Love, Felony Style

I've told you about M2 before, haven't I? She started at the probation department about six months before I did, so she's been here a little over 13 years. I've previously described her as stubborn, spiky-haired and able to make grown men twice her size tremble in fear. She sort of reminds you of how Cruella DeVille might be after she found the Lord.

M2 was one of three perennially single officers - she, Rose, and myself. The three of us have all gotten married in the last few years - first Rose, then me, then M2. This proved a source of consternation for our defendants, many of who were convinced we were involved in an ongoing menage a trois. They based these assumptions on such irrefutable evidence as our tendency to eat lunch together several times a week.

My father has performed all three weddings and of the three, only mine wasn't a secret. He did Rose's wedding twice - the first time in secret and the second time a full show for friends and family. The big payoff came at the end of the service when instead of the usual pronouncement of "husband and wife" they revealed that they'd actually gotten married three months earlier. It certainly made for a more interesting than average receiving line.

M2 called me up one day and asked for my father's phone number. I guess after growing up as a preacher's kid I learned not to ask questions because I gave her the number and promptly forgot all about it. A month or so later she showed up for work all martimonized, having had her wedding dinner at the Dairy Queen in Friona, Texas with only my parents in attendance.

One day last week M2 came into my office and collapsed in a chair.

"Oh. My. God." M2 is almost never flustered. "You are not going to believe this."

She told me when she went out to the waiting room to collect her first appointment of the day, a tall, wiry black man asked to speak to her. She asked him what he wanted. He told her he would like to speak to her in her office, not the waiting room. She asked his name but he declined to give it until they spoke in private. She was somewhat exasperated, and told him she had other people to see. He could wait until she was finished if he wished. He said that was fine.

When he finally did get to M2's office, the first thing she wanted to know was his name. He told her it was Bobby Cole. She immediately remembered him - he'd finished up a 9-year felony probation almost 2 years ago. His wife divorced him about a year ago (after finishing two felony probations herself) because she finally figured out she'd be better off without him.

"What did you need to talk to me about, Mr. Cole?"
"Are you married?"

Its hard to catch M2 off guard, but that did. Speechless, all she could do was hold out her left hand and show him the ring.

"Well, I saw you at the post office on Friday, and I thought it was fate. I knew I wanted to see you and ask you out." He sighed. "I guess I should ask - are you still married?"

M2 found her voice and reassured him that she was most certainly still married and thoroughly uninterested in him. Bobby was somewhat deflated and got up to leave. When he was out the door, M2 reached for her glass of tea because she "needed a drink". Just as she took a swig, he stuck his head back in the door.

"By the way, what's your name?"


When M2 told me this story I couldn't stop laughing. Not only is Bobby a convicted felon with a failed marriage and a dead end job, he is sixty-three years old!