Driver, T. C. by The Great Ark

going to call right now. I will do what I can with, Joe. He will listen to me. Haley and I together, we will do this.”
    Duck and I drank one more drink by ourselves, now at the hotel bar. We both knew the hard cold facts. The odds were 50/50 that at least one of Coe's men was already here. None of us were safe. Not even from each other; or from someone unknown to us sitting in this very bar.
    The next morning, our whole group took off again, plus the two Dave brothers, Bo and Don. They were two blues musicians who were close friends of Mitch and Janet Johnston. They were hitching a ride because Bo had wrecked their tour bus. These two really 'mellowed out' our flight. Think Woodstock (ha-ha)! Complete with rose colored glasses. Bo and Don were from Yorktown, Va. They were famous 'back in the day'. I still have some of their early stuff on vinyl.
    For this long flight to Thailand, we flew in a small, slow cargo box plane, a puddle jumper with two old, very loud turbo-prop engines. This was a worthy 'all glory is fleeting' moment for all of us famous aviator types. We rode in cargo class (ha-ha) with stacks of air plane tires between our long, bench style wall seats. There was only one window in the side door of our plane. Old Paul Goldwater sat down between Sarah and I. Everybody in our group knew we were lovers. Paul was being his 'I'm the boss' self and an ass! Bo and Don started smoking up the cabin with the biggest blunt I'd ever seen. Unk, Sarah, Duck and I, all knowing a twelve hour flight was ahead of us, gladly joined Bo and Don's party. We all numbed the painfully loud decibels with dope and laughter. The two Indian pilots were raising hell about the smoke, but the old plane was not airtight anyway. Goldwater was fuming mad. Paul soon moved up front close to the pilots. They closed the curtain on him (ha-ha) and Paul laid his head down as far away from the rest of us as possible. Both the Indian pilots and Goldwater eventually stopped raising hell about the smoke and the 'Indian police'. We all knew that there was much more to worry about than dope and continued blunting our long flight.
      I stared out 'the window' during flight as Sarah slept, and leaned on me as a pillow. I thought about 'back in the day' when Paul and I were brothers-in-law. He married the oldest (homely and stocky) sister, HEDDIE, called 'Sissy'. I married the middle, cute sister, the popular one,    PATTY, and a 'big bark' Pee Wee Herman type of guy named Barnie married the hot, spoiled, angry baby sister, DEBBIE.
    The Mother and Father of these three girls, and one somewhat normal son, were great, generous and God loving people. Mr. Cracker worked as a diesel mechanic all his life. Mrs. Cracker stayed home or helped in the local school cafeteria. The family lived in a small, simple home on the side of a steep hill, very close to the main 'two lane' highway. The children had a modest, but Godly and blessed childhood. The oldest and youngest sisters grew close; they were fourteen years apart in age. The middle sister Patty    was their mother’s favorite. The other two would have nothing to do with my Patty. All of their lives, the 'evil sister duo' has played the 'both ends against the middle' game. Both    sisters hated the popular middle sister.
    These Cracker girls grew up envious of their many 'middle class' neighbors who had, in their eyes, 'fine brick homes' and fancy cars. At this level of society, 'money' meant that Dad worked for the Post Office, UPS or the N&W Railroad.
    Two local farmer's daughters were close school and church friends with my wife, Patty Cracker. These pretty, farmer's daughters were scorned and hated by both of Patty's sisters. They were scorned so badly that it became a    source of constant embarrassment to me as a young son-in-law. The biter envy that sister one, HEDDIE, and sister three, DEBBIE, had for these two farmer's daughters with their Eigner handbags and fancy 'store bought' J.C. Penny clothes