Doyle’s story, like many stories of frustrated sexuality and eventual spiritual fulfillment, began inside the dim red lounge of a west Tampa strip joint. Back in the time of the full-friction lap dance and free lunch buffet, he frequented chapels of inequity like Mons Venus, the Pink Pony and the Tanga Lounge — an establishment once dubbed the original "Bush Gardens." On this April morning he was in the Fantasy Lounge, a dilapidated hovel with a reputation as a second tier bordello. Sitting on a chair with uneven legs, Doyle sipped flat Schweppes ginger ale and took in the sleazy culture the establishment offered: a naked woman etched in switchblade on the bar top, hard-core smut being shown on the ancient television monitors mounted on paisley walls and the bleach blond stripper with the limp, prancing to his seat like a tigress shot in the ass with a dart.

"Hey, sweetie, want some company," she said, her surgically enhanced accoutrements bouncing off his face.

"Fuck off," he said as he got up and headed to the bathroom across an obnoxious orange carpet that reminded him of the time he saw Lou Rawls in Vegas.

In the men’s room Doyle stared into the mirror at his bloodshot eyes and cursed his luck. He had gone there looking to score ecstasy off a dancer named "Bambi" (her real name was Annette) but she was nowhere to be found. His plan to roll and spend two hours on the swatch of Clearwater Beach just north of Pier 60, where all the high school girls went, was now in jeopardy. He found a dry spot to stand on the piss-slick tile in front of the urinals and opened fire like an uncapped hydrant. Doyle had always wanted to be a writer and writers knew how to manufacture situations even when they had nothing to start with.

And he had something to start with, a stripper with a gait in her walk. Taking care not to spray his wrist, Doyle took a crisp dollar out of his pocket. He’d tip the gimp during her dance and apologize for his rude behavior, because only a true gentleman can talk a stripper into a sweaty rendezvous at the nearest Scottish Inn. He had a plan, an outline, like all good writers needed. Yes Doyle had always dreamed of being a writer, and staring down at that faded pink urinal puck in the shithouse of that illicit roadside his mind stumbled back some thirteen years to that day in the seventh grade when someone first told him his dream was a lie.

It was lunch recess at St. Cecelia’s school. Doyle was in the boys’ room off the courtyard urinating with such vigor that pee sprinkled the penny loafers he’d purchased in the mall at the shoestore next to the Orange Julius.

An angel called his name. "Ryan," she said. "Ryan Doyle?" It was his homeroom teacher, the lovely Miss Shields, she of the long blond hair and tan legs. Her curvaceous body had fueled Doyle’s first recorded hard-on back in the second grade. She wanted him, no doubt, so she could pledge her lust for his barely pubescent body.

Doyle left the bathroom and followed the red brick corridor down to the classroom. Miss Shields was wearing a blue dress cut off high enough above the knee to make him obsess about seeing more. He never heard a word she said in class. He just stared at her, a schoolboy in love.

"Oh, there you are," she said. "Ryan, I’m afraid you got a D in creative writing. Your parents need to sign this." She handed him a flimsy pink progress report.

"How?" he said sweating and dizzy with shock. "That last report was A work."

"Frankly I found it somewhat vulgar," Miss Shields said. "‘Conan the Barbarian Rapes and Pillages Smurf Village.’ It doesn’t seem very original. It’s just crude."

"It’s my Moby Dick," he said. "My white whale."

"You copied every single character," she said.

"You cunt," Doyle said.

"Excuse me," Miss Shields said.

"You’re a no good cunt," he said. "You just can’t take it because I’m 12 and I’ve already got the goods, while you’re pushing 30, still single and stuck teaching in this shithole."

"Go to the office now," she said, her pretty face red with anger. At least he got to her somehow he thought as he made the long walk back up the red brick corridor. He sat in the office waiting room staring at the 20-year-old lime green curtains and maroon rug. The office was a weigh station for sick students and behavioral problems. Today it was empty except for Doyle and Tony Durrance; the eighth grader recently voted most likely to be electrocuted.

"I heard you failed creative writing, stupid ass," Durrance said. Durrance was finger-banging Miss Shields’ ninth grade teaching assistant and knew all the grades.

"Piss off, guinea," Doyle said.

"Try and make me, pussy," Durrance said.

Doyle got up and, without hesitation, charged straight into a fist in the jaw. He tumbled backward over the bent metal folding chair he’d been sitting on and landed face first on the ground. Durrance kicked away at Doyle’s ribs. When he reached down to grab for Doyle’s neck, Doyle bit down hard on his forearm trying to tear away a good chunk of flesh. Durrance jumped back in pain. Doyle stumbled to his feet, balanced himself and kicked Durrance hard in the balls. Durrance doubled over and Doyle was about to hit him over the head with the chair when the principal, Sister Gertrude, rudely interrupted. In the aftermath, Durrance was suspended and Doyle was expelled.

Doyle still thought about Miss Shields. She’d be at least 40 by now. He still wouldn’t mind having sex with her.

A crowd of smoke and flame greeted Doyle when he walked out of the Fantasy’s bathroom. The place was on fire. The lounge was empty and the front exit was engulfed in flames. He headed through the girls' undressing room looking for another way out. He was five feet from the back exit when something heavy and blunt hit him in the back of the head and his screen went blank.

Read the story so far: Doyle, Part II and Doyle, Part III.

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ISSUE: FEB 18-26 2001

Psychoanalytic Analysis
RIVATIVE IN ANXIETY

Detective Dean
NONFICTION BY PAUL GRUBENS

The Return
BY DAVID FERRILL

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