Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Note: If you did not read A Riddle is Solved Murders, click the link HERE.  Otherwise, this part three might not make sense.

I’m Lieutenant Deviled Yeggs.  I work homicide in the big city of Tracy.  Working for me are my old partners: Detective Sgt. Jim Wednesday and Detective Poached Yeggs, my nephew who is slowly becoming a good detective.

But tonight, this was family business.  Poached was visiting along with Margie and her parents, Roman and Jah-Rae Justice.  They brought their middle daughter Fran along for support.  Callie and Ibie had come with Poached.  The four and eight ninths of our family minus Easter were here.  But no one else was here.

Glyce had purchased a deli tray and a cookie tray, but no one was very hungry.  This was something serious, but I had a feeling there would be nothing left of the trays by the time we were through.

Poached asked to speak first.  We wanted to know what had happened at the all-athlete and coaches meeting at Flintheart High School.  Poached said, “This afternoon, we had an all-athlete meeting at the high school.  We had all the coaches there.  The principal read the new rules that if the coaches did not abide by those rules, they would lose their jobs.  I then got up and confessed what happened my freshman year of high school and how a group of seniors taught me how to provide sexual pleasure to a girl.  They formed a little club where I was the servant to all these girls.  I didn’t care because I was having sex with a different girl every night, and sometimes two girls, but they had started using it as a club within female athletics at Flintheart.  I quit before my senior year.  I was developing a bad reputation and I wanted to be a police detective, like my uncle, who is now Lt. Deviled Yeggs, homicide.  I have recently found out that the unofficial club continued with boyfriends filling in my role.  But as of now, if the club remains in business, it will not be on school grounds, and I begged with the athletes to stop it now.  Any hazing or peer pressure, even off school grounds will result in dismissal from athletic activities.  Since there has always been peer pressure with the club, the club has to disband or totally restructure itself.”

Poached continued, “That’s when I asked Minnie Others to speak.  She talked about how she had been pressured as a freshman to sleep with me and for the next two years, I was her only contact with the opposite sex, once a month, on the sixteenth, since that was her jersey number.  A lot of the girls had done that.  When I went cold turkey and quit, she had no idea how to date a boy.  She was a four-year letter earner in three or four sports, but all she knew was sex.  It made dating awkward until she gave up on dating.  Now she is dating a policeman from our precinct, Guy Weiss.  He is the perfect gentleman, but every time either of them kisses or they put their arms around each other, it immediately becomes awkward.  Guy is understanding, and maybe a little awkward with dating women anyway.  But Minnie got the attention of the girls.  Her picture is still on the walls in the gym.  But what the new rules are is that there will be monitors to ensure only ladies in the girl’s locker room and showers and only men in the boy’s locker room and showers.  No invading of privacy unless there is evidence of a breach of conduct which will mean an immediate suspension from school and expulsion from athletics for a period to be commensurate with the violation.”

Roman said, “They should have had that in place a long time ago, but I talked with a few coaches, and they trusted the children.  They watched the hallways, but the girls especially knew how to get the guys into the locker room unnoticed.  But now, Margie, you wanted to make a confession of your own.”

Margie sniffled.  She turned to Poached, “Thank you for your talk this afternoon at the gym.  And thank Minnie Others.  Her talk let me know that I have to recover from this trauma and get things straight in my life.”

Tears started to flow.  “Dad said that I have to confess, and confession is good for the soul, but this is hard.  About a month ago, I was the pitcher when we won the game that got us into the state championship tournament.  The other girls made a big deal out of it.  I went off the field on their shoulders and they insisted that I shower first.  They said that I would be well rewarded.  Then the older girls came in with boys and they handed me two of them.  They said these boys were mine to do what I wished.  Then the other girls started kissing on their boyfriends and doing other stuff.  They were doing sexual things, some I doubt I will ever do, but they kept looking to see what I would do with the two boys that I had.  And I had them.  I was holding their … dad, do I have to?”

Roman grunted, “You might as well at this point.”

Margie’s tears again flowed. “I was holding their private parts, one boy in each hand.  They were kissing me all over, from about the belly button upward.  And as the other girls started encouraging me to do something, I wanted to do at least some of the things they were doing, but then…  but then …  All I could think of was Blaise, and he would not be the first or second boy that I did any of this with.  I let go of what I was holding, and I ran from the room.  The other girls were laughing.  The girls in the locker room were frowning.  I think they knew what was going to happen and they did not warn me.  I got dressed and ran outside where Dad was waiting.  He knew something was wrong, but I would not say anything.  I didn’t even know if I was still on the team, and half of us losing in the semifinals was them dropping balls that could easily have been caught and me not finding the strike zone.  I messed everything up, but Minnie’s talk about the difference in what they were doing and what true love making is…  That hit home.”

She then turned to Blaise, “Blaise, I want you to see me naked.  I want you to kiss me all over.  I want to hold your, umm, private parts!”

Jah-Rae had both hands over her mouth.  Her eyes were full of tears.  Glyce was looking at Blaise like he was a dog that needed to be on a leash.  Fran, Margie’s older sister, was in shock.  And Roman started trying to correct what Margie had said.  “Margie and Blaise are not engaged to be married.  This puppy love would not last, and if Blaise saw her naked, it would be after they were married, many years from now.”  Roman did say that Margie was headstrong and once she had an idea in her head, she followed through.

Margie protested that she loved Blaise and they would someday marry.  That was certain as far as she was concerned.  Then she cried hysterically.

Blaise got up and gave her a bear hug.  She fell asleep and he carried her to the couch next to Callie, who was trying to stay out of this conversation.

I followed them to the couch and started questioning Blaise about his bear hug technique.  I had never put anyone to sleep, but I had heard Blaise had done that to Margie on many occasions.  I was hoping he wasn’t doing something that might be dangerous, but Blaise said he did the same to her that I had done to all the members of the family over the years.

Then, Sophie stood up and started laughing.  “You grown-ups are too much!”

Glyce and I both told Sophie to be quiet and sit down, but she refused.

“No! Margie was not saying that she wanted Blaise to do all that right now!  She was projecting into the future, and I will have to admit that Blaise is a perfect gentleman around her.  He did not provoke that.  Margie is under a lot of stress.  She has been harmed by the hazing.  She has been harmed just seeing all the yucky stuff the older girls were doing with their boyfriends.  She needs to calm down.  She needs people to love her.  And maybe this nap is the best thing for her right now.  Margie is my friend, and if she wants to see my brother’s private parts, she can have him!”

Glyce screamed, “Sophie!!”

Margie giggled and whispered to Blaise.  At least she was alright.

As everyone went their own way, after they got a few handfuls of the deli tray stuff and the cookies, we went back into the family room to see Poached, Callie and Ibie still on the couch.

Callie said, “I tried to stay out of the argument, but Margie told Blaise that regardless of what the grown-ups and Sophie thought, she had to let Blaise get as far as those boys did.  She loved Blaise and Blaise would be kind and gentle.  Until that happened, she could never wash the stain from her body.  If she is headstrong like her father says, it is not if it will happen, but when.  As for Blaise, he told her to pray about it and they would talk later.  He personally was not ready to make that type of move in their relationship.”

Glyce groaned, “Hooray for our kid, but what happens when they find a quiet moment alone in the near future?  Maybe like when a baby comes into this house in another month.”

Poached said, “Uncle Dev and Aunt Naomi, you two have always done the right thing with your children.  I am sorry that my wayward past might have started all this.”

I told him that he was forgiven.  This was the continued aggression of the female athletes, even when Poached was the lover boy.  Even then, they had manipulated him.  Sure, he enjoyed it, but he did their bidding.

We could only pray that Margie got the right counseling.  And was our little boy mature enough to handle this?

Credits

Hazing was a hot topic a few years ago, and I feel that in some corners of the country, it may still be on-going.