Creatures of Habit

It was clear and snappy cold at four in the morning. When I stepped on the lawn, the frost crunched under my boots. A waning moon and bright, sparkling stars, with only thin, scudding wisps of high clouds.

I had my gear loaded in my truck and had just brought out my cased rifle and my field kit to add in. When I noticed a light coming on through O'Joe O'Mallory's kitchen window, two houses down the street.

That signaled I had about fifteen, twenty minutes. So back inside I went, sitting down at my kitchen table with another mug of coffee. Finishing off the rhubarb-strawberry pie I had bought at the Church Social last Sunday.

As I was rinsing off the tin pie-pan to put into the dish-drainer, I heard a car pull onto my gravel driveway. One car-door open and shut on a burst of illegible radio noise.

One heavy man striding up the walk and then onto the porch to my front door. One firm rap and the big guy walked on in. I had deliberately left it open a fraction for him.

So far, everybody acting predictably. We are all creatures of habit and it irritates me when someone acts outside of my expectations.

Sometimes I wonder...am I an accountant because I have always been wired that way? Or, was I conditioned into this rigidity from the meticulous type of work I do?

"Morning Ronnie." Said the Sheriff.

I replied "Morning West."

Yep, I'd figured that Sheriff West Warsaw had asked O'Joe to keep an eye on me. As I said, predictable. Once a cop, always a cop. As for myself, I'm Ronald Reagan Waterway, US Army WO (Ret.), now the village CPA.

Our County Sheriff just stood there. I could hear the leather creaking from his Sam Browne belt and holster.

Looking at me.

Considering me.

All stoney faced.

West is notorious as the best poker player in this half of the state.

That silent glare from Sheriff West Warsaw has probably wrung as many confessions out of suspects in the four years since his election. Then two decades of 'tenderizing' suspects with rubber hoses did during the old Sheriff, 'Maddog" Cooley's reign. (And that's Mister Maddog to you boy!)

I finished wiping down the table and the kitchen counter before hanging up the rag and washing my hands at the kitchen sink.

Standing there, drying my hands with a dish towel, I looked back over my shoulder and told my officious visitor "Well Sheriff, I'm going to take a piss and finish locking up. Then I'm going to drive over to Craig's."

West just kept silently staring, with his thumbs in his holster belt, so I continued "Load my gear and rifle into his truck and the two of us will meet up with Bob and Jerry for lunch at the Truck Stop at the Fork on the Old Highway."

I could see him visualizing the road map.

"Then the four of us are headed up into the Squire Heights to the Halley family's cabin outside of Little Bridge. I think there'll may be six to eight of us staying at the cabin this week?

I'll leave my keys with Bonnie to watch my truck and my house while we're gone."

I dunno, but for a second it seemed as if stoney face had actually cracked, a short-lived frown of concern flashed and was gone.

He nodded "You say hi to Bonnie and Craig for me? And Ron...I'll have a patrol car swing by now and again. Keep an eye on your house for you till you get back."

I just couldn't resist that opening!

Trying for my own deadpan look and flat voice "I really appreciate that West. Since I am one of the few people in this county who scrupulously pays their land tax when due. I'd guess I should be first in line for any extra 'Serve and Protect'?"

Hot damn! I almost got a smile out of him that time.

He tapped the brim of his Smokey Bear, saluting me with a couple of fingers. As he exit out the door, he generously offered "Good hunting, Ron. In the mountains. Far away from here!"

Cheerfully I drolled "Always happy to oblige a Peace Officer."

I think I heard him snicker at that and faintly "I do NOT want to have to be filling out any damn paperwork with your name on it, Ron."

I was chuckling at that as I went to empty my bladder, shaking off the annoying drips before tucking my 'gun' away. Then lights off and locked the front door behind me. Mentally running down my last-minute checklist as I hauled myself up into the cab of my pickup.

Carefully buckling up, wouldn't want to get a ticket. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that O'Joe's kitchen light went out.

Funny old geezer. O'Mallory had been a policeman himself, many years ago in Ulster. Got himself a bad reputation for brutality against IRA sympathizers and he wound up in America to escape reprisals.

Now he runs our neighborhood watch and could be counted on to keep an eye out for possible troublemakers passing through this end of town. Years ago, the neighborhood kids were teasing him and started calling him Old Joe, and then O'Joe, now everybody does.

I suspect he was the one who mailed to my office, the unsigned message that informed me that my wife Lois was committing adultery with Neal Morrison. I got home just in time to catch the town male slut strutting out my front door.

Neal and I had a real knock-down, drag-out fist fight on the front lawn before a couple of Deputies could separate us.

My wife ran off to stay with her sister Agnes.

You want to hear about the aggravation of being Ronald Reagan Waterway? (Ronnie to my friends.)

The pain of having a reputation as an Army Sniper and as an award winning, Nationally ranked Sharpshooter?

Everyone is eagerly waiting, eagerly watching, for me to put a bullet through that fucking toad's ears.

Hell, there's probably dozens of office and bar pools running, betting on when and at which location I'll shoot him or where my bullet will hit him.

Even the make, model and caliber of whichever of my rifles I choose to use. Our rural County's version of the 'Death Pools'!

Uhh, NO! I am not about to ruin the remainder of my life for some momentary satisfaction popping that toad.

That'd be as stupid as answering the bell to your front door at night. Only to find a burning paper bag of dog poop on your porch 'Welcome' mat and stomping on it with your bare feet!

Hey, I only did it once!

'Cause when my Pop heard about it from Mister Schreider? HooBoy! Pop took his belt to my ass, to reaffirm my lessons in neighborly curtesy.

As I've said before, being an accountant, I have observed that people tend to act in predictable patterns. I count on that remaining so in this case.

To prove my point, I'm going to leave my keys with Sheriff Warsaw's sister, Bonnie. Ride up to the mountain cabin with her husband, Craig Ericsson. See how close I can put a bullet next to an Whitetail without actually hitting it. Drink some beers. Listen to a lot of stupid bragging. And just chill out, man!

It's the numbers. Crunch those costs for replacing my wife. Cook, housekeeper, childcare, tutor, sexworker, gardener, valet, gofor, secretary, concierge, escort, companion, nurse, chauffeur, laundress, confidant, jack-leg plumber, handyman.

Every day of our marriage.

How do I even begin to price the value of three complete pregnancies? All the discomfort she quietly coped with. All the pain she suffered. All the risks to her life of childbirth. All the hard work afterwards raising the children.

How do I put a value on the two miscarriages she had too endure? And I wasn't here for her during the last one. I didn't get back for another two months.

She coped with losing the baby, with the support of our families but without me.

It took another four or five months of counseling to help the both of us resolve her grief and emotional turmoil. And my guilt putting her at risk like that.

For all the years before, during and after the Army had me running around the world shooting people.

Lois did all that for me.

With a hell of lot less bellyaching then I've ever heard from most other wives dumping on their husbands.

With those other wives accomplishing a whole hell of a lot less on behalf of their own families.

Twenty-four years of it Lois held it all together including the total of eight years, off and on, I have spent Overseas. While bearing and raising our three surviving children.

Considering the odds against her, our three kids turned out pretty damn swell.

Ron Jr. has graduated with a Bachelors in Medical Technology and is working at an Indian Reservation Hospital. Modernizing their infrastructure before he is scheduled to report for some new US Army Technical Specialities Officers Training Program.

That he could graduate as a Warrant Officer in just a couple of years, depending on his specific specialty. Perhaps even qualify for the advanced training program that offers the possibility for him to earn a commission?

Hey! My son, a US Army officer? Maybe the chance to become an MD?

LenoraMay (named after both our mothers) is a Junior at State University, in their Pre-Law Program. She is working to become an attorney.

Hot damn! Free legal services for us!

I guess if I do have to shoot the toad, having my own beautiful daughter plead my appeals might sway a judge or two?

And Matthew is in his first year at the Free Spirit Congregational Seminary College as he feels a calling to become a Minister.

He always had a great speaking presence as he displayed throughout High School, participating in debates and theatre. (I've seen the videos my wife and friends made of the events.)

While in our Church Choir he developed a good singing voice and has also taught himself to play several instruments.

Furthermore...but never least.

When my mother had several strokes and was incapacitated for nearly a year and a half before she finally passed on.

Lois and her sister Agnes kidnapped her from the horrible nursing home, my bastard of a sister and that asshole husband of hers, had dumped our mother into. While they were looting her pension and property.

With me stuck in [unpronounceable] snakepit, [umpteen] thousands of miles away, out of [secured] communication.

While my brother Reggie was working his way through a nasty divorce and the legal nightmare of the forced bankruptcy of his business.

Which as it turned out, was caused by his partner embezzling the Company coffers. This being the same asshole who was having an affair with Reggie's wife.

Lois and Agnes had lost their own mother to cancer when they were teenagers. Lois and my mother had been very close up until Mother's first stroke when my bitch sister took our Mother in, supposedly to care for her.

Lois became concerned when my sister stopped her from visiting but my sister's sleazeball husband had gotten them a conservatorship over Mother's affairs.

So Lois was stymied from interfering. Without solid evidence of wrong doing.

It was my sister-in-law Agnes, who is a RSN at the County Hospital. Through some friends of hers who are also health care professionals.

Somehow they had tracked down Mother as a patient in a dilapidated nursing home notorious for neglecting their charges. Where my sister and brother-in-law were hiding Mother and concealing the desperate straits she was in.

It was Lois who took the initiative. After retrieving the bedridden victim of abuse. Going to the Protective Services Court with video depositions of the deplorable conditions at the nursing home. Getting an emergency court order appointing my wife as conservator on behalf of my mother.

Following up with a civil suit against my sister and brother-in-law to get back some of the property and income they had stolen from the incapacitated woman.

Lois brought My Mother to Our Home to live out the last year of her life with loving care and homey comforts. Lois cared for her every night. While Agnes or another reliable caretaker was there every day.

Never, in all those years including the time I spent over there WhereeverintheHell?Ihappenedtobe. Was there so much as a whisper of Lois ever being unfaithful to me.

Which is an accomplishment in our small community. Notorious for it's vicious gossips and slanderous scolds, especially at the Church socials and mouldering on barstools.

According to her new doctors, my wife is suffering from the aftereffects of a botched hysterectomy with a misdiagnosis of ovarian cancer. On top of all that, her body has, for some unknown reason, been rejecting the different hormone replacement therapies she has been prescribed.

On an irregular cycle through the last four years, Lois goes through wild random mood swings from being utterly repulsed by sex to super-extra horny. Way more than I can satisfy her with my partially disabled, fifty year old body.

The first time she went sex crazy, we barely muddled through. Frankly I thought I was going to have a heart attack from trying and failing to keep up with her demands. She was damn near insatiable for a couple of weeks there. I was scared my dick would be permanently warped!

When it became apparent that she was about to repeat her super-horny part of this vicious cycle. We talked about how we would take care of her the second time. As I was stuck with having to be a defense witness for one of my clients in a tax court case in Chicago.

At my urging (Yes, Mine!), Lois spent those two weeks with my brother Reggie (by then divorce completed) in Aspen on a skiing vacation. Now he is engaged to be remarried, so he's become unavailable to help out.

Together, my wife and I harassed her old GP into referring Lois to a new specialist. Who was finally able to explain her hypothesis of what Lois was suffering through.

The problem is, trying to control problems like this without causing further complications, gets very damn complicated.

As you can imagine, Lois. Sure as Hell! Does not want to be tortured through any more useless operations.

The malpractice suit from the bungled hysterectomy will be years trudging it's way through the court system.

The misdiagnosis of ovarian cancer was such a close call, it would be impossible to prove malpractice on that issue. At least the ruckus of bad publicity we raised, forced the local hospitals to upgrade their procedures for processing these mid-operation snap diagnosis.

Hell'nDamnation! For my part I tried Viagra & then Levitra but they were having a bad effect on my damaged heart. I am now prescribed Cialis but the dosage I'm permitted has only provided a limited boost to my sexual capacity without the side-effects of the other drugs.

I'm still at least a couple of years before I get up too the head of the line on the transplant list. My Cardiologist has been nagging me to settle for a pacemaker.

I dunno. I still wouldn't be a 100%. If I'm going to risk major surgery and being permanently on the anti-rejection medicines as well as at risk for chronic infections? I'd prefer better than 3 to 2 odds.

It's just that I may not have a choice but to go ahead and settle for what will probably work, barely okay, right now, for an indeterminate period of time.

The third and fourth times her hormones went 'Girl's Gone Wild!' Realizing what was happening to herself, again. Lois was extra careful to be extra discreet about getting extramarital sex, locally. Maury Feldt and then Bruce Scott were both inconspicuous and courteous to my feelings about sharing my wife.

Maury, is the youngest son of Philip Feldt. Lois works for Phil as receptionist and secretary. That spring break, Maury was home from College. Working for his father to earn the money to pay his car insurance and other expenses. He and my wife had an affair I guess you'd call it, for a couple of weeks till Lois's cycle turned again.

I ain't going to pretend I was happy about it but it took a lot of personal pressure off of me. While I was inundated with cleaning up the annual tax messes my clients would leave me every damn April.

The next time Lois began to get desperate, she confided in her old school friend Ellen Preston-Scott about her condition.

Ellen had earlier revealed to Lois that she and her husband Bruce had an open marriage. Ellen kindly arranged to have Lois taken care of by Bruce during Lois's condition.

Ellen generously offered me some reciprocal opportunity but I turned her down flat. As Lois was already giving me more sex then I could safely, physically handle.

Damnit! That's what got us into this whole mess. Why the hell would I want to complicate my life even further?

Twice last year, Scott was available to help out. That's what neighbors and friends are for! Unfortunately it turned out, that the Scott's are not available this year as the swingers group they had joined does not allow sex outside the membership.

And frankly both Lois and I are more than a tad ambivalent about the rumors of those groups spreading STI's.

Even if it is an inadvertent , one-time mistake. There are no 'do overs' with those risks. Last fucking thing we need to deal with, on top of all our other problems, is HIV or AIDS or drug-resistant Hepatitis.

Ellen and Bruce tried to get a special dispensation on Lois's behalf but being our good friends first, they would not violate her privacy to fully explain the problems she was having. That made the other members nervous and they voted Lois down.

While all that social drama was going on....

....A predator smelled desperation.

If Lois had found someone as prudent as the first three men this time, I wouldn't have had too many complaints.

But, God damn it! This time she fell into the clutches of that professional turd, Neal Morrisson. Who has never bothered with tact or spent a moment shedding a tear for any of the women he has ruined.

If his family didn't hold half the mortgages in this part of the county, horn dog Neal would have been tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail long ago.

Now the asshole is going around bragging about fucking my wife and beating me up. As for the second part, I'd say it'd turned out to be a standoff.

Neither one of us is a trained cage fighter and we probably looked ridiculous to anyone who'd had real experience at hand to hand. Two bloated, out-of-shape, swivel-chair warriors in business suits, rolling around on the wet grass, wildly whaling away at one another.