Revenge by Misadventure

Revenge?

Expending useless energy.

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John looked at me with a grin that only five beers can produce.

"So, you're gonna let them run you out of town without gettin' even?"

"Nobody's running me out of town, brother. This promotion has been in the works for nine months. It's just timing that I got it after we split up. How cold is it out there now, fifteen? Ten? I'm going to be living in the sunny South, and it looks like my house will be on a lake if they take my offer. While you're freezing your ass off up here I'll be sittin' on a dock waitin' for Mr. Big."

"Asshole."

I laughed. John loved to fish but he hated ice fishing. I really wish I could take him and his wife Adele with me. He was the closest thing I'd ever have to a brother and his wife was an angel.

His angel appeared just then, ordering a glass of wine and taking off her coat. "Jeez, I froze my ass off out there!"

It came out before I thought. "God, I hope not."

She colored up and giggled. I once told her in an alcoholic fog that her ass was the gold standard all women should be judged by. Her hug told me she wasn't angry but she still brought it up from time to time. She was especially bad to do it when we were out at a restaurant or a club.

"How about her?"

I looked at the attractive woman and grinned. "Naw. A bit flat to be perfect. Still hot, though."

It was a running joke with us. If she wasn't bringing it up John was, just to watch me flame red.

John kissed her and told her we were planning my revenge. She frowned and I laughed. "You need to keep him off those websites. It gives him peculiar ideas. I'm not doing anything stupid enough to put me in jail or run me broke. In two more months I'll be living the high life and she'll still be in this tundra with Bubba. I mean really, Bubba. Could it get anymore cliched?"

Then I laughed. "Besides, I think I got them pretty good already, don't you?"

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It was as sad and stereotypical as it could get. I came home in the middle of the day and caught them in bed. I will admit I had murder in my eyes for a minute but then I calmed and pulled out my phone. They were in their own little world and had no idea I was there. When I had enough pictures, it hit me. Martha hated being cold and wet more than anything in the world.

It was snowing lightly, and the temperature was in the low twenties. I pulled the weather proof cover off the spigot in the garage and hooked the hose to it. We were outside the city limits and still had a well, and this time of year that water was close to freezing!

I had just enough hose to reach the doorway of the bedroom, and I waited until he announced he was about to come before I hit him full blast. He screamed and rolled off Martha. To this day I don't think he got his rocks off. When he moved I gave her a good shot as well.

They were screaming and rolling around. Bubba tried to grab his clothes but I kept hosing him. It got to be too much for him so he ran out of the house. Into the snowstorm, stark naked. He tried to open the door to his truck but I had thoughtfully locked it before I hosed him. I was standing just inside the garage, dousing him every time he exposed himself. He was screaming and begging and the neighbors came out to see what was going on. One of the wives wanted me to stop, but my next door neighbor, a retired cop, just grinned and got his hose out. We took turns dousing him until the police arrived. They threw his ass in the car and if weren't for my neighbor I would have been in a world of trouble. He told them Bubba was threatening me (which was true. The whole time he was steppin' and jumpin' he was screaming about how bad he was gonna kick my ass) and I was using nonlethal force to try to keep him away. The sargeant just grinned and asked if I wanted to press charges. I declined and even let him go in and get his clothes. My darling wife was on the sofa huddling under every blanket we had and was still shivering. The cop's grin got bigger.

Bubba got a free trip to the hospital to be treated for exposure.

Everyone in our small town knew about the incident before night fell. I stayed over with my mother and called Martha, telling her to be out of the house in three days. She balked but my mother called the cops again, and since the house was in her name she was forced to leave.

The divorce wasn't pretty and she almost had a nervous breakdown when she found out we didn't own the house. In the end I gave her the car she just had to have, and half of everything we accumulated, and by we I mean me. She ended up in a small apartment, living on the lump sum I'd paid instead of alimony, trying to find a job before it ran out.

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John grinned at the memory. "Yeah, he'll never live that down. And what your mother did, man that was priceless."

Bubba became a joke. Every time he mouthed off where he worked they threatened to douse him with buckets of water. Women would look at him and giggle. One asked him in front of a bunch of people at the bar where the crew hung out at if he was still suffering from shrinkage, or was it always that small?

He started to slap her and ended up wearing half a dozen mugs of cold beer, and the owners banned him.

He brooded for a while, and after enough alcohol he came up with a brilliant plan. He'd go to my mother's house and whip my ass just to prove how bad he was. He pounded on the front door, and started yelling at Mom to make me come out and face him or he'd take it out on her. The drawback to that plan was I'd already moved back into my old house.

She calmly told him to wait by the door and like the dumbass he was he did. A few minutes later she came around the side of the house with her own garden hose, and nailed him. She'd already called the law and when they got there he was screaming and chasing her down the street, finally collapsing as she darted inside the door of a neighbor, who slammed it. Mom was laughing hysterically. "Jesus is that guy out of shape! I was almost walking there at the end so he could keep up. Tammy, I bet it'll be a while before you make fun of me running 5K's again."

The police picked him up and slammed him into the back of the car. He begged for a blanket, or for them to turn the heater on, but they left it stopped while they interviewed everyone. It seemed to take forever to get everyone' statement and he started turning blue, so they called the EMT's, who wrapped him in a space blanket and took him to the hospital. He was again treated for hypothermia and the cops that interviewed him made it very clear that if anything like this every happened again, they would be very, very slow to respond. Then they arrested him for communicating threats, trespassing, attempted assault, and public intoxication. He was three points above the legal level when they checked him at the hospital.

It took him three weeks to get out of lockup and by then he'd lost his job. On the other hand, he'd gained a new nickname. Bubba was gone forever. His new name was Hoser.

He did it all to himself and I couldn't have asked for a better ending. He left town in the middle of the night and no one ever knew where he went.

With Hoser gone, Martha was facing the prospect of fending for herself and tried everything to force a reconciliation. But it was too little too late. Besides, I was already gone, firmly in place learning my new position. Mom told me she was engaged again a week after the divorce became final. She never did like paying her own bills.

It must have really galled her when our old house went up for sale. She tried to get her new honey to make an offer but he refused. Mom got a good price out of it, and gave the money to me, for a house at the new location. It was almost enough for me to buy the place on the lake I had looked at, and I owed less than the price of a used car when the paperwork was done. I had a plan to pay it off in three years.

A few weeks later there was a knock at my door and there stood Mom, with three suitcases. "Carry these in. I'll be staying here until I find a new house. What? You think I was going to stay in that frozen wasteland while you were down here in the sun? Besides, you're my only child and I refuse to be five hundred miles away when the grandbabies start coming."

My grandparents had passed and left her their home, a two thousand square foot brick two story on a two acre lot. She'd gotten our house in the divorce settlement with my Dad, who disappeared before the first child support payment was due. Mom was a pretty smart cookie and kept the paperwork current. When they found him four years later he owed a bundle. The judge made him pay it all back, adding fifteen per cent a month to the child support he now had to pay or go to jail. When I graduated college he still owed her for two years and she wouldn't forgive it. I guess maybe I get my vindictiveness from her. When my grandmother passed she moved into the house, giving me her old one. I'm glad now we never got around to doing the paperwork.

There was a new subdivision on the ridge above the lake, and she found a nice two bedroom 'retirement' cottage that just happened to look directly down on me. I saw her expensive pair of binoculars on her deck and she blushed, saying she'd taken up birdwatching.

I was still the Yankee that moved into the old Smith place five months later, but Mom was just one of the girls. In less than three months she knew all the gossip in the county. She got her new friends involved and all of a sudden I was getting invitations to meet Mom's new friends, and by sheer coincidence there just happened to be a sweet young thing there who was between relationships at the moment. Most of the time they were as embarrassed as I was, but I did get a couple of good friends out of it. Friends that didn't mind showing up in bikinis and staying the night.

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A year later a woman came by searching for her sister. I hadn't been with her in months, but she had disappeared and the family was looking. She got out of the car and I was surprised to see she had two children with her, twin boys who had just turned six.

She had a judgemental look on her face, but a quick conversation relaxed her. I was keeping a pretty sharp eye on the kids and they were looking hard at the dock.

"Would you like to go out on it?"

They grabbed my hands and were tugging me along. Mom called out. "Hey! Did I give you permission to get near the water?"

I looked back over my shoulder. "It would seem you've been outvoted. You take one and I'll take the other, for safety. Let them have a look around. What could it hurt?"

"They could fall in!"

"We'll fish them out."

"They can't swim."

"Then it would be the perfect time to learn."

I laughed at the expression on her face. "Relax, I was a certified lifeguard when I was young and my first aid certificate is current. Let's just make sure we don't have to use it."

They ran up and down the dock under our watchful eye and she cringed every time they got close to the edge. After they burned a little energy they started noticing things, like the schools of small fish that swarmed around the dock. I had a habit of feeding them, and the big catfish that lurked below. I'd get a cheap can of dog food and punch several decent holes in it, use one to tie off a strong line, and drop it in. In a few days it would be empty and I'd pull the can up and add another. I don't know if it was legal but it was effective.

"Fish!"

"Yeah. Get your Dad to bring you sometime and you can fish."

One looked at me with really sad eyes for a six year old. "Ain't got no Dad."

The way he said it made me think the man had passed so I offered my sympathy. She snorted. "You're offering sympathy to the devil. He didn't die, he just ran off for parts unknown. They haven't seen him since they were two."

I didn't know what to say to that but I made the offer again, saying she could bring them. Her look gave me the idea that wouldn't happen in this lifetime but I let it go. We were just about to the deck when Mom came around the house.

"Hi honey! Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know you had company."

I just sighed. I was pretty sure her binoculars told her I did. "It's fine Mom. This is Annabelle's sister, sorry, I didn't get her name. She stopped by looking for her. How about kicking the Mom Network in gear and see if you hear something. Apparently she's been gone long enough to cause worry."

"I'll get right on that. It's a pleasure to meet you, Mrs..."

"Juliette. If you hear anything I would greatly appreciate it."

"I'll try, dear, and who are these fine young men?"

She smiled for the first time and it made her look worlds different. "The one on the left is Tony, to the right is Mark."

Mark was eyeing the platter Mom was holding. She smiled. "I was just bringing my son cookies. They never get too old to refuse cookies. Would you guys like one? Maybe a lemonade?"

Juliette looked embarrassed and tried to decline. "Nonsense. One cookie won't kill them. If it did Al would have died in his early teens."

I got the lemonade while everyone made themselves comfortable on the deck. Mom had her phone to her ear going 'uh-huh" a lot. Juliette seemed to be in a much better mood. Mom got off the phone and grinned.

"Betty talked to Irma, who talked to Gloria, who talked to Jade, who told her that her cousin saw your sister two towns over at the Traveler's Rest with Joe Morgan. You know that man's married, right? Sweet girl too. This will kill her."

Juliette collapsed into tears and Mom cuddled her. The next thing I knew they were in her minivan headed out of town, leaving the kids with me. We eyed each other for a few minutes.

"Wanna fish?"

Why yes they did, very much. I got a couple of lightweight rods out and grabbed a few worms out of my worm farm, a plastic tub I kept stocked with nightcrawlers and fed with compost. Then I went to my boat and got two life jackets. "There's only one of me and I want you to be safe. This way if you fall in you'll pop right back up like a cork and be fine. Now pay attention."

They tried as hard as six year olds could and did fairly well. Mark even caught a two pound catfish. He wanted to keep it but when I asked if he was going to skin and cook it, he let it go, after I took his picture. Tony felt a little left out until he caught a really good sized crappie and got his picture taken as well. After an hour they started to flag so we put everything up. I dropped the worms that had survived back into the tub and took them to clean up. They smelled like fish and bait pretty bad. They wanted to take a bath to get the stink off, so I put them in my whirlpool tub and turned the jets on. They were squealing and laughing as I took their clothes to the washer. They would be clean and dry soon. So would the boys, I hoped.

Their clothes had just started drying when they got out, so I helped dry them as best I could and they put on a couple of my teeshirts. They hung past their knees. Once I got them on the sofa and the bigscreen on the Cartoon Channel, I went to check on their clothes. By the time I got back they were snuggled against each other, sound asleep.

Not knowing what else to do, I started dinner, making pork chops on the grill with charred corn, one of my favorites. I had some baked beans left over so I heated that up as well. I was so wrapped up in what I was doing I didn't hear the car pull in.

Juliette came on the deck so mad she was flaming, and Mom trailed behind grinning. Before she could explode Mom asked what happened. The movement woke the boys and they flew out, climbing on their Mom and telling her all about fishing and getting ucky and taking a bath in my swimming pool. Mom had faded back and retrieved their clothes, taking them in and dressing them.

I tried to distract her. "Did you find Annabelle?"

Tears came to her eyes. "She's using again and that asshole married boyfriend is her dealer. It got pretty intense, especially when I called his wife and told her where he was. She was only a minute behind us and raised hell until the cops came. When they found drugs in the room Annabelle and Asshole got a free ride to jail, and his wife said she was going to use the time it takes him to get out to get a lawyer.

We're going to try and raise her bail but I don't know if we can."

"She didn't do drugs when I knew her. What happened?"

"She met and fell in love with the wrong man. He got her started and she never looked back."

"Talk to the DA, see if he can get her to take a deal and go into rehab. If there was enough in the room she could be looking at a felony."

"There was plenty of drugs in the room. It was why they were there, to meet their connection."

I saw Mom and the boys heading out the patio door. "Here come your kids. Put a brave face on and enjoy the meal. I'm fairly certain cooking is the last thing on your mind right now."

I lit candles to keep the misquitoes away. The boys gorged, their clean clothes dotted with barbeque sauce and butter, and Mom never once complained, smiling at seeing them so happy. We lit a fire later and I let them roast marshmallows, Mom helping Mark while Juliette helped Tony. I grinned, thinking the boats passing would think it was just another happy family in suburbia.

Worn out again, I had to carry them to the car, strapping them in and promising they could come back anytime Mommy said they could, as long as she came as well.

She smiled and gave me and Mom kisses on the cheek. When their tailights disappeared over the hill we went back in and started coffee.

"She's pretty."

"Yes she is."

"Those boys, they're just adorable."

"They are."

"She's had it rough since her husband disappeared."

"Mom."

"What?"

"Stop, all right? Yes she was lovely and the kids were great, but she's carrying around a lot of anger, and until she lets it go she won't be a fit for anyone. I'm not in the mood to try to rehabilitate anyone."

"Might be worth the effort."

"Then you do it."

I wish I hadn't said that.

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Mom 'adopted ' Juliette and soon the boys called her grandma. She practically ate their adoration with a spoon. It wasn't long before they were trooping down the hill to spend time sunning on my deck, leaving me to wrangle the boys. I put up with it twice and the next time they came by I grinned.

"Enjoy yourself. I have things to do and I'll be gone until tomorrow. Lock up when you leave, all right?"

I had a date with a little hottie for some simple, uncommitted, no expectations past a good time sex. We went to a hotel sixty miles away, got a room, hit the restaurant, then the lounge, where we partied until the wee hours. Then we fell back into the room ripping clothes and playing with body parts until we were naked. The first time was fast and furious but we still both got off, then we cuddled and slept for a couple of hours before we had a more relaxed round two. We got up late, showered, and then went back to bed to impress each other with our oral skills. I think I won, bringing her to three climaxes to my one. We showered and checked out, and I made it a point to stop by an upscale boutique on the way home to buy her a new dress. The old one was in pieces in her suitcase.

I dropped her off with a lingering kiss at the door, and then I went home. If we saw each other again it would be fun, but there was no spark past the sex and we both knew it, so I doubted a repeat.