Flames

Chaff and dross can look green and lush to the covetous eye

The orange flames shot up a hundred feet before being swallowed by the smoke and blackness that shrouded the old house in the dead of night. Old boards and plaster along with the bric-a-brac of years of scurrilous living fed the inferno as the heat and consumption intensified its winning battle with the cool air and what was left of a still night.

I heard the sirens in the distance and way down across the fields and beyond the neighborhood's rural mail boxes the red flashing lights of Setterville's all- volunteer fire department rushed toward the insidious fire on the hill. Before they could arrive, the searing hot flames burst through the roof of the attached barn and the one hundred and fifty year old farm of Daniel Patrick McCullough was lost to vengeance.

The official story was bad wiring. The more enlightening story begins with a woman.

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Linda Harris Donaldson McCullough was the unforeseen ubiquitous queen of Setterville. She held the title for three years, 3 months and 3 days, less a few hours or so. Whether she deserved it or not is unimportant but being the wife of Daniel McCullough gained her entry into all the perks and privileges of everything the town had to offer which in hindsight was little more than smoke and memories.

Of course there were the clubs and gatherings with their places of honor and prestige; all things of importance to those who valued any sense of social standing. Certainly there was money; Daniel was wealthier than any other soul not only in the town but throughout the county. It was family money and nearly as old as the house he grew up in. The McCullough's were accustomed to winning and success and when it didn't come through hard work, planning or fortune, it was gained through deceit and trickery.

Linda was accustomed to her good looks and little else or so she thought until she stumbled upon the interest of Daniel McCullough. She was not for lacking in sustenance and substance but genteel wealth was the grass on the other side of the fence or in this case, several stone walls and miles to the east. Until then, her home had been comfortable with all the superfluities of a respectable middle class existence.

It stayed that way until she performed that stumbling trick.

"Jesus, girl, you could have fallen flat on your beautiful ass." Daniel McCullough said to her after he caught her in his arms when she slipped on the little rock that broke her footing.

Linda looked up into the face of the man who held her and thanked him profusely.

"Seriously, you should be more careful here. That could have been a nasty fall."

"I don't know what I was thinking of, sir. I'm so sorry but thank you so much for catching me as you did. It would have been bad indeed." Linda smiled into the man's inquiring face.

Once pulled back together and having straightened the tight skirt and adjusted the high heels, Linda turned again toward the imposing polished brass doorway as Daniel McCullough held the door open for the attractive woman entering his domain. He didn't know who she was but he knew then he wanted her even if to merely enjoy the forbidden fruit beneath the overly short skirt. The glittering ring on her left hand was mostly unremarkable in his mind even it was of paramount importance to another. The McCullough's took what they wanted and Daniel was well trained in his predatory ways.

Once inside the fox turned right and the prey moved to the left toward the bank of elevators to continue her journey to the offices of Ladson, McCullough, Sperry, LLP. The morning paper had an advertisement for an administrative assistant position with the firm offering a modest salary and benefits for a Monday to Friday position that seemed suitable for Linda's talents and limited ambitions.

"Mrs. Donaldson, I'm sure we will come to a comfortable agreement on the particulars and we'll cover all the paper work later I'm sure but for now I'd like to welcome you to the firm." The old man smiled with his handshake and roving eye.

As she sat there in the opposing chair, Tom Ladson could barely contain himself from spilling drool down his mottled chin. Linda's skirt had risen high on the seat exposing an inappropriate expanse of smooth thigh. He may have been an old man well past his seventies but his memory still aroused him even if his physical limitations constrained him to the present state.

On the other hand, Daniel McCullough viewed the exchange between the two with more than curiosity. There was something about the woman that stirred him, more than sexual interest. Her beauty was intoxicating and the manner in which she innocently presented herself amplified a desire to have her, to possess her as his. He gazed longingly through the two way glass mirror on the wall at the raven haired beauty as she crossed her legs and smiled, the very rising of her bosom with each breath fastening his eyes to the spectacle.

"Thank you, Mr. Ladson. I'm so happy to be working for you and I won't disappoint you, I'm sure."

She rose from her seat and Ladson led her off to another office for introductions as Daniel stood there transfixed, intoxicated by both lust and desire. Tom wasn't hiring her for himself. She was going to be working for Dave Sperry, the other senior in the group; at least that was the plan. Before the day was out she was reporting directly to Daniel McCullough, the managing senior partner of the firm.

Mrs. Linda Donaldson was the 30 year old raving beautiful wife of ten years to a rather simple man with simple tastes, Liam Donaldson. She came from modest stock and until these events had never expressed an outward interest for the things of privilege. Liam was a middle level manager for a small manufacturer on the outskirts of town with a salary and expectations for more when time and experience allowed. The home was pleasant with plenty of room and a patio and pool added for frequent entertaining among their friends and neighbors.

Linda and her husband moved here from a larger city for the opportunity with the plant a few years earlier and Linda had left a decent position with a law firm in favor of her husband's more lucrative opportunity. Yet, boredom set in and she decided she needed to go back to work.

For Daniel McCullough, Linda's boredom would prove to be an opportunity for both of them and ultimately at Liam's expense.

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Linda was the woman and I'm Liam, her ex-husband. I suppose I could be considered simple in some respects. That was certainly McCullough's unlearned opinion of me and I guess to a great extent it must have been Linda's as well as she left me for the bastard. In any event I survived all in one piece.

Linda started working for McCullough the following Monday after her interview and settled into her role quite successfully from her accounts. It was basically an 8 to 5 job initially but that changed after a few months. She started working a couple evenings during the week and would get home around 9 or 10PM. I was spending enough time of my own at the plant so I couldn't really complain a great deal. Regardless of the workweek, we were together every weekend and life continued to be good or at least it appeared that way.

It was around six months after she started working at the firm that I finally got to meet her boss. I wasn't looking forward to it but it was the annual Christmas party and it was held at the McCullough family farm a couple miles outside of town. It was an old post-antebellum home with an attached garage and barn sitting on top of a hill overlooking rolling fields and woods and meadows beyond. Neat, orderly stone walls guarded the manicured fields as you drove up the road to the entranceway.

Linda was wearing a dark blue dress cut to mid- thigh with an open back and ample cleavage in front. Her heels accentuated her long legs and she had her dark hair up in a tight French braid. The look was finished with a single strand of white pearls. I simply wore a white shirt with dark slacks and polished cowboy boots along with the customary smile.

We argued about that for a short bit before we left but eventually Linda just threw her hands up and off we went. We were greeted at the door by a polite young lady who showed us into the sitting room along with several other guests and we were met by the charming Mr. Daniel McCullough himself. Apparently there was no Mrs. McCullough, something my wife had failed to mention over the last several months.

"Linda, I'm so glad you made it." He said as he embraced my wife and gave her a kiss on the lips.

"You must be Linda's husband, Liam. I've heard so much about you" He said to me as he took my hand in his and attempted to assert his dominance.

Our palms met and as he applied the unnecessary squeezing force of his hand, I returned it doubly so all the while assessing this stranger with my eyes locked on his. He shouldn't have kissed my wife on the lips.

I felt him inadvertently relax his grip.

"Yes, I am Liam, pleased to meet you." I lied while looking him straight in the eye. He should NOT have kissed my wife.

McCullough led us and several others through the house and into a great room where we mingled and chatted and entertained each other with tales of our moribund lives. Fortunately, several of the guests were quite interesting and I actually enjoyed myself, so much so that I lost account of my wife for quite some time. I glanced around a couple of times and just assumed she was off with some of the other women so I returned my attention to the fellows I was chatting with.

About an hour later Linda slipped into my arm and returned to being the dutiful wife at her husband's side. I asked her where she had been off to and she just said 'women's talk'. We left a short while after that and when we had returned home, she excused herself for a bit and showered before coming to bed.

That was the beginning of my decline as the respected husband although as with many decays it was gradual until I was pushed off into the abyss. Linda became something of a stranger over the course of the next few months culminating with the blue white heat of lightening striking the center of the kitchen table in the form of a manila envelope.

I knew we had been drifting apart lately but I hadn't been paying attention to the ominous signs. Linda was working more and longer hours with an occasional Saturday thrown in for good measure. I had been passed over for the general manufacturing manager's job for a favorite of the plant manager. It wasn't all that unexpected but in Linda's mind it just reinforced her perception of the drudgery of our middle class existence; drudgery I was utterly unaware of.

Maybe all the signs were there and I was just too much of an ignoramus to see them. Maybe the Christmas party and her convenient disappearing act should have offered insight into the calamity brewing just over my horizon. In hindsight, I was just a happy and blind dumbass with a beautiful wife set in the sights of a lecherous predator...

She wasn't home. Everything had been cleaned up and nothing looked out of place. The only thing greeting me was that damn envelope sitting in the middle of the table. I glanced at the letterhead and started to tense up. In the upper left corner was the script of Ladson, McCullough, Sperry, LLP with just my name underneath it.

I cautiously opened it and lay the contents onto the table. There is some truth to the notion of startled immobility. I learned that the soul can stand still in spite of all the senses being fired for some kind of response. The last item out of the envelope, and I almost missed it among the papers, was the small diamond engagement ring I had given to Linda over ten years earlier. It belonged to my mother who passed when I was 17 years old and my father gave it to me when I told him I was going to propose to Linda. It was a simple heirloom but precious nonetheless.

When I saw it, I didn't need to know any more but I read it anyway. She had given me a petition for the dissolution of marriage, all signed and notarized, neat and tidy. Interestingly, she asked for nothing other than the cash she had already taken. There were three sets of documents, one for me and the other two to be signed, notarized and returned.

I sat in the chair looking at them and felt nothing but hollowness, the pit; no tears but plenty of rage. For me it was an easy decision. I rose, grabbed the papers, a box of matches and walked out onto the patio. Every piece of the paperwork went into the fire pit and I burned the entire lot.

'Fuck you, Linda! It isn't going to end that way!' I screamed inside my gutted shell. I didn't know where she was. Her cell phone had no answer. All her family was a couple hundred miles away. It was 2PM on a Wednesday afternoon.

The polished brass door to Ladson, McCullough, Sperry, LLP flung open with ease and the click clack of cowboy boots and the vapor of several glasses of cognac trailed behind me when I stood at her empty desk.

"Where the hell is she?" I asked nobody in particular.

A couple of the office workers scurried away perhaps looking for the angry person alarm and the bomb shelter.

"She isn't here and if you were half as smart as the shoe leather in your boots you'd get the hell out of here."

He stood looking at me with his polished Brooks Bros shoes and $2,000 suit, Mr. Daniel Patrick McCullough himself. His salt and pepper hair and slim frame just accented how much of a prick he actually is.

"What the fuck do you mean she isn't here? She works here, doesn't she?"

When the corners of his mouth began to turn up into the McCullough sneer I recognized my nemesis and interlocutor. In the back of my mind I thought of the missing Christmas Party hour and in the forefront, all the long evening hours away from home working diligently for her boss.

"Donaldson, you can leave now or you can be escorted out. Linda is staying in a safe place and you have no more say in her affairs."

I started to allow my better judgement to get the best of me and began to turn toward the door. Then he made that sound. It was that nasty puckered kissing noise just loud enough for me to hear, the sound of making me out to be a pussy cuck. When I turned his sneer was a grin and then he made the mistake of opening his mouth and speaking almost in a whisper.

"That desirable piece of ass is mine now. Get out of my office."

Stupidity comes in several brands and flavors. His was mouthy and foul. Mine was hard and bloody. When I reached him his shirt was in my hand and the other hand was pummeling the shit out of his eyes and ears. I saw the blood and spittle along with the teeth on the floor but I wasn't done. The heel of my middle class and polished cowboy boot found his groin and whatever pleasure my unfaithful wife had derived was going to have to wait a season for replenishment but before I could utterly destroy his manhood, my world went black...

Staring at the ceiling in a lockup is the predominant pastime of every soul that graces the establishment with their presence. The sickly color of its putrid pea soup green walls and the glaring lights hidden behind a rusty wire mesh do nothing to comfort the disturbances all around. The loud obnoxious clang of steel doors shutting its occupants inside for another series of bad food and poor company is a constant throughout the day. The only lull in activity comes around 1AM or so when newcomers at the iron resort are held downstairs in the reception center until processed in the morning.

I sat there for 2 days and 20 minutes waiting first for a hearing before a magistrate and then a couple hours until my lawyer arranged bail. It cost me $5,000 bond money to do it but finally late Friday afternoon I walked out into sunshine and a new fucked up world.

"Liam, listen, I know it's a god damn fucking shame but I want you to stay low and out of any trouble, you hear me?" Jake Reynolds said to me over a pint that evening.

Jake was the guy who hired me three years ago and had been my mentor since day one, his choice for the job I was passed over for and I had nothing but the highest respect for the old fellow. He peered out from those deep set eyes and bushy brows as he sipped the double IPA he always had in front of him.

"That fucking McCullough will do you in if you ain't careful, young man. He and his ilk pretty much own anybody and everybody who does squat in this town, including the god damn judge you are going to have to go before.

"I've talked with the old man about this and he's good with keeping you on board no matter what. Apparently there is some bad blood between him and the McCullough's going back to when he built this plant ten years ago. I don't know the whole story but there sure as hell is no love affair between them."

I thanked the old fellow immensely for sticking by me. More than likely I was going to face some serious jail time before it was over but my lawyer thought I might get off with a year in county lockup and a couple years suspended if I was fortunate. If I wasn't I could get five years in a medium security correctional facility. Keeping my nose clean was the deciding factor.

I bought another round for us and we parted company for the night.

I had done a number on Daniel McCullough that was going to take some time for him to recover. From a couple of the neighborhood accounts, the lothario had a broken cheek bone and several front teeth knocked out and eyes that would stay blackened for some time. The scuttlebutt was that I had ruptured one of his nuts and the other one was precarious. I have no idea how people come by such information but it was at least comforting to think I accomplished something for all the trouble I was in.

As for Linda, I had a restraining order against me preventing me from just about anything connected to her or McCullough. I did find out that she was residing at the McCullough farm and apparently still working at the law offices. The restraining order was a problem in a town like this.

It's a small world. I couldn't be within 500 feet of her, the prick or their offices. That meant I couldn't even drive down Main Street or eat in the three restaurants located right in the heart of downtown. Technically, just going to court would violate the order.

That first weekend out of jail was a tough time. Being an imbecile for not seeing this coming at me didn't make it any harder to lose the woman I had loved like no other for ten years. I shed a lot of tears in solitude over those two days and I drank a lot of booze but on Monday morning I went back to work and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the reception I received.

It seems the work crews were quite admirable of my red neck responses to a prick stealing my wife away from me; even several of the women at the plant stopped by to see how I was doing. I wasn't going there in the wounded emotional condition I was in but it was comforting and a boost to my male ego.

My court date was in three weeks and the time did fly. I stayed out of trouble with no further encounters with both parties and my attorney and I walked into court on a cool Monday morning. Several of my co-workers were in the public seating area and McCullough and Linda were seated behind the district prosecutor. McCullough just glared at me while Linda stared into her hands almost catatonically.

My attorney had met with the prosecutor the previous week and they reached a plea agreement that I didn't look forward to but was better than the alternative five years. I would surrender to the county lockup to serve a sentence of one year with four years suspended subject to good behavior. I also had to pay restitution to McCullough in the sum of $20,000 for medical costs. The bastard was a millionaire so it was all bullshit but I agreed of course.