Garden by the Front Door

The final decree of divorce pretty much spelled out what had already been decided in Judge Harold Monroe's courtroom.

Knowing it was coming, and holding it in his hands were two different things. Joe felt a new sense of weariness overwhelm him.

The election was over, Barak Obama would be the 44th president, Congress was scrambling to shore up a flagging economy and the weather was turning cold.

Weeds dominated the flower box but Joe could not force himself to care.

Another letter's bright, colorful lettering caught his attention and Joe shrugged. Carnival Cruise Lines was again trying to tempt him into going on a cruise.

He and Gretchen had gone on a cruise for their honeymoon, touring the US Virgin Islands. Glenda and Rudy had been quite upset that they were not going. Joe had promised them, the next time he and Gretchen went, they'd take them.

A cold wind blew in off of the Atchafalaya Basin and Joe shrugged again.

"Why not? Why the hell not?" he said. "It ever get cold in the Bahamas?"

While Joe was logging onto the Carnival Cruise Lines web site, entering his promotional code, Gretchen was listlessly reading her decree of divorce.

She sat at the small table in her small dining room/living room and read the document. Her tomato basil soup got cold as she sat, just holding the papers.

David had taken her to court. He was now the custodial parent, the girls were living with him, and he wanted her to pay child support.

Five hundred a month when most months she was lucky to clear twelve hundred. Her rent was three ninety five for a tiny one bedroom apartment. She had looked into a two bedroom apartment in the same complex, but knew she'd never be able to maintain seven hundred a month, not on commission sales. Not when the economy was going to hell.

Pushing her cold soup aside, Gretchen got to her feet. Grabbing her purse, she stomped out of the small apartment and down the two flights of stairs.

While Gretchen was jamming her key into the ignition of Stacy's old Kia, Keith was sitting on his couch. He sipped his bourbon and sighed. It had been several days since he'd been out of the house; there were no jobs to do.

Keith glumly drank, looking over his latest stack of bills. The economy was going to shit, most of his spec houses were sitting idle and DeGarde National Bank was demanding he begin paying his loan. Even though they'd pulled the plug on his Stone crest Condominiums, they still wanted their money.

Keith had driven by the shell of Stone crest Condominiums and thought about dousing the place with gasoline and dropping a match. Part of the problem with that idea was, Kevin had already cancelled the insurance on the property. And in the case of suspected arson, he and Kevin would be suspects number one and number two.

Someone had stripped all the copper wiring out of the walls. Keith was grateful to Scott Collins for making them use pvc pipes instead of the ten coated pipes they'd originally used. The thieves would have stripped as much of that as they could. But pvc pipes had very little recycling value.

Keith was dimly aware of a car coming to a stop outside of his home.

His home. He'd borrowed heavily against the equity he had in the home in order to finance his other projects. He wondered when Danny would demand payment of that.

The lawsuit that Joe Daudet had brought against him was also looming. Kenneth Prejean had been honest with him; it did not look good for Keith Blanchard.

"Ain't never even fucking heard, what the fuck is 'slander with malice' anyway?" he muttered as he took another sip of his bourbon.

"What the fuck?" he screamed as he heard a key in the door.

"Really, Keith? I would have thought you'd have changed the locks by now," Gretchen said, beautiful face splotchy from her tears.

"Bitch! What the fuck, aw no, need get your fat ass on out of my house," Keith bellowed

Gretchen flung some legal papers at him.

"My divorce is final, Keith!" she screamed.

Keith reached for her, intending to forcibly remove her from his home.

The first bullet slammed into his shoulder and he staggered back.

"God damn!" he screamed, a high pitched shriek.

The pain had not even begun to seep into his consciousness. There had been a deafening roar, an odd, metallic smell, and a hard push that twisted him backward.

The second bullet slammed into Keith's chest, nearly knocking him to the floor.

"Oh God no, please," he begged as Gretchen aimed for his face.

She put one more bullet into his head, then put the quite hot muzzle against her own temple and squeezed the trigger.

Joe Gaudet did not go on the cruise. Instead, he booked a cruise for one adult and two children and sent David and the girls on a Christmas cruise. The girls had, after all, suffered a horrible loss.

**Eight Years Later-2016**

Tuesday was smothered steak day at the Dead End bar. Joe Gaudet took Thomas Bergeron, the HR Manager and Brian Breaux, the head of the Engineering Department to the bar for a business lunch.

Summer internship coming up; I've gone over the list you gave me, Thomas," Joe said and smiled as the Asian-American waitress put their plates in front of them.

'Born to Be Wild' began to blare out and Joe saw Brian's shaved head pop up from the delicious meal. The song was a classic, but the song playing was a cover version.

The large breasted blonde on the stage was a real beauty, whipping her floor length blonde hair around as she shimmied out of her leopard print top. Joe watched Brian's face twist into a mask of sadness and decided they could table the discussion for now. At least while the young lady was on the stage. The three men ate in silence.

"Place has also got a caramel pie that's out of this world," Joe said and Brian gave a half-hearted nod as the beauty on the stage was now down to faux leather bra and faux leather thong.

The waitress smiled and nodded as the men ordered pie and coffee.

"As I was saying," Joe said as the blonde skipped off the stage. "Looked over the list of names you gave me and..."

"The seven of them all have letters of recommendation," Thomas said.

"We wouldn't even consider them if they didn't," Brian interrupted.

But Joe wasn't paying attention.

He wondered if Buddy and Kelly Huvall knew what Angela was doing now. Buddy and Kelly had been good, Catholic parents, had been severely disappointed in their daughter's marrying him, a divorced man. They had nearly disowned Angela over her divorce from him.

Even after four kids, Angela Decker was still a slim pixie of a girl as she twisted and gyrated to 'Smooth Criminal' by Alien Ant Farm. She still wore her brown hair in a symmetrical cut that framed her small face perfectly.

In the harsh light, Joe couldn't see her cute little spattering of freckles across her cute little nose. He could see her cupid bow mouth, her cute, kissable mouth.

Joe could see her legs were still a little on the chubby side; Angela had always hated her thick legs. But even after bearing four children for Duane, her belly was still flat, her breasts were still just slightly more than a handful.

A customer dropped a bill into the tip jar and Angela gave the man a smile as she shimmied out of her lacy camisole top.

"Seven candidates, five positions; who would you cut, Brian?" Joe said, tearing his eyes away from his ex-wife.

"Can't cut Alyson Harding; she's the only female on the list," Brian mused and smiled as the waitress put the pie slices in front of them.

"Damn, y'all are not shy with the pie, huh?" Thomas praised as each wedge was a sizeable chunk of goodness.

"Want y'all coming back," the Asian girl smiled, Texas twang quite noticeable.

Angela was now down to lacy white bra and lacy French cut bottom. Thanks to her chubby legs, she also had possessed a juicy, bubble shaped bottom. As she turned, Joe nodded; she still had that cute, spankable butt.

"And can't cut Buford Jones; only African-American on the list," Thomas agreed.

"And uh, this Philippe Montoyez, he's Latino," Brian added.

"So's this Ramone Garcia," Joe pointed out.

Angela was now down to just pasties and miniscule thong as 'Alive' by POD faded out.

With a smile, the woman gathered tips and clothing and scampered off the small stage.

"So, gentlemen, we can't cut Ms. Harding, Mr. Jones, Mr. Montoyez, or Mr. Garcia," Joe said as he signed the credit slip, adding an eighteen percent tip for the waitress. "So out of the remaining three, which one should we keep?"

"Or, we could put one in Administration, the other in Clerical," Joe mused aloud.

"And one out with the crews; Engineers tend to forget, just because it looks good on paper..." Brian agreed.

While the three men hammered out their summer internship program, Heather Breaux straddled the ottoman in Hurricane Room 3. She had seen her daddy out there, sitting at table four. With his sexy shaved head and blonde goatee, he was hard to miss.

But before she could even get to his table, before Heather could hug and kiss her handsome daddy, the manager had let her know she had one waiting in Hurricane Room 3.

Now, straddling the padded vinyl stool, Heather could feel her pussy dripping her excitement. Her daddy had seen her. She had swiveled and gyrated, thrust her pelvis out, acting like a cheap slut, a whore. Heather's nipples were so hard they actually hurt.

"God damn, girl!" the morbidly obese man exclaimed, sweat trickling down his puffy face as Heather began to finger herself.

While Heather was bringing herself to orgasm in front of the customer, Angela was in the back room, wiping away her angry tears.

She had seen Joe Gaudet, sitting at table four. He still looked good. His handsome face had a few more wrinkles, his hair, what was left of it, had a lot of gray in it, but he looked good.

Duane Decker had been a running back in high school and had the body of a running back when she'd left Joe for him.

Now, Duane was a bloated, balding imbecile. His body was adorned with numerous prison tattoos, his once handsome face bore the scars of prison fights.

Joe's words still cut Angela. "She's stupid enough run off with you? I'm smart enough let her."

Joe had not even wanted to fight for her. Thirteen years after their divorce, Angela now understood why. Joe shouldn't have to fight for her. They'd promised each other to be faithful to each other, to honor, to cherish one another.

But Duane had whined and wheedled and reminded Angela that she'd promised that she'd be his until the end of time.

Well, now Duane was sitting in Bender Lock Up, most likely would be going back to Mumphrey, or possibly Angola, until the end of time. His bad ass 'fuck authority' attitude had seemed so cool in high school.

Now, at thirty four years old, that 'fuck authority' attitude was juvenile, self-defeating. And the supervisor at King Sanitation was threatening to sue the Deckers over his medical bills. Sue them for what, Angela didn't know. They were renting the trailer, the large flat screen television Duane just had to have wasn't paid off yet, the one car may or may not start, depending on how cold it was.

"Know what, Duane? I'm done, mother fucker, I'm just done." Angela spat bitterly.

As Angela was preparing to go back onto the small stage, Joe was riding his Harley past the St. Elizabeth Parish Trauma Center. He'd secured the land the Stone Crest Condominiums had been scheduled to occupy and had sold that land to Paula Lambert for the proposed hospital site. The speculation homes that Keith and Kevin Blanchard had completed also became Joe's spec homes in the settlement against Keith's estate.

Most of the homes, he'd had torn down. Their construction was shoddy, their floor plans were poorly designed, poorly executed. And in 2009, when the lawsuit had finally wrapped up, the metal in the homes were worth more than the homes themselves. The land was worth more than the lumber and sheet rock and faux granite countertops.

He cruised past a trailer park he owned; four of Keith's spec houses had once stood there. Joe shook his head sadly; he was getting ready to begin construction of a new grocery store on that property. The tenants of the trailer park should be getting their orders to vacate soon.

Finally, he pulled up to his house. He'd had the garage door repainted a battleship gray and the door, the overhang and the faux wooden shutters painted a brick red.

Just before he pulled into the garage, he could see the bright collection of flowers in the flower box by the front door, most of them blooming prettily in the late spring.

Entering his kitchen, Joe saw that the message light was blinking on his digital recorder.

"Hi, Mr. Joe," Glenda's cheerful voice made him smile. "I just finished my Sociology Finals, I'm pretty sure, no, I'm positive I aced it."

"I'm positive you did too, Sweetheart," Joe said to the machine. "You're a smart girl."

"Mr. Joe? I don't, God, I hope I did all right," Rudy's voice said. "But Algebra's so hard! I don't know if I can be an engineer like you."

"Hang in there, Baby, just hang in there," Joe encouraged the machine.

"Hey Joe, did another transfer to your account," David's voice came on.

"God damn it, David, told you, we're even now," Joe said. "Told you when they started college; you're all caught up."

"Anyway, we love you," David said.

"Love you too," Joe agreed and threw the sales announcement from Abdul's Department store into the trash.

Then he remembered and dug the papers out of the trash and dropped them into the small recycling bin. The digital recorder dinged and the second message started.

"Hey uh, hi, God, can't believe you still got the same number, I uh, hey, this is Angela," Joe paused as he heard his ex-wife's voice on the recorder.

THE END.

*Author's Note: I write these stories for my pleasure; I post them here for your enjoyment. I thank you for reading my stories.

I especially thank those that take the time to rate my stories, those that take the time to leave comments.

A word about comments though. This is the end. Please do not leave comments saying how you can't wait to see where they go from here. The do not go anywhere from here. This is the end.

[1] In 2008, when the first part of this story takes place, the New Orleans Saints had not yet won the Super Bowl. (But, Dan! What a Super Bowl Super Bowl 44 was, huh?)

Have a keen and neat day. Why? Because you're swell.