Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I’m Pink Lady Apple Yeggs and my friend, and brother-in-law, 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.

I heard the door open, but no one from security said that I had someone wanting to talk during my open door policy.  I looked up to see two people who looked familiar.

I said, a little too loud, “As I live and breathe!  I just saw both of you a few days ago!  You are supposed to be on your honeymoon.  Do not tell me that you came here for your honeymoon.  Please!  I am not ready for open door yet, but I can detach from Sparkle.  She is letting me know that she is done, and she wants her nap.”

Grannie Fannie was at my side.  She took Sparkle, burped her and rocked her to sleep.  In the meantime, I arranged my clothing and then took the cloak off, hoping nothing was inside out.

Then, the door burst open again.  Missy came in hurriedly.  “Mommie Pinkie, I heard there was a security breach.  My first order of business is to ensure your safety and then I can deal with the breach.”

Jayne snickered, “Hi, boss.  Long time, no see.”

Missy turned around to see Jayne and Wyatt Slaughter in my guest chairs.  Missy said, “I was just at your wedding.  Are you going to be here long?  We can have a group meeting rather than you connecting by that computer program.”

Jayne said, “We hope to have a reception here.  We arranged the cake through Mabel.  She can keep a secret.  But we haven’t asked for a day over the next couple of days to have an Indian wedding here.”

I asked, “Wasn’t the wedding on the beach enough?  I will admit, no one answered my question about how it could be legal if Anna and Tyler Hill were conducting the wedding.  But then, are you being improper by calling it an Indian wedding?  Should that not be ‘Native American’?”

Wyatt laughed, “No, ma’am.  We invited you and Missy and your families to the actual wedding, but I have a friend from India, and he said that weddings in India can last a long time, each location being where friends and family are located.  You pick where the main wedding is, but then you go to one reception and another reception, each time, having a little blessing of some kind followed by a dinner.  If your families were from different towns and you worked in two more different towns.  A wedding could last two weeks.  So, you were at the real thing.  Jayne can tell you about the Hills.  But after you left, we went to Lily the Pink Northwest, and we invited the County Commissioner and my deputies.  Our rent-a-cop, that is allowing me to take this break, was the only one on duty.  We had a reception there.  Then, we camped where we could and went to a couple of hotels, but we took our time making it through the Rockies.  Yesterday, we had a reception in the Diet Smith high school auditorium for people Jayne went to high school with.  None of them recognized her.  More on that from Jayne, I suppose.  Now, we want to do the same for you here and invite as many Tracy PD as possible, maybe the mayor.  Jayne says you have some influence with him.  Then we are off to Texas to have a reception with the remnants of my family, now that we are talking to each other again.”

I smiled, “I will tell the mayor that if he does not cancel all appointments and be at the reception, his mother will be very cross with him.  And your mother was a thousand laughs at the reception.  And your sister Morgana was a delight.  But you were on the outs?”

Missy said, “Let me interrupt by saying that Mommie Pinkie will make room in her busy schedule for you two, and I will talk to you later.”  With that, Missy went to let Julia know that the intruders were a fellow employee and her newlywed husband.

I turned to Jayne, “Okay, explain the Hills conducting your wedding.”

Jayne smiled, “When Duncan Hill talked you into partnering with him, he never said that the land next to the apple orchard was in the middle of nowhere.”  She saw the look on my face. “Okay, you knew that, but the town twenty miles down the road does not have a church.  Then, to get to church, you had to go another five miles and take the bridge into Oregon.  Even then, there is slim pickings until you take the interstate one more exit down into the gorge.  So, Anna and Tyler knew we had to have something better for our employees.  She investigated with the state board, and she got all the information she needed to register as a non-denominational pastor.  She and Tyler both applied, and they have a worship service in the conference room at the cider house.  Odd thing is that some of the townsfolk have come to visit, and a few are regular visitors.  And while you convinced me that there was something about Jesus that I needed to know about, Anna led me to Christ.  Then this big lummox finally came around.  You’d think a guy from the Bible belt would know about Jesus, but nope.  He took a while.”

I asked, “Thinking about the orchard, Anna said that there was a rocky crag that she wanted to sell cheap.  I had bought all the land, including the orchard, so she needed me to sign off on the plat deed transfer.  She said it was not fit for growing apples anyway.  Why would anyone want it?”

Wyatt said, “That corner of the orchard is only about twelve miles from town.  Once the house is built, Jayne and I will move in, and we’ll have our Mommie from Tracy at the housewarming.”

Jayne said, “We’re going to build a house with a wrap around porch.  A beautiful orchard on one side and a view of the Columbia River Gorge on the other.”

I gasped, “Anna and I were up there on those rocks last summer, and she didn’t say anything.  But I said you could not buy a better view of the area.  It was how I pictured Heaven.  Even the desert with the sagebrush! All of it was gorgeous.  You lucky rats!  Now, it is inquisition time.  Wyatt, tell me about your time growing up, your old girlfriends, and how you met this lovely lady.”

Wyatt turned to Jayne, “You warned me, but she is definitely nosey.”

I said, “Hey!  You married into the family.  Jayne is an employee, thus, family.  And I want to know the juicy things since I counsel ladies who have had problems in those regards.  It doesn’t seem right when you don’t start there.  I’ll get to Jayne later.  Somehow, I missed asking her.  She ran off to Washington state too fast.”

Wayne groaned, “Okay, I grew up in the shadow of the Texas John Slaughter legend.  Every generation since has had at least one Texas Ranger in the family.  My Dad and uncle were both Rangers.  My Dad lost his life in the line of duty, about the time when I graduated high school.  My Mom worked at a big department store fixing the store displays.  My older brother, Virgil, taught me that if you started dating, the most important thing is to be able to not fumble with the girl’s bra.  I have since learned all the advice I got from Virgil was less than helpful, but I went with Mom to work enough times to practice taking bras off mannequins and I became an expert.  But I was shy, and everybody knew I was going to be a ranger, so they kept their distance until a girl from California moved into the neighborhood.  I walked her over a mile to the Whataburger place and paid for her meal a couple of times, but otherwise, we just walked up and down the street and talked.  She thought everyone in Texas was backwards and California girls knew what was what.  Well, after a run to Whataburger in the Texas heat where you could fry an egg on the sidewalk, we got back to her house, with no chaperone.  She suggested we strip down to underwear to cool off.  She had never experienced that kind of heat.  So, she put on some music, and we danced.  The second song was a slow song, so we put our arms around each other, and I did what my brother said to do.”

I asked, “What did she do?”

Wyatt shrugged, “She slapped me and showed me the door.  She at least let me put my clothes back on.  You know, what was I to think after she had almost gotten naked to begin with.  But that got me even more confused.  I never asked another girl out, until I met this pretty thing here.”

I asked, “How did you get from Texas, doing your dream job, to being the sheriff of a county in very rural Washington?”

Wyatt moaned, “It’s also why I haven’t talked to my family in a long time.  In all those generations, the Slaughters that were Rangers were the best Rangers that there could be.  Virgil was a Ranger until he had an accident, and he went back to school to work crime scenes.  But me, I embarrassed everyone.  I was Northwest of the Dallas-Fort Worth area.  There is the North Central Plains area that is flatter than a pancake, they call it Plano, like the town.  I was on a state road on normal patrol and these two girls passed me doing more than twice the speed limit.  I was in a patrol car.  They knew who they were passing.  I caught up and pulled them over.  Two black girls, T-shirts, short shorts.  They winked and asked me if I had stopped them to have a good time.  Well, I had my body cam on and the dash cam on.  I had called in for backup.  I told them not to move, and I went back to my car.

“While I waited, the girls seemed to be dancing or playing, arms were extended toward each other, and the car rocked a bit.  The back-up was a female deputy from the local county.  We approached the car, but this time, they had ripped their T-shirts, broken the straps on their bra, and tore their shorts.  There were scratches on both girls.  The girls were crying and told the deputy that I had raped both of them.

I had no worries.  I had proof on the body cam and dash cam, but the only thing that was recorded was me walking to their car and greeting them.  The recording from both cameras was turned off at that point.  But if you know anything about the equipment, that can’t happen.  The deputy said that she believed me, but I was screwed.  She took the girls to the closest hospital, in another county, and I waited for the tow truck to pick up the girls’ car.

When I filed my report, the camera being turned off was damming.  The rape kits proved the girls had been aggressively penetrated, not necessarily rape, but probably.  I was suspended without pay.  The rangers felt that they had a bad cop, and they wanted the incident to go away.  Even my uncle disowned me.  Virgil said he’d talk to his professor and see if professional courtesy would get DNA samples from the girls’ fingernails and from what the male had left behind.  I swore none of the DNA would match mine, but even my brother did not believe me.  They put the DNA on the lowest priority.

Wyatt continued, “I violated their orders to stay close by.  Since I was suspended, I was going on vacation.  I went to California to see if the girls really knew what’s what.  I went from Baja to Oregon.  Plenty of girls, some naked, some topless, didn’t matter if the beach allowed it.  But I touched no one.  I knew if I did, I’d get slapped.  But then, at the mouth of the Columbia River, I thought of the high desert.  There had to be some community where the only people there were there to be away from other people.  I found it.  Two hundred in the county seat.  Next biggest village was about thirty.  Most other settlements were extended families at farms or ranches.  With irrigation, there was a lot you could grow there.  I liked shop class in high school, thinking I could fix my patrol car in a jam.  The local auto repair shop, only one in the county, was hiring.  I gave him my whole story.  Months later, with me sleeping in a hammock in a maintenance bay, the sheriff died.  My boss told the county commissioner about me, and I was put on the ballot.  I was the only one on the ballot, but I barely won.  I got 35 votes, and a cartoon animal got 30.  So, that’s my story until Anna Hill showed up and introduced me to her head of security, and I knew I had found my soul mate.”

I asked, “But what about the two rape cases in Texas?”

Wyatt scratched his head.  “The DNA did not match.  In the meantime, the girls played the same trick in Oklahoma and Kansas.  They were calling for civil lawsuits in each state to collect as much money as possible, hoping the state police would settle out of court to avoid the damaging media coverage, but the Kansas cops came prepared.  They found a device under the girls’ dash that could interrupt the cam signal.  Since both cams turn off with an interruption and must be manually restarted, the recording just stopped.  I think they’ve fixed that since then.  But the DNA matched a black policeman in the panhandle who in interrogation admitted he had consensual sex with both girls, and it was rough sex.  But if they were scratched and bruised, that was not him.  The DNA under the fingernails was from each other.  They set the whole thing up to scam me and get money from the Texas Rangers and ruin the Ranger’s reputation in the bargain.  My uncle still argued that I was sloppy, but the rest of the family was wanting me to come home.  But by then, I had met Jayne.”

I smiled, “Okay, now for the lady who is a glowing, beautiful bride.  When we first met, you were called ‘Plain Jayne Crane.’  Now you are married.  Your last name is changed, but what happened to Plain Jayne?  Don’t get me wrong.  You were there for me in prison, but you look like a different person.”

Jayne blushed, “Maybe I am, Pink.  You like starting at the beginning.  I was a tomboy.  There were only boys for two blocks in any direction.  Well, not to the west.  I lived two block to the east of the highway on the south side of Tracy, the old highway, not the interstate.  I know what you are thinking.  That is all poverty level houses now, but back in the day, the store owners along the highway had houses close enough to walk to work.  My Dad ran a box making shop for speakers, anything from home stereos up to concert amplification for a rock band.  He made the boxes and then another factory added the electronics.  My Mom ran a fabric store, not the owner, but it was her life until the store closed, and she went to work for the crafting company as an assistant manager.  We did okay.  I was one of the best athletes in the neighborhood.  The boys did not like me winning all the time, unless I was on their team, but I was taught to do my best.  My Dad kept saying that the boys could catch up if they wanted to.  They didn’t want to.”

Jayne let that statement sit for a while.  “When I graduated middle school, I visited a girl about four blocks away who was a couple of years older.  I asked if she would introduce me to some people when I reached high school in the Fall.  She said she would, but she wanted to know if I was ‘worthy.’  She started taking off my clothing.  I didn’t run, but I should have.  It was weird, but as she kissed me and stuff, the weird feeling subsided.  I had no interest in her as a lover, but I enjoyed some of the sensations.  She had all the latest toys.  After about three weeks of us getting together about three times each week, my family went on vacation.  We got back in time for her family to go on vacation.  There was only about two weeks left in the summer, so I went back to my friend’s house on an odd day.  There were cars parked up and down the street.  I went to the window to peak into the house.  The house was filled with women and high school aged girls, all naked, all trying out various toys.  I found out years later that her mother had a side business selling the toys, advertising that if your husband does not satisfy you, the toys will.  So, I was not invited to the party.  I went home, but a week later on the first day of school, she did as she promised.  She introduced me as follows, ‘Everyone, meet my friend from the neighborhood.  This is Freshman Jayne Crane, the lesbian.’  All the children laughed.  I felt lower than low.  These days, it might be a compliment in some circles, but I felt betrayed.  The worst thing was that the girls who taunted me were at that party.  I peaked long enough to remember the faces.  So, I dedicated myself to athletics.  That would get me some friends.  I ran cross country in the fall.  I wrestled in the winter.  I ran track and field in the spring.  I ran a couple thousand miles each year, and I lifted weights.  Those exercises don’t go well together, but it accomplished a few things.  I quit having a period.  I got stronger, more muscular so the breasts did not show as much.  And since I fit in with the boys better, I got a butch haircut.  The boy runners became my friends, and a couple could keep up with me.  When I graduated, I thought that since I could handle myself in a fight, why not join the police?”

I interrupted. “Amy G. Dala insisted that she and Ralph E. came with us.  As such, she paid the pilots for the trip.  How do you know them?”

Jayne snickered, “Little Miss Computer Nerd was a wild child before accepting Jesus.  She would get drunk and drive back to her business.  She got pulled over and she was in the first group of community service people that I ever supervised.  She did not think a millionaire should pick up trash, but I walked up to her and said that she had millions, and I had a night stick.  I poked her in the ribs, probably cracking one of them.  Then I punched her in the gut.  The punch took all the air out of her.  When she could stand up straight, which took some time, she picked up more trash than anybody else.  I had her for about two months, and she was a model citizen after I had gotten her attention.”

I asked, “I know you did that when we were at the prison and no one bothered me or you after that, but how did you get away with it with your chain gang gig?”

Jayne smiled, “They don’t call it the chain gang anymore.  No chains.  But I reported to Dev Yeggs.  Why?  I don’t know.  He was the senior detective, I guess.  Anyway, he mentioned that Amy was hobbling a little.  I said that she fell down.  Dev was concerned and asked Amy about her hobbling a little too much to have simply fallen down.  Amy said, ‘Yeah, I fell down a few times, but I will be okay in a day or two.’  Dev winked at me and said that it was not good for the city’s reputation to have millionaires falling down when on court ordered community service.  That’s when the Officer Plain Jayne Crane, the master of Pain became my handle.  I owned it.  When Ralph E. had a pity party and was caught under the influence.  He was the example I showed to everyone else about how to behave.  When they were ordered to do community service, they knew I would ensure they did the service part.”

I looked at her with a puzzled look.  “But the transformation?  What happened?”

Jayne laughed, “Anna talked to her uncle Dalton and the best doctor in the Northwest came to the cider house to make a house call.  When I did both wrestling and running and became obsessive due to the emotional trauma, I overexercised.  I trimmed my fat down by a lot.  Like I said, my periods stopped.  With it, a lot of the female development stopped.”

I interrupted again, “But doesn’t that accompany eating disorders also?”

Jayne shrugged, “I was only eating a lot or purging to make a certain weight class for wrestling.  Otherwise, for all the long-distance running, I ate a lot to maintain the calories that I would burn.  I am fighting the weight now.  The doctor saw that I had a genetic problem leading to low estrogen.  And the occasional purging to make weight and overexercising, and I was in great shape, but not in good female shape.  I still run, but reasonably.  I stay on my medication.  I have some mood swings, but Anna helps me stay grounded.  In high school, I handled any mood, one way or the other with more running.  So, the first time I saw this big hunk of love, I wore a wig, but this is my natural hair.  The added estrogen, to make it normal, has added to my bra size while a different style of lifting weights has lowered the bulk in the chest.  I think I am just as strong, but I have a womanly shape.  When we met my high school classmates, the only ones that could recognize me were my male running buddies.  But then again, with Anna teaching me how to act like a girl and apply makeup properly, some of the transformation was not medical. With accepting Jesus added to the mix, I am more me than I have ever been: spiritually, emotionally, physically, and mentally.  I guess it was a shock to all of them.  But neither of my parents made the trip.  Seeing them down in the southside of Tracy was good.  And I want to invite them here also.”

I smiled, “I will send my best driver down there and tell them ‘no’ is not an option.  But as for the original wedding.  It was beautiful.  How did you think of all those things?”

Wyatt said, “It just kind of happened.  We had gone by horseback to Panther Creek Falls.  When Jayne started getting frisky, I told her that I had not proposed yet.”

Jayne blushed, “My medication was a bit off and then we had such a wonderful ride.  I grabbed his swimsuit and said, ‘Mine, all mine.’  That’s when he said that he had not proposed … YET!”

I asked, “Jayne, were you skilled at horseback riding?”

Jayne shook her head, “No, Wyatt taught me.  Wyatt did not propose then because he did not have the ring.  And before you ask, he had a friend who worked a lot in Thailand.  Wyatt asked him to buy a ring for him.  He already knew my size.”  Jayne got up and showed me the engagement ring.  I gasped.  Jayne continued, “It is more yellow than you might be used to.  It’s about 22 carat gold.  Any purer and the ring would not hold its shape.  Diamond center with six small rubies around it.  And it only cost a few hundred dollars, if you know the right jeweler.  And the rubies are natural stones, so they are clear.”

I asked, “So, when did he propose?”

Jayne smiled, “A week later at sunset right where we got married.  So it made sense to have the wedding there and then hop on horses and ride down the beach.  The auto repair shop owner that was the best man followed on foot to drive the horses back to the county, but he stopped for the reception at Dalton Hill’s party room.  They donated that and the cake.  When we put the horses in the trailer and rubbed them down, we had our car available.  We borrowed one from Dalton Hill, but we have to give him pictures.  Not naughty pictures, just the places we went.”

I asked, “And who is this rent-a-cop?”

Wyatt smiled, “A state cop from Olympia.  He helped me when I first became sheriff.”

I told them that the next day, they had the conference center all day for their reception.  We had people coming and going from the police department and the cider house all day long.  And yes, the mayor, with his wife Cassie, listened to his Mommie and showed up with a present.  I love my son.  He listens to me some of the time.

Credits

On my last trip to India, we went to West Bengal to a large steel mill there.  The company salesman for India came along with his bride.  They had married about a week before, but the wedding would not be complete until they went to the city where the steel mill was.  She had been a teacher at the Baptist mission school there, and she met her future husband while he was on a sales call.  Thus, the wedding had already taken place and receptions for both families, and now this reception would cover her former work family and his extended work family in the USA (my boss and I being the only participants, but it counted).

I once interviewed for the plant manager job at the box making factory for Peavey electronics, making the various boxes that would house speakers and amplifiers.  I did not get the second interview, but I thought the interview went well.  I had a lot of those type interviews.

There is no county in Washington state with only 400 people total, especially along the Columbia River Gorge.  Skamania County is fairly green, with lakes and trees and a large volcanic mountain, Mount St. Helens.  There are about 12,000 people there.  They mention Panther Creek Falls which is in Skamania County.  This fictional county is more like the western third or half of Klickitat County where my wife and I have visited a few times, trees and forests nearby, toward Skamania County, but sagebrush to the east.  We visited the Mary Hill Museum when we could and the replica of Stonehenge, a memorial built by Sam Hill to commemorate the lost soldiers from Klickitat County in World War I, made of concrete instead of stone.  The towns north of the museum have at least one church each, and Klickitat County has about 22,000 people, and is much larger than Skamania to the west, so maybe less densely populated.

The scam that the girls cooked up was purely fictional including the electronic device to jam the cameras.

I do not know if there is a company that has a sex toy party like you might have a Tupperware party, but there are some people who might be sick enough to do something like that these days.

I was in Thailand on two occasions.  If you knew the right jeweler, you could pick up items in nearly pure gold and the rubies were locally obtained and were natural stones.  For a couple hundred dollars, you could get a very impressive ring.  You could probably sell the same ring in the USA for more than ten times what you paid for it.  I knew people who paid for their trip to SE Asia, flying first class, with the profits they received in the jewelry resale.