The Lovely Chocolate Mob

New Session

“I think it’s time you tell me more about this old flame,” said Miss Planter. “Obviously this female has made a mark on your life. I’d like to know all about her.”

“Oh,” I said, “Miss Planter, you’re looking for a long and difficult explanation.” She said nothing, so I asked, “Are you up for this?”

“That’s why you pay me, Mr. Owen.” I laughed at this. “I’m glad you think this is funny,” she remarked.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not laughing at you; I’m laughing because I’m under a bit of pressure. I’ll do my best to be objective and fair. Here goes: Like I had said before, it was many years ago, while we were at college. I was an upperclassman, an engineering student, and the underclassmen were in awe. I enjoyed that; it was flattering. They looked up to us! That was quite an ego-builder. We didn’t stop to think that wouldn’t last.”

Miss Planter smiled, but there was a bit of a smirk in that smile.

“We, and I, had our pick of dates. At college, I was in my last year, and I knew I’d be graduating in eight or nine months, so I guess I was feeling confident and maybe a bit arrogant and cocky. I had my choice, but there was really only one girl I wanted. Helen Ceraldi, a girl I had known since high school. She had followed me to college, well, not really followed; she came to the same school I attended. Because she was so bright, she’d managed to test out of a year’s worth of college credits, and had entered as a sophomore. She was three years younger than me, and so since we were already well acquainted, we struck up a college romance.”

Miss Planter nodded; she wasn’t taking any notes. I guess I had her attention.

“She was beautiful,” I continued. “She was smart, popular, and somewhat well-balanced, more than the average college girl. She came from an Italian-American household. The first language in their home was Italian, but all the children in that home spoke both Italian and English fluently.”

Miss Planter began to write on her notepad. She didn’t interrupt.

“I thought we made a good couple. We dated, and I wound up paying for all the dates since I had a part-time job in the engineering building, being a student janitor and sometimes teacher’s aide there. I swept classroom floors, mopped, emptied trash cans, and cleaned restrooms at night. This allowed me to keep my car filled with gasoline and to pay for dates. Anyway, things were going along smoothly with Helen and me, I thought. I became stuck on her, or I became enamored with her; she could have done much better than me, but I figured she liked me because I was older and nice to her, or at least I tried to be. Things were good.”

Miss Planter stopped writing. She looked up from her notepad. She was reading me.

“Anyway, after a few months of this, the next step, or so I thought, again, was marriage. Since graduation was coming up soon, and I was sure to get an engineering job, I thought it would be a good time for matrimony. It was time to pop the question.”

Miss Planter was drawn in now.

“I had saved and bought an engagement ring, the kind of thing girls liked, a nice-looking ring, too. It wasn’t very expensive, but was doable. It was just a temporary ring anyway, until it would be replaced by the real, wedding ring.”

Miss Planter was nodding.

“So I waited until the right time to spring it on her. I was really going to take her some place special, have a nice dinner in a classy joint, and slip her the ring. She’d say yes, and then we’d start making plans for our wedding and honeymoon and life. I’d let her make all the plans for the wedding, of course, because women like doing that kind of thing, and I’d just stay out of the way and watch and maybe help where I could.” I looked at Miss Planter here. “Kind of surprising that I at least knew that much about women at the time. Or I thought I did. Maybe I was doing too much thinking; what do you think?”

“So what happened? Miss Planter asked, anxious to hear more of the romance.

“I blew it,” I said. “I waited too long. Helen, as beautiful as she was, became a target for other fellows who were around. One fellow caught her eye, and in a matter of a few weeks, she dropped me like a hot potato.”

“Who was this fellow?”

“His name was Franklin Burke, a pre-med student. Rich, flashy, good-looking, dressed well, didn’t need to work while at school so he had all the time in the world to woo Helen. And a frat boy.”

“You didn’t belong to a fraternity?” asked Miss Planter.

“No, I didn’t. I was approached, but was too busy and the Greek stuff really didn’t appeal to me. Besides, I’m really a boring and routine kind of guy.”

“You keep saying that. What makes you think that?”

“Because I am!” I admitted, wondering how others didn’t see this. “I like the routine, and routines are boring for other people.”

“So, how did you take being dropped by Helen? How did you find out?”

“I found out about Helen’s interest in Franklin from other people. It’s kind of strange, but when other people see your girl with a different fellow on or around campus, it’s as though they have a moral obligation to tell you. So I was told that she’d been seen with another guy, while I was at work. I later asked her about it, and she said she liked Franklin and they were going to start dating, which left me out of the romantic equation.”

“How did you react to that?” asked Miss Planter, matter-of-factly. Maybe she already knew.

“Poorly.” I said. “I cried. I couldn’t stop crying. She meant more to me than she probably should have. Or else, it hurt me more than it probably should have. It hurt for a long time.”

“How long?”

I waited a moment. “What year is it?”

Miss Planter smiled. “I’m glad to see you can joke about this.”

“Well, “ I said. “After the initial shock, and after years of trying to deal with it, it’s better to joke than to cry about something you can’t do anything about.”

“What was it like for you, Mr. Owen?” asked Miss Planter. “The overall experience, I mean.”

“It’s like someone you loved died, only she’s not really dead, she’s up and about and running around with some other fellow, kissing and hugging some other guy when she used to …” I stopped here.

Miss Planter’s face became serious. “Is that why you never married?”

“I’m sure it was a factor.” I said. “It’s as though a switch was turned to “off,” if you can understand that.”

“I understand that. It’s not uncommon to see in this business.”

“Is that healthy, Miss Planter?”

“Dealing with it is healthy. People deal with emotional shock in different ways. There’s no one way.”

“In your opinion, do you think I’m healthy in this regard?”

“I don’t have an opinion here. I’m merely an observer.”

“So how nuts am I?” I asked her. Miss Planter smiled at this attempt at humor; I continued. “Do people get over this?”

“Like I said, different people do different things. I don’t think anybody ever ‘gets over’ a romance gone bad. I think they deal with it, but I don’t think it ever ends. It’s much like children of divorce; they deal with it, they have no choice, they have to deal with it. But many of them never really get over it.”

“Wow, so now I’m a child,” I said.

“I didn’t say… Mr. Owen!” she laughed. Her laughing made me smile.

Miss Planter continued, “I can tell you of one case I had long ago. A girl, or a grown woman, I should say, whose parents had divorced some 30 years prior was still affected by it. When she visited her parents for holidays or special events, she had to go to one house and visit her dad and his second wife for awhile, and then she had to drive across town to visit her mother, who also remarried. She adjusted to it, she was used to it, but she still had to deal with it.

“So what you’re saying is, there’s no cure, Miss Planter.”

“What I’m saying is, you’ll learn how to deal with it, if you haven’t already done so.”

“So there’s hope.”

“There’s always hope, Mr. Owen.”

I suspected that Miss Planter had given me another insight into her life.





David and Spouse

My quiet friend, David Boudreaux, was at home with his young wife, Mae Ling. They were watching a re-run of “The Andy Griffith Show,” with Mae Ling discovering the joys of American television, curled up next to David on the couch, with David reading a book, looking up every now and then. The show ended after awhile, and Mae Ling looked over at Dave and asked, “Where you go the other night?” David looked at his wife, a bit surprised. “I call apartment; you no answer,” she said.

“I was with an old friend,” said David, “someone you haven’t met yet; you should have called me on the cell phone. Remember me telling you about Randall Owen? We went to college together, along with Walter Dale.”

“Where you go?”

“I met Randall at Lucy’s Place, a Mom & Pop bar and grill in town. We talked about old times.”

“You talk about good old days, before you marry me?”

“Well, they were the old days, and sometimes they were good, but sometimes they weren’t so good.”

“Tell me what you mean.” Mae Ling understood and read well enough, but she still spoke English in a broken fashion.

“An old flame came back into Randall’s life, and it seemed to upset him a bit.”

David looked at Mae Ling, who didn’t quite get it.

“An old flame is an old girlfriend,” said David. “This girl attended college with us also.”

“Oh, you mean old, old days,” Mae Ling said, without catching the humor. David smiled. “Yes, I mean the old-old days, back when we were young, back when you were still a child.”

Mae Ling waited for a story in anticipation. She’d wanted to hear about this mysterious Randall Owen, the engineer who lived by himself. “Why you no see Randall Owen? He your friend, right?”

“Yes. He’s my friend. But he lives a different life than we do. I used to hang around him because we had something in common; we both were single and could share ideas; we knew people in common and thought the same in some ways. We both…” he stopped, then continued, “…but those days are long past, at least for me.” He hugged his Mae Ling. “You’ve made up for all my empty years.” Mae Ling smiled at this.

“Why Randall Owen no marry?” asked Mae Ling, echoing the question Randall’s church ladies wanted to know. “Don’t he want to be happy?”

David smiled. “I think Randall just wanted peace and quiet; that makes him happy. He once told me that if God had put Raquel Welch in front of him…”

“Who Raquel Welch?” Mae Ling enquired. “She go to school with you?”

David laughed at this. “No, Raquel Welch is a famous American movie star, and…”

Mae Ling was staring.

“She’s very beautiful, known for her beauty all through the land. American little boys loved her. So did American big boys.”

“Oh,” said Mae Ling. “Beautiful woman make good wife.”

David stifled another laugh. “She was beautiful and a rich and famous actress. She didn’t need Randall, or me, or anybody else to make her happy. But Randall told me once that if God set him down at a table, with Raquel Welch, at age 27, on the other side of the table, with an electronic button between the two of them, and said to him, ‘Randall, if you’d like to marry Raquel Welch, all you’d have to do is push that button.’ That’s all he’d have to do! No tricks, no dating, no wooing, no flowers, no candy… all he’d had to do was push the button… and Randall said he wondered if he would push it.”

“What you mean?” asked Mae Ling. “Why he no push button?”

“That’s just it, Mae Ling. Randall is turned off. He’s found he’s comfortable with the way his life is now. He’s seen his peers get married and the struggles they’ve gone through. Some marriages have folded, even with people we both thought had the best chances for success.”

“Why you country have so much divorce?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we’ve had it too easy here. Maybe we work too hard to make and keep the things we’ve got, instead of focusing on one thing…”

Mae Ling looked into David’s eye.

“… the family.”

Mae Ling answered, “We no have much. We happy.”

David laughed at that. “I hope we do better one day, one day soon. I’d like to be able to give you more.”

“I have more here than in my country. Here I live like queen.”

This took a great deal off David’s mind. Being married to a contented woman, who happened to be good as well, gave him a sense of peace. One day, eventually, he’d earn more, he was sure of it. But not today.

“What you talk about?”

“With Randall?”

“Yes.”

“We talked about you! I told him all about you and your family and how you cook to make me food every day and make me happy every night.”

Mae Ling laughed at this. “No! No you not say.”

“I not say,” laughed David.

“What you say?”

“We talked about his old girlfriend, the girlfriend who has come back into his life.”

“Why she come back? She no married?”

“Yes, she’s married. She married a long, long time ago and has been gone for many years now. She’s raised a family; in fact, she’s still raising her family. Her husband has been giving her troubles at home.”

“He get drunk? He beat her up?” Mae Ling said. This must have been something quite common in her home country.

“No, he no beat her up. He have girlfriend.”

“Oh, he bad man.”

“Well, now, he may be a mixed-up man. He may be a confused man. He may be a little bad. All men are a little bad.”

“You not bad.”

“Yes, I’m bad, at times.”

“You not bad, today.” Mae Ling made a funny.

David chuckled at this. “I hope I’m not bad today. His girlfriend is very pretty.”

“His wife no pretty?”

David thought about this. “Yes, his wife is very pretty, too. She’s a few years older than the girlfriend, and the girlfriend has a lot of money.”

“But wife have children!”

“Yes, that’s true. Wife have children. Girlfriend have none, at least none that we know about.”

“Why wife want Randall? She go back to him now? Make him happy?”

“No, she just wanted to see him. She wanted to talk. She told him all her problems.”

“She should marry Randall, make him happy man, give him children.”

“She may be too old for children.”

“Why she bother Randall now?”

“She wants to keep her husband.”

“How Randall do that?”

“He’s an engineer; he can arrange things; he’ll fix it.”

“He kill husband’s girlfriend?”

David smiled to himself. “No, he no kill girlfriend. Kill girlfriend is bad. Is wrong.” David found himself speaking broken English a lot these days.

“He tell you this? What he want you to do? You kill girlfriend?” Mae Ling looked worried.

David reached out to calm Mae Ling. “No, I no kill girlfriend. That is wrong. God no like that.”

“Why he tell you this?” said Mae Ling, searching for motives.

“I think Randall was looking for someone to bounce ideas off of.” At seeing Mae Ling’s frown, he clarified, “I think he was looking for the right thing to do. He’s still looking.”

“What is right thing?”

“I don’t know what right thing is. I listened to him, mostly. I think he wants to do the proper thing, the appropriate thing. At least for now.”

“She want him fix things? Why he do that? Why he listen to her?”

“Because he loves her, Mae Ling. He still loves her, even in these bad new-new days.”

Mae Ling frowned. “He not sound very smart. You keep away from Randall Owen; you be like him. My husband smart.” This made David laugh.

“Randall is friend, Mae Ling. He located a paint job for me so we can have a little extra income. He may go overboard every now and then but basically he tries to do the right thing.”

“What overboard?”

“Randall … has a way of locking onto a problem, and not letting go of it until it’s fixed. That’s probably why he’s a good engineer; he stays with a design or problem until he finds a way to fix it. That’s why his employers like him so much. He has designed most of the underground water-drain systems in Lovely, and is known by most civil engineers in east Texas.”

Mae Ling looked unconvinced. “Old flame not drain.”





Decision

The jukebox blared at Estella’s, Kim brought us a round of drinks, and we were comfortable in a now-familiar setting. The biker crowd was over at the bar near the television, older gentlemen with lots of leather and bandanas and flags who showed each other the latest in technology, e-readers, i-phones, who compared and contrasted the latest models to the most available ones. They were fun to watch; there were bikers and there were cowboys; there were blacks, Latinos, and white men gathered, but nobody seemed to mind if others were a different sort; they had all grown up; there was a lot of laughter. Walter knew most of them, and they knew him as well. He walked among them as though he were a biker himself.

Walter began his report by saying, “I found the boyfriend of Mindy Burke, the fellow who supplied her with the photograph. His name is Myles Quine, a college student who is stuck in this area while she goes off to the high-dollar school during the fall and spring. I think they intend to marry, as soon as he can land a good job. Man, she’ll have to adjust to a new kind of lifestyle after what she’s been brought up with! I wonder if her old man even knows she’s dating a blue-collar security guard?”

He held up a copy of the same 8” X 10” black and white that Helen shared with me weeks ago.

“Helen showed me that,” I said. “It’s pretty good evidence that something was going on between Franklin and Miss Lovely.”

“Yes,” said Walter, “but did you know Franklin Burke has been Cornelius Lovely’s personal on-call physician for years? This photograph was taken just hours after Old Man Lovely died. The whole family and personal staff had gathered at the hospital, and were all there with the Old Man, along with Dr. Burke. He’s been a family friend as well.”

I thought for a moment. “You’re saying there’s the possibility that this kiss--not on the lips but on the cheek--is an emotional kiss of comfort to a family member, and not a romantic involvement kiss?”

“It may be that way, boss. Mind if I call you boss? Heh-heh! Since you’re paying me, I figure you deserve that.”

I was still thinking on this, looking at the photo. Was it possible that we had all been wrong about Franklin Burke, that we all suspected him of an affair because of this one photograph, by a machine that was situated to capture him in the parking lot? Was it possible that Helen and Mindy had gone through all this emotional turmoil for nothing? But somehow Mindy didn’t seem to think that her father was innocent. I wondered if she had seen the whole parking lot video.

“Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the girl being kissed is be-a-u-tiful bikini model, heh-heh!” chuckled Walter, who was laughing in his drink. It seemed that he also believed Franklin Burke to be guilty.

“What if we’ve been wrong here, Walter?” I asked. “Or to clarify, if Helen, Mindy, and I have been wrong? What if Franklin Burke really is innocent? We’ve done all this research to hang an innocent man.”

“I’m not so sure he’s innocent,” offered Walter. “Look at his past record. We both knew him in college. He was a college hotshot back then, a pretty boy; all the girls loved him and wanted to be around him. Remember how they lit up whenever he walked into a room? Rich, popular, frat boy, live wire, never worked while in college, but being a pre-med type, he should have been deep into his books, anyhow. How pretty boy became a doctor is beyond me. Anyway, when he arrived at college, he made a beeline straight for your girl, the cutest girl on campus. Now check him out years later. I have my doubts he’s changed. He’s doing the same exact thing.”

“Exactly what is that?” I asked.

“Ah, come on Randall!” said Walter. “You’re too trusting in human nature; fortunately for you, I am not cursed with this malady. I think most people are rotten to the core, and he’s rotten! Here’s what I mean: Helen, although probably still a looker, wouldn’t exactly be the same creature she was while at college. Now the chocolate bikini-lady, she’s the real thing! She’s still in her prime, plus she’s filthy rich, and about to be filthy richer!”

“You’re a cynic, my friend,” I remarked.

“And darn proud of it,” replied Walter.

“So now you’re saying that all the parts fit, given the pattern of Franklin’s past, to drop a girlfriend, in this case, his wife, in exchange for a younger and richer girlfriend.”

“Now you’re getting the picture. Although we’ve never seen him drop a girl, it’s a sure bet he did while in high school, before arriving at college. Besides this photo, and our made-up motives, we need more proof. This pic is good, but can be explained away, just as you tried to do.”

“How do we get more proof?” I asked.

“Go straight to the source, Franklin himself.”





At the Hospital

A few weeks had passed; Franklin Burke was on the third floor performing his usual rounds at the city hospital, working on his 48th birthday. He was checking charts and talking to patients, and in a bit of a grumpy mood, the nurses had noted. He understood why he was needed at work, even if it was a special day. He was near the nurses’ station when he heard over the hospital loudspeaker, “Dr. Burke, Dr. Franklin Burke, you’re needed in the administration office”. This was unusual and out of the ordinary; the nurses were busy, and since this announcement had nothing to do with them, they paid no attention. He checked his watch, then headed down the hall towards the elevator. Stepping aboard, he punched the button for the first floor, where the administration offices were located.

“Probably something about an unpaid bill; there must be some question about it,” he grumbled to himself. “Can’t imagine what it would be.” The doors quickly shut, the music played, and the elevator descended towards its destination. The light for the first floor never came on, Franklin noted, and the elevator door was a bit slow in opening. He grumbled a little more, but at least he wasn’t in a rush for time.

The elevator opened and standing there to greet him were three men, all dressed in doctor smocks, wearing glasses and bushy eyebrows and plastic noses and mustaches and wigs and silly, pointed party hats, holding balloons which read, “Happy Birthday, Dr. Burke!” He laughed at the ridiculous sight, and suspecting a surprise party, said, “Heeey, what’s this? A greeting committee? What’s going on?”

“We need you to follow us; we’re in a hurry, must diagnose patient, we need you A.S.A.P., chop-chop!” said the first “doctor.” The three men stepped toward Dr. Burke; one blew a party horn in his face and another threw confetti in the air and one put a silly birthday hat on Dr. Burke’s head. Then two of them took him by an arm and led him out of the elevator and into the hall, walking him down toward a room and blowing party horns and saying silly things like, “This patient has the flu; you’re needed for surgery!” “Only you have the knowledge which will save this patient!” and “Dr. Burke, calling Dr. Burke!”

Donald Burke was laughing at all this silliness, playing along with the gag, until they reached the room they were to enter. It was then he began to realize that the layout of the floor was different, and said, “Hey, we’re in the basement!” while stepping into the room. All the balloons had kept him from seeing most of what was around him, but now he had figured his location. In the room were words on bright papers hanging on the wall, reading, “Happy Birthday, Dr. Burke!”

He took a look around the room, most of which was bare, and said, “So where’s the cake?”

That’s when he heard the door shut behind him. A lone chair sat in the middle of the room, and in front of the chair was a blank white wall. On the other side of the room was a high small opening for a pipe, next to the ceiling, which looked a little out of place.

The room suddenly went pitch black, and from the small opening a beam of light emitted to the large white wall in front of the lone chair. A voice came from nowhere, from speakers located in the ceiling, saying “Have a seat, Dr. Burke. This is your life!” Music played, and the title, “This Is Your Life,” came up on the wall with such clarity that Dr. Burke thought his fellow doctors were using a DVD projector.

“The administration must be in on this also,” muttered Dr. Burke, who found his way over to the lone chair and sat down. “This looks interesting.”

Then the lettering changed to read “THIS IS YOUR LIFE, FRANKLIN BURKE.” Dr. Burke said, “Oh, now, come on… !” and laughed. Maybe this was some birthday surprise being pulled by his daughters, and if so, where did they hire the three men? They really shouldn’t be spending their babysitting money on such frivolous things.

Photographs were shown in video-style; they faded in and out, moved across the screen, got larger and smaller, with popular music from the era of years past playing along, giving Franklin a feeling of sentimentality. Pictures of his high school days, photos of his wedding, with an unrecognized male voice narrating the happy occasions, one after the other.

“This is Franklin Burke walking with his bride Helen Ceraldi just after promising before God and everybody to be loyal, ‘til death do us part,” with a photograph of himself and Helen happily walking through a hail of rice outside a church on their way to their honeymoon car. Photographs of the car were there. “Only Helen would have access to these pictures,” Franklin thought to himself. “She must have a hand in this.”

“Then over the years the Burke household was blessed with the birth of four children, Mindy, Beth, Lucia, and J.R.,” a montage of each child’s photograph being shown to beautiful music, pictures over the years in which each child was shown smiling and laughing, until finally Franklin Burke himself was smiling and laughing with each photograph. He found that he had relaxed and was really quite enjoying the moment; he had completely forgotten work and at times seemed to be sniffling to himself from the happy memories being shown on the wall screen. “How have they done all this?” he wondered. “It’s really good. Obviously a projector is in the next room, with images being shown through the opening. Where is everybody?”

Then came a montage of photographs with Franklin kissing his wife, from pictures in college, to pictures of wedding preparation dinners, with photos of him kissing his bride at the altar, and then again with pictures from family moments where he was caught kissing his wife over the next few years. This went on and on until one black and white photo filled the screen, when the sound of a needle scratch tearing across an old LP record came on the sound system.

“Franklin kissing his wife? Oh, no, this person is not his wife.” The voice over the speakers had suddenly become disguised, tinny, with an electronic quality.

The grainy black and white parking lot photograph was now projected on the wall, plainly showing him kissing Susan Lovely.

“Uh!” was all Franklin Burke could say. “Where did you get that?” he said to the unknown voice.

“Who is she, Franklin Burke? She is most definitely not your wife.”

“What’s going on? Who are you people?” said Franklin, as he looked around the room.

“It doesn’t matter who we are; what matters is that in the next few moments you give us truthful answers,” said the voice.

Dr. Burke stood up and walked over to the door. It wouldn’t open. He looked for the hole where the projector would have been, and then the projector light went off, leaving him in pitch-black darkness.

“Help! Help!” he cried.

“Dr. Burke, don’t bother wasting your energy; you have rounds to attend to. If you want to get back on schedule, we suggest you answer the question quickly and truthfully. No one can hear you. This room is soundproofed, to keep any generators down here from disturbing any patients up there; you know that.”

Franklin felt along the wall. It felt different than sheetrock. He knew that the basement rooms were made of brick and cinder-block, and this brick room apparently had a different lining added to it. He felt for the door, and it also felt different, somehow heavier, thicker. If he got locked in here, it might be down here for a long time before anyone found him. He might starve or dehydrate in the meantime. He felt his way back to the chair.

“That’s a good man, Dr. Burke. Cooperation will speed things along.”

“I won’t tell you.”

“If that’s the case…,” the screen lit up again, but this time to a live black and white video. On screen, a person was holding the camera, or wearing one, since hands could be seen moving on both the left and right side of the screen. Judging from the angle, it looked as though the cameraman were wearing it on his head, maybe in a hat. He held an 8” x 10” copy of the photograph of Dr. Burke kissing a strange woman in his hand, showing it to the camera. He was sitting in a moving vehicle, and when the cameraman looked up, the strangely familiar neighborhood could be seen on screen. Maybe this was one of the “doctors” who had been with him when he got off the elevator. The vehicle turned a corner, and was traveling down the street to Dr. Burke’s home.

He stood up. “What are you doing? That’s near my house!”

“We know, Dr. Burke. But what we need to know is, who is the woman in that picture?”

The man in the live image held the photograph back in front of the camera, so that it lit up the screen again. Dr. Burke’s house was getting closer; the vehicle had stopped and the camera veered to the right, showing a clear shot of the Burke residence, a beautiful old mansion in the rich old section of Lovely.

“Well, Dr. Burke? Will you tell us who she is?”

“It’s nobody’s business.”

“As you can see, we’ve made it our business.”

“I don’t think it is.”

“As you wish, Dr. Burke.”

On the video, the cameraman opened the vehicle door and traveled up the long walk towards the front door, then showed an outstretched arm, wearing white gloves and a large, polka-dotted long sleeve, reaching for the doorbell. Dr. Burke turned his head sideways, wondering who would be wearing clothes like that?

A maid opened the door, looked at the cameraman and said, “Hello!”

“No, Sylvia, don’t let him in!” yelled Franklin.

“She cannot hear you, Dr. Burke. Only we can.”

”The children have been expecting you,” said Sylvia to the cameraman.

“Children?” said Franklin.

“Yes, Dr. Burke. Since you won’t tell us who she is, perhaps your children will.”

The cameraman walked into a room full of children, who began cheering when he walked in. They were all sitting there as though they had been expecting him! Then laughing filled the screen, along with funny noises with horns tooting and bells ringing. The hands in front of the camera were doing most of the work, with the cameraman blowing up balloons and twisting and tying them into animal shapes and giving them to different children, including one for his son, J.R.

“J.R.!” said Franklin Burke.

“Yes, your son, Dr. Burke. This is in front of all his friends and siblings. It’s your birthday, and they were all invited to help you celebrate. Happy birthday, Dr. Burke. You’re late for the party.”

“You get away from my kid!”

“Then tell us what we want to hear. If you don’t, perhaps others will.”

The party on the screen went on and on until the cameraman, or party clown, held up the picture toward his face until it filled the screen. “Who can tell me who this person is?” a voice at the party said, probably the cameraman, or party clown.

“No! Don’t!” said Franklin.

“Then tell us,” said the voice.

The children all seemed puzzled. A murmur of youthful voices filled the room. J.R. was sitting next to the youngest sister, Lucia.

“Does anyone know who she is?”

At this point, the camera focused on the picture again, held by the hands, with the image towards the camera, the image of Dr. Burke kissing Susan Lovely.

“How about youuuuuu, little boy?” said the voice.

The cameraman walked slowly over towards the little boy, who Franklin saw was J.R., picture in hand, with it still facing the camera. “Can you tell me who this lady is?”

“John Randall! No! Stop! I’ll tell! I’ll tell!”

In the next room, I said to myself, “John Randall?”

The cameraman/clown stopped.

I continued, “Who is she, Dr. Burke?”

“Her name is Susan Lovely. Susan Lovely, from a very distinguished family here in town.”

“That’s good, very good, Dr. Burke. The next question is, and be very quick about it, What is your relationship to her?”

“She’s not my wife.”

“This much we know, Dr. Burke. Start talking,” I said.

“She’s my… she’s my… I’ve been the Lovely family doctor for years. I was the personal physician for Cornelius Lovely. She’s his granddaughter.

“Explain this. What about the kiss?” I said.

“Her grandfather had just died. I was comforting her.”

There was a moment of no talking, but Dr. Burke could see the clown still walking toward John Randall.

“Were you? Were you now?” I continued: “Is that all, Dr. Burke?”

“No, no, that’s not all. She’s … I’m having an affair. With her.”

The clown/cameraman was showing the back of the photograph to John Randall, a photograph to the little boy, who said, “That’s not a girl; that’s Abraham Lincoln!”

The camerman/clown turned away from John Randall, and showed his hidden camera the other side of the grainy photograph; on the back was a picture of a long-haired Abraham Lincoln, with red crayon drawings to make him appear to be wearing long red hair.

The clown was heard to say, “You’re right! That’s no dame! What was I thinking?” and handed a five-dollar bill to J.R. “That’s for being so smart, kid!”

Franklin Burke quit sweating, but now was trembling. “Who are you? What do you want?”

“Why are you seeing Miss Lovely, when you have a wife and children who love you?”

“I wanted… I felt… I love her.”

Silence ensued. Then from the speakers the electric voice said, “You may love her, but you didn’t make any promises to her. We have an interest in what’s best for everybody, and your seeing Miss Lovely is not in line with that.”

“Why are you interested?”

“You’re not here to ask questions. You’re here to cooperate. Our man is still at the party. Want him to ask your child how he’d like a new mother?”

“No. Don’t do that.”

“Your son’s childhood almost ended just now; you almost ended it. You can buy him a few more years if you cooperate. Will you cooperate?”

“Yes.”

“Good. We have an assignment for you.”

“What? What is it?”

“Your assignment is … to keep away from Susan Lovely, to break all ties with her, and to be a faithful husband and father.”

The screen went dark, and the room became pitch-black again. After a few moments, Dr. Burke heard the door unlock. He felt his way toward the door, turned the knob and slowly opened it. Stepping out into the hall, he looked up one way and down the other, but saw nobody. He checked his watch. He’d probably lost 45 minutes out of his day. He was behind schedule, but quickly headed out into the parking lot to go home. He was sweating and trembling, and beginning to feel angry, perhaps angry with himself. Who would do this to him, and involve his family?