The Story of Lansing Lotte (4 page)

I didn’t know Arturo King, personally. I didn’t know any bands lately as I tried to ignore the pop culture scene, most especially the rock music scene. But I still felt sorry for The Nights. I had heard the news that Arturo King had been involved in a tragic motorcycle accident a few evenings ago, and his body had disappeared. It was making all the headlines, and social media was blowing up over the mystery. How did a body vanish after such a dramatic incident?

An accident was what the NYPD was ruling the situation, of course. An intentional suicide was not an option the police determined after skid marks from another motorcycle were discovered, not to mention the amount of blood smeared across half the pavement underneath the viaduct. I was well aware of the photographs taken prior to the accident. The motorcycle chase, caught on film, shared the thrill of the ride and the mysterious girl with Perkins Vale. The images were artistic in a manner few appreciated. The reflection of the city lights in the backdrop was sleek, graphic and gripping. The angle of the shots was telling. Someone had been rather close to the motorcycle of Arturo King.
Before
the accident.

The snapshots were available for all of America, at that point, as were the after shots; taken as further evidence that there was a gruesome accident. I was a bit shocked that they were posted in the photography group I belonged to online. It was evident that the images were taken from two different angles by two different types of photographers. One was an artist, the other a news reporter. Once the images hit the Internet in that manner, there was no protection to the source. Eventually, the guilty would be exposed to the World Wide Web, at large. I was intrigued and displeased with what I saw. I worried that the photographer, who had taken the first shots, might be to blame for the dreadful scene that followed those initial photos.

As I was an independent photographer, I was concerned about reputation, among other things, while I continued to work my way through school and raise a child. It hadn’t been my plan at twenty-two: to be not-exactly-the-traditional college student. I could only attend classes and nothing else university related, while I was raising a four-year old. A four-year old who was sweet and precocious, and all mine. I didn’t have anyone else to share the responsibility of her, and it was times like those that I was glad. 

As I scanned the closed photography group’s photos, my heart ached for Arturo King.  The accident looked bad, deadly. There was no lesser way to describe it. I couldn’t imagine that he had survived such a collision with the cement embankment. Based on the distance the blood had spread, and the way the motorcycle was twisted and mangled beyond recognition of anything other than a hunk of metal junk, I didn’t think survival was an option. I also felt sorry for his fiancée, Guinevere DeGrance. I didn’t know her, but I’d heard they were newly engaged. I could imagine the heartbreak Guinevere felt at the unknown. I remembered those hours, not knowing what had happened to a loved one.

My impression of Guinevere was that she was reserved and shy, but she held her head high in the rare photographs taken of her and Arturo King. There was no denying, in my mind, that they were in love. Something I knew little about, as I had only thought I was in love once. Just once. It turned out to be nothing more than hero worship. The man of my dreams turned into a nightmare after his initial heroics. I was a fool to succumb to his charm.

I knew better than to fall for someone who had charisma like my father: boisterous, jolly and full of shit. That was my dad, and
I knew better
. But something happens when you feel like you were saved by a man. You begin to think he was a godsend, and you honored him for all the wrong reasons.
It happens
, I reminded myself, especially when you are young and stupid like I was back then. I didn’t know then that sweet words, soft caresses, and basic kindness didn’t always mean love, but I had learned my lesson. I knew the truth.

I didn’t have time to worry my brain about such nonsense. I had to use my mind for study. I was taking a history of photography course; it was much harder than it sounded. I had been doing well in all my Gen-Ed classes when I began at Triton College, two years ago, knowing I would transfer to NYU’s Fine Arts program and major in photography, just to say I had a degree. I didn’t know that my life would be detoured in such a way, that it would change the course of everything I had planned, and all because of a little girl.

The sadness that surrounded us was so heavy, and for days I let it weigh me down. I never left the apartment like Tristan and Perk had. I needed to be near Guinevere, even if she didn’t want to be close to me. I tried not to approach her and I hardly spoke to her. I checked on her throughout the nights, as I knew she was restless in Arturo’s bed. I dozed myself through the days on the couch or in Arturo’s office. I told her to eat, but she ignored me. Her maid, Talia, was a big help, prodding Guinie to take small bites of food and reminding her to shower. I watched as Guinie blindly followed Talia’s directions, but after seven days I needed a break. I couldn’t continue to watch her like she was an empty shell.

I wasn’t prepared to enter my own apartment to find Elaine Corbin.

“How did you get in here?”

She smiled sheepishly and had the good grace to hang her head as she replied, “I had your key.”

“What?” I grumbled. I hadn’t been here since my night with Elaine. I suddenly realized, I must have left my keys at her place. That’s why I couldn’t find them and had to have the superintendent open the door for me. I was assuming I had left them at home in my haste, completely forgetting that I hadn’t come from my home. I didn’t even have a ride, as my bike had been the one Arturo crashed. I grabbed a cab to get home.

“How’s Arturo?” Her weak voice betrayed her feeble attempt to move to another subject.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call, but you need to go,” I said, without addressing her question.

Her watery green eyes looked up at me, and without speaking, she was offering me anything I wanted from her. If I wanted to talk, she would listen. If I wanted to fuck, she would willingly participate. All I wanted right then was to be alone.

“Arturo is missing. There was an accident and his body wasn’t found,” I sighed.

“I heard that on the news,” she said softly.

I had stopped watching the news. After the first few news blasts, we had to turn the television off.  While we hoped for answers from anywhere, the repeated images of the mutilated motorcycle and the large spray of blood along the ground, spreading away from the bike, did nothing to soothe anyone’s nerves, especially Guinie’s.

“I apologize. I’m not good company, right now. I just want to be alone.”

“I could comfort you. Make you something to eat. I could…” She paused to bite her lip. I knew again, she was offering me more. If I wanted to get lost in her body for a while, I could, but I would feel terrible afterward. I would feel as bad as I already felt that I had lost my body inside her a week ago, and I hardly remembered the experience.

“Elaine, I know we need to talk, but I just can’t do this right now.”

Elaine had been part of our crowd. One of the group at Lake Avalon, and for that reason alone, I had never reciprocated her desire for me. I didn’t want to lose the friendship. I had already damaged it long ago, when I failed her father. I didn’t want to further disappoint her.

“Talk?  Right, talk?”  She hung her head again and mumbled to the floor, “Talking isn’t good.”

I leaned forward and kissed her check awkwardly. “I’ll call you.”

The sadness in Elaine Corbin’s green eyes reminded me of someone else’s eyes that where bright blue
. 

“I’ll call you.”

I had said those very words to another girl, years ago. I had lived to regret not following through on them.

I had noticed Guinevere DeGrance the moment she entered New York Performing Arts Academy as a freshman and I was a junior. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.  Her brown hair was hard to describe, other than with highlights that made it shimmer. Her blue eyes were the clearest lake color. She had a way of looking at someone, as if she could see into his heart and mind. Her body was still developing, but I knew from one look that she would be a gorgeous woman.

I had been with my share of girls, by then. It was hard not to be with the throngs of women that threw themselves at the band. I’d been with girls several years older than me, women actually, but nothing prepared me for the breathtaking beauty of Guinevere. She moved with grace, almost as if she was untouchable, but she wasn’t unapproachable. She seemed kind to everyone. She played the cello, and that placed her in a different track of students at PA. She was in the classical track, studying an instrument rich in history. I was in a special track for scholarship students. 

Growing up in the woods of Lake Avalon, it seemed a miracle that my talent was recognized amongst the hundreds who applied to the prestigious high school in New York City each year. I was equally surprised that my mother let me apply. It was with the help of Mure Linn that I actually got the initial interview, at the request of Arturo. He wanted me to have the experience of such a school, plus it would bring me closer to the rest of the band. Arturo lived in NYC full time by then, and we needed to be together in order for the band to continue the amazing climb we’d had with the college scene and local bars.

It wasn’t until I was a senior that I finally got my chance with Guinevere. I’d never seen her at a party before. At first, I assumed it was that freshmen didn’t attend such things, but I knew from the number of younger girls I’d pleasured, that wasn’t true. It had to be that Guinie just didn’t hang in the crowd I did. It wasn’t that I was often at high school parties myself.  I wasn’t. I was with the band at after parties on college campuses or illegally in bars as an underage guitarist.

At that particular high school soiree, a group was playing a drinking game that moved from truth or dare to drink or dare. It was my turn and I chose the dare, keeping my eyes on the girl across the room. Our eyes continued to meet. I was building liquid courage to tell her how I felt about her. It was the first party I’d seen her at, and I wasn’t letting her leave until I got the chance to talk to her. I’d spoken to Guinevere casually over the last year, but I didn’t want to miss an opportunity, such as that night. I knew where she lived. Her father, Leo DeGrance was our new mentor and the famous proprietor of the bar that was known to raise bands to stardom – The Round Table, but I had only one interaction with her there. I was determined, that tonight was my night.