Chapter 1

It is the 61^st annual St. Patrick Parade in Bay City. The parade is one of the largest in the mid-west. There are 125 entries in the parade. I am part of a car club that has their classic cars in the parade. My car is a 1967 GTO convertible, with a 400 cubic inch, bored out to 400 hpr, with a Rochester Quadrajet four barrel carburetor. The car has a Hurst performance duel-gate shifter. The car is painted Pontiac red, with the engine painted Pontiac blue. The car has a white convertible top, white seats and carpet. It is a kick ass car with plenty of power and speed. Unfortunately I am having transmission problems with my car, and had to withdraw it from the parade.

Hi my name is Austin James Kelly, AJ for short. My wife's name is Allison Joyce Kelly or Allie (nickname that her dad gave her) for short. We have been married for six and half years. We have two children Amanda or Mandy for short, she will turn five in August, and Andrew or Drew for short, he will turn three in May. We live just outside of Bay City, in Bangor Township.

We live in a beautiful three bedroom log cabin home. I got the house for a song, through a foreclosure bid process. The house sits on over two acres of property.

I stand five feet ten inches tall, and weigh 180 pounds. I keep my self very fit, by working out at local heath club. I also have a small work out room in my garage. I'm thirty years old, and have brown hair and eyes. My wife Allie is five feet five inches tall, and weighs around 115-120 pounds. She has a great figure 34C-24-34. She is twenty eight years old, and has auburn hair and green sparkly eyes. I work for Wells-Fargo as a financial consultant. I am also a computer expert. Allie works at the biggest law firm in the city, as a paralegal/administrative assistant. We both have well paying jobs.

Back to the parade, it is a beautiful day for a parade. The sky is blue; the sun is shining, and just a few clouds in the sky. The winds are calm for the time being. It is a great day for a parade. There is not a whole hell of a lot to do in the month of March in Michigan. So the people turned out in droves to watch the parade. The parade officials guessed that there were around fifty thousand people watching the parade. I don't doubt their guess, as the whole route is packed with people watching the parade, on this beautiful day.

Earlier I had told my wife that I am going to ride with my friend Jim. He has a 1964 Pontiac Tempest Convertible. It almost looks like my car, but I have a little different body style. Just before the parade is to start, another friend Bill, whose truck is pulling a big float, came up to me.

"Would I ride with him, just in case something went wrong with the float he is pulling?" He asked me.

"No problem, I would be glad to," I told him.

His float is about six entries behind the classic car group. I have both my digital camera and my Canon EOS Rebel camera for long range pictures. I have a telephoto lens on it. It will be fun to watch and take pictures. I walked the whole parade staging area, taking pictures of all the floats and bands. Normally I don't have a chance to do this, as I am usually getting my car buffed up.

't 2:00p.m., the parade starts and we are almost in the middle of the parade lineup. It takes almost an hour to reach the starting point. The parade seemed to be going slower this year. In front of us is a group of what I would guess are soldiers from the various wars. I am not a war buff, and I couldn't tell what they were from their uniforms.

They would stop at each major intersection and fire off their guns. They made a hell of a noise doing that. I saw a number of people jump out of their skins not expecting that noise.

Finally just over two-thirds of the way though the parade route, we came to the house that my wife's law firm is using for their St Pat's party. I'm to join her there after I finish up with the parade. She is going to pick me up at a parking lot on Water Street, just a couple blocks north of where the parade ends.

Just about every house on the parade route is having some type of party, with plenty of food and drinks. The food cooking on the various grills sure did smell good. As we approach the house where my wife's party is located, I scan the crowd out front by the street for her, but I didn't see her there. I took my Cannon camera out to see if I can get some long range pictures of her. I scan the porch looking through the telephoto lens, looking for her. Hmm wonder if she went back into the house, after the classic cars went by.

Just as I almost put the camera down, I noticed some movement on the second story balcony. I focus the camera on the two people up there. I noticed my wife, as she is laughing with a blonde haired guy. Next thing I know she has a passionate lip lock kiss with the guy. I took a few pictures of them. 'What the fuck is she doing kissing that guy. She is a married woman, and a married woman doesn't kiss guys like that, ' I thought to myself.

I noticed that his hand us under her blouse feeling her breast. I took a few close-up pictures of that. She pushes his hand out from her blouse, shaking her finger in the no no no manner, like he is not suppose to do that. She puts her arms around his neck, and gives him another lip locking kiss. This time he has his hands on her ass, massaging her cheeks. I took some more pictures of their action. I put my camera down and grabbed my cell phone, and gave her a call on her cell phone. I watched through my camera, as she pulls the phone out of her pants pocket, and looked at the phone caller ID. She just lets my call go to voice mail. I left her a message that I was passing by her party house, and that I loved her and will see her shortly. I hope to make her feel guilty with my phone call. I will be fucked if she didn't go back to kissing that fucker.

By that time we had moved out of sight of the two of them and her cheating actions. My buddy Bill is talking a mile a minute asking why I was taking so many pictures, and did I see my wife there? By her actions of not answering my cell phone call, I knew things were not looking to good for me.

We finished the parade, and Bill dropped me off by the parking lot. I called my wife, and my call went to voice mail. I left her a message that I was done with the parade and waiting for her at the agreed upon parking lot. I tried again fifteen minutes later, and fifteen minutes later after that, till an hour was up and no return call. I even sent her a bunch of text messages in between the phone calls, but to no avail, as she never responded.

'Fuck the bitch, she is probably fucking that guy, and forgot about me, ' I said to myself. I could have walked to the party, but then three is a crowd. So fuck it, I started walking home. About halfway there, and I heard a car horn. Looking around I saw my buddy Jim driving his Tempest. Usually the car club goes out to eat after the parade. He pulled over, and I ran to the car accepting his offer of a ride home.

"What the fuck, why are doing walking home?"

"My wife never showed to pick me up,"

"Why didn't you give her a call?"

"I did, my calls went to her voice mail."

"Do you want me to take you to the party?"

"No, fuck it just please take me home."

We chatted about cars, and the problem with my transmission, until we reached my house. I thanked him for the ride, and went inside the house. It was about 5:00 p.m. when I got home. I went into the garage and got into my jeep and drove to her folk's house to get our children.

They were watching them while we were at the parade, and the after parade party. They live just outside of Auburn, about a twenty minute drive from our house. As soon as I left our house, I started to reminisce about our past together.

We both were born and raised in Bay County. Allie grew up close to the small city of Auburn. She went to Western High School. Her folks both worked for Dow Chemical in Midland. Her dad is a chemical engineer, and her mom works in Dow Corporate Headquarters, as an administrative assistant. Between them they both make some very serious money working for Dow. They have a very nice expensive house outside of Auburn. Allie has one sister, and one brother, both are older and are living in different cities in Michigan.

I grew up in Bangor Township, and went to John Glenn High School. My folk's divorced in my early teen years. Mom works at the hospital as a nurse. Dad has disappeared since the divorce, and I have not heard from him since. We have a nice house in Bangor Township, not as nice as Allie's parents. I have two sisters, both older, and they both are living in California. I think dad lives there also, but I have no proof of my thoughts.

I graduated number three in my class, and went on to the University of Michigan. I studied finance, accounting, and bank security.

I continued on to get my master degree in finance. I am a number's wiz, and a computer geek. I came back home and got a job with Wells Fargo.

'llie graduated in the top five percent of her class, and went to Wayne State. She studied law. After she graduated, she came back home and got a job with the largest law firm in the Tri-City area (Bay City, Saginaw, Midland). The firm has offices in all three cities. She works as a paralegal/administrative assistant. She loves to do research on cases that her lawyer group is working on. She keeps talking about taking her bar exam, but so far has not done so.

We met in my senior year at Michigan. I am one year ahead of her in college. She came with some friends to a party my fraternity was putting on.

Somehow we hooked up at the party, and shortly after that we started to date. We became exclusive six months later. We planned on getting married shortly after I got my master degree. A year after I graduated with my master degree, we got married.

Her folk's gave us a fully paid honeymoon to Hawaii for ten days. The reception was held at the Double Tree Hotel, and we booked a room there for the night. The next day we would fly to Hawaii. We both we so tired from the days festivities that we fell asleep in each others arms, without consuming our vows. We woke late the next day, and had to dust our ass to make the flight on time. It sure is a damn long flight to Hawaii, well over nine hours. We were both pooped by the time we checked into our hotel room.

We took a nice nap, and then went down and had a nice dinner in the hotel's outdoor restaurant. After dinner we took a nice long walk on the beach, splashing each other in the waves. We finished our walk, and it is just starting to get dark. We stopped at the bar to have a nightcap and do some dancing. It was a few hours later before we left the bar, to go to our room. Allie went into the bathroom and I heard the shower running. I turned the lights out and opened the sliding glass door and stepped out onto the balcony. It is so nice and peaceful here, with the fresh warm ocean air lightly blowing in my face. A full moon is just beginning to peak over the ocean, bathing the area in moonlight.