Cajuns Stick Together

"Uhh, if I could have a minute or two with my clients, you honor?" he asked. He turned and just looked at them as they shook their heads vehemently. "Uhh, I guess we concede to the plaintiff''s claims." he said reluctantly.

"Well, in that case I am going to state my verdict." Judge Guidry said. "I will simplify this as my decision applies to both parties. In regards to the distribution of community property, I find that because all parties agree infidelity occurred, the prenuptial agreement in each case will be enforced." Like we had hoped for, Susan and I were awarded eighty percent of the community property. Judge Guidry suggested we work out with our attorneys the actual distribution of who got which item. He hinted we did NOT want the court have to intervene in the 'minutia'. "As far as custodial parents are concerned. I can tell the only acceptable verdict will be to grant Robert Fontenot full custody of Jason and Diedra Fontenot. At the same time, I grant Susan Jenkins custody of Cynthia, Robert and David Jenkins. As both plaintiffs have requested in their decree, the noncustodial parents have full visitation rights. For legal purposes, this divorce will be finalized in six months."

The bonuses they received had inflated their relative incomes so much Bonnie and Rich were ordered to pay maintenance or alimony. Bonnie had to give me a thousand per month and Rich had to give Susan two thousand monthly for the next three years. Each dependent child would receive five hundred per month until the age of eighteen. My opinion was both Bonnie and Rich got nailed but Jake told us that it was actually minimal payments. His opinion was they were getting off almost scot free, and stated we could appeal. I shook my head. I could tell Susan questioned my sanity but followed my lead.

Once the Judge called an end to the hearing, we were excused. Jake told us he would arrange for our meeting to decide the details of the property distribution.

I told the kids to go straight home, change clothes and wait for me. I wanted a family meeting. Susan and I walked to the back of the court room where my Dad stood waiting. "So when did you figure it out, Dad?" I asked. Susan looked at me, puzzled. "It dawned on me when Diedra and Cindy made those comments about the videos. Is that when you caught on?" I told the confused Susan, "Pissedoff999 is an identity the kids created." Her mouth fell open in surprise.

"No." Dad said, "I realized what was going on a couple days ago when I looked closer at an old credit card bill. Jason and Rob approached me about two months ago now asking to use the card. They said they were planning something special for your upcoming anniversaries but needed a credit or debit card to make the purchase online. They said they had pooled their money and would pay me back. They told me it had to be kept a secret but the total would be about five hundred bucks. When I got my statement, the purchase was from an electronics company. I let it go at the time, but a few days ago I called the company to ask what they bought. The electronics firm was really secretive and refused to tell me at first until I pointed out the card was in my name and the billing address and delivery address were not the same. What the kids bought were bugs for cell phones."

"For five hundred dollars?" I asked. Apparently those little spy devices were very expensive. Dad did not know where the kids got video cameras. Dad decided to follow me home to find out. He wanted to hear the rest of the story.

All five kids were waiting in the living room. They fell silent when Susan, Dad and I came through the front door. "Let's go into the kitchen and sit around the table. Susan paused long enough to grab three beers and hand one to Dad and a second one to me. Jason and Rob held out their hands, grinning. "You may be old enough to be spies, but not old enough to drink." I said simply. They shrugged. They could tell I was not angry. "Alright, who wants to speak first? Start from the beginning."

Diedra began. "It started when Cindy and I stopped by Mom's office to visit and she was not there. Neither was Uncle Rich. It was about the time they started phase two of the Covid lock down. We thought we might get a few bucks out of one of them to see a movie. Anyway, the secretary said they were not there and had been gone for a while. It was well after lunch and we just decided to see where they were. You know we have that locator function Mom insisted we install on our phones. It showed them at a weird address so we checked it out. It was an apartment building. When we got there, we saw Uncle Rich's car so we waited. They came out a little later and they were not acting like they should. They were arm in arm and smiling. It got us to wondering so we started checking on where they were going over the next couple days. They went back to that same place three days in a row and stayed like an hour and a half each time. Sometimes they were there late afternoon, like after work but before they came home. We told the boys about it."

Rob took over. "We did an online search and found these little bugs you can put in cell phones. Once you download the app, it works like a continuous phone call. But it runs in the background and does not interfere with regular calls. It drains the battery a little faster than normal though. It sort of transmits any sounds around the phone if somebody wants to listen in. We talked Pawpaw into letting us use his credit card to buy them. Sorry we sort of lied, Pawpaw. Getting the phones to install the bugs and app was easy. Then we took turns checking on them and listening in on their conversations. We recorded anything interesting so we could share with each other."

"So that answers the audio recordings. How did you get video? And know what apartment they were using?" I asked.

"We looked through their keys. Both of them had a key that was marked 201. That is not their office numbers. So Jason took Mom's key and copied it. We went to the apartment a couple times and snooped it. We decided we needed cameras." Diedra explained.

"So we bought some and a little transmitter." Dave offered. "It was pretty sweet." The boy was enthused about the technology. He was missing out how he was describing the end of a couple marriages and the dissolution of two families. At least Susan and I were getting a few answers. "The cameras were motion sensitive so they did not burn up too much battery. We hid the receiver by taping it under the couch. The receiver took the info from those cameras and transmitted it to our receiver here. We recorded it. Kinda simple."

"Okay, so you made videos of Bonnie and Rich having sex. And made audio files and sent some to me." I said, carefully. These were my kids and niece and nephews. I could not come down on them and destroy my relationship. "But there was the whole other issue of the money."

"Daddy, the first time Cindy and I checked out that apartment, I knew our Mom was gone." Diedra declared. "Well, not GONE, but not going back to where our family was was before. They had clothes stashed, mainly underwear and Mom had a few outfits I recognized. She had a set of makeup and there were towels and wash clothes. We knew what they were doing. Having sex, getting cleaned up and then coming home to you and Aunt Sue like nothing happened. ALL of us were pissed. They weren't just cheating on you and Aunt Sue, they were cheating on US, too."

"Now the money thing. I mean the secret bank accounts was a side issue." Cindy said. "While we were checking out the apartment, we found some papers about a bank account. It gave instructions to how to access it online. The actual accounts took a while to find. We even spent time in Dad's and Aunt Bonnie's offices snooping. The secretary let us in so we could wait for them a couple times." She giggled. "We looked through a bunch of files and finally found one in the bottom drawer of Dad's desk with some statements. So we looked in the same place in Aunt Bonnie's office and found more papers. Aunt Bonnie kept or I guess still keeps a little notebook in her purse. It has passwords and stuff. Of course it did not say, 'secret bank account' but we could tell the password was pretty weird, a lot more than 'password1' like she uses for her cell phone. And it worked. It took a while but we finally knew it was the right password. It turned out they used the same password for both accounts."

Jason took over the account. "We already knew they were screw... uhh I mean... messing around. When we found out they had hidden bank accounts we were REALLY pissed. We wondered if they were dealing drugs or embezzling money. Dave actually is the one that came up with the idea that we put the money in our accounts."

Dave blushed. "Actually I said we can't let Dad and Aunt Bonnie just get rich and leave the rest of us hanging. We had been reading about splitting things in a divorce and we did not like the idea of them keeping half of that money either. We had those accounts Pawpaw set up for us so I thought maybe we should take all the money. I kinda figured the cops might catch us but thought since we are juveniles and it IS our parent's money we would not get into any real trouble. The others thought it might work so we did it."

"If we had known about the eighty twenty split we probably would not have taken it." Diedra said, contritely

"Actually it worked out better this way. And then you guys started sending me video and audio files?" I said, looking around the table. I was at least a bit pacified to see expressions of reticence rather than blatant pride.

"That was the hard part, Dad." Jason said, quietly. "I mean we were really, really pissed at Mom and Uncle Rich for what they were doing to all of us. We did not want to hurt you and Aunt Sue...But we really could not do anything. So we sent you that first video. We kept an eye on you. You kept trying to get us to go visit Pawpaw and Memaw. We kept stalling and we knew you were getting pissed... I mean upset. If you had got a gun out of the safe, we were going to tell you everything. We knew you would tell Aunt Sue. We sort of went from there. We had already transferred the money Mom had hidden. I guess we stole it. Well, I KNOW we stole it. but we all decided they had screwed us over so it was fair. I hope you and Aunt Sue aren't too upset."

I looked at Susan who had an expression of astonishment plastered across her face from the beginning. "I just hope you kids don't ever get pissed at me and Sue." I said with a smile. "But if you ever nail me like you did with your mother and Rich, I will beat you to death. Even if it is with my walker in the old folks home." They all giggled at my threat.

"You would never have to worry about that Daddy." Diedra said. "YOU would never screw the family over. Us Cajuns stick together."

"One thing I don't understand." my Dad said. "You bought the bugs for the cell phones with my credit card. They were terribly expensive. Where did you get the money and the card for video cameras?"

"Oh them. Yeah they cost about five hundred bucks for each camera because they took full video with sound and had built in motion and sound detectors. We got five of them." Jason answered. "Plus another five hundred each for the hidden transmitter that sent the signal to the receiver we connected to Diedra's computer. So that is thirty five hundred plus shipping. But we can get half of that money back when we return them undamaged. We pulled all the cameras and the transmitter already. We probably lost the cell phone bugs though. As for the credit card, we used Dad's Visa card." I didn't have a Visa card and said as much. "You do now. I applied for one and forged your signature." Jason said. At least he was honest enough to look guilty. "It has a ten thousand dollar limit."

"We bring the mail in everyday, so it was easy to hide it." Diedra added. "Cindy and I made the pissedoff999 email account. Rob came up with the name. He said what Mom and Uncle Rich did pissed him off to the nines." The kids were all smiling and nodding seeing that Susan, Dad and I were actually pretty impressed.

"So the cell phone bugs are still active?" I asked. Dave nodded and said they will continue to work as long the cell phone batteries work.

"Between that and the phone locator app, we know where they are and what they are doing all the time." Dave said. He was enthused now he realized they were not in trouble. "Anytime either of them talk near their cell phones we can hear it. It is voice activated so that means a lot of car sounds and just talk about business stuff. We took turns going over the files to pick out anything important."

I demanded access to the the audio feed. As a result Susan and I had advance knowledge of Bonnie and Rich's demands in the property settlement meeting. Bonnie wanted her jewelry so bad she gave me most of the cash she had as well as all the household furnishings. Some of their requests we granted without too much argument, but we sure made them grovel during the procedures.

Susan shocked everyone but me when she suggested they both walk across town and back carrying signs over their heads saying "we cheated on our spouses." She said Bonnie should wear just a g-string and pasties and Rich only a jockstrap while they did it. The alternative was we would appeal the alimony and child support amounts. I thought Bourdreaux's eyes were going to pop out of his head at the threat. I suspected he was getting a hard on imagining Bonnie almost naked. We had heard Boudreaux telling them they got off easy on the support payments and warned them Susan and I were likely to appeal the amounts. Susan finally reneged after getting both of them on their knees to apologize.

Epilogue

I am not sure how it happened, and I will swear on a stack of Bibles I had nothing to do with it. Somehow two months after our hearing the insurance company Bonnie and Rich worked for found out he had rented an apartment for a love nest using company funds. While everybody in the office received bonuses the past two years, for some reason, Bonnie's were far higher than normal each year. Rich had managed to collect large bonuses as well. Nobody was ever sure why. When all of this came to light, he and Bonnie were dismissed. No fanfare. The company did not want any unneeded exposure.

None of the videos ever made it onto the internet. Susan and I would not have cared and over beers joked how it would be fun to make them porn stars, but the kids did not want to be embarrassed publicly. We could see their point.

Bonnie and Rich are now living in New Orleans working for a small shipping company. After they left town they almost never come see the kids and seldom even phone. The last I heard they were having a very difficult time paying their maintenance and child support payments. I wish them well. Well, maybe not...

The end.

One of my favorite authors, Vandemonium likes to tell a joke after his stories. So I decided to include one.

Thibodeaux sat on his porch and watched his cousin Boudreaux park his pickup in front of the house. Thibodeaux was astounded to see five penguins jump out when the door opened. "Boudureaux!! What are you doing with those penguins?" He asked.

"They followed me home." Boudreaux answered. "Ain't they cute?"

"You take them to the zoo tomorrow! Understand?" Thibodeaux ordered. His cousin nodded.

Two days later, Thibodeaux stepped out of the liquor store with his case of beer. He saw Boudreaux walking down the street carrying a big umbrella and a bag, the five penguins following behind. "Boudreaux! Didn't I tell you to take those penguins to the zoo?"

"Yep!" Boudreaux answered. "And I did! We had such a good time, we are going to the beach today."