Harding, A Two Dollar Novel

By Don Fleury

You know me. I was the guy who stepped in front of you at the coffee shop with just a smile and a nod of the head. You didn't seem to mind. I was the cool kid in high school and the one to hang with from the college frat. That was then. Now I go mostly unnoticed; too many late nights, too much alcohol, way too many mornings waking up next to the wrong woman. I have endangered most of my relationships with my friends and family. My name is John Harding, PI.

Follow Harding as he tries to find the missing Dr. Charles Grufner. The search demands a change in his life style and he must pay for the misdeeds of his past. Ever a user of people, Harding must work with the last efforts of his friends to find what he truly is longing for. The political and environmental impact could be a game changer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Don Fleury
• Release date: May 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452480824

Don Fleury

A New Englander, who currently resides in Northern California with his wife. I am a graduate of Holyoke Community College and attended classes at UMass. I have worked in Management for various organizations and currently continue to work to support my writing habit. I love to travel and spend time with my daughters, my sons in laws and my grandchildren.

Book preview

Part 1

Noise

Chapter 1

The view from the Berkeley Pier looking over the San Francisco Bay is inspiring and hypnotic. Letting my mind drift, I wonder how do I fit into this unsettled world.

My name is John Harding, private investigator. I’ve just lived through the most challenging and frustrating weeks of my life. But something has changed; some people would call it an epiphany, or a moment of clarity. I don’t know about that but my outlook is staring to change. I’m still confused and I don’t know if I should jump into the dark waters of the Bay or go cash the check in my pocket.

This case has changed the way we see the world and the people who controlled it.

The strange part of this event is that it was me who needed to begin to change first.

I started out two weeks ago just going along, as I have been for so many years, not caring too much about the people around me and justifying all my indiscretions on the problems of my past. I had been living on luck and my good looks trying to fill the void inside of me. Sure, there are times when I can control my demons but there are days when I wonder if I’m losing the battle.

I have pushed aside the feeling of losing a mother early in life and not dealing with a father who I blamed for everything including the tension between them. I believed that was a factor in her murder. I know if I’m going to start to figure out how to really love someone I need to deal with loosing my mom.

It started one Sunday morning.

September 2nd

Temptation, experimentation, addiction; I don’t know the exact time or place I began on this downward spiral but I know I’m the one who has to get this under control.

I’m sitting near a nasty smelling dumpster in East Oakland waiting. I looked like every other homeless man trying to stay warm in this alley. The alcohol from last night permeates from my pores. I have to mouth breath to keep my morning coffee in my stomach. But I’m different that the others who sleep beside me. Feeling sorry and discussed with myself, my dreams are for the times when there was warmth and comfort. I knew that I was loved. Why was she taken from me? Old Sigmund would be having a field day listening to me. With an over protective mother who pushed all of her fears into her only son and a father who never seemed to be there is it any wonder that I’m always drinking and seeking the comfort in the arms of any woman who will have me. Today, my brown eyes are focused but not clear. They are shifting and searching. I hold my position. Waiting. Waiting for Makial Johnson, deadbeat.

But now I sit and wait with the sound of maggots and rats munching away in the pile of yesterdays’ trash at my feet. The minutes begin to drag. I try to focus on the task at hand but I drift. I don’t remember where I was last night or whom I went home with. All the nights are starting blend into each other. Was there an argument or was that another dream? Who is she? Will she be coming back? The loneliness grabs my soul. The squeal of Bart’s air brakes snaps me back to the really. Johnson is near, I feel him.

Anger builds in my chest. I should be able to control these urges. What’s wrong with me? There have been times in my past when this fever has subsided. I have gone months even years, well not really years, without a drink and have fought the fire to need a woman. I know that I must find the answers. It’s not his fault but that bastard, Johnson better show up or I’ll hunt him down and take my rage out on him.

I’m here for Makial Johnson, deadbeat and small time drug dealer. I’m not here to score drugs; I need to have a serious talk to Mr. Johnson. He’s three months behind in his rent and word on the street is he’s flashing cash and laughing about stiffing his landlord. That’s not cool. Mr. Johnson has stepped in it this time. He has aggrieved the wrong woman.

I don’t like it when people laugh at her. That’s not cool. The dirt bag sold her a good line about finding Jesus and being ready to leave all that bad shit behind him. She can be a soft touch. She trusted him and set Johnson up in one of her one room apartments.

Every afternoon at 2:15, Johnson cuts through this alley for a quick blow of coke. So I’m sitting near this stinking dumpster waiting for my friend to arrive. If nothing else Johnson is a creature of habit. Makial also known as Mikie J. and Lil Mik to his associates has a rap sheet the size of the phone book but it’s all been small time stuff. He’s not a violent sort of guy. I’ve been scoping out Mr. Johnson for the last three days. Booking his travel patterns. I know where he goes, whom he has been seeing, I even know when and where he stops to pee.

If I know what he’s up to, the better prepared I am to influence his behavior. Or the best place to come to an understanding physically with him. Every afternoon at 2:15, Johnson cuts through this alley for a quick blow of coke. So I’m sitting near this stinking dumpster waiting for my friend to arrive.

It’s 2:14 and he’s about to pop into this alley. I can hear him shuffling toward me. He’s bouncing along head bobbing to the music playing in his IPod, smiling that ever-present shit-eating grin.

Oh Shit my cell is going off. Makial’s head snaps up. The ringing sets him in motion. Johnson knows it’s a trap. The homeless don’t have cell phones. I must be a cop or a PI. Either way he was not going to hang around to find out. With a sly smile Johnson is making like a broker trying to catch the morning train. If I don’t catch him now he’ll start a new routine tomorrow. Johnson is a quick little devil his five foot five 100 lb. frame and with the speed of a halfback disappears into the maze of streets and I’ve missed my chance.

I jump up and smash my hand against the dumper and the homeless on this street snap their attention to me. This call had better be good and necessary. I won’t like having to explain to her why that scum is still going to be short on his rent again this month.

Harding I snap. A familiar snort emits from the other end of the line and I know it can be the one and only Christopher Colucchi, a former Marine friend of mine.

Did I catch you continuing your search for perfection? he cracks.

Jar Head, your timing as always is uncanny. I couldn’t be farther away from that thought if I tried. I growl.

You’re never that far from that pursuit, Johnny Boy, unless you were dead or something like that. He cracks.

What do I owe this call; you need a bouncer for some special event? I bark back.

Do you have some time to do a little recon for a friend of mine? CC asks.

I know by his tone it was a woman friend. She had to be special because Chris wasn’t a womanizer. He is a one-love man and that love is his establishment.

What’s her name? I question.

Jill, Jill Worth, she’s a regular. But she needs your kind of help. Chris begs.

I figured it was another divorce case so I start to blow him off. When I’m trying to get this under control I can’t have any distractions.

Hey Chris, you know I’d like to help but… I just let that hang there for a minute.

John, I’m calling in a marker. She thinks someone has kidnapped or killed her uncle Charles. Chris now had my full attention. He was not one to use his markers without a special reason. I know I can’t refuse him.

I first met Corporal Christopher Colucchi when I was assigned to his battalion in winter of ‘90 just before Desert Storm. I had just been busted, again and I was hanging my head pretty good, trying to get my shit together. Chris strolled up to me an introduced himself as the one and only, CC from The City, San Francisco, California. He is a little stump of a guy who had all the confidence in the world except when it came to women.

From that day and now and forever if he calls, I drop everything and help (OK, almost anything). There is a closeness that you develop with someone who bunks four feet over your head. But that’s only part of the connection between us. He knows both sides of me. He has seen me at my best and at my worst. He is one of the few who I’ve shared my darkest fears with.

Our unit had been assigned to pre-invasion recon before the first attack of the Desert Storm war, we were dropped into harms way to attain a field evaluation of the growing tension in the area. There is no official record of this event took place. Labeled as black ops and with complete governmental denial, sixteen Marines were dropped in the dark of night.

Seven soldiers completed the mission and made the pick up spot three days later. Len Clarke, our sergeant, and I came out unscathed. Chris took shrapnel to the leg and today still walks with a limp.

A bond like no other is formed when you see your friends die in an event that our government claims never happened. No metals will ever be awarded for the bravery those men had shown. I had carried Chris out and into the drop zone but he was the one who saved my ass. More than once during the ground fire he protected my blind side. He was the Shepard to the flock. He stood watch over as we clicked away with cameras mounted with infrared lens and estimated troop strength of the approaching enemy.

Date and time. I relented to his request, knowing I was putting myself at risk. Chris made arrangements for us to meet the next night at Julio’s at the Wharf.

How will I know her? I ask.

John, I think she’s could be the one. He now had sparked more than some of my attention. I wonder who Jill’s uncle Charles was and why someone would want to kidnap him.

Chapter 2

Dr. Charles Grufner’s love affair with the University of California, Berkeley began with his first freshman steps across the campus.

Life on the campus of University Berkeley, California has always been history in the making. From the days of the early sixties that showcased the anti war movement to today’s fight for gay rights and, oh yeah, the end of another war, UC Berkeley is one of the leaders in forward thinking on college campuses anywhere in the world.

The student body has been challenged to be the first in the nation in many areas. The faculty continues to find new ways to stimulate creative thinking; the creation of a competition of under graduate students in the early seventies focused on ideas to save the planet.

Citizens for Alternative Life Solutions Brotherhood were created to demonstrate the best new ideas for alternative energy solution. The CALSB sponsors a yearly event on Cal’s campus. The affair has grown from a student only showcase to being an open competition between the alumni and the faculty.

The competition is judged by the past first place winners. A trophy depicting a globe showing the world as a clean free of pollution paradise is awarded to the contestant whose idea typifies that standard. Dr. Charles Grufner, class of 78, was one such winner. His presentation on the harnessing of sound waves has inspired others to research the potential of sound as an alternative to crude oil. There proved to be no practical application of his theory and sound technology has been all but abandoned as a sensible solution.

Everyone he knew told Charles that they loved his idea but that until he could find a way to show practical use of his invention; it was nothing but a dream. Charles found this statement profound because it was his dream and his mission to include his Vibracapasitor into everyone’s daily life.

Charles made the VC as he called it his hobby and his passion. He even kept the original concept poster displayed on the wall in his apartment. Noise Pollution was written in six inch red block letters on the top of the sign. Every year at the competition, he would repost the sign. If anyone showed an interest in his project, Charles would hand him or her a flyer stating the power of the energy given off through sound waves could be harnessed. The wave power could be stored and it could be reused.

The perfect part of sound capture is that it is self-renewing. The more sound you make the more energy you can store. Charles bragged. He then would go on to tell people that Sound Capture was the wave of the future and it solves our dependency on fossil fuels and it is a clean energy source. His problem was he could capture the energy but he could not store this energy.

Charles relented to pressure from the faculty and concentrated on his studies in nuclear technology. But he never let his dream die. Upon completing his doctorate at Berkeley, he was hired to work at the University of California Berkeley Lawrence Laboratory at Livermore, commonly known as the Livermore Labs.

Grufner worked his way up to a division Lead Specialist for Section Sixty-two. This is a non-published government sponsored research project for an effective disposal of nuclear waste materials. With thirty years of service at the Lab, Charles was the most senior division lead. His excellent work in his field propelled him to be considered one of the top specialists in waste disposal. He was good at his job but his field of study worried him about the future of the planet.

Clean, environment friendly, renewable and inexpensive to the public energy was the driver to Charles desire to make the Vibracapasitor a reality. Dr. Grufner was in a tough position. His contract with the Lab forbade him from publishing an opinion or openly discussing anything that would negatively impact his field of expertise.

But the VC was his brainchild with a life of its own. He hid his work and limited his discussions with others to trusted CALSB members and scientists on the Internet.

When asked Charles would explain his work in layman’s term to new inquiries of the sound theory by example. Think of a VC being attached to a sound barrier at an airport; the vibration and the noise being generated by a departing plane would be captured and then stored for future use.

Charles surmised that there is enough energy emitted from the sound of an airplane taking off, that if harnessed properly, an airport could supply its own power from the noise generated. The applications were endless.

Imagine, the VC being attached to sound walls on highways. The impact would be that cities could power themselves from the noise cars and trucks generated.

The sounds from a ballgame, concert or even a factory could become energy and the producers of this noise could become reliant on the sounds it produces to provide its own power. The more noise the more power. Charles even dreamed of the VC being adapted to a cell phone so that the more you talked the longer the battery life.

The noise is the answer. This mantra was repeated over and over again. It became the buzz being repeated in chat rooms and on the net among the environmentalist who wanted to believe that there has to be a better way.

The thirty-year anniversary of Charles’ initial presentation was approaching, he looked at this as a sign for him to step forward and re-introduce his perfected invention to the world. He was prepared for the ramifications. He lived very frugally and he was near the retirement age at the Lab.

Charles understood that his Vibracapasitor would shake up some people and piss off some others, but he imagined that their anger would be drowned out with the positive impact the VC would have. The environment was worth saving. He needed to do his part. It was the reason he was given his special talents. The upcoming CALSB event was the perfect opportunity for his unveiling.

Charles was ready for the challenge but he was not ready for what was in store for him and the people he loved. The perfect part of sound capture is that it is self-renewing. The more sound you make the more energy you can store. Charles bragged. He then would go on to tell people that Sound Capture was the wave of the future and it solves our dependency on fossil fuels and it is a clean energy source. His problem was he could capture the energy but he could not store this energy.

Charles relented to pressure from the faculty and concentrated on his studies in nuclear technology. But he never let his dream die. Upon completing his doctorate at Berkeley, he was hired to work at the University of California Berkeley Lawrence Laboratory at Livermore, commonly known as the Livermore Labs.

Grufner worked his way up to a division Lead Specialist for Section Sixty-two. This is a non-published government sponsored research project for an effective disposal of nuclear waste materials. With thirty years of service at the Lab, Charles was the most senior division lead. His excellent work in his field propelled him to be considered one of the top specialists in waste disposal. He was good at his job but his field of study worried him about the future of the planet.

Clean, environment friendly, renewable and inexpensive to the public energy was the driver to Charles desire to make the Vibracapasitor a reality. Dr. Grufner was in a tough position. His contract with the Lab forbade him from publishing an opinion or openly discussing anything that would negatively impact his field of expertise.

But the VC was his brainchild with a life of its own. He hid his work and limited his discussions with others to trusted CALSB members and scientists on the Internet.

Chapter 3

September 3rd AM

It’s Monday morning and I wake to find a woman in my bed. It’s not strange to find me sleeping next to a woman. It’s actually an almost constant event; the sleeping is the same, the woman is always different. There’s an old song that cried out Looking for love in all the wrong places. Well, my problems are I try to find love in every woman I meet.

What is different today is it’s in my apartment. One of the Harding Rules is to always play on the other team’s home court. You never know if it’s going to be a one nighter or just someone who might become a little to attached. In that case, its best to not have them know where you live. I’ve made too many mistakes and I’ve got to stop hurting them.

Some people fall in love very easily. I do. My problem is that I don’t stay in love. I know right away if this is going to work out but I usually let them figure it out. And that can be part of the problem. Sometimes it takes them more than one day, more than a week to know that this is not forever.

People say the events of your past shape your life, the turmoil of my youth drives me to look for perfect woman and looking for that woman leads me to drink. Most of the women I meet are in bars or clubs. The more I drink the better they look but then in the morning I need to make a quick decisions. I find them, I date them and then I leave them or I give them a reason to leave me. It might be only for a few hours or maybe for even a few days but the results are always the same.

There are times when I think that I’m a really sick individual. Then I justify my wandering ways by saying that I’m just looking for the perfect woman: if I love enough of them I will find perfection.

I’m almost forty and I haven’t really committed to anyone. I had a girlfriend in high school that I respected. Only got to second base but she still holds a place in my heart. At fifteen she had a plan for her future, I was still dreaming of becoming a sports superstar playing center field for the Boston Red Sox.

The Monday morning sunshine was peaking thru my broken blinds as I slipped out of my bed trying not to disturb the sleeping beauty; I dress quietly and dragged myself out for my morning walk on the Bay Shore. My apartment is in Alameda on the Eastside of the San Francisco Bay. I try to keep my up my cardio by running the shoreline a couple of times a week. It’s a habit I formed when I was the United States Marine Corps.

I fought some demons in high school and college and thought that being in a structured environment would help me mature, but I found that I really didn’t like taking orders.

One of the things that the Corp did for me was to involve me in black ops; this was a world that I loved. My working undercover and in the dark of the night as a marine has lead me to being a private investigator. I haven’t really made that much money as a PI but I supplement my income from the work that Aunt Maggie doles out to me. Aunt Maggie is not a blood relative but the close confident I have in my life.

Aunt Maggie owns MJJ Realty. With over thirty rental properties, mostly residential but some commercial units, and more than 175 tenants someone had to do the background and credit check on the prospective tenants. That someone is me. Occasionally I have to chase down a deadbeat tenant who was behind in his or her rent. More importantly, I have learned to be a liaison, actually an ambassador, to the local police departments concerning the less desirable renters.

My Aunt Maggie is somewhat of a saint; she has been purchasing properties in some of the least marketable neighborhoods of the Bay Area for over thirty years. These areas are commonly known as the hood. She buys up these units and uses them as low-income properties for the less fortunate people who can’t find decent housing anywhere else. Because of this approach, some of the people take advantage of Maggie’s kindness and that’s where I come in.

The drug dealers, prostitutes, petty theft artists, number runners and other people of interest that attract the attention of the police department are not wanted tenants. Most of our renters are decent, hard working people but even good people have bad luck.

Unemployment is high, and there are few good paying jobs around here, people do what they need to do. I spend much of my time talking to the cops about our renters. I am a pipeline between the tenants and the Oakland Police Department. Sometimes a little conversation would result in not having charges brought up against one of our misunderstood renters. This relationship works both ways. If the police need information on someone who has been involved in a more serious crime my knowledge of our dwellers comes in handy.

The bond with the local PD that we have established is important, especially in this area of town. Maintaining the condition of the apartments is also of critical importance. An overzealous policeman in search of evidence can cause major damage when looking for hiding stolen goods or drugs. A window can be broken or a door smashed when if someone is resisting being arrest. I try not to keep our tenants from pissing off any of the local PD and the police try not breaking up our apartments. These cops are good guys and gals; most of them grew up in these neighborhoods. They remember when these homes where in good condition and the streets were safe to play on. The cops understand what the people of these apartments are going through. They also know Aunt Maggie. Every cop knows someone who she has helped more than once.

Maggie’s goodness has mostly been extended to me. She provides me with a great apartment and keeps me in enough cash to get by. She is the one constant woman in my life. I know that I do the shit work but she rewards me very well and she doesn’t pressure me too much to clean up my act.

I have a morning routine, when I’m not too hung over that is. I get up and go for a run on the Alameda beach. Well, sometimes I jog. Today I can barely walk but I push myself and when the three punishing miles are behind me I drag myself into Deb’s Diner for my first cup of coffee of the day.

I hope that whoever was in my bed will be gone before I get back. I don’t know her name, most of the time I can’t remember their names anyways but today I can’t even remember going home last night. I’m trying to put together how I spent the past weekend when my phone rings: MJJ realty pops up on the screen. I’m being summoned to the office and that’s never good sign.

Chapter 4

My apartment was empty much to my relief. My one bedroom apartment is the second floor of a two family house. It’s located on Clinton Street two blocks from the Alameda shoreline. It’s in a friendly tree lined neighborhood. Most of the homes were built in the thirties. The homes served as the lodging for the executives of the Oakland shipyards. The homes here have held their value. Alameda with it’s well kept the homes and neatly groomed properties had recently been invaded by the yuppies.

There was a note on the pillow. It just said there’s no hot water left and thanks for a good time. It was signed Sylvia. It was more information than I needed. Women are like the wind; they blow in and out of my life. Thankfully this one has blown out quickly

My obsession with women has been and still is both a blessing and a curse for me. I became infected by what I call the indention sensation when I was thirteen.

My family had a summer home on the coast of Maine. It was after Labor Day and most of the cottages were shut down for the up coming winter. My dad always tried to stay a little longer than other folks so that we could appreciate the coast with out all the bother of people. I was off exploring the sand dunes when I happened by a nude sunbather.

I was starting to form my options of what type of man I would be, sexually speaking of course, after all I was thirteen and thinking of sex all the time. Was I going to be a tit man or a maybe a legman? These are heavy discussions one has with oneself as he kills time during the lazy days of summer. It’s not just all about baseball; you know.

The debate was raging in my head when I saw that woman on the beach stand up. I was completely lost as I stared at the dark spot between her legs. The debate was over. From that time on, I would never meet a woman again without wondering what she had stored below.

I don’t know if my sex drive is stronger than most all I know is that thinking about woman became a major obsession in my life. I know that the more my parents fought the more time I spent alone and the more I dreamed of finding love in the arms of a woman.

My summer of my junior year in high school was the beginning of experimentation phase. I lost my virginity as they, both mentally and physically. I had landed a summer job working on one of the local tobacco farms. By that time I was starting to fill my skinny adolescent frame out and the farmer put me to work in the drying shed stocking the bales of dried leaves.

All the stories of the farmer’s daughter are correct, especially the ones about when the daughter wants to be naughty. She was my first and the sensation fever took hold of me. There was no love involved, just two kids playing with new toys.

My story of my senior year in high school if written would be a classic: I was the captain of the football team and dated the head high school cheerleader. I thought that I was hot shit and by then my parents were giving me no guidance. My mother had become distant to me and I had become irritant to my father.

The Cheerleader had a reputation of being easy and not too bright and I took every advantage of her and she of me. We were a couple for the pictures and the parades not to mention the sex but I needed more. My fever was out of control and I didn’t know how or even if I wanted to get it controlled. I began to double up as I started to call it.

The first time was when the cheerleader was waiting for me in the movie theater and I was in the closet of the movies putting the moves on the red headed ticket taker. The sensation was taking me to a higher level. The sensation was taking me to a higher level and with my fractured family; I had no role models in my life.

My first real girlfriend was in college. She helped me to understand a little about being love. Our time was short and sweet. Sleeping with her ended our friendship, guilt from sleeping with her roommate all but ended of our conversations. The infection of the indentation sensation fever still affects me every day. Some days I control it other days it controls me.

I live in the first home of Aunt Maggie and her late husband Jeremy Jacobs. Jeremy bought it for her as a wedding present. Jeremy had grown up on the Bay Area but Maggie was an east coast girl and being able to come home to a house that in some ways looked like a part of New England was comforting to her.

Mildred Maggie Stevens grew up on the streets of Springfield, Massachusetts. One of eight children, she lived with her parents in black neighborhoods troubled with racial tensions and witnessed the birth of gang violence. Her father worked at the Springfield foundry as a foreman until the plant closed. He kept his family fed and clothed by doing odd jobs and working as a night watchman at Pratt and Whitney near Hartford, Conn.

After the plant closed, they couldn’t even afford to keep the family car and it kept her Dad off working odd jobs. He was gone most of the time Maggie was growing up.

The constant influence on her was her mother. Maggie’s love of reading and science came from her mother’s dream of being a teacher. Her mother never fulfilled her own dream but when Maggie graduated from Smith College she felt that she too was receiving the degree.

As a freshman at Smith, Ms. Stevens was paired with an Irish Catholic white girl from South Boston named Mary Noonan, my mom. The college experiment at creating a new social atmosphere on their campus could have been inflammatory but my mom was color blind as she would always say and only saw people as they were. She taught Maggie this lesson daily and Maggie taught her that family was the people who you share your life with not the ones you were born with. They became inseparable. My mom’s zest was for the party scene and experimenting while Maggie was the one who was more grounded. The M& M girls, as the other dorm girls named them, one was a nut and one was chocolate, became involved in every social club on campus.

Smith College belongs to the Western Massachusetts Inter Colleges Association who with the other local colleges of Amherst, University of Mass., Hampshire College and Mt. Holyoke College forms a social network for the betterment of mankind. It was at one of these conferences that Maggie met Jeremy. They came from worlds apart.

He was from old time, conservative railroad money. She was from no money. His family was Republican her was Democrat. He was Jewish, she was a Baptist. He was white and she was black. Jeremy loved her and she loved him back. She taught him to be a liberal and he taught her an understanding about business. He continued his postgraduate studies at Stanford; she went on to Cal Berkley.

After they were married, they moved to Alameda, he went on to teach at San Jose State, she stayed and taught at Berkeley. Marrying a black woman and going into teaching was not what his family had wanted Jeremy to do. And there was constant family friction.

The family wanted him to follow his father and his father’s father into the railroad business. But Jeremy had other plans; he was going to use his wealth and influence to help the less fortunate members of society by teaching and starting the MJJ Realty Company. Until he died of lung cancer, Jeremy Jacobs continued to acquire real estate and became more liberal than conservative. The love of his life not only influenced him in every way she became his reason for life itself. One day I hope to find a love as great as theirs was.

I knew that I couldn’t face the beating that I would take from going into the office so I called and told the office manager, Sally that I was out of town. She didn’t believe me but couldn’t prove otherwise. She gave me the information on a dead beat for me to follow up on and told me the faster that I got back to her the better. I usually don’t have problems with older woman but she makes my skin crawl. She looks right through me. She knows I have the fever.

My first experience with older woman came when after my senior year in high school; I got a job at the local supermarket. Because I was only a temporary employee I was scheduled a split shift.

I would go to work at 7:00 am and work till 11:00, and then I would have the afternoon off. I would go back to work at 5:00 and work to 9:00. No one wanted this shift but for me. I could goof off in the afternoon and still had time to hang out after work. What I didn’t know that was the split shift would also have another meaning for me.

Part of my job was to carry bags of groceries to people’s cars. I wasn’t working a week when a 30ish looking housewife asked if I wanted to go home with her and carry her groceries into her house. She said it with a smile that I still remember and that afternoon my first experience with an older woman was put to bed. After I started to look for the tell tale sign of the housewives my days of just hanging around were over. When someone said cougar to me during my freshman year in college I would have said the car or the cat? After I spent the summer waiting table at Hampton Beach in New Hampshire, my definition changed. The rich older woman and I do mean older can be quite persuasive and quite generous in their pursuit of younger men. I learnt this first hand.

The second night that I was working at The Lodge at the Hamptons; I was slipped a note to personally deliver a bottle of champagne to one of the older guest in her suite. Not knowing if this was a breach of company’s policies I went to the headwaiter. He told me that certain guest had special privileges and that if I want to keep this job that it was my duty to fulfill the needs and wants of all of our guest.

At the end of my shift I went to the room and was greeted by a woman in her sixties; she opened the door dressed in a negligee and little else. I felt a like Dustin Hoffman in the Graduate. But she was persistent. When she disrobed in front of me I was taken back but she reassured me that we all get gray at some time. After an hour the guest was satisfied with the services provided and that was the first time I was really tipped for doing my job. The indentation sensation fever had been taken to a whole new level.

Women in all shapes, sizes and ages were now viewed in a different light. I thought every woman was attainable. They could fill my emptiness. My experimental phase was growing at an alarming rate and I was caught up in the storm.

I just didn’t know the price that I was going to pay or the affect it was going to have on my life.

Chapter 5

August 29th

Dr. Wayne Simone strolled down the hall of Stanford Medical Center with the confidence of a man with no peers. The nurses at the hospital would often say, If you look up the words ‘God complex’ in the dictionary you would see a picture of Dr. Simone’s face.

As the Director of Ultra Sonic Research Division, he reports only to the Surgeon General of The United States of America, Ben Richards. His project, funded by the government, was to enhance the efficiency and practicality of the use of sound waves in surgical procedures. The project had recent success with improved results in the area of kidney stone removal and moderate result in elimination of cancer in the pancreas. Dr. Simone was mute to the questions on the extent of the research for his off campus project know only as Ca12.

Good Morning Ladies, how’s the best nursing staff in the world doing today? Simone crowed. This was Dr. Wayne’s daily