Chapter 3

We pulled into the driveway of Reggie's place and I noticed an unmarked cop car in the street. I figured it was her Dad's since he does work for the city and he carries a gun.

We got off the bike and stowed the helmets, retrieving the corn and a couple of loaves of Dudley's I saw Reggie's Dad coming out of the house with a grin on his face. He just looked at me and said, "You don't really look like a person who just got a life sentence." He was having great fun at my expense. He didn't even know if Reggie and I had talked but just assumed she had lowered the boom on me.

Well I can do the same with him. I just looked at him and asked if I could call him "Dad"?

"Keith, will do just fine" I was informed in a VERY stiff tone of voice.

I just held Reggie's hand and said, "Ok, Pop," as we went into the house to meet her mother. I figured if I was holding his daughter's hand and going into the house, he wouldn't shoot me.

We went into the house and I saw an older version of Reggie just coming out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel, she came to me and as I reached for her hand she avoided that and grabbed me in a bear hug. Laughing as she noticed my surprise she said, "I am so glad to finally meet the guy that Reggie wants to see more than two times. You must be something else to make her want to leave here. She has NEVER expressed an interest in anyone else she's gone out with, what do you do for a living, how long have you known each other, how did you meet, when did you meet?"

"Mother!" Reggie exclaimed, "Give him a chance to breathe!"

I thought I would have some fun at Reggie's expense, "Well Mrs. Donovan, this is the first date we've ever been on. We are moving in with each other this weekend and I don't even know if her name is Reggie or Regina and from what I understand she told her father she was moving in with me before I asked her out."

"Call me Mom or Loren, whatever is easiest. Well I knew my children were impulsive but this one takes the cake. This is even faster than her brother getting married to a girl he'd only known for three months. Although that seems to have worked out; after all, I do have three grand children now."

I settled in on the couch with Reggie snuggled up next to me. We talked a bit more with Reggie apologizing for her mother and saying she was going to be good tonight. Since I wasn't expecting a roommate for the night, she'd stay here.

"Well Reg, if you are going to move in, you may as well pack a bag and come on over. We'll sort out the clothes later and you really should change your contact number. I think it would be best for you to have a second line installed."

Reggie just held me tighter than I thought a person could as she was breathing "Thank you" in my ear.

"That would be best I think," she replied, "let's get through the meal and then we'll go home and I'll take enough to last a couple of days."

Get through the meal? I didn't like the sounds of that. Almost as if there were going to be inquisitors at the table to find out the intentions I had for Reggie. Actually the question is, "What does she have in mind for me," since I seem to be just following along. After all, it wasn't my idea.

"Dinner's ready," came from the kitchen.

Reggie and I walked in and I thought I was going to stroke out. Sitting at the head of the table was Keith; Reggie's mom was seated at the other end. In between were two guys who looked like Keith clones. Just as we were sitting down, Reggie's sister came running in with apologies to all for being late.

How all of these people got into the kitchen was beyond me. I was introduced to Keith Junior, known in the family as K2; he was in the Army on leave from Ranger School. The other brother, Danny, was stationed in town on a ship at 32^nd St. Naval Station. The sister that came running in was introduced as Rhonda, Reggie's twin. I looked at Reggie with a question when she said, "Irish Twin", as if that explained everything.

Seeing the question on my face, she took pity and told me Rhonda was her "Irish Twin" because she was only 10 months and 2 weeks older than she was.

Her dad spoke up and just smiled when he said the day her mother came back from her six week check up was the night Reggie was thought of. "After all, we ARE a good Catholic family." He thought that was funny as he started serving himself and then passing the platter. I could tell that I was not to be treated as a guest as soon as I stepped through the door; I was home.

The conversation around the table ran the gauntlet of woodsman tactics to underway replenishment, taking down a crack house to dropping a gall bladder. Rhonda, it appears, is a thoracic surgeon. I felt a little intimidated. This table had one hell of a brain trust sitting at it and no one cared.

"Now, tell me Reggie," I said. "I know Drs have M.D.'s not Doctorates, but you said you had a Doctorate. Would you care to let me know about that?"

"Well, I sort of invented a new way to attach a replacement hip to the bone. I saw that no one else had come up with this way of doing that so I included that with my work on bones in general and the rest is history, as the saying goes" she said. "I got the patent the week I supported my arguments."

I found myself being drawn into the conversation a little at a time and all of a sudden Danny started to stare at me.

"Speaking of Doctorates, how is Master Chief McMahon?"

My jaw dropped. I had no idea Danny knew me or any of my friends in the Navy.

"He's fine the last I heard. He's going for his Doctorate this year."

Danny told me I was behind. The Master Chief had successfully defended his dissertation last month and was now the only Enlisted man in the Navy with two Masters and a Doctorate.

Reggie wanted to know what we were talking about when Danny told her.

"Master Chief McMahon and a certain First Class Petty Officer were responsible for rewriting one of the communications publications that was used throughout the armed forces but, specifically, the Navy. They did the research, verified all findings and back-checked the work. Then wrote the pub and offered it up jointly to the government.

"The Navy, in its infinite wisdom, turned it down without even reading it because it wasn't written by accepted college-educated idiots. Since none of it was classified, the Master Chief, after giving credit to the First Class and with his permission, used it as a reference for his Master of Science as the definitive work on 'Electro Magnetic Influence to the High Frequency Radio Band.'

"After it was published, the military took notice and now uses that book as the reference material for its schools on frequency management.

"The guy sitting next to you wrote the book since the Master Chief was in Washington for the most part doing Master Chief stuff."

I just sat there.

"I didn't write the whole thing. I just put my notes together."

"Yeah right," Danny said. "The Master Chief says the only part of that book that was his was the forward."

"Ok, I give up" I said, while holding my hands up in surrender.

Danny sat there with a smug look on his face and smiled at Reggie as he said, "I'll bet you didn't know your boyfriend was published." Then looked at me when I just shrugged.

Reggie hit me on the arm after saying the only thing I ever said about the military was that I was a retired broken sailor.

Danny started laughing hard then and looked up at me. He then asked, "When was the last time you were thrown out of the Westerner?"

All I could do was choke on my water.

Danny starts to laugh, K2 starts to laugh, Keith just looks at me, and says, "You're the one that did that?"

I look at him and wonder exactly how much he knew about me and what the heck he was going to do with some very embarrassing information.

Danny looked at me and asked, "Have you ever trolled for pigs with an ear of field corn at the Westerner?"

Oh, hell! I thought that was long forgotten.

I just started laughing and shook my head when Danny said he was the Shore Patrol Officer that night.

I just looked at him with pleading eyes. "Can we go into this later?"

Reggie pipes up with, "No, I think I should know who I'm shacking up with."

Danny says, "Once upon a time, many, many years ago, a young sailor decided it would be more productive to troll for dates than to ask them out. So he went to the Westerner, put some field corn on the band stand and as he was pulling it out called, "Here piggy, piggy!" The bouncer caught him just about the same time as two other guys in there did. Out of all four of them, only Petty Officer Maximilian walked away right into my SP's arms. He didn't put up a fight but was pleased that he didn't have to ride with the rest of them.

"Now the Westerner, at that time, had a reputation but no one had ever been thrown out and barred by the management until that night. I found out later that it wasn't just the bouncer he took out, but also two guys from the Amphib base, both Seals.

"He also took out the bar mirror, a pool table and the band stand. The Westerner was closed for a week but refused to press charges. Most folks didn't understand the 'trolling for pigs' thing, but saw him attacked by three people so he was only defending himself. And that is what they told the police."

This was NOT the kind of dinner conversation I expected and I didn't want to be the center of discussion for tearing up a bar. Hell, I thought everyone did that on occasion.

All I could do was shake my head.

Reggie just grabbed my arm and hung on. She said, "At least I don't have to worry about getting mugged."

Her mother smiled at that and said she had fond memories of the Westerner when she and Keith used to go there for the dancing. It really was a good place to dance if you just stayed aware of what was going on around you.