It's like putting a frog in a pot of water and gradually turning up the heat. By the time it's boiling, it's too late for the frog.
As time passes, Hercules Simpson begins to flex his muscle and exert
more and more influence over Carl. His morale damaged by his failures of the
previous year, Carl is easy prey for Simpson.
1983
JANUARY 24:
On his way to class on this very rainy Monday morning, Carl cuts through
the west wing of Sutton Hall. As he nears the exit, the door to room 401
opens and out comes Nicole D'Amato -- whom Carl has admired from afar. She
offers to share her umbrella with him, and he accepts. They walk down the
road chatting away. It is the year's best moment.
Shortly thereafter, Carl begins to notice that 1983 is out of kilter.
By now, Nicole is spoken for. He reasons that if Hercules hadn't changed
the room assignment, and left him assigned to the west wing of Sutton Hall,
Carl would have noticed in time just what a gem Nicole really is. But alas,
it is too late now. Simpson's actions of August 1982 have knocked history off
its axis. Carl spends the rest of the year pining away for the lost
opportunity of winning Nicole's heart. He keeps Winslow in the back of
his mind, however.
APRIL:
Hercules applies for a job with Ichabod Summer Playhouse. He pressures
Carl into going in for the same interview. Carl does not want to work there;
he wishes to spend the summer away from him. At the interview, Carl answers
questions like he's unsure of what he's talking about. The strategy is
a success: Hercules gets the job at ISP; Carl does not. Carl heaves a
sigh of relief.
MAY:
By the time the school year has wrapped up, Simpson's verbal abuses and
belittlements toward Carl have begun to turn physical. He's got Carl right
where he wants him -- scared to death. Carl looks forward to the summer,
when he can be at home in peace.
MAY 25:
Carl kicks off his video collection by recording the "International Day" show
of Late Night with David Letterman..........800 kilometers away, Denise Gottlieb
graduates -- at age 19 -- from Winslow Junior High School. As she accepts her
diploma, she receives a standing ovation.
MAY-JUNE:
Hercules Simpson's constant phone calls to Carl really put a damper on
any plans for another trip to Winslow. He always wants something, and by
leaving some of his stuff at Carl's house, Carl has been made to feel
obligated to him. The summer isn't turning out to be what Carl hoped for,
but he soon looks back on May and June as the good old days.....
JULY 4:
After spending the weekend at Carl's, the two drive back to the
headquarters of Ichabod Summer Playhouse. Simpson receives notice that due to
his lack of concern for the group, he is being fired.
Efforts to get the boss to reconsider are unsuccessful. In spite of
all the grief Simpson has caused him, Carl just can't leave him out in
the cold like this. Simpson spends the summer at Carl's house. The next
two months are hell on earth.
Getting punched or hit becomes an almost daily occurrence. No one
asks why Carl is wearing long-sleeve shirts in the middle of summer.
JULY 29:
In one of the summer's few bright moments, Carl is at a supermarket in
Venice with his mother and Simpson, and flips through the August 2 issue
of the Inquisitor. Towards the back of the tabloid is a new article on
Denise Gottlieb, telling all about her graduation. With Simpson taking
advantage of Carl at almost every turn, it's a miracle Carl has enough
money to buy a copy. He has wisely kept Simpson in the
dark about Winslow, and has no intention of changing this policy.
The article gives Carl a ray of hope during one of the worst periods
of his life.
AUGUST 25:
Carl finally gets another job! He starts working at Road Runners
Messenger Service, and is now able to spend the daytime hours away from
Hercules Simpson.
SEPTEMBER 4-22: Things start to turn around for Carl as various events put the brakes on Hercules Simpson's reign of terror.
SEPTEMBER 23: Encouraged by the love and support he received back east, Carl says goodbye to Hercules Simpson for what he hopes will be the last time. At 9:30 a.m., he drives away. The last person he notices as he drives away is Nicole D'Amato, walking up a hill by the Regents' Building and wearing a beautiful dress.
SEPTEMBER 24-29: Carl's parents help him arrange to go back to New York, possibly to work. One day they go to the Auto Club to get the route mapped out. The man at the Auto Club routes the first leg of the trip down Interstate 40 -- right through Winslow, Arizona.
SEPTEMBER 30: Carl departs for New York. He stays at a friend's home outside of Anaheim.
---> THE SECOND TRIP: SEPTEMBER 30 - OCTOBER 1:
After a visit to Las Vegas, Carl arrives in Winslow that evening. He
stays at the Winslow TraveLodge. The next day, he calls Craig Martin,
then checks out of the room and visits Meteor Crater. He returns to Winslow
in the afternoon.
Now, Carl has to make sure that the
Inquisitor story is true; he certainly
doesn't want to be trying to meet someone who doesn't exist. He's checked a
Winslow phone book and sure enough, there's a couple of Gottliebs there. He
looks up the street on a map and heads that way. He slows down as he passes
her house, and -- it looks just like the one she's standing in front
of in the 1981 article! Of course, Carl doesn't get out of the car. He's
got more sense than that.
OCTOBER 8, 1983 - FEBRUARY 29, 1984:
Carl lives with his Aunt Jane and Uncle Ron in Rockland County. His uncle
has arranged for him a job interview with UPS in Manhattan.
They look over his driving record and tell Carl it has to be squeaky clean.
The deal falls through. His cousin Anne's boyfriend Jack gets him a job
working security at Nyack Hospital for $4.25 an hour.
Almost five months in New York fail
to get Carl a girlfriend or a decent job. He arrives home on February 29.
The first person he visits at home is David Henry.
MARCH:
Carl returns to work at Road Runners. Concrete plans for another trip
to Winslow have yet to be formulated.
MAY 18: Carl is driving down Pico Blvd. past a loading dock as an 18-wheeler is slowly backing out. He misjudges his timing and doesn't pass the truck in time. It backs into the right rear of his car. He's not injured, but there is a gash above the right passenger window.
MAY 25:
Shortly after 3:00 in the morning Carl is awakened by a ringing phone.
He answers "Hello?" and gets no response, only people talking in the background.
He repeats "Hello?" and again gets nothing. The third time he says "Hello?" a
voice sounding like Hercules Simpson comes on the line and says, "You're dead."
and hangs up. Carl gets in his car and re-parks it a quarter of a mile away,
outside Doug Craighead's house.
Later that day, Greg James asks if he can borrow the car to cruise around
with Craig Martin and Mike Bonham. Carl says okay; he's not going anywhere.
They return the next morning and tell Carl that someone ran them off the road
while they were up in the mountains, and the car got rolled. Carl goes to
Craig's house to retrieve the car.
Craig, Greg and Mike are uninjured. The car is totaled. Strangely enough,
the engine starts right up. Carl drives the car on its last trip: home.
Winslow? Not this summer.
Putting two and two together, Carl and his dad decide that it was Hercules Simpson who made the crank call, and he may have spotted Carl's Tercel up in the mountains. Thinking Carl was in it, he tried to run him down.
For a while, this seems to make sense. Later he learns differently.
Carl's employment at Road Runners suffers a series of setbacks that eventually bring it to a halt. After the car wreck, Carl uses an old moped that Mike Bonham sold him for $50. It conks out about three weeks later. Craig lets him use a dirt bike to make runs, but Greg gets into an accident with it up in Topanga. A guy named Diep Hoang smacks into Craig's street bike while David Henry is using it. By July, Carl's options are dwindled to nothing, and trip #3 to Winslow is put off for another summer. The only "trip" he takes is with his dad's Buick on August 4 to a Go-Go's concert at Irvine Meadows with Greg.
On August 28, he begins using his father's electric car to make local runs. About two weeks later, his parents take him to Mike Miller Toyota and help him finance a new champagne-colored, 1984 Toyota Corolla 5-door hatchback diesel car. The road to recovery begins.
The car has some damage done to it when Carl, Craig and Greg take it to Portuguese Bend down near Palos Verdes. It spends some time in the shop, but Carl makes sure it stays running. Still, there is no concrete plan for meeting Denise Gottlieb. David and Greg think it's a stupid idea, but at least Greg shows some interest in going there.
Discouraged, Carl starts visiting Ichabod College in September to see friends and hopefully run into Nicole D'Amato.
MID SEPTEMBER: Carl and his parents take a weekend company-paid trip to Phoenix. His father works at Hughes Helicopters, and the company is planning to move his father's division to their Mesa plant. They tour the plant and look at various homes. A move to Mesa is highly probable at this point.
NOVEMBER: Carl switches to Pronto Messenger Service after talking with one
of their drivers and learning they pay more.
Carl wonders why he hasn't seen hide nor
hair of Nicole D'Amato. He soon learns that she is spending the second half
of her education at UC Santa Clara.
1985
MARCH 8: After seeing Missing In Action II: The Beginning with
Greg James and Tony Navarro, Carl decides to take them to a USA gas station where
his friend Rich Scott works, two miles from Ichabod. The Portuguese Bend damage hasn't
been completely mended, though; there's been a very slow oil leak. Just as they
are getting off the freeway, the engine seizes up and the car dies, a little less
than 2 km from
the USA gas station. Carl walks there and buys oil from Rich while Greg and
Tony stay with the car. They spend the night in an open room called The New Earth,
located on campus.
The car suffers further damage a few days later when Carl, Craig and Greg are
towing it back to Santa Monica. It stays in the body shop for over a month
while insurance is worked out. Then it is taken across the street to the mechanic.
APRIL 29: As the Corolla Diesel is undergoing a test run after engine repair, it throws a rod through the block. Despite Carl's pleading, the shop refuses to fix it. Carl considers suing them, but he doesn't have the money for court costs and Craig points out that it may be months before the case would even come up. The car is taken back to Carl's parents' garage, and plans for going to Winslow are shelved for yet another summer.
* * * AUGUST 28: Carl and his mother move to Mesa. His father stays in California until October 11.
On To Part Two