Butter Pecan

"I think I'm following your lead on this, little bro. You're running everything. I'll back you up, I'll give you an alibi, I'll help you hide the bitch's body, or Williams'. Whatever, bro. Bros, faithful wives, cheating Hoes, then Assholes. Bros first. Hell, I'll even be your cellmate, but I get bottom bunk, you get to just be bottom, if it comes to that."

"Ah, hell no, bro. Hell no." I laughed back with him. The most somber and devastating thing to ever happen to me, and I'm cracking gay jail jokes with my bro. That's friendship. That's love. That's my brother Bobbie. "But back to basic bitches, I want to destroy Asshole, and I'd like to burn the bitch. We need a plan. But I'd rather we didn't end up cellmates." My smile stayed for a few seconds, and Bobbie let it. But when it started to falter, Bobbie immediately stopped smiling, too, and we began to plot.

"So, what's the Asshole got that we can destroy? Besides Marie. I'm sorry, beside the bitch."

"Well, let's go down in order of importance. He's got his life." Bobbie nodded. "He's got his health. He's got his cock. He's got his balls. He's got his place. He's got his job. He's got that car of his. He's got his reputation. That's about it." I trailed off at that point.

"That car... hmm. I think he might value that thing just under his balls, and above his place or his job. Definitely above his place, in fact, since he bought the place to have a garage to store the damn thing and work on it."

Bobbie and I were referring to Asshole's classic 'Sierra Tan Poly' (also known as brown) 1969 Plymouth Barracuda convertible with the so-called 'Cuda package and the big 440 Big Block engine. It was about the rarest version possible of one of the hotter cars of it's era. While it wasn't THE Barracuda of automotive fame (that's the next year, 1970, 'Cudas), it was the one that set the stage for the Barracuda of fame, with the last major top end engine before the arrival of the legendary Hemi. The car wasn't worth the $800K or up one of the '70 'Cudas were, but it was still, in the condition he kept it, worth $90-$100K. He'd inherited the car from his grandfather, who had the unfortunate timing of having a stroke a week after buying it new, in 1969. His grandfather could never drive it, but wouldn't sell it, and when he died in 2007, Asshole had inherited a nearly 40 year old Barracuda with only 132 miles on it. It was a mess, in some ways, but it was still a brand new classic car. Since then, Asshole had probably added 2500 miles to the odometer, but it was used very, very rarely. Me, I'm a Corvette man, and Bobbie is a Mustang guy, but Asshole actually had one of the classics, while we just yearned for a Stingray (me) or a Mach I (Bobbie).

"Yeah, losing that car would probably almost hurt as much as losing his balls. But I can't just destroy a thing of beauty like that; the 'Cuda didn't do anything to me, only the Asshole who owned it. It's the old PEBKAC thing, all though I'd say it's more an ABSAP issue with the 'Cuda."

"ABSAP? Asshole between steering and pedal?" I high-fived him with a grin as he got it. "So no damaging the car, per se, but deny it from him. How do we do that?"

"Get it stolen? Have it shipped to some deserving millionaire somewhere? And, if possible, have his balls bronzed and hanging from the rear-view when it's shipped?"

"I like the way you think. But I don't know anyone who we could sell it to, and I'm not sure that we don't end up in prison regardless if we steal it."

"Does Evan know anyone, Bobbie? I mean, he's still dealing with the fallout from his bitch from hell. Maybe he knows someone. After all, if I'm out of town, I have an alibi, and we know that there is some chance that Asshole and the slut will get together."

"Don't see that happening right now, bro. She knows you're suspicious, because she found the pen. She's going to look for the cameras, and eventually find them, I think. She'll be on best behavior, because she doesn't know for sure what you know, only that you're suspicious. So she'll make like a good wife for a while. Now, if you want to stay with her for a year or two, bawk, that's, bawk, up to you" and he lightly coughed, which sounded suspiciously like the word 'cuck'; the subtle chicken 'bawks' told me what he thought of that option. His not so subtle way of saying if I didn't dump her, I was a chicken and a cuck. "Of course, a fake trip, followed a week or so later by removing all the bugs, might do the trick of thinking she's gotten away with it; the trip would be you trying to get her to slip up, but the removal a week after the trip would be you not having found anything, and deciding that whatever it was that made you suspicious was wrong, and you didn't want her finding the bugs and starting something based on a 'wrong' suspicion. That could reset her thoughts."

"I'm just not sure I'm wired well enough to stay with her. It comes out clear in the call that she thinks she loves me. I'm not sure I agree if she can shack up with Asshole while I'm away, but she thinks she does. She may never do it again, realizing how close she came. Or she may get way more subtle, and I might never catch her again. But one way or another, we need to get Asshole, and soon."

"Alright, let's think about it overnight. I'll get with you tomorrow morning, we'll go fishing or something. In the meantime, from now on, you and I need to sweep our cars every day, and only talk about this either on work phones, or in person. She might just stick a recorder somewhere on you, or I, if she can figure out how to do it. I think, in fact, we need to take the boat out tomorrow and do some fishing; we'll leave our phones in the car, too."

"You ain't gonna Fredo me, are you? Put me out of my misery?" I asked, referencing Fredo's fate in the Godfather Part II.

"I'm gonna make you an offer you can't refuse." Bobbie joked back. We hugged and made plans to meet at 7 the following morning to go fishing. It wasn't unusual, so it wouldn't make Sue upset at all, though Marie might worry, as she should.

That night, Marie again tore me to bits on the sheets, and left me a quivering mess. As she curled up around and on top of me as I was drifting off, I remember her gently shaking in my arms and hearing her whispering softly to me, after she thought I was asleep, "I'm so sorry Hank. I love you, only you." I could feel the moisture from her tears on my chest. It was a fucked up world, where she cheated, she knew I suspected it, and yet neither of us could talk about it. Life, eh?

My dreams that night were the most pleasant I'd had since I'd returned from my trip. I distinctly remember driving Asshole's 'Cuda at high speed down a long road, his bronzed balls swinging from the rear view mirror, while getting a hummer from some nameless, faceless woman who smelled like Marie's hair, all as a gentle rain from a cloudless sky wet my chest. It's one of the most vivid dreams I think I've ever had. I think I understand what the dream meant, and where the pieces came from, but I have never had smells included in my dreams before, or since. But Marie's shampoo scent has always stood out to me from that dream.

When I felt the vibration from my smartwatch waking me at 6 AM, Marie wasn't in bed, but I could smell bacon cooking. While Marie often cooked in the morning, it was rare for her to cook on days when I was going fishing; she'd typically stay in bed, and asleep, until long after I left. I'd even come back from shorter fishing trips and still found her asleep in bed at 11 or so, when the weather turned and we cut the trip short. After getting dressed for fishing, I walked into the kitchen to see Marie finishing the making of a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich, along with a thermos of hot coffee. The beer cooler was also already sitting by the garage door, and it was apparent looking at the cardboard in the recycle that she'd put an entire 12 pack of Bud in the cooler, probably with a couple sandwiches and other snacks.

She was trying to be the perfect wife. And yet she knew that I either knew or suspected the elephant in the room. I spent a few minutes with her, time I normally would have spent icing the beer, making the sandwiches, and waiting in line at the McDonalds for a breakfast sandwich and coffee before meeting up with Bobbie, to talk with her. She was affectionate, sweet, and yet much more shy acting than I was used to for a woman I'd been with so long. I could see the fear in her eyes, the first time I'd seen it, actually, and almost hear the desperation in her voice as she threw herself into me to kiss me and kept saying "I love you Hank" between each kiss. For my part, I returned the kisses, though not as desperately, and said simply "I love you too." It wasn't a lie. I hated her. I loved her. I hate what she did. I love who she is with me. I hate what she has turned me into. I love the way she's made me feel over the years we've been together. It's a two-faced dichotomy, one of those Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type things.

I left and met Bobbie at the spot on the Big Blue river where we usually put his jon boat in. He had just finished dropping his boat in the water, and was pulling up his rig and parking when I pulled in. Seeing where he was, I parked, dropped my cell on the seat of my truck, grabbed the cooler and the coffee, and went down to the boat; he already had the rods and tackle on board. Bobbie joined me a moment later, and I held my hand like a cell phone, then looked at him. Red faced, he turned around and walked back to his truck, returning a moment later.

"Leaving the cell phone was your idea. Getting senile, old man?" I gently chided him as he climbed in the boat. He looked at me with a sour expression for a moment, reached over to the cooler and grabbed a Bud.

Popping the top, and taking a sip, he gulped half the can down. "Too little alcohol in my bloodstream to function this early on the water. But hey, it's 5 o'clock somewhere." he replied.

"Yeah, maybe India or something. Don't you think it's a tad early, or a bit late, to pop into the Bud's at the moment. Besides..." I called back, kicking the motor over and starting away from the shore, "I thought I was the one who was supposed to be drinking 24/7."

"I'm just getting a head start. Gotta keep you from becoming an alkie. Aren't you up to like a 10 hour chip?" he bantered back.

"Yeah, but I think you're still on the 10 second chip. Clean and sober, two things which will not describe us by mid afternoon! Cheers!" I lifted my coffee cup. Bobbie grinned and finished the can. "Of course, if you keep that up, I think we'll need a bigger boat" I joked, quoting Jaws, "But it'll be for your empties. And we'll need more beer."

"Never fear, more beer is here!" he countered, opening up the wet well cooler. "I didn't plan on us actually catching many fish today. Didn't even bring bait." I harrumphed at that.

We trolled out into the river, going upstream, towards the Mill Pond bend. While Mill Pond was a popular fishing hole, the bend increased the current flow just south of the pond, making fish less plentiful in the area. "I, for one, wish you had brought the bait, preferably Asshole. While life may be shitting on me, a good Bass would still be a nice way to take my mind off it. And I bet Marie would even cook it up nice for me." It was odd; I realized it was the first time I'd called her Marie in a while with Bobbie. I knew I had to keep from calling her bitch, slut, whore, tramp, cheating cunt to her face or around someone besides Bobbie, and I guess Evan. But I'd been taking out some of my anger, some of my rage, some of my pain, with Bobbie by calling her those. I wondered for just a second if my dream had anything to do with not bad mouthing her, before Bobbie broke my reverie.

"So, I've been thinking. I think I know how we can do it."

"Do what? Remove the scrotal sack and all accompanying appendages from one Jonathan Williams?"

"Well, kinda. But I was more referring to the car. It is possible to bend it so he loses something, but it depends on him doing something, too, which I can't guarantee. But Grand Theft 'Cuda? Yeah, I got that figured out. I spent half the night thinking about it. Witness that, since I didn't sleep, it's still yesterday, so that" and he pointed to his empty beer can "isn't too early, it's just a really late Friday night beer."

"Oh Great Master of Beer Justification, what is your idea?" I smart assed to him.

"We arrange it to be stolen at a car show. No one would think twice about seeing someone trailer it and cart if off towards the end of a car show. He can't resist showing it off, and so we just get him to take it to a show, have a couple guys wearing jackets that say something like, I dunno, "'Cuda Classics" or some shit, and distract Asshole while they load it at the end of the show. It's always chaotic at those things, but who the hell would steal a classic car from a show, and do it blatantly? We have them drop it off in storage condition to some rent-a-unit storage place, rented under his name, and leave it there for a six months. In the short term, he files a stolen report, he gets the insurance to pay, and yet the car is sitting in a locker that's in his name. Blow the whistle on him a month or two after he collects the insurance, police find it, and he's doing time with Bubba in the Big House for Insurance Fraud."

"Ok, let me think about that for a second. No. I see way too many issues for such a complicated piece of bullshit. Besides, just having his name on the unit won't be enough."

"See, there's the beauty of it. You can simply arrange that the key to the unit is on his key board at his house, still marked with the tag. So, since I know you're going to pick it apart, here's the deal. What you may not know, because you didn't really know Marie well back then, is that Evan's cousin Darla is the girl Asshole cheated on Marie with. Darla was a freshman, and had grown up out in Oklahoma. You've met Darla, a couple times over the years. Darla didn't know Asshole was involved with Marie, at least according to Darla, when they went out; she thought she was Asshole's girlfriend, so you can imagine her surprise when Marie slapped the shit out of her when she found out. According to Darla, the Asshole lied in front of her to Marie and told her that it had been Darla who started it and pursued him; Darla had rarely dated prior to that, and Asshole was her first, so she felt betrayed by him lying about her in front of her to Marie, and her getting hit for it. She blames Marie, some, but she hates Williams. And Darla, hell, that whole family, they hold grudges. You've never been anything but a friend to Evan, and nice to Darla the time or two you've met. She likes you, heck she likes most people who she doesn't think wronged her, but she holds grudges."

"Ok, so you, me, Evan, and Darla all want to bring down the sky on Asshole. But what's that got to do with the car?"

"That's what I'm trying to tell you. Darla owns a pair of storage places, or at least her husband does. Darla even manages one of them. And Darla would know where we can get a couple guys to haul the car away."

"Storage places have cameras. So, when the police start poking around, they'll pull the camera feeds and see we paid for the unit, and they'll see us, or whoever, putting the car away. They won't see Asshole."

"Ah, but here's the thing. Guess what place is the closest storage center to where Williams lives? It's not the one Darla manages, but it's one she and her husband own. She can arrange to take over for one weekend, and have the cameras go on the fritz. It'll take a few days for the bad cable to be diagnosed, but the next day, we rent the unit, so the camera's out when we do it. She's not there when we do it, so no tie between the camera glitch, her and us."

"Ok, so that gets renting the unit. We can hide some of the rest, too, I guess, like the license of the truck hauling the car. Make sure no one looks towards a camera as they get the car off the trailer and into the unit. That makes sense. Someone can even dress like Asshole was earlier in the day, if we can figure it out, so it'll be more obvious. Hell, we can even arrange photos of him at the show with the car, so the police will be able to see how he was dressed." I started to warm to the idea.

"Now you're thinking straight. The key points are getting him distracted long enough to steal the car, and how long to wait before the anonymous tip, or whatever way we use to have the car discovered, if the police don't discover the car on their own." Bobbie seemed to have most of the answers at least scouted, but I saw one still glaring one.

"There's still the issue of the key. How do we get it so the key is at his house?"

"Ok, so I'm still fuzzy on how to do that. I think we need to simply get it on his key ring, right before the tip off to the police, but I dunno how to do that yet. You have to come up with a few steps on your own."

"Steal underwear, question marks, profit? Is that what you're saying? I'm not an underwear gnome, Bobbie." I stated back, referencing the old South Park episode.

"Hey, there are only three question marks I'm still seeing, and one small problem only you can find the solution for. The keys situation, the distraction and our alibis, and then the problem."

"What's the problem?"

"Can you keep it cool long enough to pull this off? You can't do anything about Marie until after he's in jail, and you really can't do anything that would pull the police to look harder to you. When his car goes missing, if you're in a divorce because of him, you'll be a prime suspect. The cops don't care about whether or not Marie is slutting around, but they do care about the stolen car. And, at least as witnessed by the way he treated Darla, Asshole will throw Marie under the bus if he thinks you stole the car."

"You know, that could be perfect. Make him throw her under the bus. I could use that to push the divorce if he went on record stating he thought I had something to do with it because he was screwing her and I wanted revenge. That could work really well."

Bobbie broke into the biggest, most sinister grin I'd ever seen on his face. "Lead the horse towards the water, and eventually the horse will find it and drink. Now you see where my end game is."

"Wait, you already thought of that? You bastard, why didn't you just go there from the start?" I sputtered.

"Because I needed you to see there was a way through; as soon as you did, you know you'll be able to pull this off with Marie. When the car is gone, we drop the hints to Asshole that you did it, or get it out in rumors that you had something to do with it, so it gets back to him. He'll finger you to the cops, and end up fixing Marie up good before the hammer drops."

"Pass me a Bud. Time to celebrate." I smiled back at him. It was a good morning for fishing and drinking.

Bobbie volunteered to be the liaison between the various people involved, keeping things up in the air for the next week. I settled on a lawyer (the female shark), and she did up the paperwork, but didn't put dates or file it. I saw Evan once, and he looked at me and smiled; we didn't say anything, he just smiled. I knew he was thinking about getting revenge on all of the assholes who sleep with other men's wives, and it was the first time I'd seen him really smile in a while. It was heartening, in it's own way.

Meanwhile, Marie was still trying to spoil me rotten, and the bugs weren't picking up anything new. I constantly looked for things on me, or in the truck, that might have been designed to turn the tables and listen in on me. I guess that made me paranoid; if Marie really did love me, and not want to lose me, she'd be on her best behavior and she'd try not to give me any reason to think that she didn't trust me. Didn't mean she wasn't trying, but if I had to guess, I would think she was waiting for me to get over my suspicions. The pen and the under seat recorder always matched, and I started counting the times the car was driven. There were a few more than I would have expected, but all the conversations that they picked up were innocuous, and both recording sets started with me saying the date I last reset them, so I knew they weren't being tampered with. For my part, I was unable to act 100% normally around her, but I didn't let my anger out of the bottle.