Chapter 39: The Stranger in the Black T-Shirt

The three weeks that followed Vanessa Benson’s and Janine Carlyle’s meeting with the Principal of Pahrump Elementary school were very busy weeks indeed - particularly for the school. And of course the two girls had said yes unreservedly by the Friday following that meeting to be the celebration’s guests of honor. They both felt just so proud and honored by such a request and set to work immediately preparing their own speeches for the forth coming event.

What also soon became very evident was the fact that this celebration the school was preparing for was growing way beyond the scope of the school to handle in terms of the program and the volume of people wanting to attend. It thus became much more than just a school event but a community wide event that needed a large community complex to hold it in. It also needed the full involvement of the mayor’s office and all its financial resources to make the celebration into the huge event it was building into. The mayor’s office also had much more clout when it came to inviting some of the dignitaries that the event hoped to attract. His office also had a much bigger budget than the school’s budget for paying for the entertainment side of things along with the massive fireworks display the night was going to end with. All in all the night was going to be one huge party for the whole town and all its naked residents. And that night was quickly approaching and everyone was getting very excited about the whole thing. It really would be a celebration to remember and a wonderful way to mark the end of the semester, the beginning of the summer vacation period and the first six months of The New Way.

For Vanessa Benson, however, the most exciting thing about those three weeks was the pending arrival of her mother and step-father on the Thursday before that last Friday of the school semester. She hadn’t seen them for nearly eighteen months now since she had first moved to Pahrump and was getting more excited about that visit and the coming celebration with each passing day. What she had no idea about, however, was the very dramatic unfolding of events that would take place over those last few days of the semester. They would be events that would involve nearly the whole town and would end in a tale of triumph and tragedy all rolled into one. The unfolding of those events began on Thursday afternoon just as Tracey Manning was getting home from work.

Tracey Manning had had a very busy day as a service mechanic at McCarran International Airport. Several other jet engine mechanics were off on sick leave and Tracey had found himself jumping from pillar to post trying to get jobs finished according to the specified time lines. His immediate boss had also been rather jumpy and short tempered too which just made Tracey’s day even more unpleasant and a day which he was only too happy to leave behind as he headed home.