*Author's Note: Any and all persons engaging in any sexual activity are at least eighteen years of age.
Disclaimers: Yes, I need an Editor; no I do not want an Editor. Yes, there's too many people to keep track of. Yes, it jumps around too much. Yes it's too long. Yes it's too short. Yes it's in the wrong category. Yes, this is stupid shit, confusing shit. And, yes, I am barely literate, hardly legible. Honestly? Why even bother?
Just scroll down to the bottom and leave comments based solely on the Disclaimers.
For everyone else, I hope you enjoy this little tale.
*****
**2008**
Storm clouds were on the horizon; Joe Gaudet had seen them brewing from a while. He slowly decreased his activities, always keeping an eye on the line of clouds.
The housing market was far too tumultuous. People that did not qualify for home loans were being given home loans. People that could ill-afford their monthly payments were given ARM loans with false ceilings. As soon as their rates were inflated to their true value, those people would go from paying three and four hundred a month, to suddenly being responsible for twelve to fifteen hundred a month. With no way to pay those exorbitant notes.
There were more buyers than sellers, people in and around DeGarde, Louisiana were building houses at a frantic pace and the homes were being snatched up before the sheet rock was even hung. Joe knew that the frenzied pace simply could not be sustained.
The storm clouds of the late spring of 2008 were not just in the housing market, or the political arena. There were also storm clouds in his own happy home.
The CFO of St. Elizabeth's Water & Sewage pulled up to the modest home he and his wife Gretchen and her two daughters, Glenda and Gertrude Longlinais lived in. The grayish white brick structure had a dark Forest green trim. The overhangs and gutters were painted forest green. The front door and faux wooden shutters were painted forest green. The garage door was painted a stark white, though, to tie the grayish white brick and green together.
"Leave it to a woman to think of that crap," Joe muttered as he parked to the left side of the driveway, leaving Gretchen room to pull her minivan in and out of the garage.
It was a two car garage, but Joe's side of the garage was taken up by his Harley Davidson Fat Boy.
From driveway to front door was a small walkway. And between walkway and the exterior wall of the home was a grayish white brick flower box. When he and Gretchen had bought the house, the 'perfect little house for you and me and the girls,' that flower box had contained nothing but raw dirt. Now there were flowers planted. Clumps and clumps of colored blooms, brightening up the home. Brightening it up on the outside.
The inside was a different matter altogether. Inside, Gretchen, for whatever reason, had become more and more dissatisfied. Yet she would not say why she was dissatisfied.
Glenda, at thirteen years old, and Gertrude, 'Rudy' at eleven years old, were constant sources of irritation to him. Both girls constantly reminded him that he was not their father; they did not have to listen to him. Both girls, however, were very quick to come to him with a hand out when they wanted something.
When they had first come together, Gretchen had asked Joe if he would consider adopting her then ten and eight year old girls.
"What? Gretchen, they already have a father," Joe reminded her. "I am not going to take any child away from their father."
Vickie, his first wife had done exactly that to Joe. She had met and run off with a Columbian national. They had taken J.J., Joseph Junior back to Columbia with them. Nine years and Thousands of dollars later, Joe was no closer to ever seeing his son than he had been the day Vickie had emptied his bank account and flown out of the country with the then six year old J.J.
"David Longlinais might be an asshole, but he is still their father," Joe had said.
Standing in front of the house, Joe looked again at the flowers, then shook his head. He dug in his trousers pocket for his keys and pulled the screen door open.
"Joe? Hey Joe?" a man called out.
Joe turned and saw a morbidly obese man waddling toward him as quickly as his tree trunk legs could carry him. The man's face was bathed in sweat, his cheap suit looked sodden with sweat.
"Son of a bitch it's hot, huh?" the man wheezed as he neared Joe.
"Yeah and it's not even June yet," Joe agreed.
"And, you've been served," Reynold Reynolds said, handing Joe a manila envelope.
"What a shock," Joe said drily.
"Sorry, Joe; it's just a job, you know?" Reynold shrugged.
"No, no, guess you don't remember. Nine years ago, you did the same thing when my wife Vickie skipped the country," Joe said.
"Oh. Sorry," Reynold said, actually looking uncomfortable.
Joe did not respond, just unlocked the door to his home and stepped in.
"Son of a bitch!" he bellowed, seeing the bare living room.
The kitchen was also devoid of any furniture.
The den, the room he used as his home office was also stripped clean.
A check of the closet door showed some tool marking; someone had tried desperately to pry the closet door open. Joe pulled his key ring out and unlocked the closet door. He then breathed a sigh of relief. The file cabinet as still there and a quick check of all the drawers showed that they had not emptied the files.
The safe on top of the sturdy cabinet was also still there. He quickly spun the dial and again breathed a sigh of relief.
Locking the closet securely, Joe completed his inspection of the rest of the house. The two bedrooms, Glenda and Gertrude's rooms were barren.
While the master bedroom was bare, the closet still held his suits. His jeans and underwear and socks, those things that had occupied the dresser had been flung onto the floor in a careless pile.
Then he returned to the closet one more time. His gun safe had been removed. He mentally kicked himself; the contractor had suggested bolting the massive safe to the concrete floor, but Joe had not done this. It had taken four men with straps to get the bulky cabinet into the closet in the first place; surely no thief could be able to get it out.
"A bitchy wife? Well, that's a different matter, ain't it?" Joe muttered to himself, looking at the depression the massive safe had made in the plush carpet.
Joe returned to the kitchen and looked at the envelope that Reynold Reynolds had given to him.
"Kenneth Prejean," he muttered.
"Jesse Johnson's office," Terri Broussard, Jesse Johnson's latest personal assistant intoned.
"Jesse Johnson please, this is Joe Gaudet," Joe said.
"And whom may I say is calling?" Terri asked.
"Joe Gaudet," Joe repeated.
Jesse did not hire personal assistants for their brains. He hired them for their bra size. His favorite joke was that it was not their 'dictation' that impressed him as much as it was their 'dick taking.'
"Jesse speaking," Jesse said.
"Jesse, this is Joe," Joe said. "Gretchen filed for divorce, came home to an empty house."
Joe described the condition of the home, then had a horrifying thought. He ran to the garage and screamed in rage when he saw that his Harley's cover was lying on the ground, but his bike was nowhere in sight.
