The Psycho-Lewallen Affair Part I

When I was a teenager I had a crew of buddies that I call the boys. There was Burt (who I called Mood), Myself (who Burt called Dude), Shaun the military brat and loud-mouth, Keith the know-it-all fat kid and Terry Lewallen... the moron.

Terry was a special case among our band, he was, at the time, generally considered to be better looking than the rest of us. He could grow a full beard of sandy colored hair by 10th grade and he had broad shoulders that made him look far more formidable than he was. He also had a head scar along his hairline that seemed reminiscent of the product of a lobotomy. Despite all these charms, Lewallen (Lewie, we called him) was perpetually dating girls with "great personalities". We quickly learned this translated into "ugly and crazy". I tell you all of this because, this is how we met Psycho.

Psycho's real name was Jan and she was a plain looking girl with a brittle smile and the fast moving eyes of rabid weasel. Her voice was shrill and she dressed rather like she had fallen into a pile of clothes and they had stuck there. So, needless to say, she was perfect for Lewie. Lewie and Psycho worked at Wal-Mart back when Wal-Mart was an upstart for spending money while they went to college in the nearby college town.

At the time, our hangout was a local comic shop run by a fellow by the name of Richard Argo. I don't remember the store's name, for we all called it "Richard's". Richard's cousin Renee ran the register and we were all smitten by this beautiful dark-haired girl that read funny-books and played role-playing games. Mood was particularly smitten and he was shorter and easier to smite. But that story comes later... So it came to pass one day that I was at Richard's with Lewie and Burt and Lewie asked if I would take Psycho home to the house she shared with Renee so that she did not have to wait on Lewie to get off work four hours after her shift ended. As a stalwart young redneck gentleman, I said it would be my pleasure and the next day I was waiting at Wal-Mart with plenty of time to spare.

Like any good southern boy I was assigned one of the required vehicle types, I had a 1969 Camaro in forest green with rust colored primer down one side. It was fast, it was sexy and it was redneck. I pulled the Camaro in sideways in front of the garden shop with all of the style a teenager in 1984 could muster. Which is to say: not much. I waltzed inside with a jean shirt rolled up past my elbows with my mirrored driving shades on perched on my nose and a hard pack of Marlboro Reds™ ruining the back pocket of my skin tight Levis. I stepped inside the store, collect little miss brittle-smile and headed for the wilds of Whitesburg Ga. The road was dirt, the woods were dark and the streetlights were non-existent.

I pulled up in front of the little clapboard house that Psycho and Renee shared. The house sat in a naked yard with its back against the cornfield like a cornered rat. The house was dark and began to get a bad feeling. Psycho and I entered the house and she tried the light switch and got nothing. She uttered the first sound she had made all night, a curt "Hmmp" sound and headed to the kitchen for a flashlight. My conscience warned with my creep-out alarm as I backed slowly towards the door and she said, "It's dark. Will you stay until Terry gets here?" Damn my southern upbringing! I settled on the couch, in the dark and didn't say a thing. Psycho settled down next to me and turned to look at me and placed her hand in my lap in an unladylike way. "You're nice looking", she said.

"Thanks, Jan," I said, wondering what to do with her hand.

"Who's Jan? My name is Jennifer."

As my backbone tried to climb up into my skull I slowly got up and edged away from the plain girl with the smoky, lusty smile illuminated by the flashlight in her lap. I backed out the door while trying to say something clever about three being a crowd and I tore up back road all the way back to Douglasville.

The next day at Richard's, Burt told me that Lewie was looking for me with a mean look on his face. As I was young, and tough and a little bit mean (and not to mention, I had a secret weapon), I went looking for Lewie. When I found him he was seething until him lobotomy scar blanched white against his flushed face. He opened his mouth and I said, "Who's Jennifer?"

Lewie deflated and his big shaggy muzzle frowned. "Oh... you met Jennifer."

I counted to ten and punched him in the head.