Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I am Mashie Niblick.  I am presently employed as the greenskeeper of the Hoity Toity Golf Club in the big city of Tracy.

My wife, Pauline, was getting Baffy and Andrew ready for a party at the Lily the Pink Nursery.  There was an afternoon New Year’s Eve party for the children, and if the parents were wanting to ring in the new year, the nursery staff had an all-hands-on-deck arrangement.  The children would be having a sleep over in the nursery while the adults could have their party in the Crystal Mountain.  But we had another two parties planned.  Baffy would have her birthday party before the children went to bed, and Andrew would have his party in the morning of New Years Day.  They were both New Years babies, both the first baby of the year at the Medical Center each year they were born.  And Baffy was upset that she would have to share her birthday party.  So, we split the birthday parties up.  But in the meanwhile, I was online, studying some articles on greenkeeping.  I always wanted to improve my skills and knowledge.

That is when the alarms went off.  There was someone in the Levy’s front yard.  The dogs were alerted.  Elroy said over the automatic conference call, “Do we have a Niblick that can go check this alarm out?  I have no idea who would be crazy enough to sell something on New Year’s Eve.  I am tied up.  I am at a party at the Hoity Toity Club.  Dinah is getting an award for her work with the Trivia gaming.  Irusya and I are here for security reasons.”  I volunteered since Pauline had her hands full.

Caulk, the Caucasian Shepherd, German Shepherd mix, responded to an intrusion alarm.  Perry, the Great Pyrenees, German Shepherd mix, held back.  At first, they only barked.

The young middle-aged couple held their ground.

The man whispered to his wife, “Don’t move.  If they are well-trained dogs, they could rip us to shreds if we tried evasive movements.”

“What if I have to use the bathroom?”

He replied. “Hold it.”

Perry said. “Caulk, I think I heard the guy say that we might be well-trained.”

Caulk replied, “Speak for yourself, Perry.  You do not follow protocol half the time.  I think you slept through a lot of classes in obedience school.”

Perry snickered, “I made up for it in on-the-job training.  I can strike like a ninja.  Hot Cha!”

Caulk laughed, “Hot Cha!  Ninjas do not make a sound.  If they did, it would not be ‘hot cha.’”

Perry replied, “Almost all the ninjas that I know say ‘hot cha.’”

Caulk asked, “Do you know any ninjas?”

Perry answered, “No, but if I did, I am sure they would say…”

The man begged, “Please, we used to own this house.  I do not believe for one skinny minute that these dogs can talk, but I definitely believe they can rip us to shreds.  But please come out from under your cover.  We heard from friends that we would never recognize the place, but it seems to be the same house from here.  Honestly, we just hoped to take a look around.”

I drove up in front of the house, “Caulk, Perry, where’s Rhoda?”

Caulk said, “Mashie, these people claim to be the Coatswells, the people who used to live in this house.  As for Rhoda, we have a new protocol.  If the alarm is from here, she runs to your house and hides at the side of your house.  If you get the alarm, Perry and I respond to it, and Rhoda comes here.  We suspect that if the assailants know about us, they’ll want to divide us up.  Besides, Rhoda is an independent thinker.  She works well alone.  I work well alone too, but I have Perry to deal with.”

Perry huffed, “I will have you know that while you were chatting with Mashie Niblick, I was confirming through facial recognition that this really is Mr. Theodore Coatswell and his wife Nancy.  So there!”

I laughed, “Play nice, you two!”

Pauline approached from around the side of the house.  She had Andrew in a stroller and Baffy was holding onto Rhoda’s vest handle.

I asked, “I thought you were leaving for the afternoon party at Lily the Pink?”

Pauline smiled, “One little problem, I left the car there last night, and I rode home with Naomi Yeggs.  And then my dashing and debonaire husband ran off with our only available transportation.  I love the fact that you run to the rescue, but I do not think I will get very far on foot.”

I turned to the dogs.  “You are no longer needed.  Caulk, Perry, Rhoda!  Base!”

Pauline said, “Ted, Nancy, you should have called ahead.  The homeowners are at a yearend party at the Hoity Toity Club.  I think Dinah is getting an award.  Elroy needs to send a treat to each of his dogs.  He lives near here, but he is providing security for the Levys.  This is a very unusual day, New Year’s Eve, to just pop in for a tour of the house.”

Nancy said, “Yes, I know, but we came midafternoon thinking that the new owners were just getting ready for a big bash tonight.  We heard they were retired from the nation’s capitol.  We thought being retired, they would either not be going out, or they would only be at a late starting party.”

I said, “Your friends at the Hoity Toity should have told you that Dinah got a new job revamping their entertainment program.  They are giving her an award this afternoon.  But I have a suggestion. If you do not have plans, we can take you to the children’s party followed by the big apple drop party.”

Ted asked, “Big Apple Drop?”

Pauline laughed, “Inside the Crystal Mountain at Lily the Pink, they do things with apples instead of balls.  We will have a few people from the Hoity Toity.  You can meet the Levys there and work out a time to visit their house.”

Pauline and I got our children into the car, and the Coatswells followed us.  On the way, I asked Pauline if she had any idea why they had not gone to the Hoity Toity club.  They had been members, and they would have had old friends who could redirect them to the Levys rather than simply walking into their front yard.  Pauline had no clue.  She knew the Coatswells by sight, but she did not socialize with them.  She thought I would know them since I worked at the Hoity Toity.  She almost immediately apologized.  I was the greenskeeper.  They complained when things did not go their way, but otherwise, I was less than a human being the rest of the time.  But, I would rather live in a nice neighborhood and thought to be a nobody than to be someone who thought himself to be more important than he was.  I make sure the course is as playable as possible for as long as possible.  I am also the one who moves the pin positions to really nasty places on the green when the members have a big tournament.  I know when they hate the pin placements when they complain that they lost a lot of money due to unwise gambling.  It can’t be their poor play that loses them money.  And now that Pauline has fixed most of my golfing issues, I could probably beat them on the course.  They would not like that either.

When we arrived, Baffy led the way.  She told the Coatswells that Ibie Yeggs was her twin sister and the two of them would be having a sleepover in the Big House, along with Kanok, Joon, Spa-Cool, and Gigi.  Callie and Poached would be spending the night also, but we opted to go to the Munsfords.  Carla and Brenton had invited us to stay at their guest bedroom.

The Conference Center was exciting and busy.  There were several ladies from the Hoity Toity club that were there as volunteers to help with the children’s yearend party.  Some of them were polite with the Coatswells, but none seemed glad to see them.

Amy G. Dala, who announced that she was now a member of the expectant mommies of the Mommies club, pulled me aside and asked why the Coatswells were here.  She said that Nancy was among the most notorious gamblers when it came to sexual favors being on the line.  If they had not moved out of town, they may have lost their membership.  I shrugged.  All I knew was that they had heard that the Levys had made some interesting renovations.  They were back in town over the holidays, but they had contacted no one from the Hoity Toity club as far as we knew.

Dinah Levy came by, and we introduced her to the Coatswells.  Dinah was her usual bubbly self, but she was a bit reserved.  I think Amy had warned her.  Dinah invited the Coatswells to their home mid-afternoon on New Year’s Day.  But with their personal invitation to what had been their home, the Coatswells stayed.  That was odd.  They had a hotel room in the swanky hotel downtown, but they decided to stay.  Pauline and I wondered if they had any friends in Tracy.  Neither of their parents lived in the Tracy area, with Nancy having an uncle and cousins in Doyle County, but they had already visited them.

The Coatswells kept their distance at the party with the room filled with pre-school children and a scattering of children in elementary school.  Pauline had explained that Ibie and Baffy were just good friends and not twins.  Otherwise, we hardly noticed them.  After all, the sleepover was going to have a major private birthday party for Baffy (3) tonight and Andrew (1) tomorrow morning.  Since Baffy has been telling everyone that she was already three for the past three months now, there might have to be some explaining, but since she says she is the twin sister of Scarlett Ibis Yeggs, they should be the same age… right?!

The party for the children ended with vespers.  It was packed with employees, residents that were not employees, volunteers from the children’s party and early birds for the apple drop.  The Hoity Toity volunteers had especially stayed to hear Dinah Levy’s testimony.

Dinah did not tell names, but she left little out.  She had gotten acting parts using the casting couch method.  She had even starred during her college years in a live sex off Broadway play – very off Broadway.  She had met Jacob and moved with him to Central America, and she was not faithful to him.  Then, unfaithful upon their return.  It only hit her when she realized that the sleeping around wasn’t even fun anymore.  She accepted Jesus.  She had gone from an ethnic Jew to being a believer in Jesus Christ.  So, going to the First-Third Metho-Presby church made more sense than becoming a practicing Jew.

But then she talked about what her life was like now.  She had begged God to take away the temptations in life.  She still loved other men, but she was faithful to Jacob.  It was a constant struggle, but then she quoted Scriptures.  God does not remove the temptation.  He gives us the strength to endure the temptation.  Some verses talk about escape, but others talk about endurance.  Some temptations were the ones we had to flee from.  Either way, the strength comes from God.  With her being man-hungry, she could have come through menopause with no desire for men, the hormones that support that desire are simply no longer produced.  Maybe with less desire.  But her desire has not changed, the difference is that she only succumbs to the desires when it is with her husband.

Those in Baffy’s party tonight went to the Big House and the others went to the nursery.  All the children were invited to the big party tomorrow, but Baffy wanted a sleep-over party tonight for the twins and extended family.  After all, Scarlet Ibis Yeggs and Baffing Spoon Niblick are “twins”, born of different parents, three months apart.  Just ask Ibie or Baffy, and they’ll tell you.  But even though Andrew’s birthday was also a little past midnight tonight, his first, I took him to the nursery.  As the children were going in two different directions, the crowd huddled around Dinah.  She had hit a nerve.  Most in the crowd were not man hungry, but they had not heard anyone speak about conquering temptations the way Dinah had said.  They all wanted that magic bullet that takes the temptation away.

Pauline looked at the Coatswells, and Nancy had tears in her eyes.

Andrew was quickly asleep even though a lot of the small children were wired.  Andrew was one of those guys who could sleep through a hurricane or artillery bombardment.  Then again, tomorrow, he will be a year older, and he might wake up a totally different child.

At the little party, the extended Yeggs family children were there, except Stormie who is only a month older than Andrew.  The Wednesday’s oldest three, Lauren and Sammie MacDougall, and Reuben and Samantha ver Waarloosd were also there.  This was the usual bedtime for the children, so they only played a couple of games and then they played an old cartoon movie.  When the movie was over, Kanok was the only one still awake, but she was about to give up the fight.  Most of the parents were with them, but Pink Lady was with her guests downstairs, and Menzie was on stage, singing her heart out with Emmett’s patchwork jazz band.  The Snazzy Taz had their own big New Year’s bash, so Emmett had to recruit a pickup band, mostly university music professors.

Scrambled Yeggs put his big beefy, baker’s arm around Kanok, and she gave up the fight.  Even Scrambled was out for the count.  Catherine and Thomas volunteered to stay with the children.  They had been feeding the homeless for a couple of days in a row.  They were exhausted.  If any of the children woke up, Pauline thought Catherine would be the one who would wake up also.  Thomas and Scrambled had both worked extremely long days.

Since I was back in the Crystal Mountain quickly, I kept an eye on the Coatswells.  Something was not adding up.  Elroy and Irusya were also on alert, more aware than on high alert, but we had no idea why they had come back to town.  Looking around in their old house seemed a lame excuse.  If this were not a holiday, Jacob would have called some friends in DC.

The partiers were a mix of people from the charities that Pink Lady supports, the faculty of the PLAYhouse, the mission staff downtown, family, and the extended family of Lily the Pink employees.  Since Pauline was a charter member of the Mommie Club and we were friends with Pink through Dev and Naomi Yeggs, we were invited.  But truly, everywhere Ibie Yeggs went, her twin, that is our daughter, Baffy, had to go.  Who will break it to them that when they start school, they live in different school districts?

After the Golden Apple descended to about ten feet above the pool and then was released with perfect timing to hit the water with a big splash at midnight, I cornered Ted and Nancy.

“Ted, Nancy, security has told me that they do not feel comfortable with either of you driving to your hotel.  I can have Mashie drive your rental and I will drive you to your hotel.  We can talk along the way.”  When Pauline had said that, they nodded and followed me to our car.  Ted sat in the backseat so that Nancy and I could talk.  I told Brenton and Carla that we would drive home instead, a shorter distance from the hotel.

Pauline said, “Nancy, how are things really going for you in DC?  I can sense something is wrong.”

Nancy grumbled, “My friends said that you were blunt at times, but they said you mean well.  DC is a tough place to live.  Most people are connected to the government in some way.  Ted is manager of government projects that the company does.  Most of them are top secret.  I don’t know about them, but if I did, I could not tell you, since you don’t have a clearance.”

Pauline nearly laughed, but she held it in.  “That sounds interesting.  Ted, do you work with spies?”

Ted groaned, “If I did, I would not be allowed to say, but it is mostly securing classified information, transferring classified information, everything transferred is in code, but our company does not even know the code.  Our knowledge is worthless.”

Pauline smiled, knowing she had developed the code, “That sounds interesting anyway.  Do you transfer any information to Tracy?”

Ted paused, “I guess that I can tell you that for some strange reason, Tracy is not part of our system.  Odd, since I was here in Tracy and got the job in DC.  But what Nancy hedged around is that people are at parties to be seen and broker influence on the politicians in the crowd.  Everything is fake, and we have had no luck at all at making friends.  Then, we come back here and find that our friends sold us down the river.  Have you ever woken up and your entire world is changed, like you fell through a hole into a parallel universe?”

Pauline moaned, “That sounds terrible.  It has never happened to me, but Mashie has had some strange experiences.  How did your friends sell you down the river?”

Nancy grumbled, “Did you see how Amy G. Dimwit avoided us all night?  She won the election as club president fair and square, but then she started her clean-up campaign.  We were getting ready to leave town, so it didn’t matter to us.  Our friends blamed all the naughty behavior on Ted and me.  That way, we became persona non grata at the club and the people who were the real naughty characters are still there.  Since we left, why should we care, but it may be that a background check has kept us out of a few country clubs in the DC area.  That might make a world of difference.”

Pauline sighed, “You two were nice neighbors when we moved in.  What could they blame you for starting?”

Nancy looked away. “We played monopoly, usually with large monetary bets, but someone, not me, got the idea that once you realized you were at a disadvantage, you could make deals around the table to manipulate who would win.  That became a big monetary shift from one person to the other based on the bets. So, someone suggested that the person in last place would become the slave of the person in first place, just for the day.  For instance, I was the housemaid for the Sturdivants, at their lake house one day, a lot of cleaning, but nothing more.”

Pauline had seen the Sturdivant video, and there was a lot more than just cleaning that went on there.

Nancy continued, “But then, someone wanted to loser to be a sex slave for the day.  That changed the stakes drastically.  Believe me!  I did not come up with any of those ideas.  I was usually the fill-in person, roaming from one table to the next when someone did not show up.  As a result, I was often the loser.  The other three seemed to gang up on me.  But I kept going because the other players were influential in Tracy, and it would be good for Ted’s career.”

Pauline asked, “And Ted, what is your story?”

Ted sighed, “Everyone playing golf with friends will kick a ball into a better spot for the next shot.  They cheated constantly, and the stakes were high, but they blamed me for inventive ways of cheating.  My lost balls always got found in the middle of the fairway as if it bounced off a tree and back into the fairway.  That could happen, but not all the time.  I might have done that once or twice, but they claimed I did it every round.  Honest, I did not cheat any more than the other guys did.  And I did not lead the way.  But ask your friend Amy G. Dimwit, and she will tell you what her ‘investigation’ came up with.  We were leaving, and everyone that was guilty blamed us.  Now four different country clubs in Maryland will not accept us due to past issues from our time here in Tracy.  Dr. Niblick, we never had our day in court.”

After Pauline had dropped off the Coatswells, she talked to me on the way home.  “Mashie, when Amy told me what was going on, the fourth person at the table was the one who was left out in the dark regarding the cheating at Monopoly.  If what she is saying is true, she was trying to win, but it was stacked against her, losing almost all the time.  Which means she slept with a lot of the Hoity Toity members.  In a way, she paid her dues.  The people with the rigged dice were kicked out of the club and they paid heavy fines for fraud, but they did no jail time.  Maybe Jacob can use his influence to get the Coatswells record erased.  They could join a country club in Maryland and start making some friends.  I would hate to see these old friends of ours pay such a high price when those that blamed them for their deception paid a little fine that they took care of with pocket change.”

I nodded, “Let’s call Amy and get what evidence she has.  Then we call Jacob.  And all of that before they show up to tour the house before three this afternoon.”

Pauline asked, “Don’t you mean tomorrow?”

I sighed, “Don’t you remember what we did about an hour ago?  We saw a big apple fall into Pink Lady’s swimming pool.  It is already a new year, a new month, and a new day.  And if I am not mistaken, Baffy and Andrew are at Lily the Pink.  We have the house to ourselves.  We could ring in the New Year, just the two of us.”

Pauline purred, “Oh, goodie.  We may not get any sleep, but this ought to be fun.”

Credits

The Perils of Pauline was a movie serial that started in 1914. It defined many serials that followed, including the Perils of Pauline “moment,” the cliffhanger that caused you to return to the theater for the next installment.

I cannot think of any additional “Credits”.