The Three Sisters (8 page)

The three sisters’ present predicament had begun three days before when the three happy hamartiologists had decided to celebrate May
1
with an orgy. May
1
may be Labor Day for the workers of the world, but it begins the blessed month of the Blessed Virgin Mary for Catholics. Victor Virga had sent the three to the west coast a month before so Regina and her two sisters could help open the new Kennedy Center in San Francisco.

Having lived near San Francisco for most of her life, Regina was the natural candidate for recruiting male and female students and artists to work at the new Center. “Use bunch of humanity majors, artist types. Most won’t like the idea, but enough will prefer working here to restaurant or construction sites. Besides, doing favor to humanity. Hitler flunked out. Pol Pot flunked out. Look what happened. Society needs keep rejected
intellectuals happy.”

Victor had released the three from their duties at the Washington, D.C. Kennedy Center (or “KCDC” as Victor referred to it) to go to “KCSF” to distinguish the good workers from the bad—the wheat from the chaff. Once the primary candidates had been chosen, Victor flew out to San Francisco, made the decisions, and returned to Washington, D.C. As a bonus for their efforts, Victor had given the three sisters two weeks off to return home at their leisure. They were instructed to visit Los Angeles on the way back, which could soon become home to another center of lupanarian licentiousness. This done, they could travel across America, doing as they pleased as long as they reached Washington, D.C., by May
1
,
1979
, a deadline which had
already passed.

Tony and the three had stopped at a local supermarket to stock up on supplies. At the store, they chanced upon the sheriff’s two sons when Coito accidentally on purpose knocked over a revolving rack of religious books. In the process of picking the books up under the watchful eye of the store manager, K and Co. revealed their desires to the two who had offered to help the three restore the books to an orderly state. Never one to pass up a chance to practice sacrilege, Coito accepted the brothers’ invitation to visit the Second First Baptist Church of Lewisville, deserted during midday, where the group of six, later joined by a friend of one of the brothers, could practice licentiousness
with impunity.

The relatively new church which they went to had a curious history. Fourteen years before, the Second First Baptist Church of Lewisville had broken away from the First Baptist Church of Lewisville in a doctrinal dispute over whether the washing of feet were a sacrament which should be performed by every member of the congregation. Mrs. Worthington and her husband led her pious group of feet washers out of the First Baptist Church when the church elders refused to force all members to wash one another’s feet. She and her followers then formed the Second First Baptist Church, confident that only those who attended their church would
reach Heaven.

It was this same Mrs. Worthington who discovered that seven sinners sinning were taking advantage of the empty church that Tuesday afternoon. The first sign that something was awry was the presence of three cars at the normally abandoned church, one of which had an out-of-state license plate. Mrs. Worthington carefully walked up the sidewalk to the church, making sure each step she took was dignified and befitting the behavior of a Christian. Mrs. Worthington had come to practice the organ for the Wednesday night prayer meeting, but when she got closer to the church, she heard sounds emanating from the organ Regina was playing with that were quite different from the organ Mrs. Worthington had come to play. Hearing this, Mrs. Worthington stopped, turned around, said a quick prayer, and walked straight back to her car, doing her best to ignore the salacious sounds filling
the church.

After receiving Mrs. Worthington’s phone call, Sheriff Kazan and his two deputies coordinated their activities so they would converge on the Second First Baptist Church’s parking lot simultaneously. Minutes after Tony had left the church to get some food, the entire Lewisville Sheriff’s Department arrived. They took out their guns and slowly approached God’s house. They went inside. Upon reaching the children’s Sunday School room, the sheriff was more shocked at what he saw than the six at what they were doing, for there the sheriff discovered Regina
in flagrante delicto
with his fornix fornicating son atop her. Coito was making obscene drawings on the chalkboard while Theodora and the sheriff’s other son were discussing things his mother had never
told him.

The three sisters were immediately taken into custody. Arrested, fingerprinted, and booked for trespassing, the terrific trinity were deposited in the city jail next to the cell with Jeremy who was serving his third day in jail for a DUI. The sheriff’s two sons and their friend, being members of the Second First Baptist Church of Lewisville, were not guilty of trespassing, were charged with no crimes, and were set free. After all, it had taken the sheriff’s two sons over a year after graduating from high school to find a job, and the sheriff wanted to make sure they didn’t lose their one opportunity to earn a
minimum wage.

Normally, sexual escapades such as this would not have provoked such a strong reaction, but Sheriff Kazan had made big plans for his prisoners. There was an election coming up in July, and the sheriff needed favorable headlines in the local newspaper, now published three times a week, to ensure his re-election. The sheriff had hoped that by obtaining the conviction of the three for their sexual excesses, he would get the voters so entranced by the scurrilous stories told during the trial, that the townspeople would forget Sheriff Kazan’s public record and vote for him again. The only problem with this plan was how to convict the three without involving his two children and turning these events into a political debacle. Fearing that his plan might backfire, the sheriff had begun to seriously consider letting the three go free, and started praying that some other fortuitous crime might occur to keep him from having to run for office on his
record alone.

Sheriff Kazan never had to decide whether to release the three sisters since they made the decision for him. Around three-fifteen on the afternoon of the three’s escape, Sheriff Kazan received a call from Bill Oakes at one of the town’s two
7
-Elevens. A band of gypsies had driven up to the store and had tried to rob it, but when the gypsies had left the store, the hearse had disappeared. In the meantime, Bill Oakes, excited by the chance of finally getting to use one of the firearms he kept at the store, had removed a shotgun from the back and ran outside where he trained the gun on the confused gypsies hoping one of them might try to run away. After Sheriff Kazan and one of his deputies arrived, all six gypsies, including a ten-year-old boy and a twelve-year-old-girl, were arrested and put in the two squad cars which had come to take the accused into custody. With the gypsies arrested, Sheriff Kazan knew he could use the failed robbers for publicity and release the three sisters to protect his
two sons.

Twenty minutes after the three sisters had left town, the Warring brothers saw the sheriff pull up to the courthouse. After he parked the car in the RESERVED FOR SHERIFF space, Robert and George Warring walked over to Sheriff Kazan to tell him how much they liked the addition of topless policewomen to the force. Sheriff Kazan told the brothers to lay off the drinking or he would have to haul them in again and walked into the courthouse, not suspecting what had really happened. The sheriff led the arrested gypsies inside the building and took them straight to the jail cells in the back. Walking ahead of the sheriff, the gypsies’ mother was the first to see Deputy Sauras standing alone in the jail cell as naked as Noah. The mother quickly pushed her daughter into her skirts, lest the child see the naked deputy, and then started screaming about her misfortunes. It was then that Sheriff Kazan realized what
had happened.

“The prisoners escaped, sir,” reported
Deputy Sauras.

“I can see that, Bronty,” said the sheriff, looking for something to cover up the naked deputy while trying to ignore Deputy Duncan who was unable to control his laughter. Having found a sheet, the sheriff unlocked the cell door and gave the covering to Deputy Sauras, who walked out of the cell at last, only to receive a kick in the behind from Sheriff Kazan, causing the deputy to topple over and almost hit his head against the
opposite wall.

“I’m lucky it’s a warm day,” Deputy Sauras said after getting up off the floor and watching the sheriff push the gypsies into the two jail cells. “Otherwise I could have frozen to death.” The sheriff, having dispatched with the gypsies, just stared at him. “You’re not going to fire me, are you?” Deputy
Sauras asked.

“I would if I could, but your father practically funded my whole campaign last time. So help me though, if I lose the election in July, I can guarantee you that you won’t have a job. Christ Jesus, I was going to release the whores, and you let them escape. What the hell
happened, Bronty?”

“Well, I guess I shouldn’t’ve gone into
their cell.”

“You went into their cell?” asked the sheriff who spaced out
each word.

“Uh, huh, they needed a fourth hand for
cards, and…”

“I don’t even want to hear this. We’ve got to stop them before they get away. Don’t you see, you idiot, I was going to release them, but now we have to arrest them again so we can release
them again.”

“Well, if you were going to let them go, why don’t you just forget they were ever here?” asked
Deputy Sauras.

“Because half of the town must have seen them leave here half-wearing those uniforms, and if the newspaper ever finds out all the facts, my chances for reelection will be doomed
for sure.”

The sheriff knew this meant that many people in town had heard about the escape by now, but rather than waste his time yelling at Deputy Sauras, Sheriff Kazan decided to try and find out all he could about the three’s escape. Though Deputy Sauras had not seen the three drive away in the hearse, other loyal citizens had seen the incident, and Robert Warring even remembered the license plate number. The gypsies confirmed that it was their stolen hearse the three had escaped in. “We got the hearse because we needed the extra room,” one of the gypsies explained to the sheriff. “It’s not like the old days when you had a horse to pull your wagon around in. We have to stay up with the times too,
you know.”

Since the Три сeстры, Olga, Maria, and Irina, already had a thirty-minute head start, the sheriff realized he had little chance of catching up with them himself. He reluctantly put out an all-points bulletin for the three and prayed they would be caught before his political opponents realized what had happened. The three sisters, however, were already preparing to leave the
state behind.

CHAPTER III

And the city shall be accursed, even it, and all that are therein, to the Lord: only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent.

–
Joshua
6
:
17

raveling along the back roads of Tennessee and Kentucky at night, Tony and the three sisters succeeded in evading both the police and the members of the public who had been told about the three’s unusual escape by the media. Coito was delighted when she found a short article about their jailbreak on page eleven of a Tennessee newspaper (with less important stories about wars, terrorism, manmade and natural disasters, famines, social gossip, murders and political campaigns preceding it). She bought a half-dozen copies of the newspaper for posterity, but Theodora was less than pleased with their
newfound notoriety.

One reason for the three’s success in evading attention was that they spent the night exploring the less-traveled roads of Tennessee and Kentucky, rested during the morning hours, and waited until it was dusk to continue their travels. Coito’s copulating caravan passed the day following their escape near a river where Tony, the three, and Sister Carla swam and frolicked in the water as Adam and Eve might have done before the fall. While Coito dunked Theodora underwater and raced Tony down the stream, Regina sunbathed to improve her tan. When the others got out of the water, Regina made up stories for the others about “the farmer’s son seduced by a nun who finally found what was fun” for all to enjoy. Before long the sun began to set, and the three knew they would have to be moving on so they could make it to the Rams’ residence before sunrise.

Relaxed and refreshed by their daylong stay, the group pushed forward. Two days after stealing the hearse, all save Regina were tired of the car and had discovered why the hearse had never proven popular with the American public. The car got terrible gas mileage, and it had little power under the hood. Whenever they filled it up, passersby stopped to watch them: three women, a penguin, and a Nelson Eddy look-alike in a hearse being a curious sight. Tony had yet to learn how to maneuver the car skillfully; Coito was tired of listening to popular radio stations; Theodora constantly fretted that a roadblock awaited them around each turn; and Sister Carla panted because the air conditioner was out of commission (though driving at night partially remedied this situation). The group could think of no greater blessing than being able to finally get rid of
the hearse.

It was almost daybreak when Sister Carla and the lascivious ladies of lust finally arrived at the True Love Mortuary in the midst of eastern Kentucky’s hills and mountains. The morning hours revealed a different world from the carefree area surrounding the river where they had bathed the day before. Driving through the darkness, they had reached the desolate hills of eastern Kentucky not suspecting how much the scenery had changed. As the mists slowly gave way to daylight, the surrounding countryside revealed itself. The group saw the area’s natural beauty which Theodora had nostalgically recalled, the verdant mountains and white oaks which had been there for millennia; however, the beauty which they beheld was spoiled by the ubiquitous hills of slag, deep “hollers,” and rundown shacks which reminded the three that man was nearby. The group drove further and further up into the mountains as fog, smoke, and heavy dust replaced the morning mists, causing the hills to appear further away than they actually were. “Try living here and be optimistic,” Theodora
told Coito.

Slowly winding along the roads through the Appalachians, the three arrived at the True Love Mortuary about an hour after sunrise just as Mrs. Ram was beginning to cook breakfast for her husband. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief that they had arrived safely, but even before Tony had parked the car, Theodora jumped out and ran up to the door of the Rams’ house, hoping that her friends still lived there. She knocked, smelled the morning cooking, knocked again, and waited until Mr.
Ram appeared.

“Theodora,” Mr. Ram cried out in surprise. “Is that really you? Why, what are you doing back here, girl? Sure been a long time since we
seen you.”

“Four years, Abe” Theodora indicated. Mr. Ram seemed not to have changed very much since she had last seen him. He was still lean and of medium height, but he was beginning to stoop a little. Never having had to work in the mines, he had not grown prematurely old like so many of the people she had
met there.

“The way you done disappeared on us, we thought something’d swallowed you up whole,” Mr. Ram laughed. “If you were gonna go, least you could’ve done was
told us.”

“I guess I did leave rather suddenly,” Theodora apologized. “But it was a spur of the moment
decision, and…”

“Aw, never mind about that. I’m just happy you come back to visit us. Mother,” Mr. Ram called to his wife. “Theodora’s back, and she’s got some friends
with her.”

In a matter of seconds Mrs. Ram was at the door, wiping her hands in her apron and apologizing for her appearance. Theodora noticed that her hair was now completely white. She was a head shorter than her husband, but she was still as lively as ever. “What they didn’t give me in size, they gave me in spirit,” she always
told everyone.

“Well, I’ll be,” Mrs. Ram declared, standing akimbo. “I sure never thought we’d see you again. Get in here out of the morning air,” ordered
Mrs. Ram

“All right,”
accepted Theodora.

“You aren’t going to catch a death of cold while I’m around, girl. So what brings you back around this neck of the woods? You back
for good?”

“No, Mary. I don’t think so. The four of us, well, actually we’re in a bit of trouble with the law, and so I thought if anyone would help us
you would.”

“With the law?” said Mr. Ram loudly since he had grown hard
of hearing.

“Yes, you see we got in trouble for, uh, trespassing, and they put us in jail. But K, she got us out, well actually we broke out, and so for the past couple days we’ve been trying to keep out of sight,” Theodora explained, purposely evading the more interesting details of
the story.

“Well, everyone runs into trouble once in a while,” reassured Mrs. Ram. “In fact, y’ain’t considered one of the folks until you do if you live around here. Ain’t that
so, Abe?”

“I guess
so, Mother.”

“So where’d all
this happen?”

“Down
in Tennessee.”

“Well, don’t worry, you can stay here as long as you like. We’ll prove there’s still some folks around who stick by their friends.” Just then Coito walked up with Sister Carla.

“Is that a penguin?” Mrs. Ram
asked hesitantly.

“Yes, she’s sort of a mascot of ours, a little nun,” Theodora smiled. “Victor—he’s our employer—he gave her to us last year as a Christmas present. Sister Carla came all the way from the Falkland Islands, didn’t she?” Theodora asked the penguin. “That’s near Antarctica. Actually, she’s more Regina’s than
anyone else’s.”

“I wanted to call her Mephistopheles,” interjected Coito. “But Regina convinced everyone else to call her Sister Carla, and that name won out over mine. So like it or not, that’s
her name.”

“And who
is this?”

“This is Coito Gott, but everyone calls her K. Actually, it’s because of her that I left here four years ago. Oh, and this is Tony Olisbos, a . . . a friend. Where’s Regina?” Theodora
asked Tony.

“She said she wanted to look around the cemetery and added something about Universal Pictures, but told me she’d be back in a
little bit.”

“Well, come on in and I’ll fix you up something to eat,” Mrs. Ram told everyone. Tony and Coito followed Theodora and the Rams through the hallway and back into
the kitchen.

“I don’t know if you remember, but I was pretty depressed the last few months I was here,” began Theodora, attempting to explain her
sudden disappearance.

“I’ll say you were,” interrupted K. “You know what was the first thing I said when I saw her? She was sitting by her broken-down car looking like her pet cat had just been run over, and all I could do was get real serious, look her straight in the face, and ask, ‘Where’s
the body?’”

“That’s right,”
laughed Theodora.

“What was the matter, Theodora?” asked Mrs. Ram who was standing over the stove while the three sat around the Rams’ small
dinner table.

“Oh, it’s a long story and kind of hard to explain now.” Theodora paused to catch her thoughts. “You see, when I decided to come here to work with people instead of teaching somewhere, I did it because I thought I had spent too much time hiding behind my books. I thought I had to get out in the real world to help people, not just study them
in books.”

“I remember you used to read a lot,” said
Mr. Ram.

“I still do, but anyway, the first few months I was up here, I really enjoyed it. It was so different from college or the convent or my home. It was such a change of pace. You remember how I was when I first met you two, but my early enthusiasm turned sour when people started to take me for granted and treat me like I was
their servant.”

“Now, Theodora,” said Mrs. Ram. “We never treated you that way,
did we?”

“Oh no, you didn’t. If everyone had been as nice as you two, I’d probably still be here. But they weren’t. I got to hate some of the people like Mrs.
Rosewood, who—”

“No one likes Mrs. Rosewood, Theodora,” advised
Mrs. Ram.

“Yes, I know, but there were too many people like her. I got to feel like I was being used as a scapegoat for everyone else’s problems. Most of the people just looked at me and saw my habit, not the person underneath it. Here I was supposed to spend my whole life helping them, but they could have cared less about me. I met with the same stubborn indifference day after day after day, and I just couldn’t accept living like that for the rest of my life.” Theodora reflected. “I guess I had unrealistic expectations about what it would be like down here, but it just got to the point where I couldn’t stand it
any longer.”

“So when I met Thea, it was easy to talk her into leaving,” added Coito. “She jumped in my car, and off we sped into
the sunset.”

“I don’t mean to interrupt you there, but wasn’t that a hearse I saw you coming out of?” asked
Mr. Ram.

“That was our getaway car,” declared Regina in sinister undertones as she walked into the room, returning from
the cemetery.

“Mary, Abe, this is Regina Grant, the last of
our group.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Regina curtsied. “I like
your cemetery.”

“Thank you,” accepted
Mr. Ram.

“We brought the hearse hoping you would take it off our hands and help us get back to Washington, D.C., in return,”
added Theodora.

“But if you don’t want it, we’ll be happy to keep it,” Regina
quickly added.

“No, we won’t,” cut in K sharply. “It’s a fairly new hearse, and I think you’d
like it.”

“Yes, K, but they should also know that the air conditioner doesn’t work and that it’s,” Theodora hesitated, “it’s stolen. But besides that it’s a
great car.”

“’Fraid a hearse won’t do us no good anymore, Theodora,” said a downcast
Mr. Ram.

“Why not?”

“Well, I don’t know how to say this, but we won’t be in the business much longer. Don’t have much of a
choice, either.”

“What do
you mean?”

“Well, it all started about six months ago,” Mr. Ram began. “That was when Mrs. Cartwright died. She was sixty-eight, been widowed for twenty years. Anyway, we had her buried here, and Rev. Pike took care of the funeral service just like he always done. Mrs. Cartwright’s plot was down the hill over there, so we put her in old Bessie—that’s what we used to call our hearse,” he explained to Regina, “and drove Mrs. Cartwright over by where she was going to be buried. We had to carry the casket down to the plot a ways, so we left Bessie on top of the hill like always. Well, the services got started, and Rev. Pike was hollering and yelling like he always done and everyone was following
right along.”

“Except Mrs. Cartwright’s sister. I remember looking at her right before it happened, and she was asleep,” interrupted
Mrs. Ram.