Chapter 62: Back to Normal

Fall 2008 to Fall 2009

After the game Kelly and I went over to the Pizza Palace and managed to order a pizza just before the rush of kids arrived. Along the way she teased me about my adventures in farming. “So, that’s what you do all day? Run a petting zoo?”

“Ha, ha!” I replied.

“Do I have to watch out for you around other women?” I glanced over at her, to see her grinning. “You know; those girls all have major crushes on you.”

“Oh, please! What are they, fourteen or fifteen?”

“Try thirteen or fourteen.”

“Wonderful! That is all I need! I prefer to be on the outside of the cells rather than on the inside, thank you.”

Of course, my family found this absolutely hilarious, and just about everybody teased me on my television debut as The Goat Whisperer. It didn’t get much better the next week. When I went back to work on Wednesday, I found the station had been festooned with Wanted posters of goats that somebody had created on a computer. A few of the posters had a downloaded picture of a pair of goats making baby goats, alleging several goat-related sex crimes. I was ordered to come in early on Thursday, so that I could go over to East Matucket High and hand out some Commendation Letters to the various goat wranglers in the school, and get my picture taken for the Warrior Pride school newspaper. It turned out that Principal Hackett was still a bit peeved, especially after he saw the overtime bill for cleaning up goat poop around the school.

September proved a real mixed bag for us. We were still in the apartment but had made plans to build a home over the winter at the lake property. Then, in September, the bottom fell out of the housing market and damn near derailed our plans. At the very last minute we switched from a contractor that went out of business to a modular builder who was going out of business. We bought one of his remaining stock units and purchased it for a song. Dad helped us find a different contractor to do the crawlspace and set the home. It was a bit smaller than we wanted, but we could handle the payments, and then refinance and remodel when the market picked up again. On the plus side, the design was such that it had an end living room that we aimed west out towards the lake, and we could have a nice deck built on the end in the spring. It would be perfect for grilling and barbecues by the time summer rolled around. Until then the place would probably look like a mud pit.

September 11 was a Thursday, and it was my first 9-11 since I joined the force. As always, the assholes over in the Middle East threatened to rain fire on our heads and proclaimed Holy Jihad on America. Blah, blah, blah! We were all put on alert for the day just in case somebody did something stupid. Why Allah’s holy warriors would invade Matucket was a total mystery, still, we had to be ready. It was just pure luck when a couple of black bank robbers tried to rip off the Bank of America branch office in West Springs. The wrath of God descended on them in a matter of minutes before they even had a chance to collect the loot from the tellers. TRT talked them out after four hours, and when the idiots realized the importance of 9-11, they began swearing loudly and sincerely that they weren’t Black Muslims but were Baptists! I donned my tactical gear and acted as a backup, but there was no gunplay, just a bunch of scared people in the bank.

The last Friday of September was the PBA Benefit Luncheon sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce at the American Legion post. Those of us who were being honored had to show up in our dress uniforms. The lucky ones were those guys whose awards were low key enough that they could get out of it. That would be like the five-year service award; those being given them mysteriously managed to be pulling a shift that day. Jerry Wolinski and I weren’t that lucky. We both had to attend, and our wives had to come too, which meant they both had to take off for a long lunch. We invited my parents and grandparents, and Mom and Dad attended, but Grandpa had a slightly different take on it. “Grim, you ever eaten the food down at the Post?” He then gave an elaborate shiver. “I’ll look for the article in the newspaper!” My grandfather was nothing if not a practical man.

Mom and Dad smiled as I received the Combat Star, Kelly standing at my side. Sarah Wolinski smiled also, but she gave Jerry a finger-wagging and told him not to get shot again. There was a photographer from theTimes-Dispatch taking our pictures, and a cameraman from Channel Nine. The photograph and the awards article ended up at the bottom of page seventeen in the Metro section on Sunday. The television footage never made it to the air, because there was a house fire in East Matucket and one of the firemen was filmed rescuing kittens, which was considered a lot more newsworthy.

Grandpa was right about the food.

Mid-November Kelly and I both had a Friday night free, and Kelly told me I was to take her out to a nice restaurant and then maybe a few drinks afterwards. She also gave me a detailed description of what would happen once we got back home, so I was certainly interested in her plans. I made reservations over at the Sherwood, which was almost a club. There was a nice restaurant, a couple of bars, and a dance floor in the back with a DJ.

I was ordered to wear a nice suit, and Kelly did not wear her hideous schoolteacher costume. Instead, she wore a very low-cut cowl-necked top and a long wrap skirt that showed a lot of leg when she sat down. Underneath it she had on stockings, but I wasn’t sure about anything else. The top precluded a bra, but a G-string or thong might be possible down below. I asked her and she refused to tell; I promised I would find out eventually. Why I needed to wear a suit wasn’t clear to me, since I could be standing next to her in a flashing neon tutu, and nobody would pay me the least attention.

We were planning on a late evening, so we started out in the bar around eight while our table was cleared and prepped. Unfortunately, I had to hit the men’s room, so after we found a couple of barstools, I left Kelly and headed towards the bathroom. That took me a few minutes longer than expected, and it was almost ten minutes before I got back to the bar.

I wasn’t surprised by the scene. Kelly was surrounded by a pack of wolves, sipping a drink that one of them had obviously bought her. When she saw me coming, she smiled. I just rolled my eyes. Kelly attracts horny guys like a flame attracts moths. One guy in particular was giving her the full court press. He wasn’t looking around but was just focused on her tits and the hint of lace at the top of her stockings that was peeking out. I came up behind him, and if he didn’t notice me, the two guys he was with did. They looked concerned, but this putz didn’t even notice.

Kelly handled him in an interesting fashion. “Well, thank you for the drink. It’s just too bad I’m married.” She flashed her left hand at him, with her rings on her ring finger.

Mister Smooth simply replied, “That’s all right, I don’t mind.”

“Yes, but he might. You see, he’s very large and he’s very mean and he kills people for a living ... and he’s standing right behind you.”

Mister Smooth turned around with a sneer on his face, only to have to look up at me. I had the death stare going, and I flipped open my suit coat, so that he could see my Glock in the shoulder holster Kelly had bought me after I made it through my probationary period. Normally I only wore the shoulder holster when I wear a jacket or coat that I didn’t plan to remove. Mister Smooth jumped backwards, and then he and his buddies basically ran from the room.

Kelly smiled at me over her drink, and then pointed me towards the now vacated spare bar stool. “Thank you! I tried to get him to leave but he just wasn’t taking the hint.”

“I kill people for a living? You don’t think that’s a little over the top?” I asked.

Her eyes twinkled as she smiled. “Well, maybe, just a little.”

“Lord, save me!” I rolled my eyes and ordered a round of drinks. “You know, if those twits call the cops and report there’s a professional hitman in the bar here tonight, I will never live this down!”

Kelly just laughed at that.

We all got together at Mom and Dad’s for Thanksgiving. Fortunately, I didn’t have duty that day. I had already learned that holidays did not mean that police officers would get time off. Sometimes it was just the reverse. Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving - those you worked your regular shift. The only people who got off were the senior guys, and they might have to put in for that months in advance. The crazy summer holidays - Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day - you needed extra cops on patrol, since you had lots of drinking going on. Lake Matucket notwithstanding, nobody really came to Matucket for spring break or the big summer holidays, but in some vacation resorts they had to hire off-duty cops from outside the area to come in and help. I already knew I was working Christmas, but on the plus side, I would get an extra ten hours of holiday pay, and since that was my regularly scheduled workday, that holiday pay was at time-and-a-half. Strange but profitable.

At least I was home for Thanksgiving. It was the first year that all of us boys had been out of the house, and Mom went crazy making a big dinner for everyone. I teased our parents by telling Bobbie Joe about how Mom and Dad had been living a decadent nudist lifestyle since he moved away; Mom sputtered and denied everything, and Dad just laughed. So far Bobbie Joe was adapting to Duke quite well.

Jack reported that he had been working harder and that he would be graduating on time. As he was saying that he was eyeing me, so maybe my Dutch uncle speech had paid off. He also talked about his post-graduation plans. The Bulldogs were ranked at #13 in the nation at that point, and pro coaches and scouts were all over the place. He had already been invited to the Scouting Combine in Indianapolis in February. They only had one more regular season game, that Saturday at Georgia Tech, and were pretty much a lock for a bowl game. That wouldn’t be definite though, until early December. Jack also mentioned that he wouldn’t be coming home for Christmas but would be going to Miami to meet Teresa’s parents. Teresa blushed at that and held Jack’s hand tightly; the rest of us simply raised our eyebrows and wondered what that meant long term. We learned that a month later, when Jack called home on Christmas Day and announced that he and Teresa were engaged. Bobbie Joe told me that Mom immediately got on the phone with Teresa and started happy crying, while Dad just shook his head and smiled. The Hispano family was invited to visit that summer.

Jack was in the news a lot that winter, all of it football related. He had to travel to New York in the middle of December for the Heisman Trophy Award program. He thought that was total bullshit. “I am the token defensive player. There’s always one. In the entire history of the Heisman, only one defensive player has ever gotten it. It’s either going to be a quarterback, a running back, or a wide receiver. Anybody else is just there as window dressing.”

I rolled my eyes when he said that. “You poor baby! Does that mean you won’t be getting drafted in an early round?”

Jack snorted and laughed at that. “No, I won’t say that.”

“You just better hope you don’t get drafted by the Packers! I hear it gets damn cold up there in the winter!”

The work out at the lake wasn’t finished until January. It wasn’t that it took that long to dig a hole and build a crawlspace, but there was all the other little piddling shit that needed doing. The most time-consuming thing was to dig a trench from the basement out to the road, and lay the water and sewer piping, and then tie it into the municipal utilities. For that they had to dig out the municipal water and sewer lines and cut into them. Dad said we were lucky that the water and sewer lines were on our side of the road. If we had to trench across the road and connect on the far side, we would have had to shut down the street for a few days.

Randy Holden wasn’t going to forget about his ticket. The first week of January 2009, a crew was driving the first half of our home out to the lake when they were stopped by a State Trooper. Clinton Alderdyce managed to get a stop-work order issued in Atlanta, alleging that mobile homes were prohibited on lake front property, and that the local codes officer (Dad!) was under ‘pernicious influence’ from the MPD. It was total bullshit, but it took us about a month to get it quashed in court, since the home was not a mobile home, but a modular house. He also tried to get Dad fired for illegally granting permits in the first place. That didn’t go to court, but it did take up a couple of nights with the Planning Board and the County Council. Kelly had to make another call to Anderson Brockport at King&Spalding and ask for some assistance. Brockport himself came out from Atlanta to argue for us in front of the County Council; he told us his merry minions had also discovered a few other legal maneuvers from Holden and Alderdyce, and he blocked them at the same time. There was a bogus complaint that bringing in a modular house would lower property values, countered by the fact that the property with a house on it, any sort of house, would have a higher property value than the empty lot alone had. Alderdyce tried to claim that a home on that location would cause pollution in Lake Matucket, which was contested by the fact that we had tied into the municipal sewer system and therefore weren’t affecting Lake Matucket. Among the other allegations were that dad was issuing faulty building permits and variances. Some of the claims were just ridiculous! I got the definite feeling that no matter how much he charged, Brockport was still a bargain if you could afford him; he and his team were unstoppable, and he told me that this was easy!

We couldn’t actually get the home onto the crawlspace until mid-March. Our home wasn’t finished until the end of April. Dad had one of his inspectors there and gave us a Certificate of Occupancy the next day. We began moving our stuff over from the apartment that afternoon.

We only got a couple of loads over that first day, and it was both exciting and depressing at the same time. Even though we had plenty of time to prepare, since Alderdyce had delayed everything, it was still going to take a lot of trips. We were doing this ourselves, not with a moving company, for the simple reason that everything we were moving could go in Dad’s pickup truck. The furniture was my grandparents’ for instance, and we hadn’t gotten anything new yet. That meant we were going to be living out of boxes for the foreseeable future. I was carrying stuff in and almost ran over Kelly coming back out. “Can you believe it? Our own house!” she said excitedly.

“Yeah,” I agreed, though not quite with the same level of enthusiasm.

“What’s wrong?”

“You sure you don’t want to stay in the apartment a few more days? We are going to be sleeping on the floor!”

“Yes, but it will be our floor!” she replied. I looked at her curiously. “It will be just like camping when you were a little kid or in the Army!”

“Might I remind you that the last time I went ‘camping’ the locals liked to shoot at me?”

“This is different!”

I sighed. There was no way around it. We were going to start living there that night. “Okay, keep carrying stuff in. This weekend I have to work, so you can put stuff away, wherever that might be.”

After a third trip with the pickup, we had most of our stuff moved. The closets at the apartment were empty, as was the refrigerator, and the television was sitting on the floor of our new living room. It wasn’t working, though, since we didn’t have our cable connection yet. Likewise, we couldn’t cook dinner, since we didn’t own any pots or pans. I scrounged around in the boxes in the bedroom and found some clean clothing and a bath towel and headed into our shower. Oops, we forgot the soap back at the apartment. I wandered back out to the living room in my birthday suit. It was a good thing we were in the woods, since we didn’t even have drapes on the windows yet. “We got any soap?” I asked.

Kelly’s eyes widened at that. “You mean...”