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 turned to see Johnny Jacks and Rosie enter my office.  I said, “As I live and breathe, I never expected you two to enter for counseling.  You must be here for a big announcement.”

Rosie began to show tears in her eyes, “No, Mommie Pinkie, we need help.”

Johnny grumbled, “Rosie wants us to talk it over with you first.  I resisted, but she is insistent.”

I said, “And that is why I thought you would never be in here needing counseling.  You both are level-headed and you seem to always talk things out.”

Rosie said, “We hit a snag, and unless we resolve this thing, there may never be any big announcements.”  She slumped into a visitor chair.  Johnny sat in the other visitor chair.  When I saw couples, I wanted them far enough apart to make swinging a fist or open hand difficult, but close enough that if they both leaned toward each other, they could hold hands.  I pulled up a chair and sat between them.

If there was any good time for a Kanok greeting, this was not the time, but she came over and said, “Sawasdee Kha.”  All three of us bowed and said, “Sawasdee Kha.”

Kanok doubled over laughing, “Johnny Jacks said it wrong!  That is so funny!”

I chided, “Kanok, do not treat a guest that way.  Instruct Mr. Jacks in what he should say.  Johnny, ‘Sawasdee’ in Thai is like Aloha in Hawaii.  It is a greeting.  But in Thai, they add a word as a period.  It signifies that they have stopped talking and now you can talk.  It is a wonderful polite custom.  Now, Kanok, explain what you said and what he should say.”

No longer laughing, Kanok said, “Kha is the word that a woman says so that the other person can speak.  For boys, the word is ‘Khrap.’  You should reply ‘Sawasdee Khrap.’”

Johnny said, “Sawasdee Khrap.”

Kanok laughed, “That was good.”  She bowed and said, “Sawasdee Kha.”  And then she ran back to Joon and Sparkle and Grannie Fannie and her three unofficial grandchildren.

I sighed, “With that out of the way, what is this showstopper?”

Rosie said, “I’ll let the idiot explain.”

Johnny reddened, and he cleared his throat, “Mommie Pinkie, I was about to propose to Rosie, but I started thinking about her past life.  The last time that she was romantic with anyone, it was a woman.  I don’t want to marry her when she really loves women.”

Rosie started to cry.  I got up and got a box of tissues.  Rosie said, “Before this is over, I might need a bigger box.  I love the idiot, but he wants us to have sex so I can prove to him that the fondness for girls is over.  I ain’t gonna do that, Mommie Pinkie.  I am a different person now.”

I sighed, “If you had come in to say you had crossed that line, I would not be pleased, but I would counsel you about what would be next.  Johnny Jacks, I know nothing of your background, but you are a minister of some sort.  Second Corinthians 5:17 says that we are a new creation.  That means that Rosie is not the same person she was.  Since I do not know your background, are you changed after accepting Jesus?  Did you date other people before Rosie?  Are you color blind with regard to romance?  What kind of upbringing did you have?”

Johnny said, “Please call me Johnny or John.  Rosie loves the way Johnny Jacks sounds, and she refuses to call me anything else.  I guess that is part of her charm.”

I nodded, “But you have avoided all my questions.  You have been dating Rosie for some time.  You knew each other longer than that.  Okay, I will let you stew over my questions.  Rosie, you know how this works.  How did you meet this handsome hunk of a guy?”

Rosie brightened, and wiped away the tears, “In a way, Poached got us together.  I was looking for a church where I could feel something.  No offense.  First-Third has an early service that is three-quarters filled with emancipated workers from here.  I would be with family, but I wanted music that has a nice beat.  I wanted to stand up and wave my hands in the air.  I was talking to Poached about that one day when he was working on the computer in raw materials.  I’m usually up there alone, but I enjoyed Poached coming by.  He likes to talk, and I need someone to talk to on occasion.  I’m a loner mostly.  That’s why Raw Materials is such a great place for me, away from the alcohol and people.  Temptations with both, I suppose.  So, there were four of us who wanted to try out the church where he goes.”

I asked, “So, you met John there?”

Rosie nodded and shrugged at the same time. “The church has small groups that meet.  I know when you join a small group halfway through a Bible study, it can mess up the group dynamics.  The other three ladies went to the coffee shop that’s inside the church to mix and mingle.  Two of them started dating and one is already married.  All in hooking up at the coffee shop.  It talks in First Corinthians 6 to flee from sexual immorality.  That’s why I love the solitude of my job.  So, I went into the sanctuary where the musicians were practicing.  I wanted to see if this was my kind of worship music.  I saw this goofy guy here leading the band, sometimes an orchestra, sometimes guitars and drums, but mostly something in between.  Johnny Jacks was patient, but he kept working until they had it right.  Something attracted me to him, but it was a couple of weeks before I asked one of the singers and they said he was not married.  It was a month later before I asked if he wanted a coffee after the service.  For a long time, that’s all we ever did, have a coffee and talk.  Then one Sunday he told our Pink vehicle driver that he would take me home, and we had a nice lunch together and a walk down by the river.  The romance grew from there.  And in finding out all I could about Johnny Jacks, he loves the old board games.  So, we play Parcheesi, Scrabble, Clue, and the Game of Life.  So, until his latest demand, everything has been going great.”

I turned to Johnny, “Now, you see how it works.  You know my previous questions.  What makes Johnny Jacks tick?  Start with your basic life growing up.”

John nodded, “I was the youngest of three children.  We lived south of Tracy, in the next county.  My parents both worked, but we had little money.  My older brother was a rebel of sorts.  My parents were strict.  They wanted no romance between us and other skin colors.  They thought the problems in marriage stemmed from not growing up with the same goals, work ethic, moral code, and such.  My brother dated Latin girls and a Thai girl once.  My parents hit the roof.  My sister did whatever pleased my parents.  She is doing okay, but I think she is sad.  She thinks she sold herself short by sticking to my parents’ ways.  So, I came along and I tried my sister’s approach.  With my stuffy, often judgmental way of thinking, no one wanted to date me.  Besides, I was a band geek.  I had a lot of band friends, but no romantic friends.  Then the band had an overnight trip.  Some girls invited me to their room.  I thought they wanted to jam, so I took my trombone.  But the girls just talked about goofy things and invited me to be part of the conversation.  Then, well, things happened. …”

I looked at Rosie.  She said, “The conversation got around to boys and girls and what they like to do when they are alone.  There were four girls: a black, an Asian, a Brazilian, and a Mexican.  They started taking off each other’s clothes and playing around.  But then the black girl said she had a crush on Johnny Jacks.  The other three girls coaxed the two into doing the deed.  That’s what Mommie Pinkie needed, Johnny Jacks.”

John nodded, “Well, when we got back, with what had happened to my older brother, I could not say what had happened.  But I wanted to see her more, so I went with friends to the mall.  And she wanted to go to bed with me again.  We snuck off to her uncle’s house near the mall and borrowed a bed for a while.  After two or three of these physical interludes, I heard she had been killed in a drive by shooting.  Everybody said it was a random thing, but I wondered if they did not want her to date a white boy as much as my parents did not want me dating a black girl.  So, I went back to not dating.  I also committed my life to Jesus.  In my way of thinking, my friend died due to me sinning against God.  I got a nice scholarship in music at T.R.U.S.T., but I had to pay for room and board.  Those student loans are nearly paid off due to the Baptist church donating some to the loan payments and working in the impoverished center of Tracy getting me some of the loan forgiven.  Even with the Baptist school, they allowed for that.  But having the music ministry job at the church gives me the extra I need to make the loan payments for what is left.  So, that is it until I had this groupie over here watching my every move.  Come to think of it, was she a groupie or a stalker?”

Rosie said, “I will accept either if you drop this idea of us sleeping together before we get married.”

Johnny groaned, “But you have confessed that when you see the right type of woman, you have urges.”

Rosie said, “But I flee from those urges.  And when that happens and you are around, I flee toward you.  But you are saying that you do not trust me, and we cannot have a marriage without trust.  And that hurts me, even if we never talk about marriage.”

I asked, “Has he proposed?”

Rosie, with tears in her eyes, said, “No!  He says he has the ring, but he wants to be sure that I am not marrying him out of convenience.  He thinks I might just want to get pregnant and then dump him.  If this is just cold feet, he didn’t have to go that far.”  She broke down in sobs.

I said, “And he may have second thoughts because he is convinced his first black girlfriend was targeted by the drive by shooter.  He loves you enough to be concerned.  But that does not mean that the girl in high school was targeted for having a relationship with a white boy.  That is all in John’s imagination.  And John, Rosie has a stable job here in a safe part of town.  If you move in with her, I can put you where you can add on extra rooms with a growing family, and the rent will be cheaper.  I could even arrange a shuttle to take you to and from school.  So, you and Rosie would be safe. I don’t know about your parents.”

John huffed, “I told them that I was dating a black girl.  I said nothing about her having been a lesbian.  I said nothing about her attending AA meetings, but my mother was relieved that I was dating.  With my brother never marrying, Mom wants a grandchild with the family name.  Besides, when you don’t go on a date, not that they ever knew about, until you were out of college for a couple of years, they were getting desperate.”

I nodded, “So, let’s tackle the big problem.  If you deny that you can have trust in Rosie, you are denying a trust in God.  Rosie is a new creation.  She may be tempted, but she knows that lifestyle is wrong, especially wrong for her.  She wants you and nothing but you.  She wants this done right.  As soon as you do the nasty thing, you quit talking.  You quit learning what makes the other one happy.  And refresh my memory, Rosie, why were you attracted to women?”

Rosie, still in tears, said, “The guys reached a climax, and it was over.  But the girls kept going until we were both satisfied.”

I asked, “John, can you put your future wife first and make sure she is satisfied?”

John said, “I told her that I would be a male lesbian, but Rosie threw a fit.”

I asked, “What is a male lesbian?”

Rosie said, “A male who is attracted to lesbians.  I told him that I wanted a man, but I wanted a man who could satisfy my needs.  I guess this premarital thing is a test as to what that looks like, but we can get married and then figure that out.”

Then, Johnny shocked both of us.  He got up and approached Rosie.  He got down on one knee.  He had just hurt Rosie deeply.  This was not the time for a proposal.

John said, “Rosie, will you forgive me?  I know that I have hurt you with my lack of trust.  Forget what I said.  When the time is right, I will propose.  No prenuptial conditions.  We cross those physical boundaries on our wedding night.  Like you said, we will learn together.”

Rosie said, “Yes, Johnny Jacks, I forgive you.  I need to know we can trust each other.  That’s all I ask.”

They both embraced.

As they left the office, Julia came in.  “Mommie Pinkie, Elroy has someone here who needs to move into an apartment, a special apartment.”

I groaned, “I knew he was arriving soon.  Send them in.”

Elroy came in with Jethro McCoy.  Jethro still had an ankle bracelet.

Kanok came over and did her greeting.  Jethro hesitated to see what Elroy would say, and he fumbled the “Khrap,” but he did okay, as far as Kanok was concerned.  Why Kanok was suddenly being more social was confusing me.  Maybe she had never seen Jethro before.

Elroy said, “We’ve already discussed this situation.  I am going to take Jethro all over the Crystal Mountain, the apartment building, and the cider house.  After Joseline can get him trained, I will take him to the top of the Crystal Mountain.  I know how the ankle bracelet works, and I need to program the usual perimeter that he is expected to travel.  I want as few alarms as possible when he is simply going for a walk.  I don’t know if you want him to work.  We did not discuss that.  But I will follow him around his first couple of days at the university, so that perimeter is known by his monitoring people.  And these are our alphabet soup in DC people, not the FBI or police here.  And, if he gets homesick and takes a bus, our people will track him down.  If he would rather go to jail at that point, we can take him off your hands.  But as long as he only goes to the university and stays here the rest of the time, he will never set off an alarm, maybe a stray alarm if the bus driver takes a different route due to traffic congestion.  If I get an alarm in those cases, I will call the bus driver, and she can confirm the alternate route.  Then the alarm goes no further.  They want Irusya and me to be the primary response team if he strays.  And I hope by mid-semester, the ankle bracelet will be a thing of the past.”

I sighed, “I have had people who came here due to natural disasters and personal issues, but a federal prisoner under house arrest is a strange new one on me.  Jethro, this is not Kentucky.  Things will be different.  And Elroy put it bluntly, but if you get homesick, your only other option is prison.  Maybe we can set up some conference calls.  There are no electronics in your room, so you would have to borrow a phone and be monitored while you called to have time with your Dad.”

Jethro said, “Thank you, Mrs. Pink Lady.”

Elroy said, “We talked about that.  She is ‘Mommie Pinkie.’”

Jethro reddened, “Sorry, Mommie Pinkie.  Dad might like a call once every other week.  That’s what he told me anyways.  But I am supposed to be on a computer science degree.  How can I do that when I can’t have a computer?”

Elroy said, “For the first year, you are taking no classes that require a computer.  They are all non-specialty required classes.  Some homework is done using a laptop or tablet.  I am working on that, restricting it to just classwork.  Once you get into classes that go deep on the web, we’ll monitor what you do.”

Jethro shrugged, “Okay.  But what if I borrow someone’s computer?”

Elroy groaned, “Don’t.  That’s my short answer.  I am working on a Wi-Fi signal blocker that can be restricted to just your apartment.  Then, when you have classes that require Wi-Fi, you will be supervised.  You are a special case.  You hacked to help friends and relatives find information.  I think we can trust you, but we have to see a track record for a while before my bosses agree.”

With that settled, I was now hosting a prisoner, of sorts.  I had been a prisoner in this very room.  If it were not for my belief in God, I would have had no hope.  But now, I felt a great deal of hope.  I think Jethro was good at computers, and he honestly did not know he was doing something wrong.  And when it comes to teenaged geniuses, I have had my share under this roof. I think Jethro is going to be exceptionally well-behaved.  Being a small fry in a small town, he is expected to play by the rules.

Credits

I cannot see anything that needs a Credit.