When You Come Back To Me Again - 2. Too Many Secrets

A few days later, and a few hundred miles away, Ronnie glanced in the rearview mirror at the tall, barbed wired-topped set of security gates closing behind him, and realized that a major chapter of his life was closing along with them. His top supervisor had personally seen him off, and thanked him again for his years of service to this particular shadowy government agency – for which he had been a top secret agent since leaving the FBI some years before. They were reluctant to see him go, but they understood - and they were glad he left before he got either too burned out or too sloppy – and thus would sadly have needed to have been eliminated.

Arrangements had been made to assure that his latest cover identity – and job – would become his permanent identity, and if he so chose, his permanent job as well. For now, Ronnie liked the slow pace of Pleasant View and its environs, and he had even grown to like being a UPS driver, too. Ronnie had to admit to himself that he mainly liked how fucking sexy he looked in those snug-fitting brown uniforms. He didn't even mind the final little in-joke the agency had felt the need to make about his strong resemblence to singer/actor Chris Isaak: Ronnie's new driver's license and Social Security Card both read "Ronald Zachary Isaak."

The "Zachary" was an homage to his original first name, a rather nice touch too, he thought, even though in his original life he had never actually gone by Zachary. And there were worse people to be compared to than the talented and handsome crooner Isaak; Ronnie again thought that he just hoped he would still look as good in 15 years when he was 58 as Chris did now at that age.

Anyway, Ronnie's new life would sure be a big change from the whole secret agent business, but one ready was most ready for. Hell, he might even decide to be something other than solo-sexual again one of these days. Ronnie gunned the red Mustang convertible – damn what a nice going away present from the agency – as he merged onto I-64 west and headed toward Kentucky.

Ronnie drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he very literally drove off into the sunset and the warm summer wind whipped all around him there on the highway. He had no living family left from his real identity - well at least none that he had ever been close to. He had managed to get through all his time at the FBI and at the other even more potentially-dangerous agency unscathed, and with no major baggage attached to him to worry about.

They were even pleased with what he had been able to glean about that Indrid Cold character in his last case for some reason – although Ronnie himself thought it hadn’t been that much. So, as it all stood, his new life was a clean slate. And, as much as he loved his own hot body and pleasuring it, he had to admit that the one night jacking off in the back of that pickup with those guys had been insanely hot – so much so that he sort of wished he had done more – and touched them – especially that ridiculously built blonde state trooper. Perhaps now he would get that chance.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the nation in San Jose, California, a still-beautiful African American lady in her late-60s was taking a long, slow drag on a cigarette, before carefully and gracefully extinguishing it in an ashtray. The doctors didn’t like her smoking. She didn’t give a damn. So far it hadn’t caused her any problems and she was healthy as a horse. Being a widow was something she was finally used to after a few years without Benny, but damn she still missed him at times. She sighed, got up, grabbed her purse, and soon was locking the door of her handsome townhouse, walking down her steps, and climbing into that sweet powder blue Caddy of hers.

She was going over to have dinner with one of her old friends who had been her long-term business partner in a hair salon before they both retired. As she glanced in the rearview mirror and pulled out onto the street, she remembered that this was the fifth anniversary of the passing of one of their favorite clients, Rick Sims. Damn, he was a sweet and hilariously funny guy, and had become much more than just someone who had visited the shop about once a month for a haircut and dyejob (and the occasional facial, eyebrow wax, manicure, or whatever else!)

Rick had truly been a good friend as well. As a widow herself now, she was wondering what had ever happened to the one he had left behind several years before after succumbing to that damn cruel disease. Before she reached the little bistro where she was having dinner with Shirley, she was also letting her mind wander much further back in time, and wondering where life had taken someone else. She sighed.

Things that are done are done, and at my age I can’t do a damn thing about it now, she thought as she turned into the parking lot of the restaurant. She parked and quickly lowered the visor and glanced in the mirror to check her lipstick. She raised her hand and gently touched the jagged scar there on her left cheek that had faded nearly away now. That was the only one they had not been able to successfully repair with the surgeries way back then.

Again she shrugged off the parts of her past she had just as soon forget, and then Geraldine Jones Thomas got out of the car and waved to her smiling friend Shirley who was just getting out of her own car across the lot. Geraldine had been her grandmother’s name. She had thought Jones was a ruefully clever play on Smith. Thomas was her late husband Benny’s surname. And four and a half decades before, Jenny Faye Smith had changed her name to Geraldine Jones when she had left Kentucky and her budding music career both behind for good to start over on the west coast after her horrific attack.

That same Saturday evening, Barney and Billy Jack were having dinner at a cute new little Italian place which had just opened up over in Smithville. Midway through the delicious meal, Barney looked over at Billy Jack. “What’s wrong babe? You don’t seem yourself tonight.”

“It was five years ago today, babe, that I lost Rick to the damn cancer,” Billy Jack said simply.

“Oh, gawd, honey,” Barney said, “I didn’t realize the anniverary of his passing was today.”

“It’s OK, baby. Rick is at peace now,” Billy Jack said with a sad smile. “I’m just so thankful that I have you in my life now.”

Brad and Jack were eating at the Ramblin’ Rose at about the same time, and Gunnar had joined them in a booth when he had walked in alone shortly after they had arrived. He was on his meal break while on duty, and looked so fucking handsome in that gray KSP uniform.

“Hope you guys don’t mind me being a third wheel,” Gunnar said a bit sheepishly as he removed his trooper hat, revealing that sexy blonde high and tight haircut.

“We never mind you being a third anything with us,” Brad said naughtily, bumping his leg against Gunnar’s as they sat next to each other in the booth, and Jack laughed heartily across from them on the other side of the table.

"That's right," Jack added naughtily as he looked up and down Gunnar's ripped 6'3" body that filled out and stretched the material of the trooper uniform in all the right places.

“Aww, hell, TMI!” Destiny Rose exclaimed, having walked up with their drinks just in time to hear all this.

They all laughed, including Destiny. Gunnar spoke up, “Heck, Destiny, we’re surprised you are even still working down here, with you fixing to be a big singing star and all.”

“Oh, sugar you are too, too kind!” She exclaimed. “Ain’t a damn thing a done deal about that, and for now work and school are still just as important as whatever happens in Nashville in a few weeks.”

“That is a responsible way to look at it,” Jack commented. “But, we all know you are gonna knock ‘em dead down there in a couple weeks, and then the sky’s gonna be the limit.”

“And it had to feel good being up there on stage the other night with Tom T. fuckin’ Hall!” Brad added with a grin.

“Oh shit,” Destiny said. “I still don’t really believe it, guys. I mean I’ve always loved to sing – but to think where this could lead. Anyway, right now I’ve got burgers to lug!” She just shook her cute ass at the guys then, who all laughed, and walked off toward the swinging doors into the kitchen.

Later that night, Billy Jack and Barney were back at their place cuddling on the couch when their landline rang. Barney grabbed the cordless and clicked it on. “Hello?”

“Hello, is Billy Jack Smith there, please?” came the deep, melodic, and somehow vaguely familiar female voice on the other end of the line.

“Yes, may I ask who’s calling?” Barney replied.

“This is Geraldine Jones Thomas,” was the reply. Barney was thinking how very oddly familiar Geraldine’s voice sounded from somewhere, even though this was presumably the first time he had ever heard it. Geraldine was thinking the same thing - she had heard Barney's pleasantly queeny rasp somewhere before, or so it seemed. She had no idea who Billy Jack's current husband was; she had done a Google search to find his current phone number, knowing only that Billy Jack had moved back to Kentucky sometime following Rick's death a few years before.

“Oh, yes,” Barney replied outloud into the phone, “Billy Jack has mentioned you. You were a close friend of his late partner Rick’s weren’t you?”

“Oh yeah, close friend, hairdresser, and Number One Class A old school faghag, darlin’” Geraldine replied with a warm laugh, which Barney returned easily.

“So I have heard!” Barney replied. “Here’s Billy Jack. So nice to talk to you, Geraldine.”

Geraldine and Billy Jack had a brief, but warm conversation. At the end of it, Billy Jack thanked Geraldine for remembering the anniversary of Rick’s passing and for taking the time to call.

“You know, babe,” Barney said after they had hung up, “Her voice actually sounded so familiar to me, isn’t that strange?”

“Hmm,” Billy Jack replied. “That is funny that you would say that. I never was as close to Geraldine as Rick was, but obviously they became such close friends that I was around her a good bit now and then. I do remember that decades ago when I first met her, just a few years after I got together with Rick after I moved out there, well, I remember thinking the same thing, that her voice was oddly familiar from somewhere.”

“She has one of those musical voices,” Barney commented. “Maybe she reminds us both of Aretha or somebody from back in the day like that.”

“Could be,” Billy Jack mused.

When Jenny Faye Smith was attacked, no pictures ran in the local papers before she left Kentucky for good. Billy Jack had never seen Jenny Faye in person, or even a picture of her before she left, either. He had heard her record, and once had heard her speak briefly on the radio during a live broadcast, but as had been the case with Charley Pride, Jenny Faye's first 45 RPM single had been released without a picture sleeve or headshot photo, in hopes that otherwise racist DJ’s might mistake Jenny for a white person and actually play the record on country radio.

As for Barney, he was one of the few people in Pleasant View Jenny Faye had told goodbye, as they had been close friends. He remembered like it was yesterday how pitiful she was and how that scar they couldn’t repair and the ones from her then-recent surgery had looked on her otherwise beautiful face. He also remembered that last phone call from Reno he had gotten about ten months after Jenny Faye had left Kentucky. That was the last Barney had known anything about her or heard from her – that night back in 1970 when she told him a major secret on the phone.

At that at that time she had been singing in some two-bit lounge out there in Reno. But, Billy Jack had never seen Jenny Faye, or a picture of her, before meeting her as Geraldine a few years later in San Jose. And Barney had not yet seen a picture of Geraldine, either. So, for now, the two lovers had no idea that Geraldine and Jenny Faye Smith were one in the same.

Two days later, Barney was alone in the flower shop when Destiny Rose walked in at closing time. “We’re CLOSING!” Barney screeched, worn out at the end of a long, busy day, and not seeing who had come in. Barney’s assistant Florence had already gone home for the day.

“Oh, sorry, babe, didn’t see that it was you, come on in but lock that damn door behind you!” Barney said to Destiny with a grin.

“Long day?” Destiny asked with a laugh, as she locked the door behind herself and came over to sit down with him on the settee that Barney had on one side of the shop.

“Lord, Jesus, yes!” Barney replied. “What can I do for you today, darlin’?” He asked.

“I just need to talk, Barney,” Destiny replied.

“Of course, hon’,” Barney replied, patting her hand, “What is it?”

“Well, you know that – thing I told you awhile back,” Destiny said haltingly.

“Yes,” Barney said evenly. “Honey, don’t worry, I have kept secrets before.”

“Oh, it’s not that,” Destiny said, “I know you wouldn’t tell anybody after I asked you not to, but I guess – well, I’ve just been thinking a LOT about it lately, you know?”

“Well, as I told you when you first told me about it, I don’t judge. Lord knows we’ve all done things we wish we hadn’t, and one thing I’ve learned in 63 years of livin’ is that you CAIN’T go back, so you might as well just keep goin’ forward,” Barney concluded. “But, honey, all that was going on six and seven years ago – what has got you thinking about it again so much now? Are you that afraid somebody will find out and it’ll hurt your singin’ career?”

“No, no,” Destiny said. “I mean, well a lot of the conservatives who are country fans – a lot of them would hate me for having done that if they found out. But, no, it’s not that, really I guess what has me thinking about it is – well you know that my mother was adopted, right?”

“Yes,” Barney said, again replying evenly, even though a flood of memories immediately came pouring back from so many years ago.

“Well, she never has known who her birth parents were. Her adopted Daddy that raised her is dead, and her poor ol’ adopted Momma is in the nursing home and don’t hardly know who SHE is, let alone who fathered or gave birth to my Momma,” Destiny concluded. “And they always said when she was younger that she didn’t need to know about her birth parents – even after they told her when she was 16 that she was adopted. And then I came along when she was just 18.”

Barney quickly wondered what the fuck to say if Destiny asked him who her real grandparents were, as he thought she was about to. But, to his enormous relief, she didn’t. Destiny’s mother, Josephine, had been adopted and raised by an upper middle class white Pleasant View couple, the Jenkinses. This was 1970, and a white couple in a small Appalachian town adopting a very dark-skinned biracial baby was a huge and much talked about scandal, even without any of the locals knowing the circumstances from which Josephine had come. But, by the time Josephine was coming of age in the 1980s, things had changed a lot and she had fit in well. Destiny’s father and mother had met while they were both freshmen in college out in California.

Josephine told Destiny later that when Destiny was conceived Josephine had been 18, and Destiny's white father had been just 17, having been a very bright and gifted young man from a prominent Kansas family who, like Josephine, was attending a prestigious California school on an academic scholarship. Destiny's young father had wanted Josephine to have an abortion, she had refused, and had ultimately left school, returned to Kentucky, and had given birth to Destiny back in Pleasant View, giving her the last name of Josephine's adoptive parents, Jenkins.

Josephine had always resisted telling Destiny much more than this about Destiny's father, whom Josephine had always resented for having wanted her to abort Destiny, and then ultimately never checking to see what had become of them again. Once, when she had really pried while in high school, Josephine had provided the additional details that Destiny's father had been a handsome, dark haired white boy called "Stretch" for his tall, wiry build and prowess in basketball.

That was all Destiny knew about him, but sometimes she did wish she knew more. Sometimes Destiny privately mused about the fact that while both she and her mother were biracial, Josephine looked much more African American in her complexion and features than did Destiny, who had much lighter skin. Destiny then always wondered why so many people, both black and white, even still gave a fuck about things like features and skintone, when we were all just human beings at the end of the day.

In the years since, Josephine’s adoptive parents the Jenkinses had both retired, and then Mr. Jenkins had passed on and Mrs. Jenkins had gotten dementia and been placed in the local nursing home. Josephine had moved to Rosemont for a new job while Destiny was away for her first couple of years of college in Chicago a few years before, and still lived there now. Destiny had dropped out and moved back home, and after three more years, she had resumed her classes at the local community college while working at the diner, and now she only had one more year of school to go to finally have her music teaching degree. Josephine was glad Destiny had decided to finish school, and Destiny Rose was very close to her mother now.

“Well, honey, I guess she could find out who her real folks were if she tried hard enough,” Barney was saying. “People manage to find things like that out all the time these days. No offense, but I actually thought maybe you were about to ask me if I knew who YOUR daddy was just now - which I don't know, by the way. And excuse me if I’m bein’ dense here hon’, but what does all that have anything to do with the secret about yourself you told me?”

“Well, I mean Mom so much wants to meet her birth parents - her mother in particular - and try to get to know her – maybe even get close to her – before it’s too late,” Destiny explained. “And, I guess that has me afraid that if she finds out what I did back then it’ll ruin the close relationship she and I have had again ever since I got back to Kentucky from Chicago to begin with. Which is also why, even though I would sort of like to know my father in the same way she would like to know her mother, I don't pry about that. I mean, I can understand why she feels the way she does about my 'sperm donor Stretch' as she refers to him,” Destiny concluded with a rueful laugh.

“Ohhhhh!” Barney exclaimed, reacting to the first part of what Destiny had just said. “I just assumed that your mother knew about what happened in Chicago."

“Aww, HELL no!” Destiny exclaimed. “Barney, you are the only person I’ve told about that in Pleasant View, and I’ve been back in town for four years. I made a vow to myself to get a job, then get back in school as soon as I could, and eventually make something of myself when I moved back home. To me, that meant shutting the door on the past. But, I finally had to tell someone here, and you are such a good friend that I knew I could confide in you.”

He and Destiny talked a bit longer, then they hugged warmly and she left. He soon turned off the lights, locked the door and headed home. As soon as Billy Jack got home that night, he could see something was wrong with Barney.

“What is it, darlin’?” Billy Jack asked.

“Oh, Lord, honey.” Barney began. “I am gonna have to figure out whether to tell a secret that I have kept for over forty years now, in order to help out a good friend and her mother.