JOCKEY HOLLOW: AN ON-LINE SOAP OPERA ABOUT GAY YOUTH EXPRESSING THEMSELVES SEXUALLY.
Jockey Hollow is a small town of 5200 people located in the Northeastern corner of Nebraska. Its population is made up primarily of a younger 20-something crowd, mostly gay men who have found a haven in Jockey Hollow. There is an older generation of people in their late-30s-40s, and an even smaller teen crowd. The teenagers are runaways from cities like Des Moines & Cleveland; runaways who have been outcasted from their families because the are gay. Things in Jockey Hollow are not what they seem or appear to be. The stories revolve around the principals' characters, all of who are in their 20s and gay. Occasionally female characters appear, but they are the girlfriends of bisexual characters.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE: THIS IS THE FIRST OF A TWO-PART HOLIDAY PRESENT TO THE READERS OF "JOCKEY HOLLOW." THIS IS A WRAP-UP OF THE LONG RUNNING MURDER INVESTIGATION. NOW. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!
EPISODE XXXII-A
The diner filled up with all the usual suspects. Adam, Amy, Joey, and Nicole were at a table; Roy, Patrick, Seth, and Cooper were at a table; the Sheriff, Zina, Dr. Preston, Wade, and Nicky were at a table; John and Peter entered and found room at Cooper's table.
"Welcome to the big show," Sam said entering; he a table alone. Each person had a complimentary pot of coffee on their tables. It was going to be a long night.
Kenny was in front of the group. He looked around. The clock behind him said 12:00. He locked the door and drew the shade by remote control. The shade had a large sign that read "CLOSED UNTIL 3:00 A.M."
"Welcome," Kenny said. "I am going to tell you a story. A story that begins, for many of you, with a young lovable hustler named Stephen Wirley; but for me and the Bureau, it began with an unknown hustler some months ago. Stephen was the 12th in the string of killings."
Hushed murmers and gasps of shock were heard by the onlookers.
"Five happened along the Southwest, with bodies found by lakes and six were found in a mass grave deep in the woods of Jockey Hollow. But I will concentrate mainly on Stephen, since he was how I ended up here telling you this story.
"Let's talk about Stephen's last night. We know that he was with a man named Tex somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-3 a.m. We know he was at Maggie's at 4:00 because Seth saw him there. He had sex with several truckers in the pool room before he met Ryan and Michael. These boys were prepared to give Stephen $500 to play bondage games. Stephen carried the transaction outside, but was distracted. Ryan and Michael said that Stephen was feeling ill and walked over to a guardrail to vomit. He was helped into the woods by a man in a dark suit. We pick up with Joey's account. Joey and Nikki were camping that night and Joey was outside when he heard noices and saw figures. He witnessed the killer as he knocked Stephen unconscious and heard a "crack" sound. This was the sound of a baseball bat being cracked inside Stephen's rectum." Zina winced. "Then Stephen was dragged to the lake behind this diner where Adam, Amy, and Cooper found the body float up.
"I arrived in Jockey Hollow under the pretense of an e-mail I received from the Sheriff's offoce. It read: `Another body in Jockey Hollow, Nebraska.' Whoever sent this knew I was investigating the series of killings that had occurred over the last several months. Who would have such inside knowledge? More importantly, who would have the ability to hack their way into the Sheriff's e-mail account and send me e-mail from it? Who indeed?"
Kenny began to walk around the diner floor as he talked.
"I arrived in this fine city and found a haven for gay men. It was amazing to me to see this sort of town in the middle of the Bible Belt. This may have allowed hustlers like Stephen to become comfortable. Comfortable with just about any john he picked up. This in-grain trust led Stephen to Maggie's that night.
"The Sheriff, his deputies, and myself went on a tour of the woods and discovered a mass grave. A mass grave that contained the bodies of six young hustlers. I received an e-mail back from the Bureau with a profile of each person. They were all male, all between the ages of 18-25, all were beaten to death. They differed from the string of murders that we were investigating, ending with Stephen. No baseball balls were pushed up into their rectums; they were not taken to a lake or river and drowned. So, what was the connection? The connection was that none of the victims were hustlers. All six men were hustlers working through Bible Belt states. Their identities were disclosed and they were identified as men with prostitution records in the states where they worked. So the killer had an inate hatred for hustlers.
"I was then abducted by the killer and taken out to the woods."
"You didn't see who he was?" Seth asked.
"He was in sadomasochistic garb. A leather suit and a face mask. He, I suppose you can say raped me. He made me perform oral sex on him before he fucked me. He, however, used a condom, so that he could not leave any traces of semen that may be used for DNA analysis. He didn't kill me, but he did leave me with a clue."
"May I interupt, Agent Westmoreland?" Sam said.
"Yes, Sam?"
"Why didn't he kill you? He had the perfect chance to do away with his main rival."
"I'll come to that momentarily. The clue he left me with was `the river.' He didn't specify what he meant, but I soon discovered that he was referring to an irc channel."
"What is irc?" Amy asked.
"Internet Relayed Chat. It's a way to talk with people across the Internet by typing. They are set up by channels, in which people talk about specific topics. Patrick told me that the river' was a channel where men and women talk about outdoor sex. A staple of Jockey Hollow life. So I found this channel and started an on-line relationship with the killer. His screen nickname is itsme.' Ironic, huh? We chatted about the murders and I found that we had something in common. We both attended UCLA between 1980-84. It was at this time that I discovered that my memories of my first semester were fuzzy. That first semester I spent in the dormatories, after that I resorted to off campus apartments."
"Your trip down memory lane may be fascinating for you," Sam said, "but what should we care?"
"The killer lived across the hall from me. I was reminded of an incident that occurred on Halloween, 1980. The killer was involved in an elaborate hazing ritual that had him receive money to engage in oral and anal sex with two men at once."
"So," Sam said, interupting again, "the killer was a hustler?"
"Yes. The killer was a hustler. He told me this morning that he was a hustler throughout his four years at UCLA and paid most of his tuition with that money. He hated it after a while because people were taking advantage of his promiscuity and assuming he was always ready for sex. He told a story to me about an incident in which his roommate and his roommate's buddy actually fucked him at the same time, inserting both penises in the killer's ass. The murderer also said he was leaving in the morning.
"Returning to the cyber world. Patrick was stalked on-line by itsme.' He knew Patrick's every move; the Sheriff and myself had questioned Patrick that morning and knew everything we spoke about. And when Patrick's second line rang, itsme' knew about it. When Patrick answered the phone it was Seth. Who, ironically said, "it's me, Seth."
"Now wait a minute," Seth protested. "I called Patrick from here, we do not have any computers here. And just because I'm leaving Jockey Hollow in the morning, doesn't mean--"
"Calm down Seth, I know it wasn't you. No, the man who is responsible for the deaths of 13 young hustlers, including the beloved Stephen Wirley is--"
All eyes were on Kenny, waiting for the name. Who was he going to name?
"The killer is Sam Gehlen."
STAY TUNED FOR EPISODE XXXIIB, WHICH WILL BE POSTED ON CHRISTMAS EVE, DECEMBER 24, 1997. TO ALL OF YOU, FROM ME, MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY KWANZA, AND HAPPY CHANUKAH. THESE EPISODES CAN BE READ ON THE NIFTY ARCHIVE: http://www.nifty.org/