Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I’m Pink Lady Apple Yeggs and my friend Deviled Yeggs suggested that I record each project that I set up in the hopes of reforming the people who continue to work for Lily the Pink Enterprises.  If for no other reason, it would show how God is at work.

But this one was very personal.  I had been sent to prison, supposedly for my own good, but as it turned out, I was not convinced of that.  But one thing that I had to do was gut-wrenching.

The door to the solitary confinement cell was opened.  The lights were out.  I saw the tall figure in the shadows, as I started adjusting myself to the dim lighting of the cell.

Suddenly, I was no longer a confident CEO of a growing company.  I began to shake in fear.  I had this overpowering feeling of dread.  Even with my cousin imprisoning me in my own home, I had not felt that intense of a dread, since …  Since…  The tears began to flow.  Since my father was sentenced to consecutive life sentences.

My mouth moved, but it wasn’t my voice anymore.  It was the voice of a scared little thirteen-year-old who was about to see her father for the last time.  “Daddy?!”  The one word was followed by a high-pitched whine and uncontrollable sniffles.

He turned slowly.  He looked at me for several seconds.  It took him a while to process what he saw.  After all, he had not seen a female in decades.  And he last saw me when I was thirteen.  He had to compute how I might look after being fully grown.  I continued to cry and sniffle.  I reached out a hand to steady myself against the wall.  Then he finally spoke, “My Princess Pinkie?!  You are here?  I am not allowed visitation while in solitary.  Is this a dream?”

I ran to him and hugged him.  “No, Daddy, I’m really here, and I’m scared.  You used to protect me, but then you were gone.  I had no one to protect me.  Mom could barely protect herself.  Just hold me, Daddy, until I stop shaking.”  He held me tight.  For a couple of minutes, maybe longer, we hugged and said nothing.

Then, he said, “But how did you get here?  You are wearing prisoner orange.  How does a company CEO end up here?  And on the men’s side of the prison?  And in my cell?”

Still in my thirteen-year-old voice.  “I was arrested.  They think I killed a no good politician.  They even think I had sex with him.  Yuck!  But then to get here with you, the warden owed my brother a favor.  It’s the same brother that sent me to prison, thinking it was a good idea, as if … , the old meanie.  And my first sister is on an around the world trip and she wasn’t there to tell them not to do it.  And my second sister is married to the brother who sent me here.  That didn’t help!  And the warden didn’t think it would be safe to visit the men’s side of the prison, but then Big Red Macintosh said that if my Daddy saw me, he’d fight everybody in the whole prison to protect me.  So, there’s a guard working overtime outside the door, just in case.”  Note:  I added punctuation, but as I said it, it was one long run-on sentence.

He hesitated, “Wait.  You’re an only child.  You don’t have a brother.  You have zero sisters, much less two.  I know you got married, but everything else is a little fuzzy.  Can you start at the beginning and catch me up a few decades.  I know most of it, but I want you to tell me.  And it might be better if the grown-up woman told me instead of the thirteen-year-old.”

I started with the thirteen-year-old voice, but it got deeper as I got older while I told my life story, to my Daddy, who should have been there the whole time.

“After you were sentenced, I cried for days.  I didn’t eat anything either.  About a week later, I asked Mom for some ice cream.  She said, ‘Fix it yourself, and get a bowl.  No eating from the carton.’  The next day, I nagged her for a sandwich.  She said that we would have to go shopping, but she had no idea where the money was going to come from.  That’s when Uncle Dellie (Uncle Dellie, aka Red Delicious, former crime boss of the Rotten Apple Gang, and who still influences them from prison) knocked on the door with a couple of guys carrying groceries.  Uncle Dellie told me that I was special, but I had to be the best I could in school.  So, I studied really hard.  I finished middle school, and I was near the top in my class in high school.  Mom, left, moved to Florida.  She left a note, giving me everything.  A lawyer arrived a few days later and had me sign a lot of papers.  I think Mom waited until she was settled in Florida before letting Uncle Dellie know.  He paid her plenty to ensure her silence and then he came by the house and set up a college fund for me.  He said he still owed you plenty.

“I had just finished high school.  I owned a huge house in the rich part of town, and a warehouse behind the house, since you bought property on the edge of the commercial district.  Uncle Dellie spent the next few weeks moving all the chop shop for stolen cars out of the warehouse.  That was moved to Doyle county, but don’t tell anybody.  Shush!  Shush!  I told Uncle Dellie I wanted to turn the warehouse into a cider house, and he just laughed.  But really, Daddy, I had no boyfriend to share my wealth with.  I know, I know.  You kept saying that I was the prettiest girl in school, one of the richest, and I was smart too.  But Daddy, half the boys thought me to be aloof.  The other half thought me to be stuck up.  And all of them were afraid of the daughter of the mob’s enforcer, even with you in jail.”  I felt him shaking.  I think he was silently crying.

“Within a week of Uncle Dellie coming by and setting up the college fund, I had a knock on the door, and this gypsy lady said that my Uncle Dellie had hired her to be my companion.  Her name is Gwen Quinn, and we became blood sisters from that moment on.  She is about five years older, and I later learned that she ran away from her husband who had bought her at an auction, long story, but they were never really married.  But in the fall, I went to T.R.U.S.T. I majored in Accounting.  I completed two years of college and still never had a date.  I eventually finished college, even an MBA.  My favorite pastime, in my sophomore year of college was sleeping next to the pool with no clothes on.  I liked getting an all-over tan, and no one was anywhere in sight.  Okay, okay, I know what you are going to say.  I got an all-over pink, since I do not tan that well.  But I wasn’t flashing anybody.  I was all alone, except for Gwen.  I might have some girlfriends over, but all they ever talked about was having sex with boys.  I couldn’t relate to that.

“Then one day when I was wearing my bikini, this boy walked up in the yard.  He said he’d just ‘conquered’ two of my girlfriends and they said I was in need of a man.  He then pulled down his pants and showed me his junk.  I slowly pulled down my sunglasses to get a better look, and I told him he was not going to use that thing on me unless I got jewelry first.”  At this point, Daddy started shaking.  I think he was laughing, but I did not want to check.  I wanted the hug to continue.  “Well, the boy was Scrambled Yeggs.  He was dirt poor, with his father here in prison and his mother who lost her bakery due to his Dad’s mistakes.  But a couple of weeks later, he shows back up with a beautiful necklace.  I found out years later that he stole the jewelry from my friends who took the jewelry from the original owners, but Scrammie redesigned the setting himself.  And he got his father’s old fence to make the modifications.  So, you taught me to be a person of my word, so we went to your bed and did the deed.  Scrammie kept coming back with more jewelry, and we slept together even more.  But I am a couple years older than Scrammie.  He had not even graduated high school.  But then Baldwyn caught us in bed together.  He told Uncle Dellie that I was having sex and getting paid.  That led to our home being turned into a brothel that Baldwyn operated.  He just told everyone that I was the madam.  He wanted to marry me, but I thought he was hideous.  I would not let him touch me.  And I wanted a legitimate business.  When Uncle Dellie visited, I demanded the cider house, and I demanded that all of Baldwyn’s prostitutes work some hours to operate the equipment.  But then, my employees were being grabbed by Baldwyn to do prostitution on their off shifts.  It got very messy.”

My Daddy interrupted, “You do realize that I know about that and I have beaten Baldwyn within an inch of his life four times already.  He’s about to get out of the hospital, so number five is coming.  Why don’t you skip to the part where you were rescued by your knight in shining armor.”

“Okay, one of the things that I had to do during this visit was to convince you to stop beating up Baldwyn.  A comatose Baldwyn cannot beg for forgiveness, and you need to repent and ask for forgiveness yourself.  We will get to that later.  But back to the story.  I think it was that last time with Scrammie, my name for Scrambled Yeggs, that I got pregnant.  I hid it, but I think Baldwyn knew.  I didn’t show much.  I wore baggy clothes.  I demanded doctors and nurses check up on me, and I swore them to secrecy.  But I think Baldwyn knew and became even more jealous.  But they came to deliver the baby, right there in my prison cell, what you intended to be the dining room.  I kept the baby for a couple of weeks, but then Gwen, who was allowed to leave to buy food, dropped him off at the monastery.  It was during a high school trip that the girl’s visited the monastery, and I worked with the prior.  He gave me a Bible and told me that in times of crisis, I should read it.  After Baldwyn took over, it was crisis time, and Gwen and I read the Bible, and we both became believers.  So, it became natural since the prior gave me a Bible, to give him something in return, my precious Boaz Salmon Yeggs.  The only boy that I ever slept with was my Scrammie.  But if I would not act as the madam, Baldwyn made me his slave.  I did the accounting for the Rotten Apples, and I tied every deposit with the crimes that were committed, so that when I had my chance, I would pay them back.

“Then, Baldwyn started poisoning me.  The poison acted, as far as symptoms were concerned, like ALS, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease.  By the time there was a murder that the evidence pointed toward me, Baldwyn was thinking I would be far enough along that I would die, and the police would close the case without further investigation.  But that was when Deviled Yeggs showed up.  I slipped him a note, demanding that his older brother Scrambled be part of the raid to personally rescue me, since by then, I could not walk.  I turned states evidence and put nineteen of my cousins in prison.  I think that’s why the warden was worried.  They are all here.  And it just dawned on me.  I am again being framed for a murder I did not commit.  Strange how that works.  But then, Scrammie and I were married once I had recovered.  At least, my second sister, Deviled’s wife, Naomi, sped up the healing by making me a case study.  She is a PhD therapist that combines physical with mental, and throws in some spiritual when she can.  She is a miracle worker.  But Deviled officially became the only brother I ever had when I married Scrammie.  And although Gwen and I are blood sisters, Naomi is officially my sister-in-law.

“Well, most of my prostitutes working at the cider house stayed to make cider.  Some left and then came back.  And then, I got an offer to expand to the Great Northwest.  We are now making cider in Washington state, but with a skeleton crew.  The apartment building isn’t finished completely.  We are thinking a huge grand opening in January, and then their production will be potentially higher than in Tracy.  Then, being a Christian, and with my pockets full of money that I would have never had if you had not killed people, I opened the spare apartments up to homeless families from the mission in downtown Tracy.  Gwen married Deviled’s GrandPa, who you knew as Millennium Yeggs.  They are on a world tour and they have been picking up strays.  Scrammie had two children from a woman he married soon after graduating high school.  Rotten, who you knew here at the prison is now Otto and married to my project manager, Zuzka, a very tall Latvian girl that Baldwyn bought from a human trafficker.  Otto and Scrammie have become accomplished bakers, and I had Zuzka build them a bakery.  They have even expanded by adding Mabel, who moved to Lily the Pink from the projects on the other side of town.  But Scrammie’s other son is Poached, the homicide detective assigned to find the true killer.  He is married to a PhD ornithologist.  Their daughter is Scarlet Ibis.  They call her Ibie.  And my son with Scrambled is mayor of Tracy, officially elected after the raid on Lily the Pink wiped out the city government.  Beaux and Grieves may want to harm me too, and they are here.  But Boaz is engaged to my head of security, Sandy Beech.  But as for the strays, and what makes me angry with Deviled at the moment, is that Gwen sent me two children of my own.  I have a one-year-old Thai girl named Kanok.  She is starting to speak.  She calls me Mommy Tinkie.  She doesn’t have the ‘P’ sound down yet.  And a Korean boy who is almost six months, Joon.  Meanwhile, we are taking care of a central African girl, Asha, an Indian boy, Valin, and a Vietnamese boy, Thanh.  Those three are Gwen’s adopted children.  And then my other sister, Naomi, has four children, Easter in college, Sophie and Blaise in high school, and Gloria Grace who is called Gigi, newborn.  And I am stuck here.  Deviled better close the case and find out who really killed Tyte Sphincter, and quick.”

Daddy pulled away.  “Maybe it’s my paranoia, but Jim Wednesday came by to ask who in the Rotten Apples was the new enforcer and who could copy my signature gangland style killing.  They sent you in here to pump me for information.”

“No, Daddy, I came here to see you for the first time since I was thirteen.  But I do not want to lose you again.  Boaz and the D. A. are willing to talk to the governor.  If you reform, starting with not killing or beating Baldwyn, they might agree to an early release.  I know that Jesus will forgive anyone who earnestly comes to Him, confesses their sins, and repents.  If you just accepted Jesus, then Jesus gives you the strength to do what you need to do.  I know.  I was unable to repent of my sins, but Jesus has worked in my life and He can work in yours.”

“Princess Pinkie, I have killed more people than any two of the famous serial killers combined.”

“Daddy, it doesn’t matter.  You have paid a great debt to society.  I have not had a father all these years as a result.  But your eternal soul is important to me.  You cannot do this for me.  You have to do it for you.  I know this is sudden, but when they release you from solitary, go to Big Red Mac’s Bible studies.  Talk to him.  He is a fellow inmate.  You two can talk the same language.”  I closed in tight and gave him another hug.  “Daddy, I don’t want to lose you again, and they are giving me a chance to have another grandfather playing with more children, and maybe even another baby in a year.”

My daddy asked, “Are you pregnant?”

I shrugged although he may not have understood that motion while hugging me.  “I have been here a week, Daddy.  The prison doctor told me that what I thought was early menopause was a hormone imbalance combined with the stresses of running an expanding company.  Even with a good team around me, I could never let go and let them do their jobs.  This week has taught me how to let go, and either let God take over or the people that I hired take over.  As a result, Scrammie came last night for a conjugal visit.  He had been taking those gummies that help with ED.  We thought we were both too old, but maybe we weren’t.  It was one night, but when they find the murderer of Tyte Sphincter, I can go home and try some more.  Maybe, maybe.  Do you want to be a grandfather and bounce that child on your knee?”

Daddy said, “Okay, I will give you two names.  Red Delicious will be angry, but I think he’ll understand.  Braeburn Apple, who kidnapped Naomi Yeggs back two years ago, is back on the streets.  He might do it, but his son, Jonathan Apple, is the new enforcer for Empire.  Oh, my precious Princess Pinkie.  Until just now, I have never dreamt of seeing you again.  Yes, I will join Big Red Mac’s classes.  I don’t know about Jesus, but I will do anything to be with you again.”

There was a knock at the door.  The guard said, “I said that you could take as much time as you want, but the warden only gave me an hour of overtime pay.  My time is up!”

I yelled at the door, “What is your best dream present that you can think of for Christmas?”

The guard said, “My car is in the shop and my wife has already showed up to take me home.  We really need a new car.”

I yelled back, “How about a year-old SUV.  It’s bright pink, but you can paint it.  I’ll get my people to arrange to have you get the title as soon as I’m sprung from prison.  Now there is one more who wants Tracy homicide to find out who killed a crooked politician in Tracy.”

“Thank you, ma’am.  Take all the time you need.  And I would be honored to drive a pink SUV.  My manhood is well intact.”

My Daddy and I only talked a few more minutes.  We mostly hugged each other.  He even said he liked my new look.  I told him that I had already led a woman who had murdered two people to Christ.  She was a hairdresser, and I had my first beauty parlor appointment since college.  More on that next time.

Credits

Many of the characters mentioned here, and the past history of Pink Lady Apple Yeggs have been scattered over a variety of other stories.

Maybe it is because I am getting old, but I occasionally get popup advertisements for ED medication while playing solitaire on the cellphone or tablet.  I have no idea if those medicines work.