The Past – The 1960’s
Chapter Seven
As far as Patti was concerned, her experiment was both a success and an eye-opener. That idiot Logan had fallen under her spell and was controllable if the prize for being so was to his liking. She imagined other males were the same – she was confident they would be.
Patti had conquered him, so there was no more need for him, so she simply told Logan to go to hell, she was no longer interested. He did not take it well, but the message had been delivered and she was not about to change her mind.
She had no idea what he told his friends about what had cooled their relationship, but it must not have been too bad, as a few of them, who had previously hated her, took a run at her, asking her out. She was sure he had bragged about all the sexual things she had allowed him to do or had done for him. While a couple of his friends had taken a run at her, she had not been interested, and the old Patti was back and taking no prisoners.
The eye-opening aspect of the experiment had been the character of the man (or in this case boy) she sought to control. While she could use her womanly wiles to get her way and control a man, at least to a point, that man had to be as ruthless as her in his own way if she could stand being with him. Logan was weak. She needed to find a man – not a boy – made of sterner stuff to weave her magic on. She needed to find someone who would appreciate her gift, but also had something of value to give to her. With the right man under her spell, she could gain control of her life and never bow down to anyone ever again.
Patti contemplated all of this as she struggled to make herself comfortable on the crowded bus that was taking her away from her former life. It was her sixteenth birthday and she had gifted herself with a bus ticket to California, paid for by money she had been stealing from her parents for quite some time. That was one of the benefits of having parents who spent most of their time in an alcoholic haze, they were not the best at guarding their valuables, and were not organized enough to know when small portions of those valuables were slowly being taken away. The more Patti observed how people were, the more she came to understand that most people were idiots – she had no idea how humans had become the dominate life form on the planet.
She had caught the bus at midnight, long after Amy had gone to bed and long after her parents had passed out for the night. She knew they would be passed out, as like every year, they had gone to great lengths to celebrate her birthday, pretending they were a normal family – something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. They would all buy her a gift (nothing too expensive), they would make her favorite meal of cheese burgers and onion rings, they would get a cake, and they would all sing Happy Birthday to her in their off-key, fake enthusiastic way, and she would pretend she loved it all. Little did they know that for the past several years the wish she made when she blew out the candles was for each of them to drop dead.
Her sixteenth birthday had arrived, and she knew what that meant. She was not worried about the night of her birthday; she figured her stepfather would not be in that much of a hurry. As far as he knew, he would have more than enough time to make his move, so why rush it – let her be Sweet Sixteen for at least one night, before taking that sweetness away. She knew she was going to run away from home – there was really no reason to stay anymore, but she initially had not planned to do so on her birthday. Instead, she had spent quite a bit of time contemplating waiting for her stepfather to make his move. She had dreamt up numerous ways she could entertain him when he snuck into her room, including having a baseball bat ready to whack him across the head, before working on her lifetime batting average by taking the bat to his balls until they were a bloody mess. All her fantasies were a variation on this theme, whether she was using a bat, a butcher’s knife, or just her knee, followed by a frenzy of kicking when he was down and in pain. She had even considered teasing him, playing along, as if she wanted him to have sex with her. In this fantasy she would offer to take him in her mouth, and while doing so, not only grab and squeeze his balls as hard as she could, but bite down on his dick as hard as she could. She wondered if she had the power to bite right through it. Of course, the problem with that fantasy was she would have to take him in her mouth, so it was not considered as often as the fantasy of batting practice with his privates.
Thoughts of hurting her stepfather had made her feel great, but in the long run, she decided there was no point in waiting. If she left after assaulting her stepfather, who knows, maybe he would make up some lie about what had happened and send the authorities looking for her. She imagined if attacked, he could probably be as vindictive as she was – he seemed the type. In the long run it was best to just run away, pure and simple, nothing hanging over her head except a lot of bad memories and a lot of people she would be happy to never see again. There was really no reason for anyone to ever look for her.
Patti had thought long and hard regarding where to run to and had finally settled on California - Los Angeles to be exact. She had no fantasies about running away and breaking into the movies or anything crazy like that; no, she just figured for someone who was initially going to be homeless wherever she went, why not pick some place where the weather was generally good. If she had to sleep outside, like a park or under an overpass or something, better it was hot than cold. Los Angeles was also far enough away from home to allow her to feel she had escaped to a whole new world – a whole new world of possibilities.
Patti leaned back in her seat looking out the bus window at the night. The overweight man beside her, had laid claim to the armrest, and was fast asleep and threatening to snore, which would be annoying, but that was the price of escape, she figured. Most of these people had boarded the bus when she had, so most of them were idiots who came from where she was looking to escape. As the bus continued along, eventually the herd would thin, with everyone getting off at their own destination, and even if most of them rode all the way to Los Angeles with her, when they disembarked in that city, they would all go their own way, and then any connection with her past life and the losers in it would be gone forever. She looked forward to that moment.
Patti traveled light. She had found an old knapsack in the attic of her home and had filled it with what clothes she thought she would need, her make-up, a hunting knife she had found in the garage, and all the money she had managed to steal from her parents, which after paying for the bus, was just over one hundred dollars; a small fortune to her, but an amount she imagined would not impress anyone in Los Angeles.
The bus had given her a lot of time to think, or at least reflect upon what she had been contemplating for months leading up to her birthday. She was alone now, and that was good; it also had a sense of menace and fear to it, that was a little unexpected. She had come from the dark side of life, had lived with horrible individuals who did atrocious things; she had lived with an indifferent mother, who allowed those atrocities to exist unchallenged. She has seen first-hand the ugliness of life, and deep down knew that in her own way she had also contributed to that ugliness – in small ways, but she had. It never dawned on her she should be upset by her contributions to that ugliness and that they did not haunt her; she could live with her actions, after all, life and living was a matter of survival of the fittest; there was no room for feeling sorry for those who were too weak to survive or keep from being preyed upon. She was old enough to understand there was darkness in her heart – darkness that others did not have. She also understood that darkness was her means of survival. While her parents were ugly, she was not naive enough to believe they were the worst she would ever confront; Patti knew the world was full of those who could be more brutal than her mother and stepfather, and as a young woman, alone and without any means to support herself (at least for the moment), she would be a target. She knew this, and as part of her plan in starting a new life, she was counting on this fact.
Playing the victim, at least for a time, was her best hope for survival. If she was seen as weak, those looking to prey upon her would let their guard down, and in time, by doing so, she would take the initiative and turn the tables on them. Patti was confident she had one thing most of them would not – true intelligence. She didn’t have the riches to buy her way in life, but she did have youth, beauty, and everything that men craved and wanted, along with a hidden cunning that would be her saving grace.
When Patti climbed off the Greyhound bus in the heart of Los Angeles, just shortly after eleven o’clock at night, she took a moment to look around. Now seemed like a good time for the predators to be out and about. The story was a cliché, she knew that, but wasn’t it at bus stops in places such as Los Angeles where predators looked for wide-eyed, innocent, young girls, who were arriving in town with high hopes and big dreams, and very little intelligence and common sense? If there was any truth to the cliché, this would be where her story would begin; as such, she did her best to look as sweet and innocent as she could.
About half the bus had already disappeared at stops along the way, and out of everyone who departed at the Los Angeles station with her, she was the youngest and the most likely to be preyed upon.
It appeared to be a quiet night, the station relatively deserted, except for her and the new arrivals she travelled with. As far as she could tell, there were no predators lurking about – quite a disappointment.
It did not take long for those who had travelled with her to leave the bus station; they all appeared to have someplace to go. In fact, she was not sure where to go or what to do, so in an attempt to get her bearings, she merely sat down in the waiting area of the station and waited, although she had no idea for what. The evening was late, and she figured, unless someone kicked up a fuss, the bus station might be the right place to spend her first night in Los Angeles.
The trip must have tired her out, she realized after a while, as she had not noticed, or at least paid full attention to the diner across the street from the bus station. If predators were about, she had expected them to be loitering at the bus station, looking to get a jump on anyone promising who got off the latest bus. She never suspected they might be a little subtler than that in their approach. Sitting in the window of the diner, paying a little too much attention to the going-ons at the bus station was two hippie chicks. She had heard about the hippie movement, and some of her classmates had attempted a similar look back in her hometown, but it had been half-assed and ineffective. These two women looked like what she had seen in stories in newspapers and magazines – the genuine article.
She didn’t know for sure if she was right about them, as she was going on pure instinct. She had to test the waters. Patti went to the vending machine in the bus station and bought herself a ham and cheese sandwich. It really did not look all that appetising, but truth be told, she was somewhat hungry, and it fit into the budget she had set for herself. Until she found her way in Los Angeles, she had to be careful not to spend too much money.
Taking her sandwich and duffel bag, Patti exited the bus station and found a place to sit outside on the curb. She sat down, trying to look as pathetic as she could, slowly eating her equally pathetic-looking sandwich. She figured predators did not approach confidence. All the while, she kept stealing subtle glances towards the diner and the hippie girls, who seemingly were spending a lot of time looking in her direction.
Patti had no idea how long she had sat there; the sandwich had been surprisingly good, or maybe she had just been too hungry to tell the difference. She was getting to the point where she was beginning to doubt whether she had been right about the hippie girls, when the pick-up finally pulled up at a curb and a denim-clad, middle-aged, scruffy-looking man got out. Just before he closed the driver’s side door of the pick-up, he shot a glance in her direction and then entered the diner. She snuck glances in the direction of the diner and noticed he sat down at the table with the hippie girls, who greeted him with enthusiasm. Shortly after that greeting, they had all looked in her direction.
Patti was curious.
Sure, that something was up; she got up from the curb, picked up her duffel bag and started making her way across the street; as she did so, she made sure not to look in the direction of the two hippie girls and the middle-aged guy in its window.
Once in the diner, Patti headed for the counter, all the time, making sure not to look over at them. It took more will power than she expected, but she had it in her, and she felt it was necessary. She sat down at the counter, ordered a coffee (it should not cost too much) and waited, but not for long. She had taken a couple of sips, when the middle-aged man got up from the table and moved to the stool beside her. She did not acknowledge his presence; she felt it was important she allow him to make the first move.
He ordered a coffee from the lady behind the counter, and finally turned his attention to her.
“You new in town?” he asked.
She turned and looked at him; her first up-close look at a predator. He had a distinct rural cowboy look about him; he was not someone who had worked in an office or anything like that. He sported a full head of somewhat unruly hair, cut long, or at least longer than polite society preferred, and he had a rather significant mustache, not bushy, but pronounced enough, and framing his mouth. She figured he was in his mid-thirties, which seemed ancient to her, and suspected that in his youth, he was quite the looker, an attractive man who had a way with the ladies. There was still some of that attractiveness left, however, the sands of time, had begun to chip away at it; give him another couple of years, and he probably would not be useful in the role he was presently fulfilling.
“Excuse me?” she said, innocently.
“The duffel bag,” he said, “figure you must be new to town, especially this close to the bus station. My name is Carl, what’s yours?”
She did not say anything, but instead took a sip on her coffee. Carl really did not intimidate her, but she knew the role she had to play; a guy like this preyed upon girls with low self esteem, as they were the girls who would fall for his special brand of bullshit; she was not that type of girl, but to see what he and the other two girls were all about, she would have to pretend she was. She did not know who she was looking for, she just knew there was someone here in Los Angeles she should align herself to, if only she was lucky enough to find them.
“I guess your Mama warned you about talkin’ to strangers and what not,” he said, while delivering his best smile; she figured it had been more effective in his past. “Well, no need to remain strangers, my name’s Carl, Carl Tanner.”
He held out his hand for her to shake. She acted as if she were reluctant, and then shook his hand. “I’m Patti,” she said, “Patti Crane.”
She had considered making up a new name for herself in Los Angeles, but had decided against it, figuring it was a waste of time, seeing how the name Patti Crane really meant nothing to no one anywhere. She had no significance to anyone in life, except those she had left behind, and she even suspected they really did not give a damn.
“You’re a pretty young thing, aren’t you,” he said next.
It was ridiculous, but she played along, feigning embarrassment. “You don’t really mean that,” she said, sheepishly, then, “Nobody’s ever told me something like that before.”
She could see by his reaction, the broad smile that crossed his face that he had bought it; as far as he was concerned, she was ripe for the picking.
“Well, that is surely a shame,” he said. “What are you doing in Los Angeles? You an actress or somethin’?”
“Me, acting, no,” she said quietly. “Don’t really know what I’m doing here, just had to get away from home.”
“Your Mom and Dad are gonna be quite worried,” he said.
“I don’t think so,” she offered quietly, looking down at her coffee, pretending she had something terrible to think about, something worrisome that was troubling her. She also figured troubled girls were the preferred targets.
“Well, that’s too bad,” said Carl, “Where you staying here in the city?”
Patti didn’t answer right away – she took her time. “I don’t know. Haven’t got a place to stay. Haven’t got much money either.”
“I might be able to help you there,” he offered.
Patti figured it was time to up the act a little, show she might have a little fire in her after all. She turned to Carl and looked directly at him.
“Help me,” she said, “Why? What do you want me to do? You some kind of pimp or something?”
It was a little bold, but she figured it was needed. She did not know who she was going to find in Los Angeles, and what she would be expected to do, but she did not want to find a pimp and become a prostitute, which she figured was the mostly likely outcome if approached by someone at a bus stop. Leaving home, merely to become someone else’s sex slave was not an option; in that case, if she was going to be using her body entirely to get by, she could have just stayed at home and dealt with her stepfather.
“Whoa, WHOA!,” said Carl, holding up his hands. “Pimp? Hell, no girl. Nothing like that.”
He was full of shit, and she knew it. He might not be a pimp, but she was pretty sure she was being approached because she was young, beautiful, and sexy. While prostitution might not be his game, she figured sooner or later, she would have to use her body to continue getting her way – whether she liked it or not, her sexuality was her biggest and best asset, at least when it came to manipulating men.
“Why do you want to help me?” she asked, innocently.
“Hell girl, it’s not me,” he said, “but my friends here.” He motioned to the two hippie girls sitting in the booth and watching the two of them. “They want to help. Let’s just say it’s in their nature, the way they live. If you don’t believe me, why don’t you come over there and meet them. They’ll set you straight. What do you say?”
Patti was curious. There was never any question she wasn’t going to go over to the table and sit down, but she had to continue her charade and pretend to hesitate.
“They hippies,” she asked.
Carl smiled and laughed. A question like that, she figured, made her sound more like a stupid, country bumpkin, or something like that.
“Well,” he said, taking the time to look back at his two friends, “I guess you could say that. So, do you want to meet them? I know they want to meet you.”
“Okay,” said Patti, getting off her stool and grabbing her coffee, “Why not.”
It was time to find out what was going to happen next, and just exactly what their deal was. Best case scenario, maybe she could scam a dinner out of them.