Pulling myself into my raincoat, I then sat my hat snugly on my head and exited the car to a bright flash and loud crash of thunder. I trudged along the verge keeping out of the mud on fallen pine needles which had collected here for centuries, it seemed. Another flash of lightning and immediate crash of thunder gave me a scare. That was too close! I continued on to the edge of the property where the mobile home sat--about a half-acre cut from the surrounding woods--maybe a hundred and fifty feet across.
The Pinelands encompasses a good chunk of southern New Jersey. Stubby misshapen pine trees in sandy soil cover hundreds of thousands of acres. It’s surprisingly remote for so populated a state. The pines give very poor cover; they’re sparsely spaced and the sandy soil allows little groundcover underneath the trees. And if it weren’t for the crappy weather, I would get spotted right off. But the shades were pulled down against the storm and so I crept slowly up to the side of the home and looked for a place to get a peep.
Another flash and then crash of thunder close enough to have hit me had me looking skyward into the rain and smelling the stench of sulfur in my nose. That’s when I heard the door open on the other side of the mobile. I also heard a sort of yawning growl so I stepped over to the end of the home and peered around the corner. Danny-boy was there, setting an aluminum ladder against the side of the home. He held a long metal pole in his hand and proceeded up the ladder onto the roof! Another crash had me ducking my head. This Danny Duncan was one crazy son-of-a-bitch; running around up on that tin roof waving a metal pole in a thunderstorm!--and this a guy terrified of lightning. Sometimes wives don't know sh--
And then it hit! CRASH-BOOM-BANG! Well, things smelled like burnt toast and I figured Danny was cooked to well done. However, I was wrong. There was a glowing mass hopping about on the roof now--jumping up and down and gesturing to the heavens above. The rains teemed down in a torrent, like we were in Florida. I stepped back from the corner of the home and that’s when he spotted me. He had electric dancing all over his body looking like Dr. Frankenstein’s equipment in some 1930’s movie. His eyes glowed like the sun and he leapt off of the roof and came toward me. He lifted a hand and a bolt of lightning shot out and tagged me, sending me down into the wet, sandy soil.
#
I woke up with a headache--the kind you wake up with after a night on the jag. My body ached like I’d gone twelve rounds with Mike Tyson back in the eighties. My vision was fuzzy and things seemed to go light to dark to light again. I noticed I was lying on a musty couch in a dark, muggy room. I sat slowly up and rubbed my face trying to get the cobwebs to clear. My guess was I was inside some dump of a whorehouse when I suddenly remembered Danny the lightning rod! But how did I get in here? Then a hazy memory stirred in my mind's eye. My skin bristled at the memory of small electrical pulses dancing over me as Danny carried me into the mobile home, mumbling something about burying this mess in the woods, but not until after the storm. I decided that I must be the 'mess' he was referring to and began to rub the sides of my foggy head with both hands.
Then I suddenly realized that the buzzing in my ears was actually rain falling on the tin roof over me. Not stormy or especially hard--just a steady rainfall. I stood up and took account of my predicament. My wallet was still in my pocket. My raincoat and hat were on the floor in a heap beside the musty couch. I slipped both on, and quietly as I was able, got the hell out of the mobile home. I crossed the dirt-patch yard, through puddles and the falling rain, and angled down the verge in search of my nondescript car.
The car sat where I had left it, but as I approached I heard more strange buzzing in my ears. I turned around and there he was! A reeling lightening bolt, glowing hotly in the dark, rainy night.
I called out: “Hey, Danny! I know who you are--where you live! Your wife--”
Just then a bolt of lightning shot over my shoulder--hitting the car, and then splintered off into the pines. I ran to the car and jumped in. Danny’s glow dimmed a bit and I realized it must take him a little while to charge back up. I grabbed my holster and yanked the .38 free and jumped back out of the car to face my adversary--but he was gone! I beat it back down the dirt and mud road toward the yard where the mobile sat. I didn’t see Danny, but I saw his glow inside the home. Damn, but he was quick! The rain slowed to a drizzle, but there was a little thunder still rumbling around up in the clouds, and a soft, distant flash of lightning every few seconds.
Suddenly, Danny bounded out of the back door and lumbered into the woods. I foolishly followed. I don’t know why--this case was done--cooked--over with! I could tell his wife with assurance that he wasn’t seeing another woman--his only hook-up seemed to be purely electric--no flesh at all!
But there I was, bounding through the pines after him. I guess it was my stupid pride. But it was a fool’s play. I could see him up ahead and distancing himself from my chase. I also noted his glow was again quite bright.
After another hundred yards of pine tree branches and wild rose bramble slapping my face, I saw that Danny had slowed his pace and was allowing me to overtake him. I slowed my own pace and then stopped, realizing my heartbeat was so fast I was in danger of having a stroke. That’s when the old Lightning Bolt started back towards me. And he was fast approaching.
I held the gun out, rather unsteadily, I now admit. The first two shots were so far off the mark that I won’t admit to them. But then I took a deep breath, and he was a hell of a lot closer now; what with the way he could move.
I emptied the gun. All four shots hit home and with each hit a stream of lightning erupted out of Danny like spew from a volcano! Streams of lightning flowed around giving the appearance of an electric tornado! And as those four streams shot outward there was suddenly the loudest explosion I ever heard in all my life. It knocked me backwards into a bramble of wild rose. And I was in total darkness.
I crawled out of the stickers and staggered to the spot where Danny the Electric Beacon had exploded. The ground was burnt and the air smelled like roast pork, but the now steady rain kept any fire that might have started at bay.
I managed to get to my somewhat damaged car and drive back to the comparative sanity of Camden. I wrote a short letter to Mrs. Duncan, swearing Danny's fidelity to her. And then I packed my bags, took a taxi into Philly, and caught the train for New York, having sworn off tailing wayward husbands and lightning bolts for ever.
End