Old Country

But, it was neither the visual nor auditory input that confirmed that I was on the right track for what I had started out to accomplish at this house.

It was what my nose detected.

The smell confirmed it; the earthy smell that rolled gently off Travis Hinton, as he lay there on the floor, was the very same smell that I had remembered from the night of the attack that I had endured that night weeks ago in the airport parking lot. This was the guy!

The other smells that I detected were more associated with the house and the life that went on there by its inhabitants. Somewhere in my brain I registered the term 'Grandma's House Smell.' That is exactly what his house smelled like; Grandma's house.

It took Travis Hinton between twenty-five and thirty minutes before he even groaned. Then it took about five more minutes before his senses began to return to a degree that allowed him to open his eyes, recognize my presence, and glare at me. He did not jerk or struggle, but I could see him flex slowly in order to get a feel for the level of his freedom of movement; realizing at last that he had very little.

I simply waited in silence.

"Well," he croaked, "I gotta say ... that you ... got the drop on me ... you bastard." He said all of this in a soft voice, but I could tell that he had hard ideas. I was for damned sure not going to let him get loose before I finished what I was doing here and was a long way gone.

I took my hat off and scratched an itch that had developed on the top of my head. When the hat came off, I heard Travis gasp, and I looked at him as he scowled at me. I must admit that what he said next was NOT anything at all like what I had expected to hear.

"So; you are not satisfied with trying to get in my wife's pants up in Ohio. You have to bring your wife-stealing Yankee ass down hyeah to try yore shit," he said with all the anger he could muster. "Buddy, I am definitely going to kick yore butt all the way back across the Mason-Dixon if I ever get loose."

I must have sat there with my mouth open slightly, trying to process what he was saying for almost a full minute. During that time, Hinton had begun to strain against the duct tape binding his appendages; his anger overcoming his common sense.

Finally, I was able to say something. "Mister, I have absolutely no clue at all what you are talking about."

Hinton snorted and shook his head once; I saw him wince at the pain that the shake caused him as a residual effect from my striking and kicking him. "Shit. One of my Kappa Alpha fraternity brothers was traveling back here from Calgary. He had a long layover in Cincinnati and decided to get something at the food court and then stretch his legs by walking in the terminal outside the security zone. He had met my wife at a barbecue we had hosted out here about three months before then; and he was about to approach her to say his howdies, when he saw some feller..." Hinton glared at me, "walk up to her and give her a big tongue-swapping kiss right there in the entrance to the terminal."

I was still confused. "How does all this relate to your wife?" But even as I asked the question, my brain was beginning to tingle with a bit of unease at a vague memory.

"He was shocked that someone would do that to the wife of one of his friends. So he followed that feller out the terminal door and into the parking lot for employees at the airport. He saw the reserved and numbered space where the guy was parked and what kind of car he was driving." Here Travis paused and ran his tongue around his teeth; I guess his mouth was getting a bit dry. Then he continued.

"When he got back to Birmingham, he passed on that tidbit of information to me, to include the guy's parking spot number and the description of his car. Well, I can tell you; I wasn't going to put up with that shit. So, I cashed in some of my sky miles for a round-trip ticket and flew to Cincinnati to let you know just where the bear shits in the buckwheat!" This last sentence he almost spit at me, and he almost growled the word, 'You, ' at me.

Well, that verified the answer to one question. Travis Hinton was the shit bird who had given me the going-over in the parking lot that evening at CVG. He was the one who had kicked me in the balls and ribs. I acknowledged this by saying, "Okay, so you are the bad-ass who blindsided me and put me in the hospital. But I have no idea why this guy would tell you that I was putting the make on your wife. I am happily married; at least, I thought I was until recently. And I do NOT kiss other women."

The next words out of his mouth definitely put a different spin on things.

"Well, he swore up and down that it was you who was kissin' and puttin' the make on Luanne that day."

'Luanne.'. Hinton's use of the term, 'my wife.'.

Oh, Hell, no! Oh, Hell, no; this can't be happening. Oh, shit ... no wonder...

I said, "So, YOU are BamaBoy06?"

Travis Hinton looked at me as if I were out of my mind. Then he said in disgust, "Yeah; that's my email handle. What the fuck's 'at got to do with anything?"

And here I had thought that I was the one who was confused. This poor bastard was not clued in either.

I started to speak slowly and somewhat softly. "You remember when I said a moment ago that I am married?" I started pulling my wallet out of my pants while I awaited his answer.

"Yeah," he said, "what the fuck does that have to do with you and Luanne?"

I had pulled out my favorite picture of Luanne and me together that I carried with me. I looked at Travis and said, "I want to show you a picture of my wife and me on our honeymoon in South Florida four years ago."

Travis did not say anything to me as I moved closer. I could see that he was alert for any opening I might give him to gain an advantage over me and get free. But that was not going to happen. I held the picture up in front of him, about a foot from his nose.

The picture had been taken while Luanne and I were holding each other on the back deck of a restaurant in Key West. Travis looked at the picture for a few seconds with anger, evidently at the idea of me with my arm around Luanne in the picture and at the idea of the love we were reflecting for each other when that picture was taken.

As realization hit him, he closed his eyes and sighed before saying simply, "Aaawww, shee-it."

I watched as his expression morphed into one of painful sadness. I had heard and read about the figure of speech describing someone as 'deflating.' But now I saw it happen right before me. Travis Hinton simply deflated. I heard him mumble something and I had to ask him to repeat it.

He looked up with a mildly pissed look that was a far more comfortable thing to see than his previous angry look. He repeated with more volume, but less irritation, "How about you cut me loose and we can pour up some of the good stuff and talk this out?" He looked me in the eye and asked, "We-ah in the same boat hyeah; huh, Podnuh?"

I simply nodded and asked him if he had scissors. He shifted his head so that he could look into the next room over. "Top right drawer of that desk over yonder."

I have to tell you that I was still a bit nervous about cutting this guy loose. I mean here I was, having assaulted him in his own home and was sitting here trespassing in his living room. Did I trust him not to come out swinging? I had to ask before I approached him with the scissors.

"Can I trust you not to get all ignorant on me and start beating on me if I cut off the tape? After all, we are sort of even now. I mean with you putting me in the hospital that day, and all." I looked at him as I asked this.

Hinton's face showed momentary shock, and then sadness. "Look, I just wanted to vent on you when I did that because I thought ... shit. Looking back now, I have to admit that, if I did not know then what I know now, I would be quite content at the idea that I had put a wife-stealing bastard in the hospital. Now, though..."

He sighed again and looked at me with eyes that might be described as pleading.

"Now, though, I gotta tell you. I am real sorry for letting all this shit lead me to doing you harm; and for all the wrong reasons." I could tell from the way Hinton hung his head after he said this that he was sincere.

It took me more than five minutes to help him get all the duct tape off his feet and wrists. Yes; I had been liberal in its use, as motivated as I had been at the idea of self-preservation after hitting a big guy and invading his home.

Once he was free, Hinton extended a hand toward me in a silent request for me to help him up. I paused for only two seconds before grasping it and pulling him shakily to his feet. Once he was sure that he had his equilibrium and that the blood flow was sufficient for his arms and feet, he turned toward the back of his house and started walking. Without a vocal invitation from him and without anything better to do, I followed.

In his kitchen, Travis had two juice glasses out already and was pouring each almost full of Wild Turkey, based on the label I saw on the bottle from which he was pouring.

He picked up one and gestured at the other. "Roll Tide," he said, as he gulped down a healthy swallow and sighed heavily. I did not offer a counter-salute, but I did take a small swallow. As they say, it 'burned real good' all the way down, and it actually started to relax me right away, helping to ease the tension that had been a part of me from the moment I had driven up Travis Hinton's driveway.

We took the glasses out to his back porch and sat in two of the four chairs that were out there. Over the next hour or so, we shared our stories of how we each came to be married to Luanne Campbell ... AT THE SAME TIME.

I gave him the story of our meeting right out of college; our courtship, our living together, and our wedding; our lives together; our jobs; our apartment in Cincinnati; the oddities of Luanne's word that required her to work in Birmingham for two weeks, followed by two weeks back... 'at home' ... in Cincinnati; my discovery of her revealing emails and my hiring of a PI; my plan to divorce her. For some reason, I held off on telling Travis about her doing the nasty with her boss. This poor bastard had enough to process listening to me contribute to the crashing down of his world around him.

Travis told me the story of him and a couple of his old fraternity brothers here in the Birmingham area meeting Luanne at a bar with some of her co-workers; of her telling him about her work with hotels and resorts; of her female co-workers inviting him and two of his old fraternity brothers out to Las Vegas for a hotel convention the following week; of Luanne's initial discomfort at the suggestion; how they all showed up out there at the same hotel; how they all went out to a party and had a bit too much to drink; how they woke up the next day naked in bed together with a vague memory of someone saying, "Wouldn't it be a hoot to visit one of those themed wedding chapels?" Then he told me that they had found the marriage certificate on the table, along with a congratulatory basket full of goodies for the 'Happy Couple' from the Blissful Haven Wedding Chapel.

"We laughed at our predicament; but, after a few minutes, we ended up back in bed. Luanne even got in a bit of trouble because she skipped her meetings that day; and we spent the whole day in bed together, and..." He saw me clenching my teeth, I guess. "Oh, shit, Glenn, I'm sorry as hell. I didn't think..."

"It's okay, Travis," I assured him, "I understand. She evidently got carried away with all the drinking, the partying, the atmosphere, the scenario. Then, when reality hit her, she just conveniently forgot to tell you that she was already married ... to me." I took another sip of the fine whiskey and said, "I'm afraid it gets worse, though."

Travis frowned as he looked over at me. I had to tell him.

"She's been cheating on the both of us."

-

I asked Travis if he knew where his wife ... our wife, actually ... was right now. He said she was at a planning conference held at Mobile every month or so, reviewing the status and situation with some of the properties there on the Gulf Coast that her company managed; of course, he pronounced it, 'Guff Coast.' I asked him what she did on her two-week trips to Cincinnati, and he said that her job required her to maintain an office up there so that she could manage the properties in their 'northern portfolio, ' as she referred to it with Travis.

At this point, I told Travis what my PI had discovered about her activities with Vernon Talbot, her manager here in her Birmingham office.

Travis said that he had not been aware of her fucking Vernon. He had met him a couple of times at her local company functions, but did not know about the long lunches and the sex during their trips together. But he HAD begun to suspect something about her trips up north to the Cincinnati office when his fraternity brother of his from his days at the University of Alabama traveling back from Canada had reported seeing Luanne kiss me at the airport in Cincinnati. The guy had not only gotten the information to Travis about my parking space, he had gotten a shot of Luanne's and my kissing with his cell phone camera.

Travis had been pissed that I had apparently been seducing his wife and more than likely sleeping with her whenever she came up from Birmingham to Ohio. How we might have met, nobody seemed to know, but Travis had flown in to put a stop to the situation by dealing with me physically and warning me off. I had remembered him having said something to me at the time, but I had not understood what he was saying after the first blow, since the head smack had put me out of it early on in the attack.

"Hey, I am really sorry about that beating, Glenn. But," Travis said, rubbing the bruise that I had left on his temple from my blow and my kick earlier, "I guess you got some of yours back." The side of his face was red now, but I was sure that the bruising would begin to look purple and yellow soon.

Suddenly, he stood up. Without a word, he strode back into his house. I took the silent invitation to follow him inside. I was putting my glass next to the sink when he reached for his cordless phone and hit one of his speed-dial entries.

After a few seconds of silence, I heard him say, "Ben? Travis. Yeah, I need to see you real quick.. Yeah, like this afternoon.. You betcher ass it's important. Otherwise, I wouldn't ask.. Okay, we'll be there in thirty. Bye, now."

Hanging up his phone, Travis turned to me and said, "That was my attorney. He is also a KA fraternity brother, even though he went to..." at this, he made a grimace, "TEN-a-see."

I insisted on driving, since I was not sure if Travis had all his faculties back from the head blow. Plus, I had consumed much less Wild Turkey than he had. I also think that Travis was getting a kick out of the idea of being able to ride along in the Mustang convertible I was driving instead of his truck.

We arrived at the office of Benjamin Talmadge, Attorney-at-Law, within thirty minutes. Thus we honored Travis' promise of timeliness.

"You want an annulment?" Mr. Talmadge asked. "But, Travis, what has Luanne done that deserves that?" He evidently knew both of them quite well.

"Ben," answered Travis, "she's done a bigamy number on me." He pointed to me and said, "When she married me out in Vegas, she was still legally married to Glenn here; and evidently has been for like about four years now."

"Oh, my," said Talmadge, "you know I am going to have to let Jimmy know about this, don't-cha?"

"Yeah," Travis said in response, "I kinda figured." Looking over at me, he said, "He's talking about Jimmy Ragsdale. Jimmy's also an alum at Alabama. But he was two years ahead of me. He got himself elected to the job as the DA here over in Columbiana, the county seat for Shelby County."

"You know, if I remember rightly," Talmadge went on, "bigamy is only a misdemeanor up in Ohio; she pays a penalty and then you are back as square one. But I can tell you that, by law, the state in which the bigamous marriage takes place has jurisdiction-that would be Alabama in this case, where bigamy is a Class C felony, punishable by jail time of no less than one year, but could be as much as ten years."

I actually rocked back a bit when I heard this. Wow! They took bigamy seriously here in the South. I would be sorry to see Luanne get any jail time; but, shit! She had brought it on herself. When I voiced all of this, Ben Talmadge related to me more about the legal situation in Alabama.

"You had better believe we take bigamy seriously down here, especially since the Richards case back in 2000. That was when one Shonda Nichole Richards became the first woman in Walker County history to receive the death penalty. It seems that Mrs. Richards was convicted not only of bigamy but of having one of her THREE husbands kill another of her husbands; the one who had discovered the bigamy and had sued her for it after reporting her to the DA."

I just shook my head as I took all this in.

Ben Talmadge was on the phone a few minutes later and he spoke for about ten minutes. He had paused after the first minute to give me the fax number to the DA's office in Columbiana, and he asked me to contact my attorney in Ohio and ask him to fax the divorce paperwork that I had initiated in Ohio to the DA. Part of the packet had included a copy of the marriage certification from Ohio and our most recent Married-Filing-Jointly IRS Form 1040; the DA needed that as evidence to swear out a warrant against Luanne for bigamy.

After hanging up the phone, Ben (he had asked me to call him by his first name now that we were better acquainted) got busy with the process of getting the petition together for Travis' annulment. While his PA was putting the packet together, a copy of my packet was coming across his fax machine.

When Travis and I told Ben about the fact that Luanne was, as we were meeting, off at a tryst with her boss, Vernon Talbot, he grinned and asked, "How'd you boys like to present Mr. Vernon Talbot with a law suit for Intention Infliction of Emotional Distress? We used to have tort law here in the State of Alabama for Alienation of Affections, but the damned feminists seem to have gotten to the legislatures of most states to get that one off the books. It seems as if A-of-A suits make it seem too much like revenge, and cause more hurt feelings than you'd find at an Amway convention. They claim that any hope of reconciliation, that might otherwise be a possibility, becomes impossible as a result of such a suit. So..." he shrugged his shoulders and looked to us for our input.

"Hell, yeah," said Travis. "I want to sue him ... and his damned company too; you can't hide that much activity between a boss and an employee without folks there in the office knowing all about it."

"What about you, there, Glenn?" Ben asked me. I thought for a second and realized that, at this point, I just wanted out of my lie of a marriage. I would probably get my no-fault dissolution. Travis would no doubt, get his annulment. Luanne might get lucky and not get jail time, but she would sure go through legal hell in any case.

And Travis' IIED suit would put a hurt on Vernon Talbot. I could pile on in order to get my share of revenge on Talbot, but it just did not seem to be worth it at this point; and I told Ben as much.

"Okay, then." Ben's PA had the papers ready for signature; we all signed where tagged; and she was faxing them over to the courthouse in Columbiana within the hour.

Having gotten the filing in right before the close of business hours, Ben chuckled and pulled a bottle out of his desk. Pulling three glasses with University of Tennessee logo from the shelf behind him, he began to pour. Once he had recapped the bottle of Old Overholt rye whiskey, he said, "Gents, here's to striking a blow for freedom."