Working with Really Stupid People: The Relatives

By Cindy McDermott

“I didn’t need a deal to know they were screwy. The only question was how far south they’d ridden on the crazy train. Either way it was a one-way ticket.”
That sums up Jill Fountaine’s feelings about some of the questionable people living in her hometown. Even though she’s suffered through a dysfunctional childhood with alcoholic parents at the root of her gnarly family tree, she’s willing to put the past behind her. Jill’s heading home to Dimlit, or Dimwit as she calls it, to stop them from making a terrible decision.
Pushed by money-hungry adult children and their spouses, greedy business owners, shady governmental officials and a devilish preacher who prefers skimming dollars off the collection plate rather than saving souls, her parents are considering a change that could wreck a way of life that Jill thought she’d never revisit. She calls upon her spinster aunt, a former high school infatuation and one of her three ex-husbands for help. Each step of her backwoods investigation uncovers a growing number of people in cahoots, exposing another layer of odd-ball treachery. But she never gives up getting to the bottom of things even as really stupid people pull out all the stops to prevent Jill from saving the day. Follow her hilarious encounters with her down-to-earth family as she reconnects with them after a long absence and the unsavory villains that attempt to foil her at every step.
This is the second in the Jill Fountaine series, beginning with Working with Really Stupid People: The Neighbors.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cindy McDermott
• Release date: May 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311752406

Cindy McDermott

Cindy McDermott is an internationally award-winning writer and video producer with 25 years experience in communications for the nonprofit, industrial and military sectors. She retired in 2006 as a Commander in the United States Navy as a Public Affairs Officer with nearly 21 years of service. In addition to her writing, she is committed to helping military veterans, suffering from the invisible wounds of war, find a way to negotiate their pathway of hope and recovery. In 2016, she co-founded the non-profit, Moral Injury Association of America, to bring assistance to military veterans suffering with Moral Injury, by using intensive group therapy as a treatment. The charity also teaches vets writing techniques, tips and tools, enabling them to tell their military stories and begin the healing process. Visit her webpage at www.cindymcdermott.com to learn more.

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Working with Really Stupid People:

The Relatives

Copyright 2016 Cindy McDermott

Published by Cindy McDermott at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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Acknowledgements

Working with Really Stupid People™: The Relatives

By Cindy McDermott

Cover Illustration Copyright © 2016 by McD Media LLC

Cover design by Danny O’Leary, www.mrsolearysdesign.com

Working with Really Stupid People is a trademark of McD Media LLC

Working with Really Stupid People ™

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from McD Media LLC.

Dedication

Thanks to my faithful band of editors who never tire of offering me their opinions and reassurance: Lisa, Susan, Tina, Celeste, HC and Marilyn. Mounds of gratitude go to my Vice President of Janitorial Services Dean McDermott who keeps things running when I’m in front of the computer. Also love to my parents, siblings, in-laws, steps, uncles, aunts and cousins who are some of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met. (Hope that gets me invited back to the next family reunion.)

Chapter One

Aunt Olida Wilhelmina said to get my butt back home.

Well, she’s a bit more colorful and used a different word, but the concern was there no matter how you said it.

And now I am driving back to Dimwit, Missouri.

It’s not really named Dimwit; it’s Dimlit. I call it that because it accurately describes the makeup of the residents. Inbreeding from double-cousins marrying or the overuse of home brew and easy-to-cook meth mutated our gene pool. My family tree looks like a gnarly stick with no branches. I considered taking one of those spit-in-a-tube ancestry tests. But I was afraid the results would be bacteria swimming in a petri dish. Given that, I’m sticking to the gnarly stick idea because it describes my Fountaine heritage thoroughly, effectively and unfortunately.

____________________________________________

You stay away from that Werner boy, yelled my daddy. He ain't nothing but trouble. His daddy is a drunk and so was his daddy!

From the wrong side of the creek, if you ask me. Nothing but bad, echoed Momma.

As I was growing up, arguments between my parents and me were fairly common. Now that I was a teenager, we were fighting about something every day. This one was ignited by my younger brother Bradley, who accidentally or intentionally shared the name of my high school boyfriend. Now, all hell was breaking loose in the Fountaine doublewide, ruining our supper.

You say goodbye to that no good son of a bitch right now. You hear me, Jill? No daughter of mine is gonna love no drunk hillbilly. Not enough sense to know his ass from a hole in the ground.

That whole group is squirrely, Momma noted, stabbing at the turnips on her plate. His momma’s momma was cousin to his daddy’s daddy. Double cousins marrying. That’s a recipe for being nutty in the head. I heard that some of them have one leg shorter than the other.

All this crazy talk about weird families has got me a hankering for another piece of squirrel, observed Bradley. Momma, would you please give me a leg?

She passed her best platter to him along with a reminder to be careful. Not that it was an heirloom, but a big crack was running down the middle. Momma wasn’t sure if the Elmer’s glue would hold it together.

The platter was piled high with parts from rodents-of-the-trees that weren’t quite fast enough to outrun Daddy’s shotgun, ol’ Betsy. Momma grabbed the salt shaker from the middle of the table, dumped a pile in her hand and poured it into the neck of her Pabst Blue Ribbon. The resulting carbonation shot foam to the rim. She slurped it up.

Daddy’s hunting that morning had been fruitful, taking four young fox squirrels that we were munching on for our evening meal. Momma pan fried them, finished off in a slow bake until the meat was falling off the bone. We were too poor to have much protein to eat so every meal was packed with vegetables and starches to fill our bellies. Tonight, she added a skillet of milk gravy, biscuits, turnips, green beans, carrots and more. An apple pie was waiting for us on the counter. Even though she was very good at drinking, she was even better at cooking. If not, Daddy probably would have left her years ago.

It seems to me he'd fit right in with this family, I yelled. You and Momma could have a kegger for our family dinners, and everyone will be right at home.

You watch your tongue, missy, threatened Momma. You’re getting too big for your britches.

Well, just so you know, I will be getting too big for my britches, and you can't do nothing about it.

I think I'm gonna be sick, moaned my sister Daisy. Anything would set her off due to her sensitive nature, as Aunt Olida Wilhelmina described it. She’d heave up her belly at any meal, anywhere, or even playing the Virgin Mary at the church Christmas pageant. Momma said it was bad nerves, passed down through Daddy’s kin. This talk about nutty families was tonight’s trigger. Daisy barfed across the table, but without fazing my parents. They were too intent on making my life even more miserable.

That's because I'm pregnant with Vern’s baby. About three months along!

Daddy reached across to take a swing at me while his belly plopped onto our wobbly kitchen table. Even though he proclaimed it fixed—his favorite remedy was duct tape—the extra weight was more than it could bear. The table collapsed, sending plates, bowls and Daisy’s contribution scattering across the linoleum floor. Dogs and cats went chasing after their unexpected, paw-licking buffet. The chaos was my chance to make a beeline for the door, off into the night and my future of uncertainty.

And don't come back, Daddy screamed, throwing a kitchen towel at me as I made my getaway.

The news I just dropped would send Momma and Daddy into a drunken spree lasting into the weekend. Bradley and Daisy would have to deal with them because I was never coming back.

I’ll show you! I yelled, shaking my fist at them.

But the further I walked away from the commotion, the more my confidence teetered with uncertainty.

Slowly, I made my way down the gravel road with the plan to arrive at Vern’s home to figure out our future. Unfortunately, my arrival would probably be sometime tomorrow. He lived more than ten miles away, and I wasn’t quite sure of the location.

Down Mill Road a piece and turn right where old man Lange’s barn once stood some seven years ago. Directions like that were common around here. But I’d probably wind up walking off into a ditch or the creek, and I had no idea who old man Lange was let alone where his barn once stood.

It was dusk, still light enough to see but not enough to prevent me from stumbling over dirt clods in the road. I was just 17 years old, a junior in high school, and too stupid to be scared out of my mind. About a mile away was Aunt Olida Wilhelmina’s house, and I decided to stop.

____________________________________________

Jill, are you listening? I swear you have the attention span of a piss ant.

Yes, I’m here. I just got a text message from one of my kids, and…

Those damn computers. Nothing but bad, if you ask me, Aunt Olida Wilhelmina snorted into the phone. Now, you need to get back home immediately, Jill. You know your momma and I don’t always get along, and she accuses me of getting into her business.

My eyes rolled because that’s exactly what she did. It had caused problems for as long back as I could remember. But her interference was a lifeline for me during several dark times in my life. Aunt Olida Wilhelmina tried to give me motherly advice and step in when my inebriated momma could not or would not. She never married. Probably too smart for that, I figured. We didn’t have a loving attachment, with sweet hugs to take away tears, but she had a good heart. No matter what had transpired between her and my momma, she cared about all of us, even her baby sister.

Jill, your momma and daddy are up to their eyeballs in trouble, she hollered into the phone. Word has gotten out that the government is gonna build a lake in Dimlit County. Developers are paying good money to get the land surrounding it.

Land in Dimwit isn’t the most fruitful in the state. It’s known for its amazing harvests of driftwood logs left behind by overflowing creeks. Adding to the charm are pools of carp, stranded in the fields by the receding floodwaters, then dying and stinking up the countryside.

So Momma and Daddy’s farm is in the sights of the developers?

Yes, they say plans call for the lake next to their acreage, which would be the shoreline. They’re gonna cut up the farm into high-priced lots with high-priced houses on them, she said. The company would buy up every single acre and the check could total about a half a million dollars for them. Maybe more.

For a farm that’s been in the family for generations and produced next to nothing for nearly every one of those years, a half a million dollars is good money, Aunt Olida Wilhelmina. Not too shabby for a couple living in a broken-down doublewide with a patched-together lean-to shed in the back with chickens and goats wandering in.

That’s right, Jill. But I’m thinking they’re just being pushed into something by a bunch of greedy people, most of them your kin. They know they’ll be getting some of those dollars in their pockets if they beg and plead enough. Shameful, just shameful.

You’re right about that.

I thought about my siblings and their spouses. Daisy and Bradley could be persuaded to do something that might not be in the best interest of Momma and Daddy. I could easily see their spouses—Loretta and Leonard—nagging, demanding and then drooling as they got their hands on some of those dollars.

Then there’s this new preacher at the church that’s sticking his holy nose where it don’t belong. Sniffing around for money like Judas, she said. Using his sermons to shame the congregants into giving their land money to the church. I call that pressure from the pulpit.

Sounds like it’s the pastor’s way of ensuring they don’t forget the church because the church isn’t going to forget parishioners writing out big checks for a new sanctuary, I laughed.

That ain’t the half of it. Special prayers are being offered up for those who sign over a big part of their sale to ‘God and His good works.’ Make that the pastor and his shady dealings. Shameful, just shameful.

Several years ago Momma and Daddy had found religion. I guess somehow it had been lost. Now, I did think that the church had done a lot of good for Momma and Daddy. After a long time of drinking and unhappiness, they reached out to the Antioch Kingdom Seekers for a Glorious Resurrection Church. Pastor HC—Holy Cow, as the congregants called him—made a special effort to help them and help them he did. They gave up the bottle and settled down, filled with more contentment than a fifth of Jim Beam could ever deliver. Over the last few years, they had reached out to patch things up with me, and we began that process with lots of baby steps. We had a lot to go through. Their abuse had impacted me throughout my entire life and contributed to my inability to have healthy personal relationships.

As Aunt Olida Wilhelmina continued her rant, my mind wandered back to those days. I thought about the times I went to parent-teacher night conferences for my sister Daisy because Momma and Daddy were passed out in their chairs back home. I hated the way the teachers would look at me, pity on their faces. They knew. Everyone knew. But nobody helped.

One time Daddy got so mad at me for back talking that he used his Good Book to throw a Hail Mary pass at my head. I still carry a small scar above my eye where it made a hallelujah landing. The name calling, the yelling, the swats at my behind that sometimes I outran and sometimes I didn’t, were still in my mind. But through it all I never backed down, never gave up. Aunt Olida Wilhelmina said I was as tough as Missouri sassafras sprouts.

And those developers, Jill, they’re nothing but a barrel full of snakes, Aunt Olida Wilhelmina added. Something ain’t right.

What do you mean?

I don’t like the way these folks are pushing so hard for them to sell. Every day on their doorstep, tugging on their hearts, saying ‘Do the right thing.’ Just wearing them down until they give in. Then with your sister and brother and their spouses wanting and whining. Everything is being sent in the direction they want, not what’s best for your momma and daddy.

Did I really have reason to be concerned or was this my aunt sticking her nose into business that she should stay out of? Was I again getting into the middle of a fight between her and my momma? My parents and I had been working hard to straighten things out between us, and I didn’t want to mess that up. Besides, I wasn’t relishing the thought of being back at the farm and all of the memories it held for me. Momma and Daddy knew that and maybe that’s why they hadn’t reached out to me for help. Maybe they wanted to show me that they were capable of handling the situation on their own.

But my insides were telling me that something wasn’t quite right. Aunt Olida Wilhelmina did have a bead on something, and she had never led me astray in the past.

I had to check things out.

Okay, I’ll hop in the car, and get up there. I have a few things to tidy up here at home at the ranch in Texas, but I could be up there by Thursday.

Well, be quick about it, she added, concern heavy in her voice. I don’t know how much longer these people are going to wait. They’re the messengers of Satan, mark my words.

Chapter Two

As I packed my clothes for the trip back to Dimwit, I grabbed the small folding photo frame from my dresser. Everywhere I traveled I took it with me. I opened it to the pictures of my twins, Mary and Martha, taken when they were three. The next one was my oldest, Alex. He was probably about four in this photo. Now all three were grown, married and doing well. Hopefully grandkids would soon be on the way.

Once again my mind went back to that night when I confessed my pregnancy, and Momma and Daddy threw me out of the doublewide. It was a cool evening, and I had finally made my way down that lonely gravel road to the only place that would take me in.

I’m in big trouble, Aunt Olida Wilhelmina.

Come on in, Jill, she said opening the screen door to her home and sweeping me inside. Lord, you’re ice cold. Where’s your coat, child?"

I left it at the house. I made Momma and Daddy real mad. He tried to swat me. Didn’t have time to get my coat. I just high-tailed it out of there before he did.

She moved me into the kitchen, setting me down by her small wood stove, used to heat and cook. Many times I would visit and enjoy some of her molasses cookies and just a smidgen of coffee, laced with lots of cream, sipped out of her white, red-rimmed ceramic cups. The comforting ritual continued tonight as she placed the cookies and drink in front of me. We sat at her small round table covered with a red-and-white checked oil cloth. Three red plastic carnations stuck in an old pickle jar sat in the middle. She had a look of questioning concern, framed with no-nonsense, authoritative wrinkles across her face. Crossing her arms in front of her chest, she began the interrogation.

And what did you do to get them so upset?

I told them I was having Vern Werner’s baby.

Oh good lord! His family is filled with nothing but double cousins marrying. Goofballs, the whole lot! She leaned into me with eyes wide open. I heard that some of them out of Chester County have six toes.

My heart sank even further. My baby was going to come out with six toes on legs that had one shorter than the other. If you combined that with my family pedigree, I was giving birth to something like one of those monsters in the movies, probably with three heads.

Sensing that I was about to break down in tears, Aunt Olida Wilhelmina quickly backpedaled. Well, there’s a good chance the six toes could skip a generation. Sometimes weirdness does that, you know.

Her front door flew open, and in stormed Daddy, Bradley and ol’ Betsy. I knew she was loaded with plenty of buckshot to get any job done, and she was mighty persuasive. Besides, everyone in the county knew Daddy knocked back a few way too many times. It was not the proper state of mind to have when you’re carrying a shotgun and you have an itchy trigger finger.

Get up, Jill, ordered Daddy. We’re gonna see your hillbilly boyfriend and get this thing taken care of the right way.

In his mind, the right way was to march over to Vern’s house, holding a shotgun as a