Chapter 5

Scooby decided that he was going to show off a little and told Amanda that he would pay for valet parking at the restaurant. For the evening, he wore his collar which included pockets for his telephone and wallet which contained his credit cards and some cash for tips. Her older-model car was well-maintained and clean but still stood out from the other vehicles which had passed through the valet service. The valets were experienced and raised no eyebrows at that. However, when Amanda got out and handed them her keys and Scooby got out the passenger side, shadows passed over their faces. Amanda noticed but couldn't interpret the expressions. She hoped that the negative feelings she had were just her paranoia. Scooby noticed nothing.

He continued his efforts to be debonair and offered Amanda his arm as they entered the restaurant. There was a slight hesitation before she took it but he assumed that she was simply not used to being out with someone as classy as he was. They reached the host desk.

"Reserration for Scooby Doo for two?" This was followed by his trademark giggle.

An effort to smile froze on the hostess' face, "Uh, certainly Mr. Doo." She looked at Amanda, "We anticipated that you would be here with Mr. Rogers."

"Rot ronight. Ronight Rye am here rith my date." Scooby felt that his public and verbal confirmation that she was his date would please Amanda. Her hand gripped his arm more tightly which he took that to be a good sign rather than an anxiety reflex.

The hostess' smile remained frozen in place, "Your table is right over there." She pointed at an empty table with a "Reserved" placard on it. Scooby waited for the hostess to lead them to the table, but she remained in place at the front desk, pointing at the table. That was the first thing that struck him as odd.

He stepped aside and gestured for Amanda to lead the way to the table. As they made their way through the full Friday night crowd, Amanda noticed the attention they were getting as did Scooby. They came away with totally different interpretations of what the attention meant. They seated themselves and waited for the server to arrive with menus, water, and bread.

And they waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Scooby had been to The Canard several times with Shaggy for celebratory occasions away from their own restaurant and had always found the service to be exemplary. He now knew that something was off, and his subconscious mind knew what it was, but his conscious mind refused to accept it. Amanda's feelings had transcended anxiety and were now in the fear category. This had the potential to be a confusing, humiliating, and very public situation. Exactly what terrified her the most.

"Maybe we should go." Her voice was soft, timid.

"No. Rye want to know what's roing on." Scooby's growing understanding of the situation had triggered anger. Scooby experienced annoyance relatively frequently but actual anger was rare. Especially at strangers.

Amanda was looking straight down at the table without making eye contact, "You know what's going on."

"Rit can't be that."

A shadow crossed their table and Scooby looked up to see the manager. Amanda did not raise her face. The manager spoke, "Mr. Doo. I am very sorry, but it appears that we are unable to serve you this evening. We will be glad to serve you and Mr. Rogers at our cost at any time in the future."

"Rhy can you not rerve myself and Ms. Black?"

"I am very sorry, Mr. Doo, but our wait staff has informed me that they are uncomfortable with your relationship with Ms. Black and therefore they are unwilling to serve you. They tell me that it is a part of their religious beliefs."

A growl began in the back of Scooby's throat but he subdued it, "Raybe, roo could serve us."

"I regret that my personal religious beliefs align with theirs."

"Ris has become a very religious restaurant all of a sudden. Do roo serve fish on Fridays or have a kosher renu?"

Amanda reached across the table and placed her hand on Scooby's paw, "Scooby, let's just leave. Please?"

When her hand landed on his paw, faces which had been turned in their direction from around the dining room suddenly looked away. Amanda did not have to comprehend nonverbal communication to see and understand all of the movement. She jerked her hand back. Scooby felt her hand jerk away and now Amanda was within the ring of his anger. He was now angry with everyone in the room. Furious, humiliated, and – for some reason that he did not understand – ashamed.

But at the same time, his foundational instinct was to make people like him. He was non-confrontational to the point of being afraid of disagreements – as he was afraid of many things. His anger battled for a few seconds with his natural desire to be liked. He looked around at the roomful of people who were trying to take everything in while appearing to eat their meals. He glared for a moment at the manager and then turned to Amanda.

"Ret's go."

As they stood, the manager kept speaking, "As I said, Mr. Doo, your next meal here with Mr. Rogers will be complimentary. We apologize for any…"

Scooby stared him in the eyes, "Shut the ruck up." And then turned and left.

Amanda's car was waiting for them with the engine running when they went out the front door. Scooby gave out no tips.

They pulled away and drove for a few moments in silence.

Amanda spoke first, "I'm sorry."

Scooby's initial instinct was to try and make her feel better. To tell her that she had nothing to be sorry about and that she was a victim, too. But she wasn't. Not really. This had been about him, not her. And she had sat there silently-as bad as the rest of them just in a different way. He kept his thoughts to himself and said nothing.

She kept trying, "Why don't you come to my place? I can cook. We can have a nice quiet evening together."

"No. Drop ree off at rye apartment."

She remained quiet for another moment before hazarding, "I didn't want to go. I was afraid."

"Afraid of rhat?"

"Afraid of what happened."

Had she foreseen that? He'd had no clue and it had blind-sided him. "Rye guess rou're smarter than Rye am."

She shook her head while she drove, "No. You just see the best in people. I don't. They frighten me because of… things like this."

He didn't know what to do with the rest of this conversation. Neither did she. They rode the last ten minutes back to the apartment staring straight ahead and wrestling with their own thoughts.

Velma was at her usual place at the table, trying to study, and failing. After the initial shock, what had happened with Scooby was pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. Maybe if her sexuality was not such a psychologically vulnerable spot with her or maybe if he were not a dog…

Where did that come from? His being a dog had nothing to do with anything. Except that it did. It had everything to do with everything.

There was a scratching at the door as Scooby reached up for the lever that Shaggy had attached to the doorknob. Scooby normally was able to operate the doorknob soundlessly and only made scratching noises when he was rushing. The door slammed open, and he stormed through making no effort to close it behind him.

Velma was startled but her head remained with her previous thoughts, "Scooby, I think we need to talk."

Scooby didn't slow down, "Ree ron't reed to talk!" He continued into his bedroom and slammed the door and then kicked it from the inside.

Velma got up, closed the front door, and walked up to Scooby's door. She knocked, "Scooby?"

No answer.

"Scooby? Can we talk for a minute?" She didn't really know what she wanted to say but she did know that communication with him was necessary.

"Rye ron't want to talk!"

"Okay. Good night."

The emotions swirling within her were not of the type to bring her slowly mending psyche to tears but they brought to her a profound sadness. She needed Shaggy to be here.

Shaggy was a long way away, staring up at a cloudless starry sky in the middle of Main Street next to a gallows. All was well and good until he got that that last part. Why had he requested something that would have him standing next to a gallows in a spooky fake town at night? All he had to do was write a report saying that the death was an accident, and he was on his way home. Kyle, the insurance holder, would be happy. The insurance company would be fine with checking all the boxes, paying the claim, and getting on to the next claim. But, while the differences in the stories he had heard from the various cast members were not major, they were significant. Significant enough to have him standing alone in the night under a gallows.

"Hey." It was a soft, female voice.

The gallows deck was not high – about four feet. But if you had asked Shaggy if he could jump from the ground up to it from standing position and land on his feet, he would have guessed not. But that is where he suddenly found himself.

A female laugh, "Jittery much?"

Shaggy looked down and saw Emma Jean standing below him. She had probably snuck up behind him on purpose to see him jump. People liked to do that. It always worked. "Yeah. It's kind of my thing. Give me a second for my heart to slow down."

She laughed again, "So, you're really like what you played in the show?"

"I am exactly like I played in the show. I was usually too stoned to learn any lines, so they just let me adlib. I was Tommy."

"You couldn't have been that useless."

"Oh, I totally was. My friends carried me. They still do in a lot of ways."

That should have been the point at which he mentioned Velma. Why had he skipped over that? It was the tail end of navigator's twilight but the moon had just risen and there was enough light for Shaggy to see that Emma Jean had cleaned up a little after the work-day. She was wearing new blue jeans and a tight-fitting blouse and had added make-up to the almost Daphne-level perfection of her face.

"Hey, you two, if you're doing Romeo and Juliet, you've got the locations reversed." It was Kyle and Ralph walking together from the direction of Kyle's office. Shaggy jumped again but it was more of a normal startle without the 4-foot vertical. As long as he was on the gallows deck, he sat down on the edge and let his legs dangle. Emma Jean climbed up and sat next to him. Maybe a little too close. Along with the make-up, she had added a touch of perfume, but someone had to be within inches to notice the aroma. Shaggy smelled it.

As Billy and Ron walked up from the housing trailers, Shaggy tried to discretely get a couple more inches between himself and Emma Jean.

Ron spoke, "Do we want to get started or wait for Tommy, who may or may not even show up."

Ralph sighed, "Come on Ron, lay off the kid."

"That kid's a waste of oxygen and you know it."

"Screw you, man!" Tommy's voice carried from the shadows next to the restaurant. There was little doubt that he was coming from the pot-smoking group at loading area next to the storage building.

Kyle smiled and tried to ignore the smoldering anger that Tommy brought with him when he joined the small circle, "It looks like we're all here, Shaggy. What do you want us to do?"

Shaggy had rehearsed this part but didn't want to say it, "Well, I want you to do exactly what you did that night." And now for the part that he really didn't want to say, "And I'll be Jerry." Even when the Gang wasn't here to give him the part of bait, he ended up playing the victim who gets killed doing exactly what they were about to do. And he wasn't even going to get a Scooby Snack. This was bogus. But he couldn't think of any other way to do the job properly.

Ralph held up the trick noose, "Well, that night, I got here a little earlier than this since I wanted to have decent light and I attached the noose to the gallows arm." Shaggy watched closely as Ralph climbed into the chair, attached the end of the rope to the bolt and then carefully coiled the rest of the rope on top of the thick wooden beam. He stepped down from the chair, "I then went over to the dressing room area…"

"Men's dressing room area." Corrected Emma Jean.

"Right. The men's dressing room area and waited for everybody to show up."

He led the group over to the door of the dressing room and gestured at Billy.

Billy took over, "Then I guess that I showed up with the costume and Jerry – I guess you, in this case – showed up right after me."

Shaggy looked around, "Which way did he come from?"

Billy thought for a second and then looked at Ralph, "I guess sort of from the same direction that Tommy just came from. Is that what you remember, Ralph?"

"I hadn't really thought about it, but I guess you're right."

Shaggy looked at the two men, "Why would he be coming from over there? The housing trailers are in the opposite direction."

Everyone looked at Tommy who looked back, "He wasn't with us."

Shaggy poked, "Who was with you?"

Tommy shook his head, "Hell, I don't know. I'm there every night. That was days ago. It's usually some of the summer crew. Five or six."

"Do you have any names?"

"Naw. With the exception of Jerry and the ugly girl, pretty much everybody hangs out there."

Emma Jean dropped from the gallows, "Damnit Tommy, you call her that one more time and I'll kick your balls into your throat."

"I'd like to see you try!" Which would have sounded stronger if he had not backed up a step while saying it.

Emma Jean started forward apparently looking to make good on her promise to perform a testicle two-step but Shaggy reached out and grabbed her arm. She was stopped awkwardly in mid-stride and stepped backward like a Raggedy Ann doll. She didn't jerk her arm away but looked back at Shaggy and sort of stepped into the grasp.

He let go and looked around at the group, "So, Jerry came in from that direction. Who was next?"

Ron spoke, "That was me. I came from my hooch back behind the bank."

Emma Jean, "Then I came in from the storage building, too. I can give you the names of who was there. Jerry wasn't."

Shaggy then looked at Tommy, "I came from there, too."

Emma Jean nodded, "Yeah, he was there. Big surprise."

Tommy sounded whiny, "You're not so high-and-mighty when you want some weed."

"No, because I need something that you can supply. That's the only time you're ever useful around here."

Shaggy held up his hand, "Enough. Let's get through this and then I can let you all go for the evening. I'm sure that it's been a long day."

There was some disgruntled muttering, but Tommy and Emma Jean quieted down.

Shaggy looked at the group, "Thank you. You don't have to make sure I can perform but just walk me through what you showed Jerry."

Everybody turned and looked at Ralph, who took command and walked Shaggy step-by-step through the thirty-minute performance in fifteen minutes. They ended up at the gallows and Ralph ended with, "When it got to this point, I turned things over to Billy.

This was the part that Shaggy was dreading. Ralph had placed the light in the same place and the side of the gallows arm with the bolt was completely dark. The idea of stepping up into a chair and then jumping off with a rope around his neck seemed like one of the dumbest ideas that he had ever had but he complied with each command as Billy said it. Billy shrugged, "Well you, Ron, Emma Jean, and Tommy need to get up on the gallows deck. Then Ron pokes you with his gun and you get up on the chair. Then Emma Jean pokes you with her gun and you reach up and get the noose. Then, Tommy pokes you with his gun and you put the noose around your neck. Lastly, when Ralph shoots his gun – or goes 'bang, in this instance – you jump off the chair and land on the deck. The powder goes off, we get a spark and a puff of smoke and the rope falls harmlessly down as if Lucky Luke shot it."

This is where Shaggy froze up. His hands refused to put a noose around his own neck. Shaggy appreciated the logic which his hands were showing. But Shaggy tried to force his hands to bring the noose down slowly… slowly… slowly…"

"BANG!" A gunshot went off before Shaggy was ready. Ron kicked the chair with Shaggy still standing on it which made Shaggy tilt over sideways as he went down. The rope, which he was still holding with his hands, jerked just a little and there was a flash just above him and he landed awkwardly on his feet, stumbled slightly, grabbed Emma Jean, and pulled them both off the side of the gallows with him landing on his back in the dusty street and her on top of him. All of the air burst from his lungs.

At first, he saw nothing but stars, but they coalesced into Emma Jean's face inches above his own. He could smell her perfume clearly which was now mixed with a hint of sweat after walking around the street for 30 minutes on this warm evening. It was a good smell. It was a very good smell. He felt her breath against his face as she asked, "Are you okay?"

A part of him wanted to lay here with this woman on top of him but a larger part knew that if Velma saw him right now, she would pull his scrotum over his head and cut out eyeholes so he could see.

"I'll know better when I can stand up."

She rolled off and watched him struggle to his feet while she sat in the dust. He wiggled each leg and then his arms and realized he was still clutching the rope. It had broken cleanly and worked as planned. He looked at all the expectant eyes focused on him, "I'm fine. Actually, this sort of thing happens to me a lot. I thought that Ralph was going to yell 'bang'. That was a real…"

That was when Shaggy noticed that Ralph was not standing next to the Music Hall anymore. Where he had been standing, there was now another cowboy. This one glowing pink.

Emma Jean now stood right behind him and pressed herself against his back as she whispered, "Do you believe me now?"

"We'll discuss that later. Right now, I'm planning to RUN!"

When Shaggy had first come to the park, he had been given the standard tourist map and had since noted on it the behind-the-scenes locations such as the residential trailers, the storage building, the vending machines, etc. in order to understand the layout. Maybe the vending machines wouldn't be required for his report, but they were vital, nonetheless. He had then taken a few moments after Ron had shown him his trailer to sit and commit the map to memory. Which is, of course, the first thing his brain ejected as he started running in a blind panic.

His carefully-honed instincts told him to run into one of the alleyways between the buildings while the rest of the gang did the same and then they could run back-and-forth across Main Street in a confusing montage sequence with the latest Sony musical release playing in the background. And The Gang would have all known to do that and there would have been no problem. But this was not The Gang. This group all split in different directions and were gone. Except for Emma Jean who grabbed his arm from behind, "Quick! I know where to hide."

The ghost was not an exceptionally fast runner, and they were able to put enough distance between them and it to turn a corner and then get into a western wear shop. She went to the wall behind the cash register and pushed it to reveal a hidden closet. She pushed him in, followed, and pulled the door shut behind them.

Here are the things that Shaggy could not control:

The size of the closet, which was about 18 inches by 18 inches.

The fact that Emma Jean was a very attractive woman in her mid-twenties.

The fact that the size of the closet forced him to press his body face-to-face against that of Emma Jean.

The fact that there are certain things in the universe that are just magic. Among those are the feel of a woman's hair on a man's cheek, the scent of her hair, and the feel of a woman's breath on the bare skin of his neck.

The reaction of his body to all of the above.

Yes. There is disagreement (divided straight down gender lines) regarding the validity of statement number 5. On seeing Shaggy in this situation, a woman would be narrowing her eyes and beginning to breathe through her nose in short bursts like a bull eyeing a matador. One type of man, on the other hand, would look at the situation and think, What could Shaggy really do? A second type of man would be thinking, It wouldn't really be all that bad as long as Velma never found out. A third type of man that agrees with the woman? He's lying. There is no such thing. Regardless, Shaggy was in a dilemma.

His mind was taken off the dilemma (although parts of his body did not get the memo) when they heard the sound of the door to the shop opening and then heard the follow-up sounds of the ghost's boot-clad feet searching the premises. The ghost's search took about a minute and then the door opened and closed followed by silence.

Which allowed Shaggy's mind to, once again, rejoin his body in focusing on items 1 through 5 – particularly 5. The situation was not optimum. But then, he was Shaggy Rogers… And they were hiding in a costume shop. He had options.

The little closet was pitch black but must have some kind of mechanism to open the door from the inside. Shaggy whispered, "How do we get out of here?"

"Why would we want to do that?"

Her statement could have either of two meanings: she could be afraid of the ghost, or she could be enjoying the physical proximity to Shaggy. Five years earlier, he would have been absolutely certain that she wanted him. But he had just reached the age where he was self-aware enough to know that, male ego aside, odds were that she was afraid of the ghost and did not want to give up their hiding place. He therefore had to run with that assumption. There were simply rules for being a decent human being.

He tried to project confidence in his voice, "I have a plan." His voice just didn't have that confidence-building timbre. James Earle Jones he was not.

"Well, then there is a little handle above my left shoulder and, if you pull it in, the latch will open."

"Can you reach it?"

"No. It's right above my shoulder. Let me move my hand out of the way and then you can probably reach it."

Matters instantly got worse as moving her hand out of the way required her running her hand up his body from his right pants pocket to his right shoulder before she stuck her hand straight up in the air. And then his reaching the door handle required him returning the favor from the left side of her waist to her left shoulder. By the time this movement was over, he was trying to keep himself from panting. But he found the handle, pulled it, and there was a click as the door popped open. He held onto the handle to allow the door to open only an inch. She brought her hand back down and rested it on his shoulder which didn't help his concentration.

They listened for a moment and heard nothing. Shaggy whispered, "Stay here." And felt her nod against his chest. He then had to slide across her to slip out. Which made matters even worse as far as his concentration was concerned. He pushed the door back and heard it click as it latched into place. He then looked around the shop to determine his next step.

xXx

Scooby had now been angry for four consecutive hours. The only time that had ever happened before was years ago when he felt that Velma was trying to steal Shaggy away from him. That anger had been buffered by his love for Shaggy and his loyalty to Velma as a pack member. That buffering let him know that the anger would diminish over time. There was no such buffering in this case and Scooby was afraid. He was afraid that this anger would stay with him every day – that it would be a part of every waking moment of his life and even enter his dreams. He was afraid that it would shape who he was and make him someone totally different from who he was now. And he liked who he was now. But how does a dog deal with that instantaneous flash of judgement, fear, and hatred that he saw on all of the faces in the restaurant before they got their societal masks in place? What would it do to him to see that ghost-behind-the-eyes over and over and over again every day for the rest of his life? How could he possibly not hate in return? And if he hated, then he would never be Scooby Doo again. Not the Scooby Doo he wanted to be.

There would be no sleep for Scooby tonight.

xXx

The outlaw stood resting against the wooden post which supported the roof over the wooden sidewalk in front of the saloon. His six-shooter was strapped low and tight against his right thigh and his hat was tilted down to cover his face. A toothpick rolled back and forth across his mouth.

A pink glow appeared at the other end of the street followed by the outline of the ghost of Lucky Luke.

The outlaw stepped off the boardwalk into the dust and calmly moved to the center of the street, his spurs making a soft jingling sound with each step. He turned toward the ghost and lifted his face. The Outlaw Shaggy Rogers called out, "There you are, you low-down varmint! You've cheated at cards here for the last time. This town aint big enough for the both of us." He took a step forward in the street.

Then the ghost took a step forward.

Then Shaggy took a step forward.

Then the ghost took a step.

Then Shaggy.

Then the ghost.

Shaggy was realizing that this was a really long street, and this was going to take a while.

So, Shaggy took three steps.

And the ghost took three steps.

And the distance closed more rapidly until they were standing six feet away from each other.

The Outlaw Shaggy Rogers spoke first, "I think it's time for you to be getting out of this town, pardner."

The ghost remained silent and pointed his gun directly at Shaggy's face. This was not how this was supposed to go. The ghost apparently had not gotten a script. Shaggy turned to run. After taking only two steps, he stopped and turned back to the ghost, "Just for information… do you think this would have worked better if a talking dog was involved?"

The ghost nodded.

"Thank you for your input." And Shaggy ran away at full speed with the ghost in lukewarm pursuit.

The fact that the ghost followed Shaggy gave Emma Jean the opportunity to slip out of her hiding place and make her way back to the residential trailers where Kyle, Ralph, Ron, Billy, and the unusually sober Tommy had alerted all of the other park crew who were standing together in the brightly-lit break area. Once again, by luring away the ghost, Shaggy had been unintentionally courageous.