The Second Doublewide on the Right, part 92

I’m Fixin’ To present part 92 of The Second Doublewide on the Right:

After signing his extradition papers and signing his property rights over on Wednesday, Reverend Ricky Lee Jones only had to spend one more night in the Ocmulgee County Jail. Early Thursday morning he was roused up, put into chains and transferred into the cramped back seat of the cruiser of a Clark County Deputy Sheriff out of Arkadelphia, Ark. He spent most of the uncomfortable 10 hour trip either snoozing or praying.

The deputy only spoke to him when necessary—at rest stops and at a burger drive-through. He was half awake when they cruised through Little Rock, then took I-30 South, and he knew it wouldn’t be long before he had to face the wrath of his transgressions.

The reverend was welcomed back by a grumpy night shift at the Arkansas jail and immediately imprisoned into a jail cell reminiscent of the one which he had vacated early that morning in Georgia. But it felt good to get the cuffs off and stretch out on a bunk bed.

It was three days before Gwenda came around to visit him.

“Ricky Lee, you’re a low-life, low-down, two-timing son-of-a-gun,” his wife, the legal one, viciously said into the hand phone from the other side of the glass.

Ricky Lee hung his head like a dog that had been caught sucking eggs and muttered back, “I know it, Gwenda.”

A tear was tricking down her lovely cheek and her pretty lips trembled as she said, “Xxxxxxx you, Ricky Lee! I missed you so dang much!”

“Please don’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” he implored her.

“Don’t give me any of your religious bull crap, you cheating dog!” Gwenda said as she swept the tears away with her hand. “What do you want to do?”

Ricky Lee looked up with a puzzled look on his face and said, “I don’t understand. Do I have a choice?”

“Yeah,” she said softly. “I can bail you out and you can come back home, or you can sit your sorry tail here in jail ‘til your court date comes up in three or four weeks.”

It didn’t take Ricky Lee long to make up his mind. As out of love as he had been with his wife, he was desperate to get released from jail, from being drug around wearing chains and handcuffs.

So with as much emotion as he could muster he softly said, “I want to come back home with you Gwenda. If you’ll please bail me out of here and take me back, I’ll pray every day for your forgiveness.”

Her eyes narrowed as she said, “They said you had a big church going over there in Georgia. Did you have a wife over there too?”

No, my darling,” Ricky Lee moaned, “you’re my wife, my one and only.”

So the preacher went free and his wife even hired him a lawyer and when his day in court arrived the attorney got him off with two years to be served on probation, along with some stiff fines and court fees, which his wife also paid for him.

Mrs. Ricky Lee Jones, Gwenda, was the owner, and also an operator, in a very successful 12 station hair salon, which could explain the reverend’s passion for hairdressers.

Her successful business allowed Ricky Lee to remain unemployed. She had told him to take his time and figure out what he wanted to do with his life, that she would be content with anything except him going back to preaching.

“No more dang preaching!” she had emphasized.

Ricky Lee sat about changing his appearance by growing a neatly trimmed beard and letting his hair grow long. And about the only other thing he had to do on a regular basis was report to his probation officer. Soon, however, he began reporting more often than was required of him.

It seems his probation officer was a very religious and a very lovely woman. She and Ricky Lee took to praying together. They would get down on their knees on the carpeted floor of her office and pray together. After several sessions the probation officer began locking the door and closing the blinds on the glass part of her office, and the rumor in the office was that they were doing more than praying while they were down on their knees.

Just two months after being returned to Arkansas, Ricky Lee disappeared again, along with all the funds in his wife’s beauty salon’s account.

Somehow a rumor got around in Arkadelphia that he had headed for West Texas to start a new church. But Gwenda knew in her heart that he was was more than likely fixin’ to head back to Georgia.