Charleston,” I said.

           He looked askance. “Whatever wise ass. She’s gone and that’s that. I’ll never see her again, never tell her how much…”

           “Will you shut the hell up,” I said. “You had your chances since she was young kid.” It was no use explaining. And it would serve no purpose to tell him that I too was heartbroken.

           I spun the car toward Route 15 South, not expecting to ever see her again. But I was wrong.

                                           Chapter Six

With a tumbler of single-malt scotch to her lips, Lilly Joy stood starring through the glass doors of her hotel suite and tried to remember how she got there.

The floor-to-ceiling windows pulled in light to illuminate the suite's color scheme, plush fabrics and gilded furnishings. The suite had its own roof garden, pool and attending staff. Everywhere she looked, Lilly Joy was surrounded by mother-of-pearl inlays and Carrara marble.

           Out loud, Lily Joy mused, “Some dumb-ass is buying a dream. But dreams with Lilly aren’t free." She pressed the hotel call button. Instantly, a small light blinked back on a nearby telephone. She lifted the receiver.

           A gentle voice responded, “Bonjour madame, vous avez appele?”

           “Yeah hi,” she said. “Steak and eggs, coffee, muffins and a bottle of Langavulin.” She grabbed a nearly empty bottle, poured the remnants into her glass and read the label into the phone, letter by letter, “L a n g a v u…”

           The voice said, “Bien sur, notre plasisir. Tout ce que tu veux.”

           Lilly Joy shook her head. “Whatever,” she replied, and put the phone down. Should have asked for two bottles. Obviously, Mr. Whoever can afford it.

                                                                * * *

           Her world was now many years past the pageant and thousands of miles from Serene. Lilly Joy didn’t win the contest, nor did she place anywhere near the top. Perhaps it was because, although young, stunning and statuesque, she had little-to-no talent. Or perhaps there wasn’t a trophy for debauchery… to be truthful, the pageant saw her behavior as unseemly.

Such was the status of Lilly Joy: An aging companion, ensconced in a luxury suite at a seafront hotel on the Riviera. As long as her beauty lasted, she had a front-row seat to the sparkling life, the sea, and the glamour…where gorgeous women beguiled the most powerful men, and love is scorned as illusion.

                                            Chapter Seven

Lilly Joy’s years rolled over, as did her men.

She gazed out at the rows of tall, white buildings, and the azure waters beyond. Small boats bobbed in the harbor while majestic vessels lay moored on ribbons of elaborate docks that stretched into Biscayne Bay. She sighed and picked up an open bottle of Champagne.

           “English, Al. I no speak Colombia. We’re in the States.”

           Alejandro nodded his head and clapped his hands. “Yeh, and you don’t speak good English also. What’s the name of that hick-town you come from?”

           “Sere…, Howlett. That’s it, Howlett.”

“Yeah, yeah, Howl-something, in South Carolina,” he said. “We’ll have to visit…when you wake up. Are you going to hang around here and sleep all day? It’s almost time for our business. We got to meet Mario and the Spanish guy from Medellin.”

           “Al, last I checked, Colombia isn’t in Spain, but what do I know?”

“You know too much. Be careful…you could get hurt.”

“Yeh, yeh,” she said. “I’m shaking. I just ordered some food. You didn’t say anything about a meeting.”

           “Fuck the food. They’ll put on my tab. Colombia…Spain, what difference does it make? No problem. Get dressed.”

           “Al!” She demanded.

           He lowered his eyes and pointed at her, “In case you didn’t hear me, Lilly Joy…I said, get dressed. Put on the blue thing.”

           She laughed and mimicked him, “Just like that, put on the blue thing.”

           Alejandro balled his fist and held it up to her nose. “If you weren’t so pretty and good in bed, I’d bust you right through that fuckin window.”

           “If you weren’t going to be rich, I wouldn’t be so good,” she giggled.

           He snarled and looked menacing. “You know what I do to people who give me shit?”

           “I give you shit, but I also give you great…”

           He opened his fist and gently touched her cheek with the back of his hand. “Don’t say it, my golden-haired Venus, you’d sound like a two-bit prostituta.”  

           She leaned forward and kissed him. “You got it,” she said. “The blue thing. Give me ten minutes.”

           Alejandro gave her a thumbs-up and turned to one of the bottles of Scotch. He filled a glass tumbler and read the bottle’s label. “Whoa, nothing but the best for Lilly Joy,” he said. “Couple hundred a pop.”

           She shot back, “You’ve got it, and I’m worth it.”

           “Yes, you are,” he said, “And yes, I am. That’s why I need you when I cut a deal. They’ll be so busy looking at your ass, they won’t feel the knife.”

                                                Chapter Eight

Travel brochures tout Cartagena, Colombia as, “A gorgeous fishing village on Colombia's Caribbean coast, with excellent beaches, a historic old town, and beautiful colonial architecture.”

           It's also where Alejandro, with the help of cartel money, developed a lucrative drug operation. They flew a plane several times a month, mainly between Colombia and Panama, to smuggle the drugs into the United States. Later, the “Group,” bought fifteen bigger airplanes and six helicopters.  

           “The Spaniard” and Alejandro organized more smuggling shipments, routes, and distribution networks from the Caribbean into South Florida. It was the main drug smuggling hub for the Cartel, as well as a tropical hideaway and playground for Alejandro and Lilly Joy. However, for her, there was no safety. Living in the Cartel compound was an existence filled with running, leaping, screeching, shit-stained monsters, carrying automatic weapons and screaming at the very top of their voices. They would never let her leave…or live if she did.

           Alejandro had a monthly flight to Miami. She often went with him, because a couple drew less attention. One day, in the tumult of a busy Aventura mall, a group of picture-taking tourists drew between Lilly Joy and Alejandro. Their bustle and jabber irritated him, and distracted his attention. Alejandro walked away to avoid being photographed, and in a heartbeat, Lilly Joy fled.

                                         Chapter Nine

Maywood probably heard me. If he did, I'm sorry I hurt him. I needed to share the pain of loving and not knowing what the morning would bring. As we watched the evening train disappear into the trees, a rivulet of tears ran down my soiled cheek.

                                                        * * *

The town of Serene was slowly sinking into the sedge grass and low country muck, amid the nightly staccato of crickets yielding to the morning’s dissonance of rosters, howling dogs, and the snorts of hungry pigs. Green scum on the swamp bank dried to a crust in the sun, while flies hovered over whatever died during the oblivion of night.