TWO BLANK STARES
Cast: Theodore Bland, aka Teddie, twenty-eight.
Susan Bland, his wife of seven years, thirty.
Richard Burton, aka Big Dick, Susan's boss, forty-eight.
Elizabeth Burton, aka Liz, Big Dick's wife, mother of their three children, forty.
Etta, Teddie's mother.
June and Jade, his older sisters.
Teddie Bland was driving his 1996 Ford F-150 home from the supermarket. The truck was laden with frozen food, including ice cream of four flavors - all headed to Teddie's big home freezer. Teddie glanced at the parking lot of the Sleepy Run Motel. His wife's car was there. It was 3:00 pm and she was supposed to be at work. She drove a new Mercedes sedan, in a bright green. She paid extra for the paint job. Now, there it was in that parking lot. An innocent explanation was highly unlikely. Especially since next to her car was a light blue Lexus SUV with vanity plates - BIGDICK.
The Lexus belonged to Richard Burton, Susan's boss at her law firm. He called himself Big Dick. Wrong end of the perineum. He was a complete asshole.
Teddie saw red. Literally - a red light. He ran it. He slewed the truck into the lot, shifting into second gear. As he did that, the door to a room opened and Big Dick came out, followed by Susie Bland. Teddie's truck was about forty yards away. He goosed it. As he did that, Susan stepped back into the room. She'd forgotten to get her jacket, on a chair across from the rumpled bed.
Teddie's truck slewed around toward the lovers. The force of the maneuver caused him to slide across the bench seat. That happened just as he was going to jam on the brakes. Instead, he hit the gas again. The truck smashed into the rear of Susie's car, driving it over the small curb, where it mashed up against the wall of the motel.
Big Dick saw and heard the truck just as it hit the Mercedes. Unfortunately for him, he was standing between the car and the wall.
The car hit him at pelvis level and crushed him between the hood and the wall. He didn't die instantly. For one thing, he saw Susan's nerdy husband at the wheel of the truck. Big Dick had no respect for that guy at all - the cuck. Big Dick was momentarily puzzled because the nerd's face lacked all expression - like he was gone from himself. Dick thought, 'shock.'
The last thing Big Dick experienced was the inner vision of a photo of his wife and two sons that he had taken at the beach a few weeks before. All three smiling. Dick was in no pain. He floated as he saw the photo. Then, all three members of his family snarled at him, baring fangs. The three moved out of the picture toward him, claws extended. That was the last thing Big Dick ever experienced. He screamed as he died.
Susan heard the crash as she was picking up her coat. She was stunned. She ran to the door. Her lover was staring at her. A blank stare, like he was looking inside his head, unaware of her presence. Then he screamed. And he died, right there in front of her. No doubt. He didn't fall. He couldn't. He was pinned to the wall by her car. His torso slumped forward, though, across her hood.
Susan turned slowly toward the rear of her car, in shock. She saw her husband, sitting in his stalled truck. She shouted at him. "Teddie, what have you done? Oh, Teddie!"
But Teddie made no response. He had the same blank stare that she'd seen when she looked at Big Dick. Teddie wasn't seeing her. He wasn't seeing anything. Not even something inside his head. His body was there. His eyes were open. But he was gone.
Susan thought he'd been killed in the crash. She tentatively moved toward him, around the back of his truck to the driver's door. She shouted at him. "Teddie. Teddie. Wake up, Teddie!"
But Teddie never moved at all. There was a small trickle of blood running down his forehead. Susan opened the door of the truck. She saw that Teddie was breathing, deeply and evenly. But Teddie was completely unresponsive to her screams. Never moved at all. Never twitched.
A siren approached and a police cruiser stopped near the truck. Susan sank to the ground as that happened, unconscious.
TEDDIE
Theodore Bland was an unusual person. Always had been. From a young age he was socially inept and kept to himself. His family consisted of his mom, Etta, and two older sisters, June and Jade. His dad had divorced the family and moved across the country.
Teddie, as he was called, had problems at school. Not with the schoolwork, which he always mastered right away. No, he was teased and sometimes bullied. He was small for his age. And when the bigger boys, and some girls, confronted him, he might zone out. He'd go unresponsive, as if his conscious self had abandoned his body. Then bad stuff could happen to him.
So, when he was in second grade, his mom sent him to a 'friend' of hers who ran a martial arts school. Teddie cottoned to Jed Butler, head of the school. Jed got him. When Teddie zoned out, Jed let him be. And Teddie would return, usually quickly. Teddie never zoned out during a match or contest. But in practice, between bouts, he might.
Etta went to a doctor about Teddie's bouts of 'vacancy.' She was told that he had 'catatonia.' He got some meds, for if he stayed zoned for more than ten minutes. That was rare. And, when it happened the meds brought him out of it in a few minutes. Teddie sometimes recalled what had happened during his spells, and sometimes not. There were times when he did recall but lied about it. Like, when he was zoned on the couch and his sisters ignored him and talked about some older boys and what they did with them. That was a wake-up call for sure. And it prompted Teddie to keep people unaware that he was aware when he seemed to be gone.
What with his training in fighting and his meds, Teddie made it through school. He got all A's. And he grew in size, up to 6 feet, although slim, at 155 pounds. Another thing Teddie had was an ability to program computers. He helped school staff with that - even the instructors of his math and computer classes in high school. He had an uncanny ability to quickly reason through thorny problems and to digest large amounts of raw data.
However, he remained excessively shy, especially around girls and women. He never dated. He had a difficult time speaking to the girls in his classes. He wanted to talk to them. He wanted to do way more than that. But he wasn't able to do it. So, after a while he stopped trying much. He was afraid that he'd zone out due to the stress.
Teddie got a full ride to go study math and computers at State U. The summer after he graduated high school, he was so nervous about going to the big school that he spent a lot of time staring at walls. Not when he was at work, only at home.
Teddie took up running after he came home from work at the construction site. When he ran, he was semi-zoned out. But when he got home, he was closer to normal than he had been before. So, he ran every weeknight and on weekends. He also kept at his fighting training.
Due to all this physical activity, Teddie was almost never tired. He had always been a ball of energy, when he wasn't staring at the wall. He had two guy friends. Harry Blaine and his brother Michael. Each was similarly afflicted with 'shyness.' Neither of them went blank, though. And they knew enough to let Teddie alone when he did.
The three became a triad all through high school. These guys, and his family, were the sum total of his social world. Until he got to State.
When his mom dropped him off at school, he used a small red pill to keep calm enough to get through the process. It worked. He moved into his dorm room, and met his roommate, Brad Kelly. Brad was a six-footer, husky, with long blond hair and startling blue eyes. As Teddie moved his stuff in, Brad already had two young women hanging out in the room. Nice looking ones, too.
Brad introduced them to Teddie when Teddie's mom left. Teddie nodded a hello to each. Then Brad suggested that Mona, one of the women, could show Teddie around campus, while Brad and Lisa stayed back in the room. Mona grabbed Teddie's elbow and guided him away. She took him around to the various buildings, talking all the while. When they got to the gym, Teddie showed his first sign of interest. Not in Mona. In the gym. Mona took him to the desk and got him a locker. She left him there. She was talked out. Teddie was relieved.
As time moved on, Teddie settled into a routine, with classes and exercise. Jed Butler had hooked Teddie up with a man who ran a local 'dojo.' Marvin Grossman. So, Teddie had a place to go to fight. He went three nights a week. And he ran. And ran. He studied also.
As time passed, Teddie realized that he had not zoned out at all since arriving at college. His classes were interesting. He had a place to sleep. He and Brad had worked out a system for Teddie to use a spare room some nights. Brad was very popular. Teddie was intrigued and jealous.
One evening as Teddie was running on campus, he saw a guy bothering a young woman. He knew her from his statistics class - Susan Burnside. She was older, tall, blond, and very pretty. Although they were in that class, they had never spoken. But now, Teddie thought that she was in some trouble. The guy was grabbing at her, and she was backing off. He ran up to them.
He said, "Susan, do you need any help?"
She looked at him - the geek from her statistics class. The guy messing with her was big and mean. His name was Pete Kowalski. He played football for the school, and she'd been involved with him until about two weeks prior, when she dumped him. He didn't like it. Now here he was. She was frightened.
Susan had qualms about involving the geek. Pete would probably hurt him. Maybe a lot. But she needed a chance to run, and she could do that if Pete was taking out his frustrations on the nerd.
