No Reply: Hope

Together, HDK and GeorgeAnderson crafted one of LW's greatest stories in "No Reply" and "No Reply: Answered." In her comment, Black Randi put it this way:

Having said that, and acknowledging the polish of the writing craft, George set himself to the hardest task in the LW genre. HDK did the same in the original story. I have done it before, and many good writers have tried. That task is to set up a set of circumstances where a wife making an unwilling cuckold out of her husband can be, if not justified, at least mitigated. George, and HDK before him, did the best that could be done.

Ultimately, they failed, and I failed and everyone else has failed, because the fact remains that it's inexcusable. There is no set of circumstances that will make it any better.

Did HDK and GA ultimately fail? I say no. Perhaps they did not redeem what Debbie did, but they succeeded in making us look at our notions of selfishness, control, vanity, jealousy, anger, hope, love and the power of forgiveness. I am grateful to George for his prowess as a story doctor and HDK's support for my writing and permission to add to his classic. Where this story may miss the mark or go off-track, the failure is mine. By the way, everybody's over age 18.

No Reply: Hope

What happened ...

***

"So, this whole sorry mess was about you wanting to have a week with the little fucker? As far as you were concerned, the tradition thing was just an excuse?"

"I still wish you wouldn't call him that, but yes, I decided that I wanted my week with Jeff. Bill, I never lied to you. I admit I didn't tell you the whole truth, but I didn't lie, and I told you more of the truth than your mother said I should. We both thought you would figure it out and wouldn't like it. That's why I told you when I did, to give you a week to get used to the idea. We thought it would bother you less if we talked about the tradition, which you had already benefited from. Obviously, that didn't work so now I'm telling you everything."

"If your mind was made up weeks before, why did you wait so long to offer me my one chance to tell you what you should have known all along?" She didn't rise to the bait.

"Because if I told you earlier, you might have canceled your trip, and we would have had to figure out something else to get you out of the way. I know that sounds terrible, but I won't lie to you. I would have done whatever I need to have my week with Jeff."

"You wanted it that badly?"

"Yes, I did. Every woman my age in your family has had this; why shouldn't I? Their marriages are all fine, and you can't tell me that you're the only husband who figured it out. As I told your mother, you wouldn't kick me to the curb and throw out twenty-plus years of marriage over something that only lasted a week. I knew my marriage was safe, the whole idea was incredibly exciting, and I did it."

"Did it live up to expectations?" My good intentions were history. I was seething now.

She looked me in the eye. "Yes, Bill, it did."

And went another way ...

I needed to separate myself from Debbie before my anger got out of control. There was a connection that I needed to make but was just out of my grasp. I could sense it, but I couldn't put it into words. Why was I so angry? That was a damn good question. My marriage was going down the tubes unless I got my shit together; I could see that. But every damn time I thought about what Debbie had done and now, what she had just said to me, I lost it. What she said ... her words ... had me boiling.

I have an office in the house and a workshop in the barn out back. I was about to close the office door behind me when I felt something, I turned around to see Debbie looking at me, defiant. She started to say "one last thing," but I cut her off. The look on her face finally gave me the connection I hadn't been able to make.

"I get it now, Debbie. This was never about sex. The sex was just a trophy that you women waved around to show us men who is boss." I stared my wife down. I had wimped out too long, but I was all done with that now.

"And yeah, you're right. I can't kick you to the curb even if I want to. It would bankrupt us. What would it do to our son Jason's life? What would he say?" That had me really hot. Six years ago, Jason was off planting trees. Yeah, I knew about it and Debbie knew Jason and I never talked about it. How's that for ruling by guilt? Debbie had known about this goddamn tradition at least since at least Jason's summer and been planning her turn for a lot longer then she let on. I was mad at myself too. I must have realized what was going to happen when Jason went off and I let it happen. I was too whipped to say "no," too embarrassed so I denied to myself that anything happened. How weak is that? Not any more, no way!

"You were counting on me realizing how fucked I am, Debbie, by all you did. You were counting on me giving up. You had me where you wanted me, didn't you, my loving wife? What you really did was to walk me to the curb and tell me to sit my dumb, fat ass down. So, now my slut wife, who fucks how she wants, rules the roost and I can squat in my spot and get used to it."

Debbie tried to interrupt but I kept talking right over her, my voice getting louder. "Oh no, Debbie, I'm not stopping there." She glared back at me, daring me to go on. It was not one of her smartest ideas. I was much to hot for her to pull that trick off.

"So, it comes your turn to fuck some young stuff and you make sure there's nothing I can do. Don't you see how that makes me feel? I can't even turn to my mother. She's behind it all and you women have emasculated every other man I might call on."

"Bill, you know better," Debbie snapped. "You could have said no but you didn't."

"Don't go there, Debbie," I shouted. "Remember, you're the one who said that even if I had said no, ... that even if I had forbidden it ... you'd would just have gone off and done it behind my back. If that isn't cheating, I don't know what is. Your partners in crime had your back so bad I never had a chance." I couldn't keep a sneer off my face. I was destroying my marriage and I didn't care.

"So, it's really about you having your way, no matter what. Who cares what happens to anyone else? Debbie's in charge. I just hope you're proud of yourself." I slammed the door behind me, not caring what Debbie's reaction was. She'd be pissed and maybe scared shitless, but I doubted that. I could hear Debbie's voice, yakking at somebody. I figured it was my mother, the other woman ruining my life. I couldn't make out the words, but she sounded mad. Fuck 'em both. The last thing I did before I closed the office door was to hit the Stop Recording button on my phone.

I sat there for a long time, trying to think things through. I had no experience to guide me, just my own sense of right and wrong. Yeah, I know, that's stuff you're supposed to learn at your mother's knee. That was a confidence builder.

My own father was the one who called us all dumb sons a'bitches. Give it up for Dad; he's no bullshitter. That's exactly what we all were. Take the trees, for instance. What was big deal about the trees?

The way I was looking at things now, putting the trees outside my house was my wife hanging the horns on me. Debbie was telling the world that she made me her cuckold. Uncle Steve tried to make a joke out of those trees, but I didn't hear anybody laughing. Dumb sons a'bitches that we were, we had just been taking it. I thought about calling my Dad but didn't. He was too beaten down and I didn't want to embarrass him any more than my mother and my wife already had.

I keep an old-fashioned phone book, the written kind - names and numbers. Pretty much everyone I ever knew is in that book, one way or another. I'm a Mason so I called my cousin George. He's about my age and has a fine stand of maple trees. Think he might be in the "club?" I told him what was going on between me and Debbie and asked what he thought I should do. George hemmed and hawed and then admitted he decided not to fight it. When his wife Gail dropped the hammer on him, they had four kids, a mortgage and college tuitions to lug. George may move slow but he's sharp. He figured it all out years ago but kept his mouth shut. He did say that it never stopped bothering him. George's younger brother, Sam, said about the same. Tom and Ed Fullmer were no different. The younger guys, Will, Sandy and Mike Gray, and Pat and Tim Burrows, had all been boytoys within recent memory and were not happy with what they knew was coming. Some of them might have figured the big picture but nobody had said anything up to now.

As the afternoon when by, I noticed something. When I called Will Gray, Sam Mason had already talked with him. By the time I got to the Burrows brothers, lots of husbands were talking back and forth on their own. I hadn't meant to get everyone riled up but clearly, I'd unleashed something. Maybe it was for the best, but I was beginning to fear it was turning out for the worst.

What I didn't know was that George called my father after he talked with me. Then, my Dad had a talk with Mom. He must have told her that he had heard Debbie and I might be breaking up. The story came back to me that Mom smart-mouthed him back that obviously Dad hadn't done much of job talking to me during the fishing trip. She let Dad know that as far as she was concerned, he could get his ass in gear and fix things before they got out of hand. If he screwed up twice, she'd do it herself. When my father called George back, his voice was shaking at the disrespect in his wife's voice. My Dad said he was going to call me and let me know how things were between Mom and him, but George said not to bother. He'd let me know. Instead, Dad could start calling around to help George reaching out. My father is the patriarch and when he told us men he had had enough, as he did in every call he made, everything changed from words to action. I never thought it would go so far.

A couple of days later, I got an email from George, saying that there was going to be a meeting at my place on Saturday. That was the first I knew of it. By this point, I was looking for a way to get less involved and called George to find out what was going on.

"Bill, I'm sorry that I sprung this on you, but things are moving fast. Your situation and what people are saying about it, plus what happened to your Dad, it's got all the men stirred up. There's talk of taking steps, and I'm getting afraid. A lot of what's getting said is stupid. Someone's gonna get hurt or go to jail unless something gets done. Your dad and Uncle Steve will be there, but they want us to call the meeting. That means me and you run the show. I put it at your place because most everybody lives near you and I'm not so close." Shit, I was exactly in the spot where I was trying not to go.

Debbie and I almost never talked. I moved out of the house and into my workshop. I'd see her taking out the trash or driving off. I didn't try to talk with her and, to be honest, I didn't know what to say. Most times I wanted to hit her. All I knew is that I couldn't bear to get caught up in another nasty argument. I wouldn't survive it.

Saturday morning came and I was sweeping the barn floor when cars started to arrive. Pretty soon, pickups and SUVs were parked in the side lot and the south field. It's a big family and we're scattered across 11 counties. Some of us haven't seen each other in years and we needed to catch up. Some of us were new and needed to be introduced. As they arrived, the men greeted who they knew and introduced themselves to the faces they hadn't met yet. I wandered around, making sure there was coffee. What I was really doing was intercepting beer and hard liquor. Getting drunk was not going to help.

As I walked around, I heard the men exchange notes on what they knew or heard. The thing I noticed was that no one mentioned names. Some were willing to talk about their time as a boytoy but none of them ever said with who. What they held back was not a well-kept secret; what mattered was that they were too embarrassed to say. We compared notes and figured out that there were three groups. First were the ones who had been boytoys but hadn't been cuckolded yet. Next were the ones who were both boytoys and cuckolds, like George and me. Last were the young ones, the ones just about start down our road. Inviting that last group was a judgment call that we left it to their fathers.

From time to time, I'd catch Debbie looking out the window. So, I knew she was watching us. Our voices were carrying so I figured she pretty much knew what we were saying. A couple of times, she had the phone to her ear when I saw her. It was no mystery who she was calling. I let the men talk a while longer because, not long after, cars started to arrive again. They'd park out by the road or on the front lawn. One or more women would get out and hurry into the house. I wanted to let that crowd build. Anyway, before long, it was time for the men to talk.

"George and I want to thank all of you for coming." I opened the meeting.

"This is hard. I never wanted to be doing something like this. What I have to say is going to make you angry. Probably more angry than you've ever been. If you can't handle that, if you don't want to be part of this, now's the time to go." I waited but no one moved. "You may know by now that the women of this family cheat on us with young boys. Maybe you were one of those boys. Maybe your wife cheated on you with one of those boys. Maybe both. I'm saying all this because I'm both and I'm sorry if you are too. Some of you, maybe, are finding out about this for the first time. If that's the case, it's a shock but you need to know.

"It doesn't matter how you fit into this, what you did, what you know, what your wife or your mom has lined up for you; it doesn't matter. We're all brothers in this. We're here to have our say and put a stop to it. We all need each other's help because what we're up against is rough. Here's what my wife told me less than 24 hours ago." I watched faces harden as the recording played. By the time the recording ended, every man in the room was ice cold in his heart and beyond words.

I could see the thunderhead about to shoot lightening. "I didn't bring us together to be a lynch mob."

I needed to make them think, get them to realize what was at stake. "We have families with wives and kids. All vengeance gets us is misery. There's been talk of burning our bitch wives down but what does that do? Far as I can see, it's poverty and damaged children. But we can't go on like this." I was trying but the men were slipping away.

My son Jason was in the crowd. I had been so wrapped up in keeping a tight lid on what was going on, I forgot that he had his boytoy turn 6 years ago. I guess I figured enough time had passed and he had himself under control. That turned out to be a mistake. And another mistake was not spotting Jeff Emerson when he arrived. Jeff gave me a sheepish smile and I gave him a nod. Given what was going on, how could I stay mad at him? Jason took Jeff's smile the wrong way.

"You think it's funny?!! You think fucking my mother is funny? I'll kill you, you son of a bitch!!" Jason came out of nowhere, charging Jeff, knocking him down and beating the shit out of him. By the time a couple of the men pulled him off, Jason punched out both of Jeff's eyes, bloodied his mouth and probably busted some ribs. Someone else got Jeff up and into a vehicle to the ER. Jason was out back, bawling. I talked to him, but he was emotionally all mixed up. He had done the same thing Jeff did and felt guilty about that. The man he had cuckolded was in the crowd. Seeing Jeff smirking (Jason's words) was more than my son could take.

It got quiet pretty fast after that. The way two good, young men had wound up, one in the hospital and the other maybe in jail, got to us. If we didn't step up and do something, things were going to get really bad. Sure as hell, our women weren't going to get us off the hook.

I saw Debbie and some of the other women openly weeping as Jeff was carried off, covered in blood. I walked up to them. I made things worse by saying things that were hateful. "Was it worth it, Debbie? Look what you've done. You probably just put your boy in jail. You got your little fucker in the hospital. You said you'll do anything to get some young stuff. Looks like you mean it."

"Don't blame me for this, Bill" Debbie fired right back." You're the asshole that decided to rip all these families apart. Everything was fine until your male ego got in the way. You got Jason so mad, what with all your beating the drums, getting all you men riled up, he went crazy. What happened to Jeff is on you. And so is your son, if he goes to jail. So, I hope your happy."

"Looks to me like the only thing your really care about is losing your ready supply of boy toys, Debbie. So, don't be pointing fingers." If things could get worse, I didn't see how.

Things broke up fast after that. Everyone drifted away. Jeff told the police at the hospital that he was jumped by guys he didn't know. He said they took his money, but he never got a good look at them. I told Jason to thank Jeff for sparing him a jail sentence and giving him back his life.

George called me the next day to say thanks for taking the lead, and sorry that it had gone so wrong. He was calling around and everyone was saying that things had gone too far. They wanted their wives to accept responsibility and face up to what they had done, but no one would openly say they wanted a divorce. But who knew? Maybe, some did. Bottom line, the husbands wanted to be treated with respect and not be made into fools. The problem was that the women had always acted as a group and the men never had. The men who were quieter and more easy-going were afraid they'd be left behind and find themselves back where they started, while the more vocal husbands moved on. What was needed was somebody to speak for all of us and try to work something out. There was another round of phone calls as the men talked out what to do and who might be a spokesman for us all. Two weeks later, the men took a vote; it came out "yes" to working things out. I was fine with that, that's how I voted. I wasn't so fine when they all picked me to do the talking for them.

I called Debbie on her mobile and told her what the men were trying to do. Would the wives pick someone to represent them to work things out? It took some time. I was not surprised when they picked Debbie to speak for their side. That Sunday afternoon was perfect weather, and I was pruning some fruit trees. Debbie walked out from the kitchen. I put down my shears and we made our way to each other. I felt the weight of the men, who pinned their hopes on me. I was sure Debbie felt the same way.

"Do the men want to throw us out?" My wife's eyes were heavy-lidded from crying, and she was trembling with exhaustion and fear.

"I don't know," I told her. "Truthfully, I just don't know. Some of them, yeah, they might want you gone. They'd like to burn you all down for what you did. But there are others, maybe most of us, who want a way to make things right and move on." Debbie nodded at that. Maybe there was reason to hope; she could take that back.

"Bill, I am sorry. ... We're all sorry how this happened, how we treated you all and how we may have destroyed relationships that used to work. And I feel so guilty about what I said to you. I told you I would lie to you and go behind your back to cheat. I'm so scared, ... so scared that you won't ever forgive me and that I've ruined our marriage."