Chapter 18.
Note to readers: for more fun reading this chapter, load and have ready to play the song: Oh Happy Day, by the Edwin Hawkins Singers (1968) where instructed.
We had a party planned for our first hour at full power. We'd already tested the switch gear and ran the station on the turbine at night several times and it never failed or even hiccupped, but we wanted to throw a party near the site for all the people that helped get us on the air. Smash a bottle of Champaign on the windmill leg, and celebrate with our biggest supporters.
We invited the people that fabricated the custom turbine platform, and the electrical switchover equipment. We wanted to invite the companies that insisted on airing their thirty second commercials, like a car dealer in Houston and some churches south and east of the city too. The total number of invitees would be almost sixty people. We planned on having catered pizza, Muffuletta sandwiches from Central Grocery, and beer on tap under a rented tent, along with our local congressman and we also invited our parents. Just for fun we mailed invites to our state and federal Congressmen and Senators. We never asked for RSVPs because we'd send any leftovers to a homeless shelter in Beaumont, except the beer. Even though the tower was in Louisiana, legally we were running a business in Texas. We paid property taxes in both states.
The day of the party arrived, the tent was set-up that morning by three guys, it was 20x20 with tables and chairs. We got permission (from the Parish Sheriff) to set up the party on our driveway so everyone was a safe distance from the tower, but Calcasieu Parish sent a patrol car to park near our driveway with its lights on, just in case. We anticipated 30 to 60 cars might be parked along the highway. The catering guys arrived with boxes of goodies from Central Grocery and local deep dish pizza, along with some thin crust too.
We had two kinds of beer on tap along with bottled water and Lone Star Beer in cans on ice. The tables were covered with white paper, the DJ service set-up one hour early and played our station on their speakers. The automation software was already set-up with pre-recorded messages before the switch over to wind power, the transmitter (currently at 50,000 watts) would go off the air for five long seconds then return at 100,000 watts (or explode the building in a ball of flame)! The only thing we had to do at the site was to listen for the announcements on the radio and push buttons at the correct times.
Forty one of our sixty invited guests arrived, but none of the VIPs showed. We wanted to respect the history of KYAZ by playing a Christian song as the first one at full power, regardless of the outcome it was loaded and ready. Four of us were in the steel building while we listened to the radio on the outdoor speaker system, the guy we recorded to explain the procedure explained everything in simple non-technical language and how historic this was for the station and the USA.
The countdown started, the wind turbine was spinning on hot standby. At one second left the Engineer shut off the exciter and the transmitter. He turned the selector knob from 50kw to 100kw.
We pushed the button to switch to wind generator power and the people outside said they heard clicking way up in the turbine housing. Once all three meters stabilized on 480v 60 cycle power on all three lines he turned on the exciter and pressed START on the transmitter and it came right back on the air at 500 watts. We watched as the transmitter self checked each section and our power rose in steps: 500, 1,000, 5,000, 10,000, 50,000, and finally to 100,000 watts. He said it should draw about 70 amps per leg of 480v 3ph power.
Note: start playing the song, Oh Happy Day now. Play it one time.
The field strength meter swung all the way to the right side, full scale. The entire system worked and for the first time in almost two and a half years KYAZ was back as the highest power AM broadcast band station north of the Panama Canal. Right on cue the computer started two MP3s at the same time, one was David saying: "Broadcasting to the World, this is KYAZ, Deweyville, Texas, USA," and under him was the piano beginning of the first song. We heard cheers outside around the beer taps. I got a chill down my back when it started up normally.
The first song we ran after re-start was Oh Happy Day by the Edwin Hawkins Singers with the impressive voice of Dorothy Morrison. As the song started I went outside to refill my cup with beer. I set my beer down and held my hands over my mouth and nose because that song made me cry too. I wasn't the only one with tears during that famous five minute gospel masterpiece. David was inside the building closely watching the transmitter for signs of trouble (smoke, or wild meter movements). During the final minutes of Oh Happy Day I ran back inside the transmitter building to the last cabinet where the signal was amplified to 100,000 watts and hugged the warm steel cabinet and just closed my eyes with the side of my face pressed against the panel and listened to the internal fan and the music outside. I heard the people outside clapping along with the song. After a couple moments to dry my face and blow my nose I slowly re-joined the party but couldn't find my beer.
Standing on the stairs looking out over our friends I noticed a number of people were also wiping their eyes, nice to know I wasn't the only one.
David and I walked away from the party briefly and stood nearby in the field looking up at the tower and the new windmill, he winked at me and I reached my hand to shake his. While we shook hands like business partners I mouthed the words, `I love you.' He nodded yes and tried not to smile too hard. When the next song started we re-joined the party crowd.
I briefly slow danced with some women during the Bob Marley song. Several people air-played a cowbell during the song, One Love by Bob Marley and the Wailers, I did too. Our next three songs were Montego Bay by Bobby Bloom, The Israelites by Desmond Decker, and Little Green Bag by George Baker Selection. After those it was back to our regular rotation of songs from 1965 to 1993.
Ten people driving down `Root-12' stopped just to see what was going on out in the bayou. We had no leftover food to offer strangers (I already grabbed two full Muffulettas wrapped in wax paper and sitting in an ice chest in his truck). The police car with his roof lights on only increased the interest.
I met with each uninvited guest, all of them were young men driving trucks, coming home from work in Beaumont or Vidor. We introduced ourselves and I explained our plan for the radio station and hoped they listened. I explained we had no extra food but I offered them a cold beer and thanked them for stopping. We gave the county cop a case of Lone Star, I stuck it in his trunk so he had deniability. I wished we'd had bumper stickers to hand out with our call sign, our cool pig logo, and the numbers 670, but they weren't due here for three more weeks.
The guy that mowed the field around the tower said that handing out beers to any passing vehicle was a great way to make friends in Starks, Louisiana, but pork BBQ ribs would have worked better.
After an hour the DJ and food services were gone, the tent was down and rolled up, the canvas loaded onto a truck and the last guys were pulling out the wooden stakes. The tent reduced to two large rolls, with two boards for ramps they rolled up into the truck and left. I waved to the cop and he left towards the east down Root-12.' I learned you can't call it Route-12, it's pronounced Root-12' in these here parts. And locally, Houston was pronounced: YOUstin, we'd get corrected every time.
After everyone was gone but us and the one broadcast engineer we walked to the electric company meter and saw it was crawling along running the exciter, the HVAC stuff, and a few other small items, so the draw was small on a 480v line, but there we were at full power. Three amplifiers needed to boost the signal high enough for the biggest section to create 100kw, so the entire transmitter was running. The air conditioner was humming along keeping it within operating range. 100kw created a lot of heat.
You know one of the bad things about playing oldies was there was never any new music to play, it was the same music day after day. The only thing you could change was how you played it. A DJ made it more interesting but that was a double edged sword.
I asked him if he was here for the 2016 flood and he said yes, he came here twice and never saw the street out front, or the property under water. He said it can't get any higher than that because of their proximity to the ocean. The deeper it got, the wider it flooded, the easier the access to the Gulf of Mexico. He said that is why over half the home lots in town were empty now. Deweyville was slowly disappearing and moving out by the highway where the ground is much higher.
By 6pm we were home eating Muffuletta slices at the kitchen table with a knife and fork. At dinner that evening I could tell David was still itching to tell me something but he wanted to wait for the right moment. We did the dishes and sat back at the table to drink some chilled wine and chat about our day.
He felt our big event at the radio station was sort of disappointing but I really didn't think it was bad. We sat at the corner of the dining table with shoulders almost touching and finally, after months of secret conversations he finally spilled the beans. We were just sitting at the table sort of day dreaming, lost in thought listening to our computer from the next room on the radio station four miles away, I had visions of eating him again tonight and licking his flat tits too.
"I did something for you." He started off saying and gently knocked my knuckles with his.
"Oh yeah, what?"
"I found someone you had a thing for. You know Ryan I could tell you were mesmerized by this guy."
"Who's that?"
He reached over and held my hand, "I found Rudy."
"The kid that tried to rob us? What prison is he in?" I said as I laughed a bit.
"How'd you know he's in prison?" He asked.
"It was a guess that he'd spend years for all the stuff he got busted for. The Attorney General wanted him working in the license plate factory for a looooong time."
"True, but listen to this. He's in a prison near Pueblo, Colorado, in a unit for convicted illegal aliens only. He is scheduled for parole in six months after serving half of his four year sentence, but there's a kicker. The US has asked Mexico to let him serve the remainder of his term in Mexico, probably at a prison near Mexico City. That'll be his final Fuck You from Uncle Sam unless someone sponsors him in the US."
"Wow, that's harsh. So what's the deal?" I said assuming the reason why he brought it up was because he had an idea.
"You ready for this?"
"Uh huh." I turned to look him in the eye.
"If we signed for him we might, repeat might be able to get him transferred from to Texas where they have another facility for illegals with felony convictions awaiting parole and deportation. If we paid a bond we might be able to get him transferred to Houston instead of Mexico City and released to us with ankle monitoring and tracking on sort of a community based detention program. He would qualify for Medicaid, but he'd basically be free to work locally and then he could get his GED and maybe college too, but I haven't asked him if he was interested."
"Wow, that's a lot. David, can I say something about him that may surprise you?"
"Yes, Ryan, that's why we're talkin'."
"When we first met him in the pool I sensed he had something special inside, he had a spark and a desire but was trapped in a no-win situation and really just needed direction. I could tell he'd been screwed and fucked over during his short life, but he could become a great guy if life would just stop shittin' on him for a few years. I saw it in his eyes. I think he's smart but misguided. I'd love to see him get a chance to succeed if that's what he wants."
"Good, that's what I expected you'd say. Next step is I gotta meet with La Migra in Pueblo about his case and be ready to post a cash bond of forty thou, and request his transfer to Houston, then we'll host him like an exchange student while he re-lives eight years of his life starting at age 14 in the body of a 22 year old."
"I'd love to be there to meet him and watch his eyes when the rules and penalties are laid out in simple language for him, I'd love to see how he reacted. I'd love to watch his eyes, they're windows to the soul."
David explained he was going to fly up there next week for two nights to meet with Immigration and his public defender, and possibly also meet Rudy too. He said he would keep a close watch on body language, especially his eyes, and report back.
When he was done explaining his plan I had the feeling we'd be taking a big risk bringing him into our home, if he even accepted our terms. But all it would cost to find out was a plane ticket to Colorado and two nights at a hotel. It also meant I'd be at the music store for 2-3 days by myself running it and the radio station too.
David corrected me later that evening, he said they don't make license plates in prisons any more, now they made furniture kits even though the boxes said they came from Europe.
And so it began.
Two weeks later David flew to Pueblo, Colorado and took a taxi to the prison complex which he learned was an enormous facility made up of six individual prisons all side by side, some of them privately owned by very wealthy and internationally known Americans.
He learned the prison was only interested in getting Rudy moved on to his next place, the judge had already signed the orders (and Mexico already accepted him back) but left the option of hosting in the US which was often a condition for most illegals since many of them were taken-in by churches and families all across America. He handed them $40k and got a receipt. If Rudy broke the rules or violated travel restrictions and didn't surrender to police we'd lose the money. So this was a huge gamble.
Then on his second day he met with his public defender and learned this type of arrangement was very common. David explained Rudy had tried to rob us at a hotel in San Diego. It was obvious the lawyer didn't know much about him, he was just guiding the process towards deportation in six months.
That afternoon David got to meet Rudy inside the prison. He said Rudy looked pale and like he lost weight, at first they didn't recognize each other (except his unique facial scar). He was very quiet and had little to say at first. Finally, after some explaining he said, "Oh yeah, you're the gringos from the pool that jerked me off and gave me to the FBI." And David smiled and said yes, the gay couple you tried to rip off. Then Rudy said, "Si, I remember you in the pool, why you here?"
"I'm here to offer you a chance. My husband and I will host you in our home, we can offer you a job during your parole. You will live with us as part of our family and you will live by the same rules we follow. You will follow all the parole rules and not go outside your boundaries. You will go to school and earn your high school diploma, then on to college. You will be focused on school and living a legal American life. If you rob people, steal, sell drugs, or hang out with gangsters, we won't call the police we'll kill you."
Rudy sat there with a straight face then had tears in his eyes. David told him, "And if you don't accept my offer then your next home will be a prison in Mexico City until you're forty years old. This the only time I will come here to ask if you are willing to become a law abiding American citizen."
David said Rudy maintained eye contact the entire time with tears dripping down his cheeks. After David was done talking Rudy lowered his head to the counter in front of him, dropped the phone and wept, but all David could see was the thick black hair on the top of his head.
After a few minutes of crying quietly, he sat back up and wiped his face and nodded yes, with sniffles and mumbled speech he told David he wanted to get out of prison and would like to get a chance at a legal life and US citizenship. He said he'd been praying to God for two years for someone to help him.
Then David very slowly repeated what he said, "Do you understand that with us if you break the law we will not call the police." He made a pistol hand gesture to the side of his head and fired. Rudy trembled but still nodded yes, he really wanted a chance, he said he was smart and basically an honest Catholic boy and wanted to prove it to the world. Then he said he thought he'd die in prison because nobody in the world cared about him, even God forgot about him. David smiled at him and nodded his head no, `nada de lo que dijiste es cierto.' (None of what you said is true).
Then a guard came and walked Rudy back to his cell block. David said as he left Rudy looked back at him with tears in his eyes, he mouthed something in Spanish then smiled. After their meeting he spoke again with the public defender and said he wanted Rudy transferred to Houston then we'd host him. David showed him his DOD ID card and explained we were both retired Pentagon agents with top secret clearance and lots of experience with bad guys and military weaponry. The defender said he'd call next week but he'd try to get the ball rolling because his deportation was only five months and twenty days from today.
Seven hours later David's flight landed in Houston, I picked him up and we talked almost all night about this subject and problems we should anticipate.
In bed that night David told me what he learned about Rudy:
He spent most of his life (since age 14) in America and considered it his home country. But since he was here illegally he lived in the shadows which forced him to commit small crimes to earn money for shelter and food when he couldn't do it legally. He hated living that way but it was his only choice. Rudy said life in the shadows was better than what he had as a homeless fourteen year old boy in Mexico.
In the past he also worked as a prostitute to make money, and did that in Mexico too. He also sold drugs in the USA and was arrested for that too.
When he first sat down at the window he didn't recognize David, his first words were: Quién eres tú? (Who are you?) He never expected to see either of us again and got so emotional he spent part of his visitation just crying with his head on the desk and phone beside his thick black hair. David said he sat there and watched Rudy melt onto the counter in front of him and cry and he really wanted to hold him, even through the glass he felt the despair in Rudy's soul. David said he could only imagine all the crap he endured just trying to survive in southern California.
They told David he did not have any ID and Mexico had no federal record of him (which was very common), but it was possible a local church had a record of his birth. Mexico had no record of his parents or anything about his surgery. He only made it to 8th grade, his first communion, and he'd been on the run since age 14 (8 years). He had cancer surgery at age 13, and was treated for a venereal disease in prison, he claimed he'd been raped twice but there were no witnesses. He attended church and kept to himself, claimed he was Catholic and a non-smoker, and was never married. He said he thinks he was born in June in a small farming village thirty five kilometers west of Mexico City near the town of Toluca.
Two weeks later a federal judge signed an order transferring him to a Department of Corrections facility for convicted illegals near Houston and one month after that he was moved to a transition unit for men scheduled for parole but not deportation. We visited him twice a month until he was released. During our meetings we discussed our rules and the consequences for breaking them. He'd seen us heavily armed and knew we worked for the federal government, he also knew we wanted to give him a fair chance, a job, and a possible future but only as a law abiding citizen. We repeated that a few times: break the law and we're enemies. Then David explained breaking the law didn't include victimless crimes (jay walking, parking violations, disorderly conduct, etc).
David bluntly told Rudy (again) at our first meeting in a large day-room with no barrier between us that if he ran away, hung out with criminals, stole, or sold drugs, we'd kill him. His eyes welled up with tears and he said more than anything else he wanted out of prison and a chance at a normal life, he also said he didn't want to do any of that shit or even know anyone that did, he just wanted a normal life, a wife, and a nice place to live, with a car and a job and some day his own family. He wanted to earn his future and own his failures, all he wanted was an opportunity. Listening to him we never once heard him claim to be a victim of anything except his own ignorance.
We spoke to him for an hour while David took notes, his first step would be to earn his GED and master the English language. He assured us he was very smart and learned muy rapido. We offered him job at our music store and eventually perhaps his own apartment but until then he'd live with us and must do as he was told, sort of like going back to age fourteen and starting over, but this time with a supportive family. He agreed to everything and had tears on his face for over an hour with the prospect that he might get out of prison soon. He said everything happened so slowly in the prison system it drove him crazy, that and always being on guard for attack.
We got Rudy qualified for a type of Texas Medicaid with ten dollar co-pays.
Before we left we gave him a hamburger and Coke in a cup from a burger place near the prison visitor parking lot. He had to wolf it down fast because his time was up and he couldn't bring anything back to his cell.
We talked privately to the transition center people about who he hung out with and they said Rudy kept to himself but in Colorado he was raped twice and treated for a venereal disease but was medicated and tested negative now. They said he went to Catholic prison services every Sunday and prayer group every Wednesday. He read books and avoided most of the inmates and was usually alone or in his cell. We never told them he was the star in ten feature length movies, and had a 2018 SAG-AFTRA membership card.
The big question was: could he do it? Rudy was being given a choice of us as his family and strict rules of conduct and freedoms, or deportation to Mexico City and a good chance he'd die in prison in Mexico. With us he'd be living most of his teen years over again, which would be damn hard since he's already twenty two. What twenty two year old with a history of making poor choices would want to be treated like a child and watched very closely? What twenty two year old would opt for a bicycle over a stolen car in an area known the heavy and frequent rains.
By the time his date arrived we'd visited him eight times, fed him eight burgers and Cokes. He could not hide his smile every time we met at a table in the day room, but could not touch each other or pass things without being checked by a guard. In the prison he wore their uniform which was a tan scrub top and scrub pants with flip flops on his feet. While he talked to David I closely examined his appearance: his skin, his lip and gum color, the whites of his eyes, his teeth, the color of his tongue, his finger nails and toe nails. I watched him breathe and talk, I closely watched his eyes but never saw signs of deceit. He seemed genuinely very happy to see us each time we visited.
On our last visit I brought a tape measure and with a guard standing close by we measured his body for clothes for him to wear home, he had nothing else with him because he was naked when he was arrested in San Diego.
The guard had him hold his arms up while we measured his waist, inseam, feet, chest, arms, neck, height, and he said he weighed 136 lbs which was light for someone six feet tall. When David measured his stomach Rudy pulled up his shirt exposing his very sexy twink belly, hairless and perfect in shape. His tummy looked like girl, not a 22 year old man.
When we were finished measuring and writing he winked at us and pointed at his groin and said, "Diez y ocho," we later figured out he meant his boner was 18cm, 7 inches.
Three weeks later we drove back to the Houston prison facility and picked him up carrying a large folder of printed resources and a phone number to call for daily checks with the transition/parole team. We brought a bag of clothes all in his size. Much to my surprise in the day room he stripped naked (except for his ankle tracking device) and put on all his new clothes, but he kept his orange flip flops but left the tan prison uniform on the floor. We walked to the door and were buzzed through, then to the next door and buzzed again. The door opened to bright daylight and we walked to the car, I think Rudy wanted to run or yell out he was so excited.
We stopped at a Target store in Houston and bought him clothes, shoes, bathroom stuff (he selected everything) and a pre-paid flip phone. We spent $390 on stuff he wanted which made him teary eyed again, never having seen that happen before. In the car Rudy said he had never gone into a store and bought anything and everything he wanted before. He seemed quiet during the nearly two hour ride home. He asked if we were still in Texas. I sat with him in the back seat of David's truck while his bags of new stuff filled the front seat.
He was coming home with an ankle tracking device for 90 days, if he made all his daily calls and never went outside his authorized boundaries then the tracking would end and daily calls would turn into one call a month.
He programmed our cell numbers into his phone and we added his too. We only told him about the music store, he said he knew a lot of hot Latin dance tunes, he'd love to add them if someone traded them in with us, he said he was an expert on Central American and Mexican Pop music since he spent the last 18 months of his life listening to the radio in his cell. We drove all the way home listening to KYAZ and he never noticed the one and only voice every twenty minutes was David's.
On the long ride home I said I wanted to see the thing on his leg, so he turned and rested his leg and bare foot on my lap. I held his foot and looked at the tracker. It was a plastic box riveted to a wide leather strap which was riveted around his ankle with enough room to slide it up his leg a bit. The box on the strap was about a two inch white plastic cube with a sticker on one side. It had no holes or connectors or anything. He said they put it on him this morning, it was water proof but no swimming.
While his foot was on my lap I held it and checked his toe nails and the undersides. His nails were trimmed and his foot looked very clean, maybe even cleaner than mine! Too bad I'm not into feet or that inspection might have turned me on! David and I both thought feet were ugly.
Rudy had no comment when we parked in our gravel driveway and went inside to a house that looked like people moved in and barely unpacked. We still had piles of U-Haul boxes and dismantled furniture in stacks all over the living room near the front door. Closer to the kitchen it looked nicer. I showed him his room and told him to remove the tags and I'd wash all his new clothes.
At home he asked how long we lived here because the place was still cluttered with boxes, we laughed and told him some of the story of moving here to be closer to our aging parents. It made me feel bad that we expected him to be honest but we lied to him to protect our assets. Just before he came to live with us we dug holes inside the barn and buried most of our cash.
In his room he found an empty closet with hangars, an Asus Chromebook with internet connection, an empty dresser, a desk and chair, three lamps, and an inflatable air mattress on the floor, and beach towels over the windows. It was a 12x12 room but he said it was much better than a steel shelf bolted to the wall in a 6x9 prison cell, then we took him outside and walked him around our ten acre farm and the empty barn behind the house and the weird antenna on the chimney that pointed at the trees to the east. He asked what that was and I told him I'd explain later.
We discussed chores, responsibilities, and rules: no indoor smoking, no fighting or crime, he must attend online high school classes and do his homework on-time, and no visitors without prior permission. We were also blunt and told him he had to earn our trust (he was not starting off with a blank slate).
His one and only chore would be to mow the grass, about 1.5 acres of lawn around the house with a riding mower and a gas weed eater. Now he had earphones and a flip phone he could use to listen to his music while he rode the tractor around the yard, it would take him about 90 minutes a week. That and keeping his bedroom and his bathroom clean were his only chores, but he could voluntarily help with others.
David handed him $500 in twenty dollar bills and told him that was his allowance, make it last. Once again tears trickled down his cheeks. For him and us it's been several days of huge changes and lots of unknown stuff. I think Rudy had some PTSD from his time in prison so we wanted to create something like a family environment for him, unfortunately his new family was two married white men, not exactly what he prayed for. `We're all far from perfecto' Rudy suggested during our discussion.
That evening we had a welcome-home party with delivery pizza and sodas. The next day we drove to Beaumont and got him a driver's license study book in Spanish and asked if he knew how to read and he laughed and said of course he did but he never went beyond eighth grade. A couple days later we took him to a doctor in Vidor but we stayed in the exam room while he was given a complete physical, chest x-ray, STD test, urine drug screen, and some basic blood work. They also did x-rays of his head since he already had cancer once at age thirteen. The nurse had him strip naked and put on a gown for a complete head to toe exam, like I have never seen done before, this doc missed nothing. We looked away when Rudy stood naked for the hernia checks, but we'd seen him naked several times in the past.
We asked the doc about his cancer, he said certain states in Mexico saw those cancers because of insecticides sprayed from airplanes over farm fields. People downwind breathed it in, some of them developed cancers in their sinus cavities or their lungs, which was why he had the scar down the center of his face. He told us Rudy was basically in great shape for a twenty year old kid but he needed to be more active, physical work, and needed a basic education. When you talked to Rudy for a while it was obvious his English was limited and he had almost no formal education, he knew almost nothing about the world, science, math, history, or even his own culture. He'd never heard of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Bugs Bunny, or The Wizard of Oz.
Rudy sat with his legs dangling off the side of the paper covered exam table, naked. The doctor explained his findings to us. When he said he needed to be physically active he reached over and with one finger lifted one side of his chest and showed how he was slender but like a bag of bones and jello. He raised Rudy's arm and squeezed his muscles and showed us the same thing on his legs. Then he said it looked like his penis got plenty of work, his testicles and prostate looked normal. Rudy never grimaced when the doc checked his prostate gland with a lubed finger inside a rubber glove. The doc said his finger went in with little resistance, then he looked at us and rolled his eyes.
Rudy hopped down off the table, yanked off the gown and got dressed in front of us after the doctor left. David asked him if he understood what the doctor said as Rudy pulled up his underwear. He paused briefly with the waist band holding his flaccid penis straight out towards us while he considered his answer then said `he understood El Medico,' then finished pulling up his briefs, then his jeans, and then his shoes and last he pulled his t-shirt over his head which showed two protruding rounded lumps on his chest. I thought to myself that I would have never agreed to have my parents in the room during a naked physical exam at the doctor's office, but he didn't seem to react at all. Ho hum, just another day. Maybe his years in prison changed that.
After we left the doctor's office we told Rudy neither of us came from wealthy families but we succeeded because of hard work and focus. Rudy said he had a strong desire to be successful in business eventually but had no idea how to get started, what to do first. After a long chat about degree choices we recommended he try a 4-year Marketing degree because of his personality, he was obviously a people person and was very outgoing and friendly, and he appeared to be self confident. It was very interesting to watch him grow and try new things after he arrived and he seemed to enjoy new experiences and learning new things. I felt he needed role models but I wasn't sure if he would see us that way, we weren't old enough to be his parents. David and I were about nine or ten years old when Rudy was born.
We discussed marketing and showed him the courses he'd need to pass that were required for the degree, we explained what each one was like, and it also required him taking Statistics, which sunk lots of lazy people. David tried to explain to him that college was like 4-5 years of small steps, one after another, one test at a time. If you focused and worked at learning the material then it really wasn't too hard, just lots of little steps.
After pizza we drove him to our store and David showed him the business and explained the job: buy and sell, learn the inventory, learn about bands and their histories, and learn how to identify a valuable vinyl record. We purchased reference books on the history of music after 1950 so we could look up answers for customers, which would eventually become part of his knowledge base. We also got a book on collecting, which records were valuable or rare, and why. As far as we knew there was no such thing as a valuable CD. He never once mentioned his acting career and we never told him we owned one of his movies and jerked off and fucked while watching it.
Back at home David explained we still needed to buy furniture so all our rooms were temporary for now, eventually he'd have a proper bed and proper furniture. He said our room had a mattress on the floor too! We showed him the entire house and the barn too. Rudy had no idea we had almost 18 million dollars in cash buried in the barn!
For now we all enjoyed peace at home and Rudy quickly became a nice addition to our family, and we repeatedly told him his parents would be proud. Sometimes he cooked for us but mostly his job was to keep his room and bathroom clean, cut the grass once a week, and concentrate on school. Our secret goal was to get him through high school within eighteen months, which would be rather fast and a good test of how smart and motivated he actually was.
His first task in online high school was to take placement tests in Math, Spanish, English, Social Studies, Science, and Reading. He scored well below average for a 22 year old, in fact his first IQ score came back at 79. We had a lot of work to do with this kid. At home we kept seeing him do things which told us he had great potential. We decided not to tell him about KYAZ or his IQ test score for now.
We also drove him to the local high school where his classes came from to meet his teachers in person. They were very honest with him about the amount of work he needed to do every day, but Rudy insisted he was ready to learn.
One day David watched him talk with a young Hispanic kid in the store trying to sell us a grocery bag of 24 CDs, most of them were Central American, half of them we already had. They went through his stuff one at a time and he agreed to buy nine of them and agreed to pay a little bit high because the guy was poor and promised they were not stolen. Then Rudy gave him thirty five more bucks from his own pocket and sent him away with his bag and over half of what he wanted to sell us. He was very professional and compassionate which impressed David. Rudy felt offering a higher price might get the kid to come back with more CDs and some friends too. We liked happy customers and didn't really need to make much profit.
His world was small, he was with one of us almost 24 hours a day. He spent most of his time on his computer doing school work. Sometimes it was live classroom stuff, other times it was recorded lectures at a 7th grade level. I called his school people one day and suggested he was a lot smarter than their tests indicated, so they agreed to push him faster in math and science.
We bought him a skateboard, a bicycle, and more clothes during his first two weeks with us.
During his third week with us something dreadful happened, this was how it was explained to me by David and Rudy that evening at dinner:
It was 10am, they had just unlocked the front door and Rudy was in his second hour of Math homework. The store was empty except for the two of them. David had just gone into the front bathroom and locked the door when some guy walked in the store. They never saw a car park in the lot in front of the building.
Rudy said the guy was Mexican with gang tats on his face and neck, he walked up to the counter and asked about a certain CD and while Rudy started to check the guy pulled a pistol and yelled at him to hand over all the cash.
David heard the yelling in Spanish and pulled his knife from his pocket and silently slipped out of the bathroom, Rudy was focused on the cash drawer as David silently approached the bandito from behind, saw the pistol and grabbed the guy's head from behind and shoved his Zombie Slasher all the way to the bottom. With a blade that long it would have completely penetrated his heart (a tactic we learned in Seal School).
The guy never had a chance to fire, he became limp immediately and collapsed on the floor and at the same moment Rudy fainted and smacked his head on a stack of empty CD cases, which probably saved him from needing stitches at the Urgent Care and maybe a head CT scan too.
David called 911 and within minutes the place was swarmed by cops from Vidor and the county sheriff too. The guy with the pistol died with it still in his hand after David stabbed him perfectly through the heart. One of the coroner people said he'd only seen that done by Special Forces and Seals, but David just shrugged and said he saw it in a movie.
The body was on the floor, his chest faced the counter but his head was turned the other way, he died with his eyes and mouth frozen wide open.
Rudy was checked out by medics and David wrote a statement for police but was not charged with anything, it was self-defense. After they removed the corpse there was a bloody mess to clean on the floor. They used some of the stuff leftover from cleaning the shop floor of grease and oil to soak up the blood. EMS people told him to use bleach too.
That evening Rudy had David demonstrate on me how he killed the guy. David said all they saw was his knife wound and blood on the floor, but they'd later find out his spine was broken too, which was probably why he never fired. That demonstration made Rudy very quiet, probably remembering when David told him if he turned to crime he'd kill him. Today he saw it with his own eyes, David wasn't kidding.
For our demonstration David rushed me from behind with a straw in his right hand. He quickly stabbed me, that act caused most humans to recoil backwards, he used the momentum to reach around his head with the left arm and pull the knife and head together, rotating the head halfway around. That either severed the spine or injured it enough to instantly paralyze the person. He let go of me and I fell backwards to the floor onto the knife handle while David stepped back. We did it in slow motion to explain every step to Rudy. That maneuver took one second to execute and was usually also silent. David had Rudy walk over and showed him to always have the sharp side of the knife towards the right so you could pull on the handle to rotate the head. With that method the knife became a handle to control the body.
"When the Vidor town cop arrived, the guy we'd met before (Rudy didn't know that after he arrived we asked the police to help us keep an eye on him), and saw what happened all he did was smile and closely examine evidence at the scene." David added, "You walk into a store to rob it, the place is owned by two Navy Seals, hmmm, what's wrong with that picture?" The cop said the dead guy was from Houston, probably out in the sticks trying to make some fast cash to score some meth.
When the coroner arrived to photograph and remove the body Rudy barfed his lunch in the trash can when he saw the guy's face had turned dark blue and his eyes and mouth were still frozen wide open with the look of horror. David told him in the movies you can close the eyes of the dead, but in real life once they died their entire body froze in place. You could close the eye lids but they just opened back up.
The three of us were in the middle of the living room after the demonstration but Rudy started to look green, so David hugged him and with an arm over the shoulder he walked him into our bedroom, into the closet. On the shelf was a shoe box, he opened it and it was full of new Zombie Slasher knives in boxes. He handed him one and told him he'd teach him how to sharpen it tomorrow after work. Rudy was still somewhat speechless, but he put it in his bedroom unsure if it was legal for him to carry.
I told him I'd ask the Vidor town cop next time he came in the store.