My heart wrangled wildly hearing Danny’s belligerent threats and his fists pummeling my door at the Red Roof Inn*. I turned on the bedside lamp and studied the dresser I’d shoved in front of the door earlier. I feared he’d barge right through the barrier because he’s always been as strong as a damned ox.
I heaved a huge sigh of relief, seeing that the steel door and the dresser were holding steadfastly under the stress of his attack.
I called the hotel office while Danny continued to rage and shout. “You fucking bitch, open this fucking door! You’re not getting away with this!”
Getting away with what?
“This is Kennedy Smith in 209. My brother is here again,” I stammered to Gladys, the hotel manager, over Danny’s violent bullshit.
“I know you’re in there!” Danny yelled. “Open up!” The noise of his blustering and banging was starting to give me a headache.
“Oh, my God, is that him in the background?” Gladys asked.
“Yes, but I’m okay, and-“
“Let me in, Kennedy, right fucking now, or I’ll knock this door off the fucking hinges!” Danny screamed, followed by more explosive thrashing against the door, but the furniture blockade didn’t budge. “We need to talk! You don’t know what’s going on!”
“I’ll be right there,” Gladys said.
I hung up and started to call the police, but, then, I thought, perhaps…not. I rushed over to the door and took a deep breath. “I called the cops, Danny,” I said as loudly and as calmly as I could, given the circumstances. “You need to go! I don’t think you wanna go to jail-!”
“If you don’t open this door, I’ve gotta screwdriver, and-” he sputtered, finally giving my door a rest. “I’m not afraid to use it!”
“Danny, did you hear me?” I hollered as loud as I could over his blathering of threats.
“What?”
Thank God, he finally stopped yammering for a second. “I called the cops. You need to go,” I said angrily with the same stern demeanor as with my boys when they were younger and definitely NEEDED to go to their rooms before things got REALLY ugly…
I knew by his silence, he’d fallen for it. I sighed thinking maybe, just maybe…I’d get back to sleep before 8 a.m. if I didn’t have to deal with the local P.D.
“I just wanted to talk,” Danny barked. “You didn’t have to call the cops. You’ve got-“
“Excuse me, are you a guest here?” A man called out in the distance. I assumed it was Jeff, the manager’s son.
“What’re doing there?” Gladys shouted.
No response from Danny, and then, in that controlled but infuriated tone I’ve heard him use so many times when he’s trying to intimidate someone, “This isn’t over, bitch.”
I heard the sound of several footfalls on the asphalt parking lot.
“Unless you’re a guest-” the man said tersely, his voice nearer now. “You need to leave the property, right now.”
“What’s your name? What’re you doing here?” Gladys hollered at Danny, but her inquiry was answered by the echo of Danny’s slow gait moving away from my room.
“Don’t worry, I’m leaving,” Danny said politely in the practiced manner of a used car salesman. “Nothing to see here.”
Yeah, okay, I had to smile at the irony of that statement as my heart rate started to decline from volcanic to uneasy. And I had to wonder considering Danny’s last comment if this was all just an elaborate and never-ending shell game to hide his crimes.
I looked out the window, and I saw Danny getting into his crappy-assed Malibu.
He slammed the door and started his car. His eyes flickered in my direction. Seeing me at the window, he flashed his middle finger, a gesture I returned.
“Fucking prick,” I mumbled to myself as I heaved the dresser out of the way.
A gentle knock at the door. “Miss Smith, are you okay?” Gladys asked through the door.
I watched Danny drive away before I opened the door. Though I did feel a little shaky, I said, “I’m fine,” to Gladys, who looked a little pale, and her son, Jeff, the hulking maintenance man.
“I thought I’s gonna have to clobber that asshole,” Jeff said laughing.
“Next time, go right ahead,” I said, smiling.
“Redecorating are we?” Gladys asked with a faint smile, gesturing at the cock-eyed dresser.
“Yes, I thought it looked better reinforcing the entranceway.”
They both laughed.
“Did you call the police?” Gladys asked.
“No, I knew all I had to do was threaten to call Barboursville’s finest, and Danny would be gone.”
She nodded.
“Thanks for showing up so quickly.”
“No problem. What’s his story anyway?” Jeff asked. “Not that it’s really any of my business, but-“
“He’s a drug addict, and I’m about to expose all his lies and misdeeds,” I said with a grin. “Most people just let him do whatever he wants because they’re afraid of him, but I drew a line in the sand after our mom died, and I’ll walk through fire to make sure he doesn’t cross it, if I can.”
“Good for you,” Gladys said.
“And Danny always SAYS he’s gonna kill people or, you know, beat them up, but he hasn’t done anything like that since a bar fight more than 20 years ago, that I know of, anyway.”
Gladys nodded.
After all the chaotic milieu ended, I flopped onto the bed again and finally drifted off to sleep sometime after 6 a.m. I was supposed to leave around 8:00 to drive Dad’s BMW to Georgia for him, but I knew I’d never make it up that early. I re-set the alarm on my phone for 9:00. Dad knew I wasn’t an early riser, so he wouldn’t be concerned if I called him when I got up.
However, I wasn’t given the opportunity to sleep that late. At 8:30, the phone rang and woke me up. It was Nana. “Your brother tried to kill himself again**,” she said, matter-of-factly as if rattling off a grocery list. “He took some of your dad’s epilepsy pills and some of my heart pills. He’s out cold in the basement.”
Resentment stifled the concern I should’ve felt. I shook my head, trying to shake off the fogginess from lack of sleep. “Did you call an ambulance?”
“No, your dad was afraid to, afraid they’d put him in jail.”
“In jail? For what?” I asked wondering if they had somehow gotten wind of Danny’s antics at the hotel in the wee hours.
“I don’t know. Taking someone else’s pills, I guess.”
“They don’t put you in jail for that – unless you get caught driving.”
“Oh,” Nana said. “Well, he didn’t know that.”
“He should still call.”
“I’ll tell him,” Nana replied, seemingly unfazed by the morning’s events.
“I’ll be over in a little while.”
I dragged myself out of bed, hastily ate a granola bar, took a shower and arrived at Dad’s about an hour later. Dad still hadn’t called for an EMT.
“How much did he take?” I asked, sitting down across from Dad at the kitchen table where he had been reading the paper.
“He took at least 3 of my Mysoline. I don’t know how many of Maude’s pills he took.”
“Quite a few. I’d just filled that bottle,” Nana said, pouring herself a cup of coffee and sitting down next to me.”
“Have you checked to make sure he’s still breathing?”
“Yeah, he was about an hour ago before Monica got here. That’s her Jeep out front.”
“Monica? How’d she know about this?”
“I called her,” Nana said. “Found her number on a slip of paper on his desk. They’ve been going out again. She was just here a couple of nights ago.”
I nodded. Monica was an ex-girlfriend of Danny’s from high school. “I thought she lived in Maryland?”
“She did until she lost her job. I always liked her, smart girl. She does something with computers, doesn’t she?” Nana asked.
“Yeah, I saw her at the mall last Christmas, and she mentioned working as a computer programmer, I think. She was still in Maryland then.”
Nana nodded. I went downstairs, and there was Danny lying face down on the couch in the cold basement. Monica, a tall, dark-haired beauty in her late 30s, sat beside him, tears in her eyes.
“How’s he doing?” I asked.
“He’s pretty out of it. He woke up and smiled at me and asked me why I was here, why anyone would care. What happened? Why did he-?” Monica asked.
“You’ll have to ask Danny about that,” I said. “It’s not my business to say.”
I gave Monica my business card with my cell number and email address and asked her to keep me posted about Danny’s condition, and I headed out for Georgia shortly after.
Dad and Nana flew to Georgia later that afternoon, and Monica stayed with Danny that night and most of the next day.
That night, I returned Monica’s voicemail from a hotel in North Carolina. She said he’d been awake long enough to eat a cheeseburger she’d brought him from McDonald’s, then immediately slipped back into slumber. He slept pretty much nonstop for almost two days, but he fully recovered to blaze yet another trail of chaos upon the world and everyone’s sanity within 1,000 mile radius and then some.
And, that, my friend’s, is the saga of Danny’s second endeavor to punch out early…and/or permanently.
The sad thing is the best emotion I could rally at the time was ambivalence, and I have difficulty feeling bad about that. If that makes me a bad person, so be it…
Over and out from SHE who shan’t be crossed… :)
TenaciousBitch/KS
*See the previous Post #52 – The Red Roof Incident for the WHOLE story as to WHY my brother Danny had shown up at my hotel room.
**The first attempt was when Danny was 20ish. This is the second attempt, hence the name of the post, and his third attempt is the subject of Post #5 – The Dreaded Call at Midnight”…
P.S. DISCLAIMER: This story is a combination of TWO different events, which happened at different times…but it’s all true, save for a few altered details to protect the innocent and those who do not wish to be mentioned in my blog or my memoir.
