A story by Rick Fisher All characters of Diffle County are fictional. Warning: Some languiage may not be suitable for children.
Jimmy Deagan was an angry kid. His father was a drunk. It was a family tradition. He had his father's eyes too. Tall, dark, and dangerously handsome, Jimmy could have passed for a All-America High school quarterback, except for those eyes. Deep-set under dark eyebrows with long, black lashes; they were piercingly beautiful. They were painful and angry. They were unpredictable and deadly. They invited girls to ruin.
When Jimmy was twelve years old, he stole magazines from the local drug store. He didn't get caught. Then he invited Robert (Bobby) Jenkins to steal magazines and laughed and ran away, while Bobby sat handcuffed to a chair waiting for his parents to take him home. Jimmy showed that stupid kid how to steal the wrong way- just for kicks.
By the time Jimmy was fifteen, he had fathered a child and two abortions. He could pass for eighteen and the older girls flocked to the bad boy of Diffle County. They told him he looked like James Dean. He told them to shut up and spread their legs or he would smash their face. It was easy for Jimmy Deagan to get laid.
At sixteen, he borrowed a car and pushed it off a cliff into the old Westville quarry. It belonged to the only teacher who gave him an A in class. That night was one of his favorites. They met at her apartment just like every other Friday night. But Jimmy Deagan was getting bored with the relationship. He told her the A was bullshit. He didn't even show up after the first class. That was all the time he needed to let her know she was going to belong to him and no wasn't an option.
Lindsey Vale was only twenty-three years old and fresh out of college. She wasn't the prettiest woman and was flattered by his attention. What could it hurt? She had never done a dangerous thing in her entire restrained life. Jimmy is a bad boy and they have a code, she thought. They could have some mutual fun and no one would get hurt. Jimmy would never rat her out. Clearly, Lindsey didn't take enough psychology courses in college. When Jimmy Deagan is bored, people get hurt.
They were lying in her bed, smoking cigarettes in silence. He had been different tonight, rougher and uncaring. She felt uncertain. She felt used. He slapped, he bit, he pulled hair, he took her in ways and in places she didn't expect nor want. The silence lay between them now like a heavy stone. Finally and painfully she gathered the courage to speak.
"Jimmy, that wasn't fun for me. You hurt me tonight. You did things to me that were disrespectful." she whispered softly, her eyes misting with small tears.
"You should just shut up. You enjoyed it. I don't need you bitching at me after you begged me, OK?"
"I'm not bitching and I was begging you to stop. You really hurt me, Jimmy. We've been together for almost six months. I should be able to talk to you about how I feel." Lindsey's tears began to flow.
"I got something I need to do. I need to take your car for awhile. I won't be long with it." He looked directly into her wet eyes and smirked. "Hey, I'll even give it a wash."
"I don't know. Do you even have a license? Why not let me drive you there? I can drive you Jimmy" she searched her young lover's eyes for any level of tenderness, tears and mascara streaming down alongside her nose and over her upper lip. She could taste the salt.
"I'm not asking permission. You're not my mother. Where are the keys, in your purse?" Jimmy threw back the covers and got out of bed, picked up his clothes off the floor and dressed himself, cigarette blunt hanging loosely from the corner of his James Dean mouth. "Go get them for me."
"Jimmy, please no. Not tonight. Stay here. I need you to hold me." Lindsey's cries turned to hard, body-raking sobs.
James Deagan walked over to the bed, grabbed Lindsey by the hair and pulled her naked body onto the floor. Lindsey screamed as he dragged her across the room, tossing her like a rag against her dresser.
"Reach into your purse and get me your fucking car keys." Jimmy stood over her, his dark eyes glaring in anger and disgust. Lindsey struggled to her feet, pulling her long, brown hair around her neck and holding it tightly. With her free hand she reached into her purse for the car keys. Jimmy stole them out of her hand and walked out of the room. "See ya in the newspapers."
Twenty minutes later, Lindseys' car lay at the bottom of the quarry. Jimmy watched it sink, then dove off the cliff himself, swam to the opposite shore, and walked, clothes soaking wet, to the Westville Police station. He was humming a sea shanty to himself. It was a beautiful night.
Jimmy Deagan explained to the officer-on-duty how his high school teacher seduced him and initiated sex with him. She told him if he didn't fuck her, she would flunk him out of school. He wanted to run away. After they had sexual intercourse several times, she insisted he drive her car to the mini-mart and buy her more cigarettes. She told him to take a drive and calm down and to think about how lucky he was that she chose him to be her "special student". Then she swore him to secrecy about what had happened between him. Later the police report would reflect that there were no cigarettes in Lindsey Vales's house.
Jimmy told the officer and then later the District Attorney and then the Grand Jury how he didn't even realize he was on the quarry road until the car was airborne. He swam out the window and barely cleared the car before it sunk four hundred feet to the bottom. "I'm telling the truth, officer."
The police are not dumb. They watch and they see. It was common knowledge around the barracks that Deagan and Vale spent time together at her house. The rumor mill was turning on that story for months. However, police reports seldom include rumor mills. Once upon a time, several years earlier, John Deagan was a highly decorated police officer- until the drink caught up with him and his wife. She died in the fiery car crash. John Deagan survived but his son Jimmy was never the same after that night. The local police made it a point to keep an eye on Jimmy and help him whenever they could.
The following morning, Lindsey Vale was physically removed from her apartment in handcuffs and leg irons, arrested for having sex with a minor. The local and regional papers were there to take her picture and ask rude questions. Miss Vale was placed in the rear seat of a Westville patrol car and driven away to jail. By the end of the day, she was infamous, a household name, and Jimmy Deagan, son of John, was rolling around under the football bleachers with Tammy Goodwin, a sophomore cheerleader.
Jimmy's dad hadn't been home in three days, out on a bender somewhere nearby. John Deagan missed the entire event. Lindsey Vale lost her job and was sent off to prison by a partial local jury, Jimmy's dad sobered up for awhile, just long enough to kick Jimmy out of the house. Jimmy lived on the street for 6 months before his father took him back in, offering Jimmy a beer to celebrate his homecoming. Jimmy declined, vowing to never drink alcohol as long as he lived.
A few years passed. Lindsey was released from prison. She left the area and was never heard from again. A mutual friend said she tried to find another teaching job, lied on her application, and after working for a few months her lie was uncovered and she was sent packing again.
Jimmy hooked up with an older woman from Nother county and they were living together in a rented rancher on Crowley Drive. The police visited the house often to settle arguments between the two. No one knew her very well and no one cared as long as Jimmy stayed there and wasn't causing any more trouble in Diffle County.
Jimmy also spent time with a slight, dark-haired man he met at the Downtown tavern. His new friend was a part-time drug dealer named Kevin Valence. They met sitting at the bar and soon were inseparable. They spent most of the time at the ranch house on Crowley drive or at the Downtown tavern looking for new customers. They snorted the profits. Kevin never ran out of money.
Folks on Crowley Drive began to notice that more and more junk was ending up on the Deagan property. Before long, broken and battered cars were parked in the front lawn like old broken ornaments. His neighbors filed complaints and soon local officials were paying Jimmy and his girlfriend regular visits. He was ordered to clean up but Jimmy ignored the certified letters. If the outside was bad, the inside was even worse.There was barely enough room to walk from room to room. Jimmy, his girlfriend, and Kevin Valence had become classic hoarders.
The paramedics found Jimmy Deagan lying between piles of clothes, trash, and plastic bags. When the police first walked in all they could see from floor to ceiling was huge stacks of papers, empty boxes, junked toys, porn magazines and dirty clothing. Then they saw a foot and it was connected to a leg, which was connected to the lifeless body of James D. Deagan. When they turned him over to attempt resuscitation, his eyes were wide open and filled with fear. Pinned to his chest was a sheet of paper with a large F written in red pen. On a nearby table lay a small a bag of pure heroin, a razor blade, an empty bottle of whiskey and an open beer. The Coroner's report confirmed James David Degean died of a heroin overdose combined with alcohol poisoning.
His drug dealer friend was never seen again. A few months later, Joanna Wentzel moved out of the rancher, leaving behind a house filled with garbage and rubbish. It cost the landlord over five thousand dollars to remove all the non-living trash.
Today, a thousand miles away from death and squalor Lindsey Vale and her husband Kevin play with their son in the backyard swimming pool her parents built. Timmy Vale has eyes just like his father, dark and deep-set, with long, elegant black eyelashes. Except Timmy's eyes are filled with love and laughter- how sweet is that?
Back in Diffle County- in every bar and tavern he frequents, John Deagan swears he's gonna catch that son-of-a-bitch who killed his boy Jimmy. He swears it like he means it as the bartender pours him another shot of Jack.
All characters are fictional. Any resemblance to actual living or dead persons is purely incidental and not intentional. Story by Rick Fisher @fishfire on Twitter Copyright 8/19/11 All Rights Reserved
Postnote: Big Don told me it was high time I told a darker story about Diffle County. "It can't be all fun and games, Ricky."
Jimmy Deagan was an angry kid. His father was a drunk. It was a family tradition. He had his father's eyes too. Tall, dark, and dangerously handsome, Jimmy could have passed for a All-America High school quarterback, except for those eyes. Deep-set under dark eyebrows with long, black lashes; they were piercingly beautiful. They were painful and angry. They were unpredictable and deadly. They invited girls to ruin.
When Jimmy was twelve years old, he stole magazines from the local drug store. He didn't get caught. Then he invited Robert (Bobby) Jenkins to steal magazines and laughed and ran away, while Bobby sat handcuffed to a chair waiting for his parents to take him home. Jimmy showed that stupid kid how to steal the wrong way- just for kicks.
By the time Jimmy was fifteen, he had fathered a child and two abortions. He could pass for eighteen and the older girls flocked to the bad boy of Diffle County. They told him he looked like James Dean. He told them to shut up and spread their legs or he would smash their face. It was easy for Jimmy Deagan to get laid.
At sixteen, he borrowed a car and pushed it off a cliff into the old Westville quarry. It belonged to the only teacher who gave him an A in class. That night was one of his favorites. They met at her apartment just like every other Friday night. But Jimmy Deagan was getting bored with the relationship. He told her the A was bullshit. He didn't even show up after the first class. That was all the time he needed to let her know she was going to belong to him and no wasn't an option.
Lindsey Vale was only twenty-three years old and fresh out of college. She wasn't the prettiest woman and was flattered by his attention. What could it hurt? She had never done a dangerous thing in her entire restrained life. Jimmy is a bad boy and they have a code, she thought. They could have some mutual fun and no one would get hurt. Jimmy would never rat her out. Clearly, Lindsey didn't take enough psychology courses in college. When Jimmy Deagan is bored, people get hurt.
They were lying in her bed, smoking cigarettes in silence. He had been different tonight, rougher and uncaring. She felt uncertain. She felt used. He slapped, he bit, he pulled hair, he took her in ways and in places she didn't expect nor want. The silence lay between them now like a heavy stone. Finally and painfully she gathered the courage to speak.
"Jimmy, that wasn't fun for me. You hurt me tonight. You did things to me that were disrespectful." she whispered softly, her eyes misting with small tears.
"You should just shut up. You enjoyed it. I don't need you bitching at me after you begged me, OK?"
"I'm not bitching and I was begging you to stop. You really hurt me, Jimmy. We've been together for almost six months. I should be able to talk to you about how I feel." Lindsey's tears began to flow.
"I got something I need to do. I need to take your car for awhile. I won't be long with it." He looked directly into her wet eyes and smirked. "Hey, I'll even give it a wash."
"I don't know. Do you even have a license? Why not let me drive you there? I can drive you Jimmy" she searched her young lover's eyes for any level of tenderness, tears and mascara streaming down alongside her nose and over her upper lip. She could taste the salt.
"I'm not asking permission. You're not my mother. Where are the keys, in your purse?" Jimmy threw back the covers and got out of bed, picked up his clothes off the floor and dressed himself, cigarette blunt hanging loosely from the corner of his James Dean mouth. "Go get them for me."
"Jimmy, please no. Not tonight. Stay here. I need you to hold me." Lindsey's cries turned to hard, body-raking sobs.
James Deagan walked over to the bed, grabbed Lindsey by the hair and pulled her naked body onto the floor. Lindsey screamed as he dragged her across the room, tossing her like a rag against her dresser.
"Reach into your purse and get me your fucking car keys." Jimmy stood over her, his dark eyes glaring in anger and disgust. Lindsey struggled to her feet, pulling her long, brown hair around her neck and holding it tightly. With her free hand she reached into her purse for the car keys. Jimmy stole them out of her hand and walked out of the room. "See ya in the newspapers."
Twenty minutes later, Lindseys' car lay at the bottom of the quarry. Jimmy watched it sink, then dove off the cliff himself, swam to the opposite shore, and walked, clothes soaking wet, to the Westville Police station. He was humming a sea shanty to himself. It was a beautiful night.
Jimmy Deagan explained to the officer-on-duty how his high school teacher seduced him and initiated sex with him. She told him if he didn't fuck her, she would flunk him out of school. He wanted to run away. After they had sexual intercourse several times, she insisted he drive her car to the mini-mart and buy her more cigarettes. She told him to take a drive and calm down and to think about how lucky he was that she chose him to be her "special student". Then she swore him to secrecy about what had happened between him. Later the police report would reflect that there were no cigarettes in Lindsey Vales's house.
Jimmy told the officer and then later the District Attorney and then the Grand Jury how he didn't even realize he was on the quarry road until the car was airborne. He swam out the window and barely cleared the car before it sunk four hundred feet to the bottom. "I'm telling the truth, officer."
The police are not dumb. They watch and they see. It was common knowledge around the barracks that Deagan and Vale spent time together at her house. The rumor mill was turning on that story for months. However, police reports seldom include rumor mills. Once upon a time, several years earlier, John Deagan was a highly decorated police officer- until the drink caught up with him and his wife. She died in the fiery car crash. John Deagan survived but his son Jimmy was never the same after that night. The local police made it a point to keep an eye on Jimmy and help him whenever they could.
The following morning, Lindsey Vale was physically removed from her apartment in handcuffs and leg irons, arrested for having sex with a minor. The local and regional papers were there to take her picture and ask rude questions. Miss Vale was placed in the rear seat of a Westville patrol car and driven away to jail. By the end of the day, she was infamous, a household name, and Jimmy Deagan, son of John, was rolling around under the football bleachers with Tammy Goodwin, a sophomore cheerleader.
Jimmy's dad hadn't been home in three days, out on a bender somewhere nearby. John Deagan missed the entire event. Lindsey Vale lost her job and was sent off to prison by a partial local jury, Jimmy's dad sobered up for awhile, just long enough to kick Jimmy out of the house. Jimmy lived on the street for 6 months before his father took him back in, offering Jimmy a beer to celebrate his homecoming. Jimmy declined, vowing to never drink alcohol as long as he lived.
A few years passed. Lindsey was released from prison. She left the area and was never heard from again. A mutual friend said she tried to find another teaching job, lied on her application, and after working for a few months her lie was uncovered and she was sent packing again.
Jimmy hooked up with an older woman from Nother county and they were living together in a rented rancher on Crowley Drive. The police visited the house often to settle arguments between the two. No one knew her very well and no one cared as long as Jimmy stayed there and wasn't causing any more trouble in Diffle County.
Jimmy also spent time with a slight, dark-haired man he met at the Downtown tavern. His new friend was a part-time drug dealer named Kevin Valence. They met sitting at the bar and soon were inseparable. They spent most of the time at the ranch house on Crowley drive or at the Downtown tavern looking for new customers. They snorted the profits. Kevin never ran out of money.
Folks on Crowley Drive began to notice that more and more junk was ending up on the Deagan property. Before long, broken and battered cars were parked in the front lawn like old broken ornaments. His neighbors filed complaints and soon local officials were paying Jimmy and his girlfriend regular visits. He was ordered to clean up but Jimmy ignored the certified letters. If the outside was bad, the inside was even worse.There was barely enough room to walk from room to room. Jimmy, his girlfriend, and Kevin Valence had become classic hoarders.
The paramedics found Jimmy Deagan lying between piles of clothes, trash, and plastic bags. When the police first walked in all they could see from floor to ceiling was huge stacks of papers, empty boxes, junked toys, porn magazines and dirty clothing. Then they saw a foot and it was connected to a leg, which was connected to the lifeless body of James D. Deagan. When they turned him over to attempt resuscitation, his eyes were wide open and filled with fear. Pinned to his chest was a sheet of paper with a large F written in red pen. On a nearby table lay a small a bag of pure heroin, a razor blade, an empty bottle of whiskey and an open beer. The Coroner's report confirmed James David Degean died of a heroin overdose combined with alcohol poisoning.
His drug dealer friend was never seen again. A few months later, Joanna Wentzel moved out of the rancher, leaving behind a house filled with garbage and rubbish. It cost the landlord over five thousand dollars to remove all the non-living trash.
Today, a thousand miles away from death and squalor Lindsey Vale and her husband Kevin play with their son in the backyard swimming pool her parents built. Timmy Vale has eyes just like his father, dark and deep-set, with long, elegant black eyelashes. Except Timmy's eyes are filled with love and laughter- how sweet is that?
Back in Diffle County- in every bar and tavern he frequents, John Deagan swears he's gonna catch that son-of-a-bitch who killed his boy Jimmy. He swears it like he means it as the bartender pours him another shot of Jack.
All characters are fictional. Any resemblance to actual living or dead persons is purely incidental and not intentional. Story by Rick Fisher @fishfire on Twitter Copyright 8/19/11 All Rights Reserved
Postnote: Big Don told me it was high time I told a darker story about Diffle County. "It can't be all fun and games, Ricky."
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