Seven Stud by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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Prologue
In “Strange Awakening” , I, 40 year old Ed Jensen, wake up with a loss of memory. I live in a rural part of New Jersey, in a 200 year old colonial farm house, decorated in an Early American motif, pre-1830. Clinton Township is a very treed hilly area near a reservoir. I reside in the most remote Norton section. My first job is to find out who, where and what I am and hope that the condition is temporary.
My exploration of household papers, notes and newspapers give me clues. I find out that my wife, Diane, also 40, is living and working in Seattle, Washington, primarily because of a fantastic pay raise with the opportunity for more. I learn more from phone conversations with her, notably that my memory loss was probably caused by the successful removal of a benign brain tumor.
I go walking in the rural area to see if other people know me, curious to see how they react. I find the expected tranquility can change to ominous isolation, when I see no people or cars on my walks, especially after witnessing that the closest house, about 1000 feet away, seemed to be host to a child pornography operation. When one of the operators, a large man, sees me staring at the house, he gives strong warnings,
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eventually with a gun, to stay away. Despite my initial reaction of probably trying to comply with the demands, I meet another operator, the Lady in Black, at other walk sites and get more warnings.
My mindset flip-flops from fear for my life to anger at being bothered right where I live. I meet Butch Walker, when he, driving drunk and fast, almost hits me coming out of my driveway and knocks out my mailbox. We get to talking when Butch comes back to fix it and we become friends. Butch is 35, divorced and unemployed, living with his parents a few houses up Baptist Church Road.
I decide to “spy” on the yellow house, trying to get police evidence. Both my current and Butch’s formerly filed police reports are looked at askance, possibly because of my brain condition, which seems to be common knowledge and Butch’s long term drunkenness. I am noticed by the operators and shot at.
I go to Butch’s house to hide and find an ally. Butch agrees to help, after some reservations. As it is not his problem, he doesn’t want to get into any possible entanglement with Joe Mason, a local big wig, who owns the house of dubious repute. He also meets Alice, a former girlfriend, now divorced.
We make a few forays into dangerous territory. During a morning of torrential rain I get 12 photos, taken through a screened window, of other pornographic photos which hang on the
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wall. The quality is probably poor. Butch and I are seen and shot at. Butch returns fire and the target hit the ground, seemingly dead. As we are escaping, I fall and lose my camera in the quickly moving stream. We first return to Butch’s house and decide that the best thing to do is to file another police report.
A town cop, Sergeant Mobley, doesn’t allow us to file a written report, but agrees to do an informal investigation, us in tow. The rain is now subsiding. The investigation turns up no body and no evidence of any child pornography. The house is seemingly vacated by the people we have previously encountered and is now occupied by a hunter from another part of the state.
Butch and I meet him and Joe Mason, who happen to be at the site when Mobley does his “investigation.” Joe owns three houses, including the one in question, all part of one parcel of land, sitting on the 80 acres down-road from us, bordering the reservoir. Joe gives us what could be possibly interpreted as a veiled threat. The house is often rented to “hunters”.
I return to my house near the “crime” scene and Butch remains at his folks’ house, a little further up the road. We remain friends and while we think that we’re the only ones who know the real story, we usually wonder if it really happened, as no one else seems to think that it did.
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