Master Yoshi

There were lots of questions, but I calmed them down. "I know, it's going to be pretty impossible to get out there and sing today and be normal. We're going to announce to the church in a couple of minutes, at the start of the service. But, I thought you should know first, and it gets the rumor mill out of the way, where someone might try to cast some kind of negative light on this when it's happening. This should protect us... hopefully. Yes, we're going to finish high school. Yes, we're going to be normal people - we hope. We're just going to do it as a 50% larger family than normal."

I was grinning, but with a sort of hopeful smile that said, 'please be compassionate', and they were.

The choir director looked at the time, it was almost there, so she said, "I'm calling an audible, folks, we're doing hymn 23 instead of the piece we practiced. Too much going on. You all know that and it sounds great, and Kevin doesn't have to play something complicated on his... honeymoon?"

We laughed and nodded, "Yeah, it kind of is."

She joked with us, "And... You're HERE?!?!?"

Everyone laughed. I half-stood, then we all stood and started to file out. I added, knowing the group would like at least a religious reference from me, "Glory to God. And, please help us with the rumor mill. This is going to... be stressful."

The girls and I got a ton of hugs before we did our procession, the girls and I to the piano and the choir to the loft behind the alter.

As we came in, there were a lot of murmurs, but Carrie and Joanie were both smiling reasonably genuine smiles. I was worried, of course.

They sat in chairs right behind me near the piano, away from the congregation. Before we did anything musical, I very quickly suggested they have the piano to shield them, and to plan out how to run out the side door if something odd happened.

We always had an introit, I thought of it as nice 'sit your butt down' music. People always straggled in, it was Sunday Morning, and people with kids were unavoidably on 'toddler time'.

I started playing the same introit rhapsody I normally played and had a good time with it.

Unlike normal, when I finished, the entire choir applauded and then stood up.

I laughed and waved to them, and they sat down.

Jergins waved to a recruited member who came up and read the announcements - what meeting was when, etc., and then he took over when they went to sit down.

Walking to the center aisle, away from the pulpit, he had the remote mic on and spoke clearly and very loudly so everyone could hear.

"We have a special announcement today. It's REALLY special, and I'm just amazed I'm getting the chance to make it. We had some excitement yesterday."

He let the murmuring go for a second, then turned to us and waved for us three to come forward.

We held hands, Carrie and Joanie and I, and walked out there. I was super-nervous, but at least we were doing something. The front had some risers, stairs, and he had me stand behind, with Carrie and Joanie in front.

Turning back to the congregation, he said, "I witnessed, yesterday, some genuine heroism. This isn't the TV kind, the jump around and yell, 'hut, hut' and point a gun kind. This kind was close, and personal, and just in-your face deadly serious stuff. Here's the situation. I have to tell you this, because it's gonna be all over town, so you need to know it, and you can help out by telling what I'm telling you, the Correct Details. Ready?"

The congregation was on the edge of their seats. I could tell some people knew already, they were whispering to each other.

"Some years ago, Joanie and Carrie here were told by an abusive parent that they would be married off, an arranged marriage, BOTH, to the same man. That man came to live with them, but had to wait for his, their, church wedding for a week after the second girl turned 18. There was violence and threats of further violence daily, and they have the bruises to prove it."

Lots of murmuring.

"They knew, they were in severe danger. If one ran, the other might be killed. They very much might be killed or tortured if caught. There's a significant extended family that's involved in this case, all dedicated to enslaving these girls and carting them off somewhere."

"The girls hatched a plan. They'd reach out to someone they knew to be of impeccable character, Kevin Cooper, here. They asked him for help, to help them escape. Kevin did that, yesterday, knowing full well the risk he, and they, were under. He brought them home to his house. The plan had an essential feature though. In order to be safe from their extended family, and the abusive kidnapping man, they needed to be out of reach. They needed to be people who Could Not Be Married Anymore. Thus, there was clarity. In order to save these two girls, Kevin would have to marry BOTH of them. Yes that's right, technically bigamy, though I think we all know several Big Families in the area where that's a perfectly functional arrangement."

He waited for some murmurs.

"I was called in, and Kevin's adopted family, really, since he's an orphan and they took him and his sister Jane in, that loving adopted family, they got ready for trouble, and called me to come over really quick - and to bring the pastor from that abusive family's church."

This got a murmur, too.

"That pastor, the Reverend David Boffers of the ______ church, he's a good guy. He's not responsible for the people in his congregation. He came over with me, we both wanted to help right away, so he witnessed and I officiated, and they said their vows. So, in the eyes of God, at least as far as Rev. Boffers and I are concerned, YES, these three people - Kevin, Carrie, and Joanie, Right Here, Are Married." He emphasized that, and added a slight pause.

"It's a done deal. Over with. These girls are off the market, they're happy with the deal and Kevin is, too."

He waved at us, to kind of say something, and I said, "We are," with a smile, and the girls repeated me, with smiles in their voices (thought I couldn't see their faces).

"Just slightly after I declared them husband and wives, the bad guys came in, skidded to a stop in their pickup, and started getting out weapons. That got stopped by Kevin's family, and they were told that these girls were not property, they were instead Fully Married Already. At that point, one of the mothers, Carrie's mother specifically, pulled out an actual GRENADE, and a knife, and started walking towards us."

The congregation gasped.

"Happily, Kevin's people had called the Sheriff's deputies, and they pulled up and disarmed everyone, with only an initial warning shot into the air having been fired. The bad people had their house raided and are under arrest, the girls are safe, Kevin is safe, Kevin's family who OH-SO bravely stood their ground and stared down the face of evil - and listened to a horrid stream of racist insults - they are safe, too."

There were nods around, and some murmurs, but he was on a roll.

"So that's the story. And, now, Kevin is married. On Monday morning, tomorrow, he's going with the girls to the county and get the paperwork handled. By a coin toss, it is...?"

Carrie raised her hand. Jergins knew that, but he chose to build the tension, which was fine by me.

"Carrie and Kevin will be on the certificate. But, I don't want anyone to mistake this, they're really a 'throuple'. For you hard of hearing, that's THREE, and COUPLE, together, THROUPLE. It's a new name for an ANCIENT thing. So treat them the same as anyone else. It's just a slightly different loving relationship. They want to be together, that's fine, we will support their love and caring of each other, in God's eyes, and with My Full Blessing."

"I invite you, after the service, to come up and shake hands. I'm presuming you'll register at ______ (box store)?"

Carrie looked at Joanie and they nodded.

"I hope you'll be kind to them, or you can leave gifts and cards at the church office..."

"They're risking a lot to be here, and stand in front of you, today. If you have a problem with them being together and want to talk about it, don't complain to them, come to me. No rumors here, nothing to have a rumor about, it's a marriage. What they do is their business. Celebrate with me, celebrate our fantastic pianist, and his two new page-turners."

Turning around, he got everyone to clap, and we got a standing ovation.

I noticed some people sitting, older folks, but I didn't worry about it since sometimes old folks don't stand for anything. We waved for a 15 seconds or so, then went back and sat behind the piano.

Pastor Jergins got on with the service, as if nothing was amiss, with one exception - he skipped the sermon, only saying, "If what happened yesterday wasn't a sermon on standing up and being counted when lives, and Love, are on the line, well, I don't have anything to teach you."

We laughed, and the choir clapped.

For the offertory, I'm supposed to play a nice song, whatever I choose, and as the plates went out, I stood up. In a huge voice (since I had no mic), I announced, "Technically, today is our honeymoon. I'm going to play some happy music."

I sat down and started in on a super-hard piece I had memorized already, but it wasn't strictly church music. I could only play it at about one-half speed, of course - I was human. It was Oscar Peterson's 'C-Jam Blues'.

The piano in the sanctuary is a super-nice Yamaha - not a Steinway like at the lady's house who used to give me lessons, but a really nice one anyway. I lit that baby up!

Since the Peterson recording I worked from goes 10 minutes, I only played the first third at half speed and called it good.

The congregation was clapping near the end, in time with the music, and I Really wanted to keep going, but that was that, and it was time to wrap up.

Huzzah.

Several times during the middle, I heard Joanie and Carrie say things like, "Oh my God!"

A second standing ovation ensued, and Jergins came over, got the name from me, and announced what the piece was.

After the readings, the choir did a good job, the service finished up nicely.

After church we stood and shook hands with people. I can stand and shake hands with people all day long and not worry about it, but when it's people that are friends of mine and they're like, "Dude!" well it's kind of a thing.

Brian Cardiff, a friend from cross country and track stood back and waited, his parents standing off to the side waiting with him.

As soon as most everyone else was out, he came up and shook my hand and all that, and waved his parents over, and introduced them so we all shook their hands, too.

Mr. Cardiff said, "Brian here thinks you might need a place to stay. He had an interesting idea. But, only if that's really true - was your place busted up with the raid?"

"Not that bad, maybe, but... it's going to be super-cramped."

Mrs. Cardiff said, "My mother, Eva, just had to move last month to Green Elms [our town's retirement home] and her house is empty. We've been thinking about trying to find a house-sitter, and maybe have an estate sale, the house is kind of full."

Carrie took the conversation. "Ma'am, wow, could we help you with that?"

And, we had a new place to live.

Mr. Cardiff handed over a key right then, gave us the address, and told us to head over. He said, "The rules are, rent is $1, but maybe only until August, we want to sell it and you're maybe headed off to college?"

I nodded, "Absolutely!"

"We'll come through and pull out whatever we don't want to sell, memories, stuff, and the rest of it you'd clear out, either sell it or whatever, garage sales, you get half of the proceeds. But, the place has to be empty by the end of August, and anything that you see needs fixing, we'd appreciate it if you could help, but no obligation."

I was pretty handy, and we negotiated a way for him to approve materials costs for fixups via text messages.

Mack, Jake, Tallia, Jane, and Marta were waiting by the side and had heard everything about the house.

After they left, Marta dialed both Zeke and Brenda on speaker, telling them what was up, since they hadn't talked. I wasn't a big fan of telling Zeke or Brenda anything, but Marta was their mother, and she and I just hadn't talked enough for me (or Jane) to tell her what was up.

Zeke was at Colorado-Boulder, and Brenda had just taken a job in North Vegas, the non-gambling part, supposedly. The phone call went about like I thought it would - snarky comments by Brenda, and utter disinterest by Zeke.

We agreed to meet at Brian's grandmother's house at 3 pm after we stopped at home and had lunch.

I was freaked out at all the changes in our lives.

Walking out of the church, we saw some big black SUV's parked in the lot. Someone saw us, so the men got out. It was obvious they had nothing to do with the Kylor family, they were ATF people (from their jackets). As we got closer to each other, they asked if we could "come in" for some follow-up questions.

Mack was tired and actually pushed back, "Sir, we're really tired and hungry, the sheriffs kept us up late, and I haven't had lunch, and..."

"No problem. We'll order in. Come on, let's go."

We headed over to the police station with them, all of 2 blocks over (Beaver isn't big), and they got some conference rooms. Mostly they wanted to talk with Joanie and Carrie. The girls wanted me in the same room with them, a nervous-thing, so I sat in the back and ate from styrofoam to-go platters made by the local restaurant.

What the ATF was asking was wild, showing them pictures of various people and asking, "Do you know these people, their names? Have you seen them, ever? What were they doing?"

Lots of their answers (looking at the pictures) were a litany of, 'no, no, no...uh, maybe...no, yes, no..."

Some of the 'yes' answers were fun but scary to listen to. "Oh, yeah, they come over about once a month to go shooting. Lots of br-rt-rt-rt-rt, converted-AR-15 or AK burst machine gun fire?"... "That guy!? Wow, yeah, no Doubt! He sometimes brings a 50-cal, belt fed? That's kind of fun to listen to. I've been out watching and it makes big holes, too."

"Semtex? Don't know. Some stuff says C-4 on it. They do lake drops with it mostly, can't set that stuff off in open air or they'd hear it in town." ... "Hand packed? Sure, galvanized pipe or PVC." ... "Yeah, an oil barrel and fertilizer once, tried that but they killed the fish, there was a sheen on the lake after, I was pissed, I liked the frogs there."

"Groups? Sure, at the quarry, or past the treeline in the back-forty. I went there a couple of times, cookouts. There was... were, lots of people. They all wore patches with this ...yeah, that design."

"Law enforcement? Oh, sure, lots of those folks. Usually ____ county sheriffs (not ours), sometimes ___ or ____ from Idaho-ways. Some others. I took pictures once with this phone I found? It didn't even have a screen lock, soooo lame. I was only like 12, so Yeah, first phone! Ohmygod yes sooo fun. Taking pictures was great, but I had to move them up to the cloud, the phone had tons already, and if it turned out to be somebody's I didn't want to get in trouble. No, I couldn't make calls on it, but... it was _amazing_. I was a real low-down snoop, you know?" she laughed, "I walked around with it hidden mostly in my bra, wearing a jacket but not so it covered it? It had this mode where it'd just take pictures every like 5 seconds, so I could walk around all innocent like. I felt like a super-spy. But, then, I looked later and it got really good pictures. Mostly with my still pics I zoomed in on their faces, and chests, kinda, to see the badges, like, so I'd know where they were and I could picture going to their city sometime instead of Beaver, so boring here. That, and silly schoolgirl stuff. The hunky ones? I figured out later, they're the fucking assholes, pardon my french. Murderers. Admitted it. Three of them - dunno which, but I'd heard the voice before at the party - over one night, they had blood on their clothes. I heard them outside my window, they'd beaten this guy, probably to death, head caved in? And they needed to use the hose? So disgusting, I couldn't believe I thought they were hot."

Joanie was surprised that Carrie was telling this and told her so.

The detective agent guy asked where the phone ended up.

"Now? Oh - it fell in the hole. The outhouse, the one....there. [she pointed] I bent over and it fell out of my waistband. I was soooo sad, I wanted to go in after it, but when I used a stick it just sank farther in and I lost it."

"...About, a year I think? It was all during 7th grade, I had to keep it in my locker at school, Beth Saunders would let me use her charger.... Dunno, ask her. Oh, wait, she moved to... Applewood, outside Denver."

The feds got very excited when she talked about having pictures.

It got to be close to 3, and they wanted to talk with her more, but they both said, no, they'd been threatened, it was their honeymoon technically, and if they didn't get going the feds wouldn't have any witness at all, they'd deny everything.

I was impressed, Carrie pressed a hard bargain, but they had some more questions and we could just go.

We got out and headed over to the new house on Vine.

Brian's family was there when we pulled up, and we got the tour. It was a two-story big Victorian place that felt drafty and smelled like someone had forgotten to take out the garbage.

There was tons of furniture there, so much so that it was hard to walk around. The TV room in the back, really big, had one of those medical beds that make it sit up, and a water cooler nearby, lots of stuff.

The kitchen was full of dishes, clean, but an old style, some china that looked fancy and I was worried about eating off it. The microwave was ancient, with a turn-dial for time, and we laughed at that.

Brian's mom was helpful and upbeat. "So, sell everything, keep receipts, you get half of what you sell it for. If you think no one will buy something, donate it, but value it for the donation at what you'd pay for it if you really wanted it at a garage sale."

The upstairs bedrooms had beds, and the master bedroom had a king-sized that had a super-ornate hand-stitched quilt but (oddly) no sheets.

Once Brian's family was done showing us around, we walked around the yard (needing work!) and checked the garage. Inside was a non-stylish but functional 12 year old sedan with only 3k miles on it!

She must never have driven it.

Mack promised to return it to saleable health and they said, fine, but again, half the proceeds to them.

Once they left, we went in the kitchen and started putting dishes through a nice new dishwasher (Brian had gotten that done already, thank goodness).

Everyone said their goodbyes, but Marta and Tallia promised to be back with groceries, which they did about an hour later and we figured we had enough to eat for a couple of days. The house had a bunch of canned soups and staples, but happily Brian's family had already cleaned out the fridge so we weren't confronted with that kind of hell.

Tallia stayed and Marta went, though I was a little confused I didn't say anything.

Carrie did, standing in the kitchen putting things away, with a why-are-you-here question.

Tallia was nervous and laughed almost apologetically, "I'm a year older than you, that must mean I'm a grown-up or something? Freakin' hell, I have no idea. Marta said, 'gotta get you out of that mobile home, it's a target' - so I'm here. Pain in the ass. Still, this is a nice house, lots of bedrooms."

"Ah." We unpacked grocery sacks and let that hang. We'd have another person living with us.

After a while, she added, "Least I can do is get this put away, sort what we have, and make dinner."