That Neapolitan Furlough

By Walker Jackson

Dated Mainstream

"I loved it. It has everything," said a lady who read this book. It made my day.

Synopsis

Shirley…Jill…Kitty! Mix in a dream lost. The dream turned to reality. Marriage to Laura, an Angel he met along the way, and finally respectability.

An older Joe Hancock is reminiscing about the past. He’s sitting by a lap pool viewing the pastel sky hanging over a picturesque ten-acre lake. Pepper, his black and tan Dachshund is by his side. Joe’s healthy. His bank account is heaping. Laura is healthy and just as beautiful as ever. Life’s good. They've retired.

Memories of his New Orleans trip, during spring break are vivid. Laura is attending Tulane University studying medicine. They spend three happy and exciting days together doing New Orleans royally and become engaged. Before leaving he drops by Cajun Manor, where he’d spent four days visiting Shirley, the older woman, in ‘49. Joe is troubled, seeing Shirley and Jill, who he met on the train to Atlanta, holding the hands of children. He thinks he might have sired two children six years ago. Then, he recalls the six years leading up to that shocking observation.

That Neapolitan Furlough

Author's Introduction

This story really happened. Only the character's names have been fictionalized to hide the identity of the sinners. Joe Hancock's scandalous secrets never reached the ears of his rich and famous wife. Though, he worried when an old flame was murdered that the secret might be exposed. I have no doubt that literally thousands of equally scandalous stories exist. Believe or don't believe it. Either way it's compelling and provocative.

Prologue

I'm going to spend the rest of my natural born life at this peaceful Shangri-La…

Joe Hancock lounged near the swimming pool watching the sunset over a serene ten-acre lake. Clusters of pine trees and indigenous flowering shrubs circled the lake, adding the finishing touches to an already picturesque view. However lovely, though, the lake had proved as lifeless as the Dead Sea. He hadn’t caught one fish in over a week, although four dozen crickets had drowned. He thought about quitting, but he didn’t have a hell of a lot else to do and occasionally he’d catch a mess of catfish. The taste alone was worth the aggravation of skinning the slippery devils.

Pepper, his overweight black and tan Dachshund, lay near panting and impatiently waiting for Joe to give him a smack of the schnapps. "Why are you knocking yourself out chasing those silly bugs, Pepper? You're weird." Steadily, he chased shadows of flying things that ventured near the screen covering the pool, and the game whetted his thirst. But Pepper's quixotic traits were why Joe loved him so dearly. The June sun had cooled as afternoon shadows lengthened. The pastel clouds floating lazily through the late afternoon sky reminded Joe of the colors prominent in New Orleans' Vieux Carré.

Joe felt tired and rheumatic, and he knew the reason why. Earlier he’d engaged a priest in a hotly contested tennis match, which went to a tiebreaker in the third set. The long match explained why every joint in his body hurt. His alter ego kept saying, "You’re growing old, tiger."

A week earlier, July 13, 1992, he'd celebrated his sixty-second birthday. He remembered thinking that time seems to change dimensions as hair grays and thins. And wrinkles deepen. Thus, the Trinity had become a more compelling belief. Associating with Father Mullen, he hoped, improved his chances of passing through the pearly gates when the time came. He wasn’t in a hurry.

Before playing tennis, he worked at his computer five hours writing a historical romance and adventure about a desirable creature, Rose Rénaud. Writing was a new hobby. One he hoped to cultivate. Retirement came for Joe several months earlier when the State of Louisiana offered him an early retirement package. They were unloading the high paid, old-wood and deadwood, which in Joe's opinion didn't include him. He knew big companies always keep a few brown-nosing do-nothings around to fawn senior management. He met none of the requirements. He wasn't surprised, however, that upper management seemed pleased when he volunteered for the golden parachute.

He’d risen from Junior Design Engineer to Department Manager. Such success was rare for a guy who never learned the art of kissing up and how to play golf. Joe's success was due to hard work and his ability to get results. Joe knew that management tolerates a high producer regardless of their disposition. They had tolerated him. Actually, he worked harder than any person under him did, and he was fair to all.

I did great for a wayward teenager who once flunked out of Georgia Tech. His failure had been a big disappointment to his family and the reason he ran away and joined the air force. Joe had contemplated suicide several times.

A few months after he accepted the retirement package Laura closed her pediatric practice and they moved to this sleepy community sequestered on the Louisiana gulf coast. New Orleans had become too big, too busy, too commercial, too everything. People called it the Big Easy now, but it was no longer easy to take. Even the jazz on Bourbon Street sounded perverted and banal.

They were working on their third million, but not awfully hard. Laura's parents were well off and they stood to inherit over two million dollars in assets from them. Joe wasn't frantically searching for a publisher because of this. Hell, he thought, I might spend ten-grand and self-publish. Rose, Ma Petite, the title has a nice sound to it, and there might be a few thousand people who’d enjoy reading about a beautiful paragon who left naughty Paris in 1864, found love and riches in New Orleans, and built a mansion named Cajun Manor.

He turned to look knowing the soft footsteps were Laura's. He found her petite, shapely frame astonishing considering her age and the birth of two children. She was as beautiful as ever. And he was pleased noticing the beer she carried.

"What are you two characters doing? Pepper looks entirely too happy. Have you been feeding him beer?" She sat the beer on the table by him, leaned down, and kissed his lips.

"Come on lady. You know I don’t disobey your orders." His smile was beguiling.

"Well, he looks pretty contented, and not too happy I showed up. He hasn't wagged his tail once. Mmmm! You're still a hunk, Joey. All seventy-four inches. And you're firm all over. The aging process has treated you kindly."

The flattery was true. Joe knew why. Fifteen years earlier he'd shed fifty pounds of ugly lard after he started playing tennis and riding a bike. Ten years before that he'd stopped smoking.

He patted her bottom and gave her a roguish glance. The corners of her mouth crinkled. "Down Boy! I've got to put the dishes in the dishwasher. You know Shelly took the day off."

"Hey, babe, I don't get these urges often, but you already know that."

"Joey, we're dead even on that score, maybe later on. I’ll leave you two bon companions for my boring chore." As she turned to leave, several more nostalgic thoughts occurred to him.

A smile beamed on a face deeply wrinkled from years of animation. His thoughts were about their two kids. Kids! They were more than thirty and the grandchildren were nearly teens. His son and daughter had each given them a grandson and granddaughter. Joe took a swig of beer and sighed. He felt warmth creeping up his spine. Joe Junior and his kids were coming on Friday. Joyfully, he looked forward to it since a tennis match was planned, Joe Senior, and Jenny against Joe Junior and Joe the third.

Pepper, impatient now, rose on his haunches. He nudged the bowl again and pleaded with soulful reddish-brown eyes. He looked first to Joe and then to the bowl.

"Pepper, baby, your mistress has given me strict orders to quit giving you beer." His tail wagged wildly. He knew from the resignation in his master voice that Joe was about to give in.

Joe opened the fresh beer and poured several ounces into Pepper's bowl. "Okay, now quit bugging me." I’m killing my baby with kindness. Poor devil weighs eighteen pounds, six pounds overweight.

His mind strayed to the moment he first laid eyes on beautiful Laura. He was on a train headed for air force basic training at Lackland, AFB near San Antonio, Texas. That same train trip also brought into his life the blond Shirley, an older femme fatale, who brought him a long way toward manhood. She extended him an invitation to visit her in New Orleans after he completed basic training. Her ulterior motives didn’t become known ‘til years later.

And then, there was that earth-shaking discovery at Cajun Manor when he sojourned to New Orleans during Spring Break to visit Laura, where she studied medicine at Tulane University. If the latter wasn't sufficient to drive a person to drink, he'd learned that Kitty had gotten pregnant and was discharged from the service. These shocking discoveries caused Joe much consternation through the years. He was amazed and quite pleased all three secrets had been kept for thirty-five years. And now two of the secrets were sealed away forever when Shirley Johnson was buried a few months earlier. Years ago a jealous lesbian lover had murdered the other secret holder, Jill, the redhead. He didn't know what had happened to pretty Kitty with the midnight hair. And he didn't want to know.

Fortunately, Laura never knew about any of it. Had she found out, their wedding plans would have concluded and many beautiful memories left uncharted.

Chapter 1

On a cool, breezy, morning quite typical of springtime in the Peach State, a powerful diesel locomotive tugged one dinning car and seven passenger cars out of a great southern city.

"Clickety click ----- Clickety click---Clickety click--Clickety-click." The tempo gradually increased. Clicketyclick.

Tall buildings bathed in radiant sunlight were being distanced. Atlanta, the night before was deluged with rain and these buildings were thoroughly washed, but the rain had not reached and cleansed the evil inside its walls. Joe Hancock sat in a half-filled passenger car hiding misty eyes, staring soulfully out upon a world that had turned on him. Failure and regret was the cause of Joe’s despondency. He’d flunked out of Georgia Tech. His dream of becoming a civil engineer shattered for now.

Joe Hancock, eighteen and unworldly, sat for a spell lamenting his failure, listening to the hypnotic sound, and feeling the tempo of the wheels striking the rail separations. When his eyes dried, he glanced around. Passengers were busy searching for cards, games, and books to occupy their time. Joe surmised those flapping their jaws talked about the spectacular weather and wondered when the diner started serving.

The scene was effervescent, not one sad face in sight. Eyes sparkled with thoughts of far away places and adventure.

The world might have treated me unfairly, but my self-pity has no justification. I brought the shame upon myself. Insatiable wanderlust is my enemy. Wanderlust is the reason I failed.

Joe had shown cowardice by not going home. This additional lack of character intensified his shame. His parents would be devastated when they learned of his failure. He could hear his mother's homily plain as day. "Your father and I have worked our fingers to the bone trying to keep you, your sister, and brother in college, and this is the thanks we get." Unable to muster the courage to face her, he’d joined the U.S. Air Force. The train hightailed for New Orleans where a train connection for San Antonio, Texas would wait. There, Private Hancock would encounter the rigors of air force basic training at Lackland, AFB.

As the train trundled through the hilly countryside of North Georgia, the smell of diesel smoke overwhelmed scents of wild flowers, clinging hungrily to the indigenous red earth. Regrettably, the acrid smoke reminded Joe of wintertime when dark smoke belched from chimneys. Winter was football, basketball, and hunting time, and Joe drifted back in memory. A warm smile displaced a sad face for a moment. He remembered Doctor Joe Williams, the Hancock's family doctor. Doctor Joe had brought him into this world.

Doctor Joe's calm hands took me from my mother's womb. He gently slapped my back, bringing breath of life to my lungs, screams from my small mouth, and a sigh of joy and relief from my Irish Momma.

"Mrs. Hancock it’s a boy."

"Oh! My! He's a big boy. Is he normal…Is he healthy looking…When can I hold him?"

"Well, he's got ten fingers and nine toes…I'm kidding…he's got ten perfect toes, but he's a little confused and upset at the moment. I'll give him to you when I finish drying him."

I was loved from the start. But I now think Doctor Joe might have done the world a big disfavor. I've wasted my first big opportunity to be someone important. I'm a loser, a good-for-nothing loser.

My birth took place at our residence on First Street. Momma had said, "The hospital burned to the ground." Now, I suspect money was the real reason. Another hospital stood a few miles away.

When childhood diseases came, Doctor Joe came to my bedside, took my hand, and looked down at me with his kind, calm, blue-gray eyes. "What's wrong Joey? You don't feel so good?" The words flowed like cold sorghum. The mere touch of his hands and the compassion discernible in his voice made me feel better. And Doctor Joe was always willing to wait for his money. The world wasn't so materialistic.

I think Momma did good naming me Joseph, although I wished she'd given a name to my middle initial. I never liked it when some called me JJ. Often I wished I were born in a big city. It would eliminate the need to explain the location of Uvalda, Georgia. It made me feel like a hick.

Whoooo! Whoooo!

The locomotive's whistling interrupted thoughts of short pants, barefoot summers, and athletic winters. The terrain looked flatter now. The train is probably in Alabama now. New Orleans is five hundred miles away. I think the 7 p.m. arrival time seems realistic, considering the train barrels along at speeds exceeding sixty miles-per-hour. Joe's train for San Antonio was scheduled to depart forty-five minutes later. A taste of Bourbon Street, he dreamed about, was out unless the connecting train was delayed.

Joe had heard about the carnal atmosphere that pervades Bourbon Street after the sun is swallowed by the Mississippi: the hot jazz, the sizzling strip joints, and the friendly ladies with painted faces and garish attire, offering themselves for a price. He was pushing nineteen, and his hormone production had peaked. Curiosity about plebeian matters was normal. The fact his flesh tingled and his crotch swelled, at the mere thoughts, was a natural manifestation of youth.

Fantasies of Bourbon Street set Joe's imagination on fire and the sounds of the legendary Louis 'Satchmo' Armstrong's shrill tones, bellowing from the bell of his hot horn, were real enough in his mind. Joe played the trumpet, and Armstrong was his mentor. He listened to 'Pops' for hours on end trying to imitate his style. Then Joe heard phantom echoes of his raspy vocal treatment of the classic blues tune, ‘Jelly Roll’.

"I ain't going to give you none of my jelly roll. Ain't going to give you none to save my soul. Save my soul. Jelly! Jelly roll! ba-ba-ba-zu-bi-doo."

Joe thought, hot blues with a kick, happy, happy, feet stomping stuff. He lit a cigarette, laid back, and sucked a deep drag into his lungs. He exhaled smoke rings while listening to his stomach growling furiously. His fine watch, his father gave him for graduation, registered two minutes until eleven. Now he knew why his belly complained, emptiness. Lazybones had risen too late for breakfast.

Joe alighted and headed for the diner. He craved steak and eggs, but doubted if breakfast was still being served. However, his craving was wishful thinking. The per diem the recruiting sergeant had furnished afforded much less.

Hell, the picayune sum will barely cover the fare of a sandwich and beer or perhaps several beers, considering my blue mood. And I need money for five meals. So far, I’ve never missed a meal for the lack of money.

The motion of the train caused him to brace onto seats. He passed the hoi polloi sitting torpid in the late morning sun. Some slept deeply while others snored, and a few read with eyes half open. He espied paramours, or possibly just lovers, cuddled together smooching, and jealousy and yearning took him.

Entering the second car, his eyes found a young lady whose looks were breathtaking. Her angelic face was endowed with delicate features perfectly proportioned. Her shiny, midnight hair sprawled halfway down her back. She was stunning.

Nearing the angel, his big, brown eyes embraced pale-blue eyes sparkling more radiantly than the sun's reflections off a Caribbean Sea. He observed her shapely, petite figure draped in clothes cool, comfortable, and expensive. The lacy, décolleté shirt fit her upper torso snugly. It tucked into an indigo colored skirt slit high on one side, drawing his attention to bare legs that merited savoring longer. His senses soared.

While he admired her sexuality, she eyed his sinewy masculine frame. Years of athletic participation had developed Joe's well-proportioned, six-foot-two frame. His body was devoid of unsightly fat that would detract from his wholesome appearance. The tight blue jeans and tank top, tightly covering his muscles, proved the point; just 170 pounds of firm muscles wrapped around a big-bone frame. Her scrutiny was thorough, and yes, she felt mildly attracted. This was about as far as ladies allowed themselves to go.

When only a few feet away, she looked up, smiling placidly. Joe's heart hammered at the prospects. He returned her smile and continued walking. Did she find me interesting or is she just being cordial?

Joe reckoned her ticket took her to New Orleans. I have ample time to soothe the growl in my belly then make a move on her. This doll has class. If I’m going to be successful making out, I need a charming come-on. Maaan, I need a soft shoulder to cry on. Oh! God! I need a soft shoulder in the worse way.

He passed through another passenger car and into the diner. The ambience was languid and his spirit plummeted. At a table near the entrance, a trio of old dowagers sat in lacy, frilly elegance, enjoying conviviality afforded from the dower of their deceased husbands and spreading rumors about affairs with lewd innuendo and getting their jollies. An additional handful of doting male elders, with benign faces, wrinkled like dried prunes, were dispersed about eating an early lunch and talking, conceivably about lewd matters, but more likely their favorite ailments. The sprinkling of snow-white hair gave credence to the latter assumption. Most likely, only a small fire burned in their furnaces, nullifying interest in subjects with lewd content. Yet, they could be dirty old men.

The potential for adventure appeared hopeless after these quick observations. A moment later, he spotted a sexy blond bombshell in her early thirties sitting alone, stiff from boredom. His spirit took a quantum leap when her availability occurred to him.

Whoa! Let’s put first things first. She’s not going away. My stomach is demanding food and drink. My Welshman's libido can wait.

He looked her over admiringly and acknowledged her coquettish glance with a friendly nod. Her bleached blond hair was so professionally styled he was fooled ‘til he neared. She smiled prettily. Her cat eyes purred from raised eyebrows as he passed and continued to the bar. Her right hand flaunted an ice cube sized diamond and an expensive watch adorned her left wrist. I think this doll’s unencumbered. Trouble I don’t need. I don’t have to look for it. It has a way of picking me out of a crowd. And she’s got money...

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