Untitled #1
Contributors: Ahchie, The Diesel, Brother Nature, Throcksmorton, Albuquerque Tom
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen (stay tuned...)
As soon as Felipe finished blow drying his hair and tucking his purple sweater into his slacks, he became Conway Twitty. Like the real Twitty, his body was covered with sores and scars that were a result of the countless nightcaps he shared with adoring Twitty fans. A thick stew of diseases flowed in his veins as proof of his weakness for the “Twits” (Conway Twitty groupies) that came up to his tour bus after each exhausting performance.
At a few of the 350 plus shows he does per year he will notice a familiar figure sitting in the back of the lounge. The gentleman has his hair styled high, a Jim Plunkett nose, and a look of approval on his face. Felipe acknowledges the character with a slight wave and Twitty's trademark 2-eyed wink. The gentleman responds likewise. Some think the gentleman is a perfect impersonator of Twitty, even better than Felipe’s, which is near flawless.
Often times, Felipe will later greet the gentleman at the bar and call him “father.” Felipe’s father, Marcos, was the original Conway Twitty long before Twitty stole his look, his sound and his hairstyle and made it famous. Marcos was not the Conway Twitty impersonator, it was Conway Twitty himself.
After playing several show dates consecutively, Felipe was tired. Tired of the long bus rides to the next show the very next evening. Tired of his sores and pain during urination. He did console himself knowing Marcos would be at his next show, or at least the one after that. That was something he now looked forward to with delight. The Twits are a good time to unwind late at night but his drive had changed. Marcos gave him the challenge, the drive to perform at his best.
As he gazed out one of the many tinted windows of his 42 foot long tour bus at the rolling hills off in the distance, he wondered what life would have been like if he pursued a different avenue that was offered to him long ago. A longtime childhood friend who had moved away during the latter teen years ended up at the same university as Felipe. He was excited to hang out with his buddy Herman. They used to go out shooting at the range every weekend with a 12 pack of the cheapest beer around and have a grand old time. They would often off-road through the hills around the university and shoot at the rabbits and crows as they scrounged for their evening meals. They rarely were successful at hitting their targets but that wasn’t the point. Those were the good old days and Felipe would daydream about those on just about every jaunt to the next town.
He would daydream about the opportunity Herman had called him about one afternoon to join him in a business venture. Hippie hunting. With the legalization of hippie hunting, Herman nearly convinced Felipe to partner with him and to give up his dream of impersonating Conway Twitty. Herman knew this business would take off, and it did. It was a huge source of income for Herman and his mother, as well as Charlotte, and Felipe would have made enough money in a short time to afford a home in Vegas so he could perform his show at major casinos instead of dead-end towns.
But Felipe wasn’t convinced when the offer was on the table that they could make any money. He figured competition would be tough and the hippies would disappear under the nearest rocks and never be found. He was just beginning his performances and the Twits were everywhere. So many Twits. He just couldn’t take a risky chance and lose the momentum he was building.
Just as Felipe began to reminisce about the time he and Herman rounded a corner on one of their off-road excursions and ran smack into the back of a turnip truck, the bus jolted him back to reality as the driver slammed on the breaks. The lengthy bus skid and slid on the wet interstate coming to a stop facing a purple van on its side a quarter mile up the road.
- - -
Frank could not find the rest of Charlotte’s body. As he lit his final cigarette, he could not fathom how she could have survived the beautifully horrific crash, but he needed to see her body to confirm that she was gone, instead of leaving a sliver of a chance she might be alive. That was why he could not just leave her in the hotel to burn, where someone might have saved her. He could not have just thrown her over the balcony either, because there was that chance that she just might make it. As crazy as it seemed, Frank knew that some how, some way, she could still be alive.
Unless he could confirm it himself, Frank never believed anyone was dead for certain. He always envisioned some way they could have survived. He even started to question whether that really was her leg in the front seat. Was he just imagining it? Other possibilities crept into Frank’s head. Maybe some kids put someone else’s leg on the seat in some kind of bizarre prank. That had to be it, Frank told himself. Those kids that messed with him and tormented him all these years were doing it to him again. Those kids were back, but now where were the voices?
When Frank had been trapped on the fourth floor balcony of the hotel, the voices in his head failed him for the first time he could remember. The voice that urged him to throw Charlotte over and save himself was new. It was a dark and sinister voice that he had not heard before. As he made his way carrying Charlotte through the sea of people exiting the hotel, he found that he was acting on instinct. The fire turned out to be perfect, as no one questioned why he was hauling a woman in a robe out of the hotel.
He had felt that perhaps he was finding his higher ground and had survived the latest thunderstorm in his mind, but once he got on the highway that dark, sinister voice was back, urging him to stick to the plan and rub out Charlotte once and for all, even though he had gone to extraordinary measures to save her. The voice had left just as quickly when he saw the van hurtling down the highway.
The inner torment Frank felt was almost unbearable at times. Was this new voice a reflection of his real self, battling back the other voices? At one point in his life he knew exactly who he was, but in moments of reflection like this he realized how crazy he had become. But realizing he may be crazy made him think that perhaps he was sane after all. There was no predicting when the voices would return, and with the arrival of the dark voice, there was no way of knowing if the other voices would ever be back at all. As bad as it was before, he was so deathly afraid of the new voice that he ironically wished the other voices would come back and tell him what to do, like in the old days with Herman.
As conflicted as he was, he felt that he was doing the right thing in trying to eliminate Charlotte. Frank felt that Herman needed to die as well. He was confident that, with the information he got from the note in Charlotte’s robe, he would be able to find his old partner, but he still had to find Charlotte first. Additionally, there was a growing desire to see the bodies of the people from the van. He figured they were dead, but he began to think that maybe they somehow survived the crash as well.
As he neared one of the suitcases that had come from the back of the van, Frank saw a giant, neon blue colored bus slide to a stop a short distance down the road and thought to himself, “Now what?”