And now, back to our story.
After his shower, Steve dressed and walked back to the kitchen. The shower had washed away most of the Oxycontin cobwebs. He wanted to give Marta a bit of payback for tapping him in the forehead with the rolling pin. He thought about what he would say to her, settling on "I put on clean underpants, but not 'cuz you told me to". He knew it was weak sauce, but he didn't want to feel the rolling pin again.
As he rounded the corner from the hallway to the kitchen, Steve took a deep breath, but he caught himself. Did he just hear Marta softly say, "...one of the nicest guys one can ever hope to meet"? His wide eyes took in the scene: Marta sitting at the kitchen table in her housedress with her laptop and a cup of coffee. Her face had a faint glow, and her eyes were soft. On the screen of her laptop was the familiar blue and white of that website. Steve started to sputter, and Marta closed the laptop.
"How..how could you?" Steve spit. Marta looked down, then said softly, "He called me a saint. Well, almost a saint." I don't care if he said you are the love child of Vic Morrow and Gloria Steinem, never speak well of that man in my house again!" "Whose house?", Marta stood and reached for the rolling pin. Steve told himself he'd won this round, and ran for the door. It was Father's Day, after all, and he was going to take his granddaughter to the park.
As he drove to Madison's house, Steve thought about Marta's softness for franksolich; and about his collection of pictures of people who could be the elusive nemesis. Steve's simple, suspicious mind went to a dark place, a place completely divorced from reality. He told himself that he was justified in fantasizing about the high school basketball girls while he was in bed with Marta. "Serves her right." he said to himself.
Steve became certain that franksolich and his fellow Conservatives were stalking him, following him whenever he left the house. Steve began to look at the drivers and pedestrians around him, calling up his mental mugshots of the Cave. Here was a man who looked like Jan Michael Vincent. "That must be Airwolf!" Steve screamed as he sped up and made a sudden right turn. There was a redheaded woman, busty and bold, eating ice cream with long, slow licks. "GINA! AAAH", Steve screeched and drove through a red light. A police officer became dutch508, who must have driven across the state to torment him; a mannequin in a naughty nurse's costume in the window of Priscilla's turned into Celtic Rose. A random man on a motorcycle became Big Dog; Steve was certain he saw a stainless steel .45 on the man's hip, although it was only in his mind.
Steve arrived at Madison's house shaking and sweating. Maddy was overjoyed to see her grandpa, but she wrinkled her nose. "Grandpa, you smell like sweaty poop". "Honey, poop doesn't sweat," Madison's mother said gently. Madison shrugged her shoulders and thought of going out for Funday Sunday with her grandpa. "Where are we going, grandpa?" Steve said, "We're going to Missouri Valley to ride the train." He figured he could slip out of town without being noticed by the horde of Conservatives, and could relax. Besides, he really, really liked small-scale trains- not that there's anything wrong with that.
Steve was still shaking and sweating, but not from fear alone. He went to the bathroom, relieved himself, then took one of the Oxycontin from the pillbox Marta had given him last Father's Day. Amor fidelis, Steve read bitterly from the lid of the pillbox, as he crushed the white tablet and snorted the coarse powder. As he opened the bathroom door, Madison said cheerily, "Grandpa, you didn't wash your hands!" She looked at his face, in search of a smile from her grandpa, and noticed something. "Grandpa, you have something on your face", pointing to the white residue in his straggly moustache. Steve licked his fingers, picked up the stray powder, and licked his fingers again. Madison giggled, remembering that Steve had not washed his hands after using the toilet and finding it wonderfully funny.
To be continued...
