The Woman In Black

At 5 am. on Monday morning hunger and work finally drove Fanny Kaplan out of her bed in Winter Park, Florida.

Monday marked the beginning of the fourth day after David had deserted her leaving behind a snub nosed .38 caliber pistol and twelve pack of Budweiser in the refrigerator.

The message from David seemed obvious: Get drunk and blow your brains out! Perhaps he knew of her problem with Depression and left her with the means to cure her illness once and for all time.

Still and all, it was a mystery to Fanny Kaplan why David departed for parts unknown without his beloved "Charlie" as he had named the pistol. Fanny could easily remember David setting at the dining room table with a beer at his elbow as he lovingly disassembled and cleaned Charlie after a trip to the Winter Park rifle & pistol range where he insisted she accompany him to learn how to shoot Charlie for "self protection." After all, as David explained, the thin apartment door could easily be kicked down by ghetto gangsters intent upon rape, looting, murder and maybe a fate worse than death for the innocent whites! Then David would launch into his ultimate horror story about the Tennessee couple who were home invaded by racist blacks who took them to a drug den of ghetto house and tortured them to death over a period of several days.

The moral to the story, said David, was that the couple didn't have Charlie. If they had processed "Mr. Charles," the man of the house would have killed the three black storm troopers as they attacked the quiet middle class house at about 2 am. and would have gotten off the hook by very rightly citing his inalienable American right to self defense.

"Hell," said David, "Here in Florida even the ACLU and NAACP give out medals for honest citizens killing worthless black trash who prey on the innocent."

Fanny remembered the night the couple met Charlie. It was at a country & western nightclub near the Fashion Square Mall in Orlando and very late at night. As usual David got tight drinking can after can of Budweiser, "The King of Beers" while Fanny watched him drinking nursing a glass of white wine all night and dancing with him when his favorite songs were played by the DJ. To tell the truth, the conservative Jew Fanny Kaplan begin to enjoy the crowds and the scenes at the various C&W hangouts that she and David drove to in Central Florida.

Of course, she never told anyone that she was a grad student working on her PhD. in British Literature (with a minor in acting) at the elite and very expensive Rollins College in Winter Park because the crowds were mostly blue collar working class people. Instead, when alone at the table at long periods of time while David talked Man-To-Man at the bar with friends, she talked to the deserted wives and girlfriends the small talk of women: The best diets, how to raise children and the locations of the best buys in town.

Another factor that helped Fanny become popular with a strange crowd was her abilities as an actress, in particular the ease with picking up an accent, so the well spoken high English of the elite academic world of Rollins and wealthy Winter Park blue bloods became pure Redneck Florida Southernisms at the "Neon Armadillo" on Colonial Drive where "good ole girl" Fanny (24 years old) dressed in jeans, plaid shirt and cowgirl boots went most Friday nights with 25 year old Davey, Fanny's, "old man."

This particular Saturday morning (It was the 2 am. closing time) a mildly drunk David and Stone sober Fanny were arm in arm walking towards David's red pick up truck in the parking lot when a young, thin and dirty blond boy approached them and asked in a nervous voice,

"Do you want to buy a gun?"

"Get lost, Punk," said David putting himself between the kid and Fanny.

"Look mister, I need $20 real quick or some very bad guys are gonna beat the crap out of me."

At the edge of the parking lot they could see several black men who looked mean even in the dim light.

Fanny said, "Give the boy $20, David! He's telling the truth!"

"He's a damn low life druggie! A weakling! I bet he's on the needle. Right druggie?"

The boy hung his head, "I shoot Horse."

Fanny looked at the boy with pity, "You need to be in rehab."

"I've tried it three times, it don't work. All that nonsense about higher powers and twelve steps. Okay I pray to my higher power, Jesus, but he won't help me either."

"Kid if you have a gun go over shoot those three low lives -- Me and Fanny have got your back. Hell we'll even go to court and swear on the Bible that those ghetto rats jumped you! Be a man!"

Fanny was shocked to hear David say such an outrageous thing and pulled a twenty out of her purse to give to the boy who made the banknote disappear into his left pocket while making a gun appear out of his right pocket in less than a second,

"Here is your gun, lady."

Fanny's first thought upon seeing the dark oily killing machine, "This is an evil gun! I'll not touch it!"

"Give to my boyfriend, he loves guns."

The boy handed the weapon to David and walked quickly across the parking lot repay his drug debt and escape a beating. As the boy approached the group a loud voice said,

"See I told ya Charlie was good for the gold."

Hearing this David smiled and said to the gun in his hand, "Say goodbye to be big daddy Charlie little Charlie," Then he put the gun in the air and fired into the air several times. The four boys at the edge of the parking lot disappeared into dark and humid Florida night.

Fanny yelled, "What are you doing David? Do you want to kill someone? You could get arrested!"

David began to laugh, great belly laughs, "Honey, if the Orlando PD arrested every drunk who pops off a few rounds into the air on early Saturday mornings they'd have to arrest half the burg!"

Fanny grabbed the empty smoking gun from David and put it in her purse. She noticed at least half dozen people looking at them in the parking lot. One man who looked like an off duty cop had stopped half way in and out of his car to look at them, and then stood up shooting daggers at them with parking lot lit eyes.

Fanny announced to the audience in her best Florida Southernisms, "Sorry folks! My ole man here has done had too much to drink, so I'm taking this here tiny little gun away from him and driving him straight home! And I ain't given him anything to eat until breakfast!"

"Hey, boy! You in a heap trouble now! Now give the keys to momma and get in that there pick'em up truck," said the policeman looking man.

David who was still amused but pretended to be serious pulled the truck keys out of his pocket and gave them to Fanny.

"I'm a getting out of Dodge, Marshal," said David as he walked around the truck and got into the passenger seat.

After they were clear of the Neon Armadillo, David turned on the over head light pulled the gun out of Fanny's purse and took at good look at it.

"Wow! This was a good deal. This is a Colt Police Special .38 like the detectives use. I'll bet it sells for $500 or maybe $750, and here I thought it was a Saturday Night Special."

The truck reached I-4 and Fanny swung on to the east bound lanes for Winter Park. The traffic was light and Fanny kept to the right at the speed limit, she said,

"It's my gun and I say throw it into Lake Virginia when we get home."

David pretended to be a child, "Please mommy can we keep this puppy? I already named him Charlie."

Fanny had to laugh so good was his impersonation of a little kid, "Okay dear, but you have to take care of him and don't come running to mommy to feed him when you get bored with having him around."

.......

Fanny got out of her very smelly and dirty bed for her Monday morning clean up. She noted that the apartment was a mess from her lost weekend drunk and she thought humorously of asking HUD for a federal grant for a disaster area clean up: The bedroom was trashed with her clean and dirty clothes piled in a heap; the kitchen was a garbage dump with empty beer cans and hollow point ammunition spread all over the floor, and Charlie lying up against the wall; in the living room a big puddle of half dried up beer puke had surely ruined the white carpet.

Then she remember another fragment from her lost weekend.....

The drinking started Saturday morning after she spent Thursday night and all of Friday in David's favorite comfortable easy chair watching the front door and listening for phone calls. Fanny thought several times of calling missing persons at the police department, but could she tell them? There was no sign of foul play and all the hospitals she called in Central Florida reported no patient by the name of David Fenny. About 3 am. Saturday morning she tuned the television to her favorite cable channel, American Movie Classics, and would you believe it? The classic Ray Malland movie, "The Lost Weekend" filmed in beautiful B&W from 1945 vintage was playing. This movie, which featured a depressed New York City intellectual spending a weekend alone in an apartment with several bottles of Rye whiskey, seemed to summarize Fanny's contemporary condition Winter Park except for the drunk part...

Then she remembered the David's twelve ice cold Budweiser's in the refrigerator.

Fanny turned off the movie about half way through in the scene where the Ray Mal land character is at the opera dreaming about getting drunk, and marched into the kitchen and popped the top of her first can of 16 oz. Budweiser, "The King of Beers," so beloved by David. It went down pretty good on Fanny's empty stomach. Yes, the world appeared brighter and her black fog of depression lifted. To continue the good times all alone at 4 am. she started playing C&W classic songs on the kitchen CD player like, "Pop A Top Again."

When the intense Florida sunrise hit the kitchen window and Fanny at the same time, she was well on her way to being loaded. The light hearted mood of the first few beers when she laughed and joked with a absent David had been replaced with anger at him. At this point she went to the bedroom and wrecked it looking for Charlie. Clearly now the logical thing to do was to hunt down the lousy deserter David and shoot him dead! Finally finding the missing firearm where he had been all the time; in the night stand by the bed, she returned to the kitchen for more murder planning.

After a few more brews and much thinking, it occurred to Fanny that her carefully plotted "Plan A" to murder David wouldn't work this morning. First of all, to kill someone you have to know where they are, and David was still missing. This was a depressing thought, which thinking it made her depressed and thinking that David went AWOL from her because of her! Yes, it was Fanny that drove her man alone and out into the cold cruel world! She would do the honorable thing to make amens; she would shoot herself.

She picked up Charlie and opened "The Action" as David had drilled into her head and found the gun empty. Then she remembered that she had always insisted that a loaded gun not be kept so close to the bed. So rising on unsteady legs she went looking for the pistol ammunition. While crossing the living room to the bedroom the spinning started and she got sick all over the white carpet. Since clearly walking on two feet had become a challenge and invitation to barfing, Fanny crawled on all fours to the bedroom and found a box of ammo in David's former sock drawer. Then a low crawl back to the kitchen table with Charlie, beer and Fanny; all reunited.

"The drinking of alcohol causes coordination problems," she recalled a professor saying in a required freshman class on alcohol/drug abuse, "Even one glass of a 12 oz beer or one mixed drink causes coordination problems, and if one consumes six mixed drinks or the same number of beers in say a two hour period, one will experience intoxication, with all that brings, often including anger and depression, in addition to major coordination problems. Surely everyone in this class has heard of people being blind staggering drunk, but this is no exaggeration. I myself have seen Rollins students literally crawling on all fours to the bathrooms at the Frat houses after an evening of drinking."

Fanny discovered for herself the truth of Dr. Danowitz's words when she attempted to load Charlie; all the bullets except one and the cardboard ammunition box somehow flew out of her reach on to the kitchen floor, the majority of bullets heading under the large and impossible to move refrigerator. However, Fanny did still have one hollow point bullet between her thumb and index finger in the right hand and Charlie in the left. After several long minutes of intense concentration and closing one eye while biting her tongue, Fanny loaded Charlie with one round of his favorite ammunition, which could easily blow a watermelon to pieces as David had demonstrated at a friend's farm near the Ocala Forest last month.

All these events - puking her guts out, crawling about all fours and getting rug burn, loading Charlie and spilling about a quart of good beer on the kitchen/dining room floor made Fanny very thirsty. Fortunately, the table top contained several cans of half drunk warm beer and Fanny applied herself to the drinks while trying to figure out what to do next- her thoughts by this time being very disordered. The logical thing to do was to stop drinking and sleep it off - This certainly had always been David's tactic, "but," Fanny said out loud to a missing audience, "Ole Fanny is made of sterner stuff. As is well known, women are the stronger sex. Just look at nature. The Lioness is more deadly than the Lion. Why with this here shoot'n iron, Dead Eye Anne Oakley Fanny could nail three desperadoes with one shot if they came at her in a single file! Didn't Hawkeye David Fenny once tell ole Fanny that she could hit the head of a nail on the side of a barn at 60 feet? And I did just that once!"

There was more such verbiage, however, after drinking a further 36 oz. of beer, all that remained of the twelve pack, Fanny became depressed. Really depressed. Black-dog-rainy-day-suicide-depressed and decided TO END IT ALL! She put Charlie to her head after first cocking the hammer. The trigger was pulled. A loud CLICK! which echoed in the small kitchen/dining room. "Hmmm?" Thought Fanny as she looked at the offending Charlie. "Okay," she said to empty space, "Let's try again," She placed the gun at the side of her head and once again pulled the trigger. "CLICK!" This made Fanny extremely mad at Charlie, so she yelled at the inoffensive weapon, "Okay buster! This is your last chance! You either do your thing, or its off to the pawn shop!" So for the third time Fanny placed the gun at her head, pulled the trigger, and was angered by a loud, "CLICK!"

Charlie was thrown hard at the wall, but since Fanny was Totally Wasted and very uncoordinated he sailed unharmed through the open door to the living room while Fanny blacked out naked on the cold stone floor, her clothes having been stripped off because she had felt too hot after beer#4. These soiled items were to be found all over the apartment Sunday when Fanny finally came to her senses with the Mother-Of-All-Hangovers cold and naked on the floor.

.......

The bathroom was in fairly good order Monday morning except for the smell of her urine where she missed the pot while peeing sometime over the lost weekend. Then she suddenly remembered Saturday morning being half drunk on David's beer and thinking that she could pee like a boy. It didn't work even when standing up on the toilet seat, as the urine simply ran down her legs on to her feet and dripped to the bathroom floor. This experiment proved the recent TIMES magazine article was right on the mark- men really were different than women.

Fanny turned on the radio for news, weather and music as she stepped under the hot shower. There was nothing new on the recent Islamofascist terror bombing of the Florida Mall in south Orlando that killed over 5,000 innocent people most of them tourists from foreign countries and out of state shoppers at this Florida icon near Disney World last Tuesday. The butcher bill was still being paid as person after person badly wounded died in various hospitals in Central Florida and in other states. It looked like the end death toll would be twice that of 9/11. Of particular horror was the fact that the Mall caught fire, and as the survivors, many of whom were burning like human torches, raced out of the debris they were videotaped by witnesses and the footage shown over and over on CNN and Fox News.

The public outrage in the Orlando metro area was immediate and insane. Mobs attacked and burned several Orlando Mosques. Muslim women wearing the burkas in public were stripped of their garments and told, "This is the USA! We don't wear towels on our heads, or tents over our bodies." Muslim men in Orlando were beaten and in one terrible incident near the burning Florida Mall soaked with gasoline and burned by enraged motorists shouting, "Burn Terrorist, BURN!"

This videotaped incident on July 14th coming quickly on the heels of the 1 P.M. Florida Mall bombings by at least twelve homicide bombers was broadcast all over the world beating the video of the Florida Mall bombing by several hours. Thus America was easily cast as the villain in the incident by the Arab media who never showed the video of burning Americans running from the ruins of the Florida Mall. The backlash against the USA coming from most of the world had the predictable result of uniting Americans against the Muslim world and Europe.

In response to world wide condemnation of America, President O'Hara by ordering the FBI to investigate "Right Wing Extremists For Hate Crimes Against Muslims," ruined what little of his popularity that remained after his idiotic national socialist legislation rubber stamped by a Reichstag's Democrat majority in Congress had the very logical result of sending the capitalist American economy into another Great Depression with an unemployment rate of at least 25% of able workers. The Wall Street Journal wrote in an editorial that O'Hara and his lapdog Congress was the most hated President and Congress in the American history, and on countless bill boards all over the nation were this message "IMPEACH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT!" The publishers on the various right wing blogs on the Internet became even more blunt, "Shoot The President and Congress" with pictures and u tube videos of well armed "Minutemen" militia shooting targets with a bulls eye picture of O'Hara on them.

Fanny was well into her daily hair care thing in the shower when the radio program switched to an oldie moldie by The Mommas and Poppas of 60s fame that summed up her feelings this Monday morning.

Monday Monday, so good to me,
Monday Monday, it was all I hoped it would be
Oh Monday morning, Monday morning couldn't guarantee
That Monday evening you would still be here with me.

Monday Monday, can't trust that day,
Monday Monday, sometimes it just turns out that way
Oh Monday morning, you gave me no warning of what was to be
Oh Monday Monday, how you could leave and not take me.

Every other day, every other day,
Every other day of the week is fine, yeah
But whenever Monday comes, but whenever Monday comes
You can find me cryin' all of the time

Monday Monday, so good to me,
Monday Monday, it was all I hoped it would be
Oh Monday morning, Monday morning couldn't guarantee
That Monday evening you would still be here with me.

Every other day, every other day,
Every other day of the week is fine, yeah
But whenever Monday comes, but whenever Monday comes
You can find me cryin' all of the time

Monday Monday, ...

But Fanny refused to cry anymore tears for the departed David. He was forever gone from her life just like her father, mother and baby sister. Fanny was the "Last of the Mohican's," and when she died her the Kaplan tribe died with her, because she knew in her heart and soul that young as she was she would never love any person again; never give birth to children. All that now remained to her was what she had came to think of as, "The Glorious Cause" - Judaism. And the best defenders of Judaism in this country were the Jewish Defense League, the JDL, whose members swore a sacred oath, "Never Again!" Never again would the Jews go quietly to the concentration camps and the death factories - At the first sign of anti-Antisemitism on the part of the American government they would spring to arms and destroy the evildoers - the slaves of Satan.

The radio switched back to the weather report as Fanny stepped out of the shower and examined her Hollywood style good looks in the bathroom mirror. She had received from G-D a body that couldn't have come her homely father and mother. In fact, she looked so different from the rest of her family of conservative Jews that people often asked her parents if she was adopted. When her father was asked this question he would point upward with the index finger of the right hand and say, "My first born Francine is my personal gift from Him to daily remind me of his great heart and love for mankind."

As Fanny rubbed lotions and deodorants on her womanly olive complexed body with its large beasts, narrow waist and well formed legs. David had called her a Greek goddess when they had first met naked on the nude beach in Brevard County where Fanny had went on a dare one Saturday last summer with her two former Rollins roommates, Doris and Elizabeth. This was high praise from a man who looked like a muscled Nordic war god of over six feet height and well scared, but after he had introduced himself as "David," the beautiful and well read daughter of Rabbi Kaplan could only think of the Bible story of King David and Bathsheba where the King first lays eyes on and falls in love with the naked wife of another man while taking her bath.

Okay so it wasn't exactly like the Bible story! This King David was pretty much a jobless beach boy traveling with a couple of Duke Frat rogues who decided to check out the federal sea side park of Canaveral Shores because the park rangers allowed naked women of all ages to bare their bods for free. What the el cheapo trio failed to count on was the fact that most persons naked in the park were gay men checking them out like they were loose women looking to be picked up and bedded in the weeds. They had decided to walk back to David's pick up and drive back to Daytona Beach when the threesome spotted the three lovely "Playboy Models" laughing and playing together in the surf.

It was lust at first sight for both sides of the both threesomes: David paired off with Fanny; blond Doris took a liking to Fred of the jet black hair and rather large penis; Elizabeth the well built bookish girl hit it off well with the extroverted Bert of the average sized penis and shaven pubic area. Of course, being human beings and not dogs it was clear that a little courting was in order before they inevitable mating. The boys supplied a cooler full of beer and sodas they had carried over a hot mile down the beach looking for "hot chicks" to pick up and hopefully bed in the evening. The girls being natural born quartermasters had a three knapsacks full of food, bottled water, blankets, cards, sun screen, sun tan lotion, a large beach umbrella for shade and three drop dead bodies aching for love.

It was a quid pro quo made in heaven.

The three Rollins girls, all Jews by the way, had only been social drinkers, a glass of wine after a meal, but when in Rome do as the Romans, thus they happily accepted beer after beer from David who bragged he had iced down a case of 16 oz. Budweiser cans in the cooler and didn't intend to leave until it was all drunk. It was on the third round of "Buds" that the sexual foreplay began with a remark by Elizabeth The Quiet And Reserved that the three boys must be Jews -- all three of them had been circumcised! When Fanny heard Elizabeth say this she spit out a mouth full of beer and began laughing so hard she started crying which spread to the entire group. When the laughter died down, Elizabeth stood up (she was a tall girl) and said to Bert,

"Let's go pee together."

Bert looked shocked but excited, "You have to be kidding me!"

"No way, Jose! And there's the bathroom," pointing to the rough Atlantic Ocean.

"You lead and I'll follow," said Bert as stood up to his full five foot eight.

When the couple got to the ocean, Elizabeth, "Beth," squatted down on her heels with her butt to the audience and released a quick stream of urine while Bert the show off stood side ways and peed a stream of urine in the ocean. Beth finished her toilet and moved close to Bert which got his urine splashed on her legs and tummy. Bert tried his best to not pee on Beth but she laughingly ran to where his stream of urine was going to get some of it on her.

"Now that's gross," said David while opening beer number four for himself and Fanny.

"It's predictable behavior for young sexual active adults who are drinking," said Doris the future mental health professional who continued, "The experts on the use of alcohol all agree that even a few beers on an empty stomach in the hot sun drunk by horny college students removes sexual taboos. Take Beth for example. When sober she is very formal and some would say shy, but given a few beers in the company of lustful young adults the brakes on her sex drive are released. Why I daresay out there in the ocean, yes, even in the rough Atlantic surf on a hot Florida cracker summer day she is having coitus with Bert."

"Disgusting," said Fred, "People should control themselves. Especially men. Sex in public is way over the top at my college. Even if you can't see them doing it what with the surf and all."

"Is that why your penis is getting hard?" asked Fanny, "or is it because of staring at Doris' hairy triangle for the last ten minutes?"

David noticing Fred's half erection pumps half a can of cold Bud on it,"

"Down boy! A man should always be in control of himself! You just said so."

Fred throws his beer in David face.

"Beer fight," yells Fanny throwing her 4th or 5th beer on both boys.

The laughing and fighting couples are joined by the wet sea lovers who enlist in the fun in the sun until everything explodes in a loud sand storm and an amplified voice says,

"This is a Brevard County Sheriff's helicopter. Sexual orgies on our public beaches in Florida is strictly forbidden by statute. You French people are ordered to get dressed and leave this park immediately, or face arrest for lewd conduct. There are families with kids in area, folks."

The helicopter moved off and quickly disappeared flying towards Titusville.

"Party poopers," said Bert looking up and down the deserted beach, "Where are the families with kids?"

"Maybe it's a good idea to get out of the wild - one grain of sand in the wrong place turns pleasure into pain," said Doris, The Experienced Beach Bunny.

"Okay troops, said David taking charge, "Let's get dressed, get packed, and get moving towards our chariots just parked over yond horizon. Oh! And start drinking bottled water if you don't want to die of heat stoke. The temperature is well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit if you figure in the misery factor."

"Do you guys have a comfortable room?" asked Beth, The Practical.

"Indeed we do," said Fred with a big white smile, "Pool side at the downtown Daytona Beach Holiday Inn with two gigantic double beds. This place is an air conditioned pleasure dome complete with a large bathroom. Did I mention the hot tub in the bathroom and half kitchen?"

"Which lucky couple gets the floor?," asked the dry mouthed Doris walking through the hot sand under a merciless sun and thinking of BEAU GEST.

"The floor belongs our infantry commander, Sergeant David Fenny of Boston, Massachusetts, a former member of the elite U.S. Army 101st Air Assault Division who invaded Iraq in '03, won a chest full of medals, and insists on sleeping on bedroom floors. He said beds kept him awake -- too soft."

"I don't care where I sleep, as long as its with David," said Fanny as she walked by her lover's side in the sand under a merciless Florida sun.

.....

After she finished toweling off, Fanny was forced to walk back across the wrecked and smelly living room to the equally trashed bedroom looking for clean clothes. This was a problem because last Saturday washing day she had been drunk, depressed, suicidal, sick and lonely (not necessarily in that order) all the live long day. So this Monday morning when she had a special program scheduled for her Shakespeare classes, she had nothing clean to wear that was decent for the occasion. EXCEPT...the black pants suit she wore over a year ago at her mother's Miami funeral that Fanny had dry cleaned afterwards and still stored in its plastic bag.

She went with the black pant suit despite the bad memories. The next problem was underwear. At some point Saturday night, as well as she remembered, Fanny pulled out all her underwear from her drawer and bumped lighter fluid all over the pile, and tried to light it with a cigarette lighter someone had lost at her apartment. Fortunately she had been too drunk to light the fire, but the underwear was ruined with fuel odor, so Fanny, ever the trooper to the stage and academia, dressed without underwear; "Commando Style" as David had frequently done when he had no clean underwear.

"The play must go on!" she thought as she combed out her long black hair looking into the mirror at a ripe female figure thinly covered by a light weight Florida summer pants suit.

"What message am I sending?" thought Fanny, Sex or business? Pleasure or formalism? I have become a contradiction. But aren't all humans an oxymoron? We are all Janus - the two headed Roman god - looking backwards and forward at the same time."

Fanny applied no make up. She never used make up even when playing on the stage. This became a topic of conversation among her fans, few and young to be sure, mostly fellow students at Rollins, yet intelligent people who studied the classics of film and stage, and believed Fanny to have the making of a world class actress; A latter day Elizabeth Taylor with brains and a better figure.

At 6.45 am. right on her strict schedule, Fanny was ready for the day. While walking out the door, Fanny noticed Charlie lying on the carpet near the puke spot. She picked him up and checked the action. Only one bullet in the cylinder next to the chamber. She walked back into the kitchen/dining room and picked up the only five visible rounds. Charlie was loaded with almost professional ease by Fanny who had been well schooled by David never to carry anything but a fully loaded weapons; "you never know when some bad guy would try to take you down," said David.

She placed the gun in her small black purse with the carrying strap that contained her wallet and various I. D.s including her Florida Concealed Weapons Permit David had insisted she get from the police. "After all," he said, "If you are forced to blow away some degenerate, a gun permit is a best stay out of jail card you can play."

......

The door slammed itself shut as Fanny departed her apartment and automatically locked itself with a loud click. She thought briefly of a cell door being thrown shut by a beefy guard while a frightened prisoner looked out at him in the cell holding a bedroll. She gave a loud moan when she remember she'd locked all her keys inside.

An elderly man of about 80 years stopped on his way down the steps and asked,

"Are you feeling okay, Honey? You look like you got a bad case of the blues. I get them myself a lot these days, a natural part of aging says my young doctor."

Fanny recovered quickly and smiled, "I moaned because I've locked my keys in the apartment and I need my book bags for my classes today. I teach at Rollins. You don't know where the super located this morning? He has the pass key."

The old man laughed, "This time of morning he's dead asleep with the ear plugs in his hairy ears. No, you won't see him until business hours."

"Monday...Monday...Can't take that day," Fanny aimed a hard kick at an innocent door and continued, "Well, I'm screwed. This was to be a very special day....BUT NO! There's no point in going to work without my laptop, CDs and DVDs. I'll have to call in and make an excuse for missing work."

"Let not your pretty heart be troubled, young lady. In my prime I was a jewel thief. There wasn't an apartment, condo or house in West Palm Beach I couldn't get into one way, or another. This will be a piece of cake."

And the old man pulled out a credit card and opened the door in seconds, "This is your lucky day! Just imagine the odds of meeting a retired jewel thief and ex-con when you need him to pop a lock for you. Why you make me feel like knight in shining armor and 50 years younger."

He bowed and kissed her hand,

"Have a nice day, Beauty, and sleep with the angels."

The Quest complete, the Don Quixote of Winter Park, Florida skipped down the stairs to the street, a lovable old rogue, as the three 80 something women who looked forward to his daily visits would all agree.

Reunited with her book bag, Fanny walked down Park Avenue to Rollins College. It was a short walk - maybe ten minutes at the most - but the normally sleepy business district was literally crawling with cops. These were hard faced men and women who gave her the eye and made her think for a moment of any recent crimes she had committed. This police surveillance of her and other early morning walkers gave a chill to the warm Florida morning.

When Fanny started near the intersection of Fairbanks and Park where the main gate of Rollins are located, a crowd of students, teachers and staff had stopped and were milling around.

"What's the problem?" asked Fanny as she stood on tip toes to see why no forward movement was happening.

"Another damn Homeland Security alert I'll bet you," said an angry man Fanny recognized as a janitor who continued his rant,

"Kinda like closing the barn door after the cow gets out? The Monkeys bomb the Florida Mall last Tuesday and kill twice as many people as were killed on 9/11, so six days later the Fuzz search for bombs at Rollins College! Makes a helluva a lot of sense!"

"Will you please shut up, George?" said Doctor of History, John Prescott, "Maybe they have received a tip. Do you want to get arrested? These are RIOT POLICE. They arrest first and ask questions later."

"I'll give the RIOT POLICE a tip -- Hey flatfoots! You're making me late for work!"

A very fit policeman dressed head to foot in black armor and wearing shiny black jack boots gave George a hard look and speaks into his radio mike attracted to his shirt collar. The officer joined by two additional officers in riot gear and the trio advance fearlessly to confront elderly George The Janitor.

"Are you having an anger management problem, sir?" Asks the first policeman.

"No, but you and your posse are blocking my way to work."

"Sorry about the delay, sir, but this is an important Homeland Security drill."

"A DRILL?" shouts George. "Another fucking DRILL! Sonny boy, I have a news flash for you -- The local Muslim population of Central Florida has just declared war on us and took out about 6,000 people at the Florida Mall last Tuesday. You and your storm trooper pals need to be arresting towel heads before blow up something else around these parts!"

The first policeman was willing to take the "sonny boy" slur, but the "storm trooper" comment came under, "contempt of cop," and so old George found himself in handcuffs and being frog marched to a near by paddy wagon by two riot policemen.

This was too much for Fanny who began to yell at the stern young riot policemen,

"What did George do to deserve getting arrested? He's a nice old man and has been the lead janitor at Rollins for the last twenty years! He just said what we are all think about 7/14 -- why aren't the cops going after the bad guys?"

A massed wall of riot police move towards Fanny: Clearly she is to be the next in line for an arrest. Then an old man in his late 70s breaks out of the crowd with flashing blue eyes and white-Grey hair and beard pushed through the large audience of silent Rollins students, faculty and staff to stand along side Fanny. An intellectual looking middle age woman in the crowd began to talk in a low voice,

"It's old Doctor Danowitz, Dean of the Philosophy Department, the man is a living legend here at Rollins. Did you know at one time or another he's taught classes in every liberal arts subject except for math and science? The man stands as firm on the U.S. Constitution as did Daniel Webster. This should be interesting..."

Danowitz holds up his right arm in silence. The riot police halt there advance towards Fanny. This is an unusual development, as rioters tend to be young males dressed in street clothes with stones and bottles in their hands shouting profanities. But this is a dignified old gent in a conservative light weight Florida summer suit of blue with a red tie and white shirt.

.......

Red, white and blue. The policemen have no way of knowing they are face to face with a scholar and author of numerous books on American republican ideals who would count it an honor to die in the defense of his beloved Constitution.

"This is close enough, officers. Now I want you to turn around and release George Wilson, the head of our maintenance department here at Rollins. I heard the exchange and George was only exercising his inalienable right under the First Amendment to free speech."

The still unidentified in charge riot policemen replied to Dr. Danowitz in a nervous tenor voice,

"Sir, you and the woman will immediately exit this area or face arrest."

The unorganized crowd of well dressed Rollins alumni, staff and students of moments before pulls itself into ragged, yet solid ranks behind Danowitz and Fanny, and from out of the student backpacks American flags begin to appear along with a gold colored revolutionary era flags saying, "Don't Thread On Me." The local media has arrived with a Fox News crew leading the charge who are forced into the crowd by advancing files of riot police coming up south on Fairbanks and east on Park Avenue.
Soon the Rollins people are an island of hundreds completely surrounded by riot police in black who chant as they move into position,

"Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's off to work we go."

A black helicopter overhead pulls down low and a voice bellows God-like from the heavens,

"You people are all under arrest. Please not resist as you are taken into custody."

The helicopter rises high to manage the battle in development.

Fanny looked up to the tall Edward Danowitz and smiled. He gave back his winning smile only given only to outstanding students saying,

"Ms Kaplan, it is an honor to stand next to you in line of battle."

"The honor is all mine, Dr. Danowitz, but I still think I earned an 'A' in American History 101. You do realize your 'B' was the only one I received in over six years at Rollins."

"Consider it changed to an A plus, young Ms Kaplan. By the way, I remember you as a skinny and very reserved freshman. The change in your deportment is well done...well done, indeed!"

Dr. Prescott elbows his way to the left side of Dr. Danowitz and says, "Ed you're as big a fool as old George, but I offer what little aid the History Department can give you and Ms Kaplan -- What the police are doing violates every sacred ideal of this country."

The crowd becomes quiet. If such a thing as group consciousness exists everyone in the mob is thinking, "I might get arrested. These cops aren't playing games. Heck! They may kill us! Just take a look at their weapons...and those riot batons. Why just one blow and I'm down for the count!"

The riot police have become quiet as well. Anyone who has ever faced a Florida thunder storm in July knows this moment...It is the pregnant time just before the thunder storm breaks out in all its lightening, wind and fury....To start a pitched battle all Danowitz has to say one more thing...

Then...

A very tall and rotund policeman dressed in Orange County green suddenly appears between the first row of riot cops and the ragged ranks of Rollins people under the command of Danowitz.

"Sheriff Kevin Lyons, I believe," said Danowitz who continues, "The HIGH Sheriff of Orange County. Have you come personally lead the charge against the Minutemen of Rollins College? If you mean to have a civil war let it began here."

"This isn't going to happen!" Lyons turns to the riot police, "I want you people to immediately STAND DOWN! I'm the senior lawman in Orange County and you will do as I say."

The riot police stand their ground. It is clear they will not obey Lyons. He repeats his command to the riot officers,

"If you officers do not do as I say then you are finished with law enforcement in the state of Florida. You know I'm kidding. Stand down immediately and withdraw from Winter Park, or so help me God I'll have each and every one of you arrested and sent to the 33rd Street jail."

The riot police still stand mute in their disciplined ranks like Caesar's Tenth Legion waiting for the order to attack the barbarians.

Sheriff Lyons tries a flanking attack,

"Who is in charge here and what's your name?" he asks the riot police first rank.

"I am Sheriff Lyon and the name is Smithson," says the officer who led the attack on George.

"Officer Smithson, you are under arrest," says Lyons to the silent approval of the Rollins Group, "You have the right to remain silent; anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. Do you want a lawyer?"

The policeman hears something on his radio headset,

"It would appear you are the one under Sheriff Lyons,"

Lyons whispers into his radio mike on his collar.

"I have just ordered my deputies to move behind your men to start the arrests. I hope they will lay down their arms and be arrested quietly, or my SWAT teams will be forced to bring them to justice very loudly."

"Now let's recap," said Prescott to Danowitz, "First George gets arrested and hauled off for no good reason. Then Ms. Kaplan gets arrested. Then you get arrested. Then everyone in the vicinity gets arrested. Then Sheriff Lyons shows up and gets arrested. Then Lyons arrests the people who arrested the people. If this continues everyone in the USA will be arrested by everyone."

They noticed both Lyons and Smithson were engaged in deep conversation with their shirts. The two men finally stop talking into the mikes and approach one another for a quick man to man conference. They shake hands and make quiet apology to one another. Suddenly a still angry George Wilson is pushed out of the riot police ranks to the cheers of the Rollins Group who start to chant, "Victory, Victory, Rollins victorious!"

At a silent command the armored black knights about face to march out of sight down three different Winter Park streets.

"I'm glad I voted for you, Sheriff Lyons! You are a miracle worker! How did you get those Nazis to back down?" asked Danowitz as the students began singing the Rollins fight song and drifting towards the main gate. The game was over. Rollins 1, Riot Police 0.

"I didn't. The senior Secret Service Agent in Central Florida ordered the stand down and the release of George Wilson."

"Somehow I knew the SS was involved in this show. Let me guess those riot police were uniformed SS?"

"Officially they belong to Homeland Security, " said Lyons with a wink, "but we all know the fucking SS runs the Homeland Security office."

"I wrote a recent book on the subject of our grand & glorious Secret Service. Under George W. Bush, the SS had at most 5,000 officers engaged in presidential protection and counterfeit patrol. Today under the O'Hara Administration they have grown to a small army of over 50,000 plain clothes and uniformed storm troopers who do nothing but harass anyone who dares speak out against The One. I will predict this nonfiction never makes the book stores or The New York Times best sellers list."

......

Fanny drifted under the large iron WELCOME TO ROLLINS sign that towered over the college entrance with knots of loud talking students bragging of their stand against the dark side, said one thin red headed girl who Fanny recognized as a freshman in one of her classes,

"For a minute I thought those riot police were going to beat us all to a bloody pulp and I'd end up in the ER with dirty underwear. I always worry about ending up at the ER in dirty underpants," she laughed to a girl friend who still looked scared."

Fanny's hunger returned as she approached the lakeside cafeteria where a good Southern breakfast could be had on any poor student's food budget. Upon entering the food line she placed the book bag strap over her shoulder as she placed item after from the offerings on her tray: hot 100% Columbian coffee, scrambled eggs, bacon and sausages, a large bowl of grits and two gigantic breakfast rolls. The cashier joked that Fanny would soon join her work out class and said,

"Honey, Remember: A minute on the lips; a lifetime on the hips!"

Judging from the middle aged woman's hips she was speaking from experience.

Fanny went to the back of the quickly filling up dining room to eat her meal and make some class preparations - The clock on the wall said 7:30 am. She could hardly believe how much had happened in less than an hour. After opening up her laptop for a quick check of her E Mail she looked up to see Robert and Doris.

"Are you okay, Fanny?" asked Doris as she and Robert sat down uninvited at her table as was the right of friends so close they were practically family.

"Robert and I went over to your apartment Saturday and Sunday. No one answered the door. We even called up the manager on Sunday to check on you. He refused and said it was a privacy issue. I don't know how many messages we left on your cell phone. No answer. No reply. Then we see in the cafeteria wolfing down a meal that could feed a small family while working your laptop just like everything was normal."

"What happened to David?" asked Robert as he helped himself to part of Fanny's breakfast without even asking. This was also the privilege of good friends and the unwritten code of hungry college students who have a divine right to steal food.

Since it was clear no further academic work was possible, Fanny closed the laptop and joined the conversation,

"Where's David? I don't know. He left me last Thursday. No forwarding address. After two years of what he said was the best loving in his life. Gone. Disappeared. Everything of his in the apartment gone with the wind. So I did the only logical thing an intellectual like myself would do: I tied one on and played Russian roulette with a thirty eight pistol named Charlie."

Doris pauses in drinking her stolen cup of Fanny's coffee and Robert gulps a large bite of Fanny's biscuit.

They look at her in shock.

Fanny continued in her best emotionless lecture voice. She might have been discussing Shakespeare's HAMLET with a room of freshmen with the same cold rationalism.

"The cell phone? It's destroyed. I threw it against the wall because after two days there were no voice mail from David. You guys looked shocked! Hell's bells it was only an El Cheapo from Radio Shack."

Doris opened her mouth to speak, Fanny interrupts,

"I'm sorry about not coming to the room. Like I said I was drunk as a sailor on a weekend pass in Bangkok all day Saturday. Sunday morning I woke cold and naked on a stone floor. At some point Saturday I had stripped off all my clothes. At some point Saturday I played Russian roulette with my gun and lost, obviously. At some point I got sick as a dog and ruined my new white carpet."

Doris breaks in, "Fanny KAPLAN! I am speaking to Francine Kaplan? The wunderkind of Rollins? A woman with a near genius I.Q.? A woman who made the highest SAT score as a high school senior in Florida education history? A woman already known in the highest artistic circles at Rollins as the best Shakespearean actress in its long history of quality student productions. A multi tasked woman who balanced a hot love affair with a military hero and still conducted a classic series of lectures on Shakespeare as a lowly grad student?"

"A noble mind is here overthrown," said Robert with pity in his eyes to Fanny.

Fanny's great wall of rationalism collapsed in a heap of emotion; a stream of tears roll down her Asian cheeks. Both Robert and Doris embrace her in a group hug. The adjoining diners look at the little party with concern in their eyes. Doris looks up and says to the audience,

"Her boyfriend left her and she got drunk last weekend."

The people look away. This is a common scene at Rollins cafeteria on a Monday morning. So common in fact that the Frat boys ran a pool. Clearly someone had won big because David and Fanny were an Item and the relationship appeared solid.

Fanny soon calmed down. Doris helped dry her tears. Robert put a hand on his short black beard and said,

"I ran into David last Thursday afternoon about one o'clock down at a gas station near downtown Orlando. He was in good spirits. We talked for about five minutes or so. David mentioned that on July 20th he had something important to ask you. He said that you guys first met on that two years ago. Then he swore me to secrecy and showed a diamond engagement ring he bought for Fanny. I gather he was going to pop the question...Today. Today is July 20th."

Doris kicked Robert under the table, "Why didn't you tell me?"

"DUH! Until a few minutes ago I didn't know David was missing. Also Doris, he did swear me to silence. He wanted to surprise Fanny."

Fanny took the coffee cup from Doris and took a sip. She thought for a moment then said,

"David appeared normal? How was he dressed? What type of vehicle was he driving?"

Robert paused and searched his memory, "What can I say? David was his usual up beat self. He was dressed the way he usually dresses in the summer when not working: polo shirt, shorts, white socks and tennis shoes. He was driving his old red pick up truck."

"Anything else? Anything you can remember, Robert? Think back on the scene. Now pretend you're writing a scene for a book. What do you see?"

Robert closed his eyes for a moment, "Yes, there is more to the scene. I see a Middle Eastern man putting gas into a late model Lincoln on the opposite island. I noticed that he several times glanced at David and I while we talked. David finished fueling and said goodbye to me. As he drove off the Lincoln followed. I remember thinking that something was wrong, but I put it down to a bad case of Jewish Defense League paranoia."

"We live in dangerous times," remarked Doris.....