Chapter 34

Erika Johansson brought the Lear Jet 24-D in for a textbook-perfect landing on runway 83E at Daytona International Airport. At the 5400 foot marker, she pulled off the runway onto the north taxiway and then onto the apron in front of the main Erika Air hanger. As Erika swung the jet so that the passenger door faced the hanger, Jake saw the cure for his feelings of melancholy. Standing in the opening created by the rolled-back hanger doors were his wife and children.

Jake helped Debbie lower the jet’s passenger door with its built-in steps as soon as the turbine blades unspooled and then leaped down the stairs. Melissa was holding Jakey’s hand and pushing Mikayla in her stroller toward him. Jakey pulled his hand out of his mom’s and bolted towards Jake yelling, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.” Jake knelt down and caught his son up in a hug, then swept him up onto his shoulders and turned to his wife. Melissa wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him so hard it hurt. Melissa finally let him go when Jake Junior started making kissing noises from his perch on his father’s shoulders. Jake reached down and touched his peacefully sleeping daughter.

Melissa reached up and kissed away the tear at the corner of her husband’s eye, “Let’s get you home, Hubby Bear, and everything will be better.”

Jake nodded, not trusting his voice, and walked towards the hanger.

After a cursory trip through customs, Jake and his family walked out to the ranch’s station wagon. Jake loaded the stroller in the back and helped fasten Jakey into his booster seat and Mikayla into her car carrier. Once again, Jake realized that he was probably married to the smartest woman in the world as he performed the routine chores of being a parent. Melissa could have met him by herself. There was at least a squad of willing baby-sitters at the ranch. Instead, she had gone to the trouble to pack up their children to meet him, knowing he needed to see the reason why he had done what was necessary.

Jake looked at the object of his adoration as she stood by the passenger door waiting for him to open it for her. She was heartbreakingly beautiful in a pink skirt and sweater, her raven black tresses caught up in a matching pink ribbon. Jake’s heart seemed to suddenly expand until there was not enough room in his chest for it. Jake opened the door for her and she gracefully slid into the seat. When he got in, she scooted across the seat right up against him. He put his arm around her and she leaned her head on his shoulder. They drove all the way home that way, husband and wife, lovers in love.

Nina and Leslie met them at the door when they arrived home. Jake got some big hugs and sweet kisses before the two teens took the little ones and disappeared towards the nursery. Melissa took Jake’s hand and led him to the master suite. Jake stripped off his clothes quickly, he needed a shower, and he needed his wife. While Jake stood under the pelting spray, Melissa leaned against the counter and filled him in on family happenings while he had been away. Jake was much refreshed when he stepped out of the shower and into the towel Melissa held for him. Jake brushed his fangs, shaved his mug, and combed his hair as Melissa continued bringing him up to date.

Ablutions complete, they walked back to the bedroom. Melissa started to take off her clothes but Jake stopped her.

“Let me do that, Muffy,” he said.

She gave him the smile she reserved just for him and walked up to where he sat on the bed. Jake loved getting his wife naked. Every millimeter of skin he uncovered was priceless. When he had her down to her matching pink bra and panty set, he pulled her down onto the bed and started kissing her. Melissa responded to his kisses with a burning hunger. They both needed this, lived for it, in fact. Jake marveled again at her body as he rained kisses on it. Melissa marveled that his touch could do the things it did to her. Jake slipped her panties off her smooth legs and got into position above her. Melissa raised her knees to accommodate him. She reached between their bodies and guided his impossibly hard shaft to the lips of her incredibly wet and aroused slit. They looked into each other’s eyes as he worked himself into her.

“You and me, Jake, we are forever. I love you and I always will. Anything you ever want, you just ask and I’ll make it happen,” Melissa said.

“Ok, Muffy, then I want you for the rest of my life,” he replied.

Muffy squealed and pulled his head down so she could reach his lips. Melissa had orgasm after orgasm as he drove into her. She said his name over and over as she came. The earth moved for her when he emptied his seed into her clasping tunnel. She would not let him go after he came. She wanted to hold him this way forever, skin to skin, wrapped up in each other. Finally, she let him roll to the side then held him until he fell asleep.

Melissa woke him up at five-thirty. He felt much better after his nap. Jake dressed and joined his family for supper, pleased as a man could be to see a big porterhouse steak covering his plate. Also pleasing were his dinner companions. Nina, Faith, Leslie, Trish, Erika, and Melissa all looked terrific. He walked around the table and gave each of them a kiss before digging into his steak. Jake enjoyed the women’s lively conversation during dinner. What made his relationship with them so good was that each of them had a life and interests that made them complete people. Their self-worth was not defined or bounded by their relationship with Jake. Even Nina was blossoming. Tonight, for instance, she and Donna were double-dating to a new dance club on the boardwalk. Faith was going to the movies with Jennie Murphy. She had tried to get Leslie to go along but Les begged off.

By eight that evening, the kids were all tucked into bed. Jake, Trish, Erika, Leslie, and Melissa were in the living room listening to music and discussing what Jake had learned from the Tremonts. Erika was a part of the brain trust now, Melissa trusted her completely and confided everything to the big blonde. Melissa declared that, based on what Alfred had said, they needed to buy his Chicago mansion. Trish recounted for Jake the steps they had taken on behalf of the teens at the shelter. Jake asked Trish to see what she could do about Claudette Nguyen. Michelle Tremont had mentioned to Jake how much she cared for the young orphan.

That night the three other women joined Jake and Melissa in the big bed. Jake made love to all four of them that night, a first for him. They were all tender, sweet, and loving as he took them. Five people in the big bed made for some interesting combinations. Erika and Trish the Dish together were a breath-taking sight. The two big Amazons were Xena, the Warrior Princess, fantasy material. He fell asleep nestled between Melissa and Erika, tired but happy, ready to get on with his life.

Jake had a great month between his return from Ireland and the start of spring training. He crammed every minute of life he could into his days and nights. He fished with Tiny Johnson and Quincy Nobles when it was warm enough and spent time at the bungalow when it was not. Helga Johansson was still unofficially in charge of keeping up the bungalow for him. She managed to make it nicer every time he came back to it. Helga came to the bungalow to visit him at least once a week. Helga was aging gracefully as Scandinavian women tend to do, and, as she aged, she seemed to become even more sensual. She seldom left the bungalow without her fine white ass thoroughly reddened by her special spoon.

It was during January of 1977 when Jake finally impregnated Rebecca Doane. New research had put on the market more effective fertility drugs that finally did the trick. Jake’s visits with Rebecca were still as special as the first time they were together. She was still his ‘Tiny Dancer’, a lithe and limber dynamo who loved having any part of her hard little body filled with his dick. The Doane name would become the second he resurrected by providing a male heir to it, the first being Buckley, of course, through Corinne.

Jake and Melissa spent a get-away weekend in St. Augustine for Valentine’s Day. It was incredibly romantic for just the two of them. They walked the beach and made gentle love in their room, as happy as it was possible for two people to be. Melissa cried like a baby when Jake gave her a delicate gold locket inscribed ‘Forever, Jacob.’

On Wednesday, February sixteenth, Jake reported to the Yankee spring training facility in Fort Lauderdale, this time as a veteran. This year Erika was the only one to move down to the beachside condominium with Melissa and the children. Erika had fast become indispensable to Melissa and was her constant companion. Jakey liked that idea just fine because, next to his mom, Erika was his favorite female. It would become a life long attachment. Erika, like his dad, never treated young Jacob like a baby. She called him JJ and never shied away from answering any questions he had, no matter the topic. Oh yeah, and she had big boobs, something Jakey very much appreciated even if he did not quite know why.

Jake had another good spring training. When the Yankees moved north to start the regular season, he was the number three starter behind Catfish Hunter and Ron Guidry. Stienbrenner had been busy during the off-season signing a ton of free agent talent. Jake could tell this team was a winner even without his knowledge of the future. The only thing the team had more of than talent was egos. Billy Martin’s intensity was all that kept the collection of stars focused on their opponents. Jake and Ron Guidry tried to remain above the fray. They kept their mouths shut and concentrated on pitching.

Jake’s family moved to New York during the second week of April. By the time the Yankees arrived back in the Bronx for their first home stand, Melissa and company had the household re-established. Melissa was still very hands-on in running TnT and Thornton Development. Both companies were doing extremely well now that the economy was out of the doldrums. Melissa had her office in the apartment fitted out with all the latest communications gear. She had multiple leased phone-lines, a top-of-the-line Xerox facsimile unit, and even an IBM 360 computer linked by a leased telephone line to the mainframe computer at TnT’s main office in Palmdale. Given the technology of the day, it was a state-of-the-art set up. Melissa also flew down to Palmdale every other week when Jake was on the road. This was the year when Melissa’s businesses accelerated toward the billion dollar corner.

Trish and Debbie made a trip to Chicago to check on the home for teens as soon as Jake returned from Ireland. The home was still open, although without the Tremonts’ money it was on shaky financial ground. Trish was able to find Claudette Nguyen through the staff at the shelter. Because of her age, Claudette had been placed with a foster family. The social service authorities were quick to allow a person of Debbie Turner’s means to petition for adoption of the young girl. Children Claudette’s age were usually hard to adopt out. Paper work would take a couple of months, but in the interim, Debbie secured temporary custody with the case transferred to the Florida Department of Children and Families. Congressman Andrew Wiggins personally vouched for Debbie to the Chicago authorities.

While in Chicago, Trish also found a real estate agent who dealt in expensive properties. She described her wants, which, of course, exactly happened to fit the Tremont mansion. Alfred’s parents, the executors of his estate, put the house on the market in May. Within a week, Trish was back in Chicago signing her intent to purchase the property at the price the Tremonts asked. Alfred’s parents had the house on the market so soon because Alfred’s estate was much smaller than they thought it would be. Alfred and Michelle had barely enough money in the bank to cover the upkeep of the expensive house for more than a few months. The Tremonts and Michelle’s parents, the Osgoods, did keep all of the valuable art but were pleased that Trish bought all the furnishings with the mansion.

Jake and Trish explored the mansion in June while the Yankees were in town playing a three-game series against the Chicago White Sox. Using notes he took from his questioning of Alfred, Jake quickly located the hidden safe as well as the door that led to the labyrinth of hidden passageways. The staff, including George Spivey, had long since cleared out. Trish and Jake were both amazed at the contents of the safe and the secret control room for Alfred’s hidden cameras. The big commercial Diebold safe contained a dozen thick notebooks, a hundred thousand dollars in cash, a ring of keys to the rooms hidden in the secret passages, the location and keys to five safe deposit boxes at various banks, and a heavy velvet bag of gemstones. The camera control room had dozens of neatly labeled Ampex professional recording tapes. Alfred’s control room was on par with most television stations.

Jake took all the Cindy tapes, the dozen notebooks, and the gems. Everything else he left in place for the time being. Jake was stunned at the number of prominent people Alfred had secretly video taped, the neatly labeled boxes were a veritable who’s who of politicians and celebrities. Jake called Cindy from his hotel room and told her he had the tapes. Cindy broke down and cried at the news. No, Jake told her, he had not even considered watching them. He would take them to New York where she could pick them up and destroy them herself.

The bag of cut gems contained millions of dollars worth of diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. Jake would use the stones for years to make gifts for the women in his life. Four of the notebooks contained everything Alfred had memorized about the future his last time through. The notebooks covered politics, markets, social trends, technology, and even sports. Jake put the notebooks in Melissa’s hands. Melissa used them to cautiously increase the family fortune without bringing too much attention to them. The keys to the safe deposit boxes he turned over to Alfred’s father, the executor of the estate. The safe deposit boxes contained tens of millions of dollars worth of futures contracts. In lieu of the reward the elder Tremont offered, Jake asked that they fund a charity in Michelle’s name similar to the one he started in memory of Liz Moran.

Jake also found a cache of the pills Alfred and Michelle used on everyone and the formula for them. Jake turned them over to Carl McClelland to find out how they worked, to find an antidote for them, and to find out if they had some legitimate use. Carl’s research led to a variation of the compound that made Ritalin obsolete before it was invented as a treatment for hyperactivity and attention deficit disorder. Calmacyn-Focusin took the edge off hyperactive children without making them zombies like Ritalin.

Jake and the Yankees had a terrific baseball season, at least as far as wins and losses counted. The tension in the dugout between Coach Martin and Reggie Jackson was divisive, but everyone played their part and played the game to win. Jake had a good year with twenty-two wins against seven losses. He also won a playoff game and a game in the World Series, a series that the Bronx Bombers won, four games to one, against the Dodgers.

Sven Johansson made sure Jake received plenty of press as the All-American boy. Jake’s behavior stood in sharp contrast to the antics of Jackson and Martin. The nick-name ‘Jake the Snake’ took hold and led to some new traditions at the House That Ruth Built. One tradition was that the fans stood up and hissed when Jake had two strikes on a batter, it was awesome to see thousands of fans standing making a snake like ‘ssssssssssss’ sound. Another tradition was Leslie and Nina hanging their Ks on the railing in front of their seats for every batter Jake struck out. They were kept busy as he led the Major Leagues in strike-outs.

Something else Jake did that he down-played and prohibited Sven from promoting was his work with kids. Jake had it put in his contract that he received fifty bleacher seat tickets for each home game. The tickets were distributed to elementary schools throughout the city and given to students as a reward for achievement. The tickets even included hot dogs and a soda for the recipient. Jake tirelessly visited schools to promote staying in school and studying. He also visited children in hospitals, often bringing other players with him. At the stadium, he would sign autographs for kids for as long as he was allowed.

Jake also made his first public service commercial for the Florida National Guard. The commercial opened with a shot of Jake in his Yankees’ uniform standing on the pitchers mound at Yankee Stadium.

“Hello,” Jake says to the camera. “My name is Jake Turner. Most of the year this is my office and this is my uniform.”

Then the scene switches to Jake in fatigues with his head and shoulders projecting out of the track commander’s hatch of an M-113 Armored Personnel Carrier.

“But for one weekend a month and two weeks each summer, this is my uniform and office. Both my jobs are satisfying and rewarding, but my part time service in the Florida National Guard helps guarantee that our nation remains free. Why not visit your local guard unit and become one of us.”

One final baseball tradition started that year that caused him some grief within his family. Starting in 1977, and spanning his ten year major league career, Jake became the nemesis of the Yankees’ hated division rival, the Boston Red Sox. For some baffling reason, when Jake pitched, the Yankees beat Boston as if they were red-headed step-children. It did not matter if they played at Fenway or in the Bronx, or if Jake had his good stuff or not, the results were almost always the same. Since most of Jake’s blood relatives were from Boston, he caught no end of grief over it. Sean Murphy senior, who thought that the Red Sox were the next best thing to being Irish, especially bemoaned Jake’s success against his beloved BoSox.

After the end of the baseball season Jake, Melissa, and their children made their annual pilgrimage to Keelmira. This year Erika and Nina were the only two making the trip with them. Nina had graduated from high school the previous June and settled in as Jake Jr. and Mikayla’s nanny. Jake had tried to convince her to go to college but she demurred. She said she might go later, but for the present, she wanted to be with Jake and Melissa.

Jake and his family stayed in the renovated manor house. Sean and Nina decided that they wanted to live near the water so they had built a house for themselves on one of the bluffs overlooking the sea. Sean was well into his first epic novel based on Corinne’s research. Jake had seen the drafts of some of the chapters and was spellbound by Sean’s riveting prose. Jesus, his cousin was another James Joyce.

Nina Mallory Murphy had the Keelmira Cooperative Bank up and running. The bank was a boon to the people of the village and provided financing for farm and fishing equipment and a local bank for their savings. The villager’s savings deposits quickly equaled the seed money Jake provided. Loans were granted at two percent above what savings accounts paid. The village and its residents started to prosper as a result.

Trish and Leslie did not make the trip to Ireland this year because they were working on expanding the women and children’s shelter they had started in Palmdale. The shelter had grown from a local place into a concept that was drawing interest from around the country. Trish and Leslie imported ideas from the late twentieth century that were radical in 1977. They were radical, but they worked. Counseling, both occupational and personal, daycare for their children, and job placement assistance were taking women off the streets and welfare and turning them into productive citizens.

In addition, Leslie had another reason for staying. The reason was Jake’s old friend Ray Robinson. Now Raeford E. Robinson, Esquire, Attorney-at-Law. Melissa had introduced Leslie and Ray at a fund raiser for Congressman Andrew Wiggins and the rest, as they say, was history. Ray Robinson had graduated from Auburn University with honors and had attended law school at Yale, of all places. His football career at Auburn turned out to be short-lived as a series of knee injuries slowed him a step and kept him from repeating the success he had as a freshman. Ray was a fledgling young prosecutor in the States Attorney’s office making a name for himself in the courtroom. Ray was also a tireless community activist who kept as many young men out of jail by his effort and example as he put in with his hardnosed prosecutorial style. Jake was happily amazed at the chemistry between them as Melissa smugly looked on.

Jake and Melissa spent some much needed quality time together in Keelmira. They were still crazy in love with each other and suffered miserably from their periods of separation during the baseball season. Nina and Erika made sure they had plenty of time together by disappearing with the children every morning for some adventure. Jake and Melissa ran around naked and made whoopee like wanton weasels while they were gone. During a break after a scorching session in the cave by the pool, Melissa brought up the future.

“I can see how baseball is getting you national exposure, Baby, but how are you going to translate that to politics?” she asked.

“In a year or two, I’ll start expressing my views on national issues,” he replied. “A few years after that, I’m going to write a book that will outline a direction for our country. Then the first big step will be a run for congress. Everyone will vote for me because I have the sweetest and most beautiful wife in the world.”

Jake’s statement ended up being partly prophetic. In the future, as he and Melissa became public figures, people were endlessly fascinated by their relationship. Unlike most politicians or celebrities, Jake and Melissa were openly affectionate in public. A few naysayers tried to claim it was strictly put on for the public, but anyone who saw them together knew that was a lie. Women especially thought it was sweet and romantic how they could not keep their hands off each other. Men said that if they were in his place they would be after her all the time as well.