Old Country

I had no idea what he meant by that toast, but Travis and I both joined Ben in raising our glasses. The rye 'burned real good, ' just as Travis' Wild Turkey had earlier that afternoon.

-

"I still can't get over how fast you got this thing in motion," I said to Travis on Monday morning. We had just pulled up to the Waffle House across the street from the hotel in Mobile where Luanne and her boss and lover, Vernon Talbot, were either sleeping or getting in one more morning of fucking before having to emerge, eat, and get on the road back to Birmingham.

"Well," drawled Travis, "it helps to know the right folks in the right places." He had a knowing smile on his face that dissolved to a look of grim determination as he looked across the street.

We went in and had eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns (scattered, smothered, and covered) while we waited for the Trooper that we were expecting.

About thirty minutes after our food arrived, a car with the lights and livery of the Alabama Highway Patrol pulled into the lot. A very large, muscular black Trooper emerged and put on his hat before coming around to the door of the Waffle House. When he came inside, Travis grinned and called out, "Come on over, Cuz. I won't chew ta meet somebody."

Needless to say, I was floored by this comment.

The Trooper, who I saw wore the rank of a Lieutenant, responded with a grin, "Hey, Cuz. You buyin'?"

"Naw," replied Travis as he stood up. Then he surprised me even more when he reached out and hugged the Trooper ... and the Trooper hugged him right back.

"Hey, let me introduce Glenn Reese to you," said Travis, turning to me. "And, Glenn, I'd like you to meet my cousin, Terry Hinton."

Well, that was a conversation stopper. The very white Travis ... and the very black Terry were grinning at my confusion.

"You mean ... you guys are really related?" I asked.

"Yeah," answered Lieutenant Terry Hinton. "His great-great-great-grandpappy owned my great-great-great-grandmaw." Then he went into an intonation that sounded like a television preacher. "And he KNEW her-ra ... and she BORE him-ma ... a SON-na."

"Shit, Terry," said Travis as he chuckled. "That ain't very politically correct. You cain't get away with sayin' that kinda shit these days."

Terry gave him a grin and said, "No. YOU can't ... but I can!" And they both broke into laughter that, I have to admit, was contagious. Although, I also have to admit that, having grown up a bit farther north of here, I was a somewhat uncomfortable with that topic of conversation.

-

Luanne stepped out of the hotel room with her lover, her boss, Vernon Talbot. A very large black Lieutenant from the Alabama Highway Patrol was waiting just outside the door on the sidewalk. She paused momentarily in surprise; not only at the presence of a law enforcement officer, but one that had a name tag with the same name as her husband over in Birmingham.

"Mrs. Luanne Hinton?" asked Lieutenant Terry Hinton

"Yes."

"You are under arrest for bigamy," said Terry as he held out a hand for one of Luanne's. In her shock, Luanne simply complied. Terry turned her around and attached the handcuffs while she tried to say something, but decided to hold her tongue as Terry recited the Miranda warning to her. The shock must have taken control, because she was unable to speak a word after that.

"Mr. Vernon Talbot?" Terry asked the man who had stepped back against the wall of the hotel, watching the arrest of his employee and lover.

"Yes," Talbot managed to croak out.

"Sir, you have been served." With that, Terry handed Vernon the notice of Travis' intent to sue him for Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress.

While Vernon was trying to process mentally what was transpiring around him, Terry turned back to a now-crying Luanne. She had looked around to see Travis and me standing together behind Terry Hinton's official Alabama Highway Patrol interceptor, a new Dodge Charger. I guess seeing 'both' of her husbands' witnessing her humiliation at being arrested with her lover and boss was quite a significant emotional event for her.

Terry executed the next act of this street-side stage play. "Ma'am, you have also been served." At this, he held up the document that showed the Travis Hinton's intention to seek an Annulment of his marriage to Luanne Hinton, nee Campbell. Being handcuffed, Luanne could not reach for the paper, so Terry folded it and slid it into the back pocket of the jeans she was wearing.

Terry asked if either Travis or I would get Luanne's purse from the hotel room. Travis said nothing, but went inside to get it; when he came out, he handed it to Terry, who tossed it in the back seat of his interceptor. Vernon Talbot was simply walking toward his car by this time. I guess he realized that he was now caught up in the middle of a major shit storm and he needed to get to an attorney.

Luanne was crying heavily now as Lieutenant Terry Hinton led her to his car in handcuffs and placed her in the back seat where he had tossed her purse. When the door closed, she screamed and kicked the back of the front seat in frustration, until Terry yelled and warned her. After that, she just looked down and cried. Travis and I just shook our heads as they drove off.

Travis suggested that he and I go to a local bar and have a drink together, even though it was still morning. I just did not have the heart to do that and I thanked him for the offer, but declined. Since we had arrived together, he changed his mind about the drink.

-

Luanne hired a female lawyer in Cincinnati long-distance and spoke to her later, when she was out of jail on bond back in Columbiana. She instructed her Ohio lawyer that she wished to waive any attempts at reconciliation or mediation, and that she did not want to delay the proceedings in our Divorce with lengthy discovery or pretrial negotiation. She asked her to pass on to my lawyer, Mark Helmond, that she was sorry for what she had done to me and wanted me to be able to get on with my life ... without her, she had added sadly.

In Ohio, depending on all the agreements that must be negotiated, dissolution for an uncontested divorce can take place anywhere from 30 to 90 days. In my case, because she was awaiting trial in Alabama, with the involvement of long-distance negotiations, I received the signed judge's divorce order from the Hamilton County Clerk of Court in just 45 days after my attorney had filed.

I emailed Travis to let him know. He told me that he had received the notification of his uncontested Annulment from the Clerk of the Court for Jefferson County, Alabama within three weeks of its filing, as there was no 30-day waiting period in his case.

Luanne was convicted of Bigamy. She had pleaded guilty and received a light sentence of only eighteen months; everyone figured that she would probably get out after only about six-to-eight months if she behaved.

Luanne had tried to email me before her sentencing with an explanation of why she had done what she had done, and why she had deceived me, but I was not interested, so I deleted it after looking at it briefly. Travis said that she had wanted to meet with him, only after convincing him that she simply wanted to tell him why she had done what she had done, and he was curiouser than I was about the whole situation.

-

About two months into Luanne's sentence, Travis invited me to come down and see him so that both of us could visit Luanne while she was incarcerated. I balked at first, but he convinced me that it was the charitable thing to do, since she had no one else to come visit her and he knew that we both needed some sort of closure on the situation in which we were all involved. He even ponied up the cost of the round-trip airfare and let me crash at his place.

The visiting area of the Shelby County Corrections Facility, the minimum security detention center where Luanne was serving her sentence, had a few tables and chairs. It was not like the separated glass-walled center with telephones for communicating with inmates like you see in the movies and television. It was open, but with corrections officers nearby to ensure that visitors did not pass contraband and that no disturbances that might develop got out of hand.

Despite losing a little weight and the unflattering look of her prison jumpsuit, Luanne was still a beautiful woman. She was surprised to see both Travis and me together as she was led in and came to sit down across the table from us. She started to reach out to take a hand from each of us, but hesitated when the female corrections officer glowered at her.

"Glenn ... Travis," Luanne said. Then she was quiet for a moment and I saw her skin redden from her embarrassment. I could not tell if this was from her realization of what she had done to all of us or from our seeing her in such surroundings. The mystery cleared a bit with what she said next.

"I am truly sorry for what I put you through; both of you," Luanne said. She looked sad, but I guess she was all cried out by now, because there were no tears yet.

"Luanne," began Travis, "I guess I can understand how you and I got carried away out in Las Vegas; and I truly felt as if it was love at first sight with you. What gets me, though, is why you did not come clean with me when we woke up together out there and realized that we could not be legally married ... I mean ... what with you already being married to Glenn here."

Luanne took a few seconds before she responded. "Glenn, what I am about to tell Travis is going to be the truth; but it is truth that will probably be hurtful for you to hear. Do you want to leave while I answer him?"

I had already sort of figured out how this was going to go, based on the contemplation of our years together that I had gone over in my head during the past couple of months. "Go ahead, Luanne. We all need a dose of truth here. After all, the absence of truth in all of this was the true catalyst for all the pain I have been feeling. And, anyway, I am pretty much past the really hurting time now."

Luanne took a deep breath and looked at Travis and spoke. "Travis, yes, I was already married; to a wonderful, caring, loving man." I saw her eyes dart to me for a second, but her face did not move. Then she looked back straight on at Travis and her face reddened again as she continued.

"But, all during that night together, and then over the next day or so, I experienced a surge of pleasure from the way that you were making love to me that I had not felt in all the time that I had been together with Glenn ... or any other man with whom I had been physically intimate in my life." She looked at me directly now, and I could see tears at last.

"Glenn," she told me. "You were not my first lover, but you were my first true love. You cherished me, cared for me, and you made love to me with sweet gentleness every time we were together; and it was absolutely wonderful." Here she paused to wipe away one errant tear.

"But, when I was with Travis, he was forceful as well as loving, and I found myself on a sexual plateau far above anything I had experienced with you ... up to that point." She sniffed and continued, "I am sorry about having you hear that, and I want you to know that I truly treasure memories of the time and loving effort that you always put into making love with me. And, Travis, I want you to know that I will also truly treasure memories of the way that you made love to me, too.

"I used to want to climb the walls with the feeling that something was missing. I never realized that it was a deep need for better sex at the time. It almost felt as if I had never really been completely loved before-but in the physical sense only; never in the relational or emotional sense-until that time that Travis came to town and we met at the tavern near my work place; then, in Las Vegas ... well...

"It is strange, really, Glenn," Luanne said with the beginning of a small smile, "but the last few times that you and I were making love together, you approached our lovemaking almost the same way that Travis did; and you really thrilled me."

Luanne shook her head and said, "Isn't it ironic that I could have had the best of both worlds if I had been patient enough and had been open enough to help you to see what I needed in bed? We could have both learned to be better lovers together, like a husband and wife should. But, I guess I got panicked when I woke up that day in Las Vegas and, with Travis' proximity and his loving attention, I just decided then that I would not say anything about what was happening."

"But, Luanne," Travis interrupted, "how did you think you were ever going to carry this off long term? I mean ... At some point, all of this was going to come out anyway. You could not hide the fact that you were married to two men forever."

"I know that now, but I was scared," Luanne answered, looking down at the table. "I needed to take some time to try to figure my way out of the mess I had let myself get into. I figured that, with a good attorney, I could probably get things settled before the law got wind of what I had gotten caught up in ... or before either of you did. Then, maybe I could figure out a way to fix things somehow."

I had been holding one question back for quite a while and I asked it now. "If you loved Travis and me, like you say you did, can you tell us why you cheated on us with your boss? Whatever in the world possessed you to start fucking that asshole, Vernon Talbot?" Travis' eyebrows went up and he nodded as he looked at Luanne, awaiting her response as I was.

"Blackmail," was Luanne's one-word answer. When she did not continue for a few seconds, my mind churned in anger at her boss blackmailing her for something in return for sexual favors. Idiot that I was, I was still thinking about it when Travis guessed correctly.

"He found out; didn't he? I mean about the two marriages," Travis said.

I almost did the V-8 forehead slap as it hit me. I now remembered Vernon Talbot's trip to Cincinnati months earlier and my meeting him at a company function. I remembered his surprise at meeting me and finding out that I was Luanne's husband ... in Cincinnati. Of course, he had already met Travis when Luanne's had introduced Travis as her husband ... in Birmingham.

Luanne was nodding. "He threatened to tell one or both of you ... or the police ... if I didn't ... if I didn't ... well, you know." She was actually feeling ashamed now; I could tell by her expression. Then she looked up with a grim look.

"But, you two don't need to worry about Mr. Vernon Bastard Talbot. The Jefferson County DA's office in Birmingham has already sent out an ADA and a Court Recorder to take my statement in order to prosecute Vernon's sorry ass for blackmail. And he has been fired from the company, based on what I already learned after I told the HR director about what he was doing. It seems that I was not the only married female employee being pressured for sex by that asshole." Then she brightened.

"Oh! I found out that they are holding my job for me when I get out," Luanne told us. "It seems that, up until this little vacation that I am on right now, they were impressed with my work performance enough that they want to keep me; and right here in Birmingham full time. It seems that they already moved someone to Cincinnati to take on what I was doing up there.

"I also think," Luanne continued, with a cagey look, "that they kept me on because they do not want to have a record of firing a woman employee who was the victim of workplace sexual harassment and blackmail by a male supervisor."

There was a bit of small talk among all three of us over the next ten minutes or so and then we simply ran out of things to say.

"I am truly sorry for the way things worked out, but especially for how badly you two were treated," Luanne said. "Neither of you deserved what happened." She asked the corrections officer if she could give us a hug, and the woman gave a nod.

"I love you," is all Luanne said to either of us as she hugged each of us separately, me first and then Travis. Afterward, I could see tears in Luanne's eyes as she turned without saying anything else, and walked out of the visiting area with her escort.

-

"I guess this is it," I said to Travis, as he dropped me off at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport in his Ford F-250. Normally, I would have expected to connect in Atlanta for another leg to Cincinnati. But, this time, I had a non-stop flight from BHM to CVG.

"Now, Glenn, you don't have to be a stranger; you hyeah?" Travis said to me with a grin. "After all, I get season tickets every fall over in Tuscaloosa. Y'All need to come down here and see what REAL college football is all about."

"Hey!" I said with an expression of mock indignation, "My Hilltoppers play pretty good football, you know. Maybe not with as big a name as the Crimson Tide ... but, nevertheless..." I just let it go at that.

Travis' smile diminished and he was quiet for a few seconds before he asked, "You gonna come back down and be here when she gets out?"

"I don't think so," I answered. "I might touch base with her once in a while by email to make sure that she is getting reintegrated with the world. And, I need to find out where I need to send her all things from our place in Cincinnati."

After a pause, Travis turned to look out his front wind screen. Then he said, "Just ship them to my place and let me know how much it costs."

I stopped moving and turned in surprise to look at Travis' face. He was actually blushing.

"You're going to take her back; aren't you?" I asked. "You are going to give her another chance after all that nasty stuff with Talbot ... and me?"

After a pause, Travis nodded and said, "Yeah; she's like a bugger stuck on my finger that I just cain't seem to flick off." I cringed at the imagery of that metaphor, but I could understand it.

Travis asked, "You aren't going to feel uncomfortable about staying in touch with me ... and maybe taking in a game or two ... if she's around, are you?"

I just smiled at my new friend and shook my head. Then I shook his hand and said, "I'll let you know."

I turned then and pulled my bag out of the back seat of the king cab. When I looked back at Travis, he had a double CD jewel case in his hand that he was extending toward me.

"Here," Travis said to me, "I thought you might like to listen to this when you get back home. It's the Mark Chesnutt Ultimate Collection. You might want to click forward to Track 12 on Disk 1. I think you might find it ironically entertaining."

As I turned toward the terminal, he waved and pulled away from the curb. I stowed the CD case in an outer pocket of my bag, and headed inside.

-

The flight home was on time and uneventful. I actually napped the whole way. Magically, my bag arrived on the same plane as I did and I walked out of the terminal at CVG and headed toward my parking space, remembering a not-so-pleasant time in that very spot a few months earlier.

I stowed the bag in the trunk and got in to begin the trip back to our ... make that MY ... apartment. As I pulled on to Terminal Drive, I slipped Disk 1 of the CD into the player. I hit the track selector a few times to get it to Track 12. As the music began, I glanced at the back of the CD and saw the name of the song on that particular track; 'Old Country.'

As I merged into traffic on I-275 that would lead me to I-71/75 North across the Ohio River to Cincinnati and home, I listened to Mark Chesnutt's country baritone voice singing the two stanzas, finishing with the chorus:

From Birmingham to Ohio

How they met nobody knows

But every now and then they get together

She used to want to climb the walls

She'd never really been loved at all