Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 10:34:50 -0800 (PST)
From: kevin Donovan <letsgonaked2000@yahoo.com>
Subject: closets, chapter six

This is a work of gay erotic fiction.  It contains graphic descriptions of
sex between adult consenting males.  Do not read it if such scenes are
offensive to you, if they are illegal where you are, or if you are underage
in your jurisdiction.  None of these events or characters are real.

Your encouraging comments are greatly appreciated.

CLOSETS CHAPTER SIX
THE WILL

	Mr. Spurlock gathered us in one of his firm's conference rooms, as
there were too many for his office.  Besides the four of us, both Dalton
and Peter DuPree were present.  So were both of Calvin's parents, Ruth Ann
and Otis McGinnis.  Lonnie's younger sister, Rhonda, a pretty and busty
eighteen-year-old, was introduced to me.  I also met Dr. Ford, the
minister.

	There was no narrative of explanation, or letters to the
beneficiaries, or anything dramatic like that.  It boiled down to pretty
simple, but clear directives.  There were funds invested with the bank,
which Mr. Spurlock was directed to pay out as follows: $100,000 each to
Ruth Ann, Calvin, Lonnie, Rhonda, and the church; the remainder, a tad over
$300,000, to me.  I was instructed to continue to pay Lonnie's tuition,
books, and housing until he received his undergraduate degree, which was
only one more semester.  But I was also instructed to do the same for
Calvin, who was only half finished, and for Rhonda, who had just graduated
from high school!  (There went my cash!) There was stock currently valued
at some $354,000 which would go to me.  There was a piece of property
comprised of 380 acres of woodland and pasture, with a 28-acre lake, owned
jointly by J. P. and Peter DuPree.  J. P. left his half to Peter, but
expressed the wish that Peter would transfer ownership jointly to Bryce and
me, either now or in his own will.

	Then Mr. Spurlock paused, and cleared his throat.  The rest was a
bit more complicated, he said, and would require some careful thought on my
part.  Grand-daddy had other real-estate holdings valued at some seventeen
million dollars, with about a quarter of that value mortgaged, as some of
his more recent construction and acquisitions were not yet paid for.  The
real estate produced a net income of approximately one and a half one half
to one and three-quarters of a million dollars per annum.  Then there was
the residence and its contents, valued at some three and a half million
dollars.  All were to go to me-- on the condition that I become a legal
resident of South Carolina and reside in the residence for at least six
months and one day of every year for the next twenty-five years.

	Should I decline that proviso, the real estate was to go to Bryce,
under the same conditions.  If Bryce also declined or was found to forfeit,
then all the holdings were to be liquidated by Mr. Spurlock or his
successor, and the proceeds, less his fees, were to be divided equally
among all of the beneficiaries of the will.  Any one of them had the right
to challenge in court if I, or Bryce, failed to honor the conditions of the
will.

	There was a long silence, and Mr. Spurlock cleared his throat
again.  I guess we were all pretty impressed with the estate old J. P. had
made for himself, and implications of the conditions for all of us. Bryce
spoke first.

	"Jamie, I'm just starting my pediatric practice.  The last thing I
need is a hassle with real estate and houses now.  Take the inheritance,
and live where you please...."

	"We'd love to have you live here, but we aren't going to be
counting the days you're in town, Jamie," began Lonnie.

	"This is rightfully your inheritance," broke in Ruth Ann, "No one
here is going to question that.  You have to be free to live your own life,
Jamie."  But she couldn't help cutting her eyes around meaningfully at
Rhonda.

	I raised both hands, and put an end to their consolations.  "It's
O. K.  Mr.  Spurlock, I will take on the responsibility my grandfather has
left to me.  I will live here in Hebron, at least half the year."

	There were relieved and pleased looks all around, except possibly
from Dr. Ford.  I went on.

	"I don't know why, but somehow, when I got off the plane, maybe
before, I knew I would be staying here.  Maybe in the back of my mind, I
always knew, at least since my dad died.  You're all very kind to be
concerned about my happiness, but please don't.  I'm sure I will adapt just
fine."  Well, hell, they all had to know that assets like those promised
would have to help in that regard!

	On the inside, though, I was stunned.  I don't know where that
little speech had come from, because I had never had any such thoughts
consciously.  I'd been too busy having sex, for one thing.  Of course, I
knew Grand-daddy had substantial real estate holdings, and that they would
have to be managed.  I had had no time to consider what to do about the
house, but if his cremains were interred there, I couldn't just sell it.
Somehow, this all began to make sense, and I realized that it had been
Grand-daddy's plan for years.

	He had never pushed me to study law, but he had been enormously
pleased when I announced that course of study.  He was fine about my
selection of Columbia, though he commented that the Columbia in South
Carolina would be better preparation for licensing in that state.  I
remembered letting that comment pass unanswered, since I had no intention
of being licensed to practice there.  He had made some suggestions about
getting licensed to sell and broker real estate also, which I had let pass.
All of that was in my mind subconsciously, but I had never thought it all
through before.  Yet, I had been uncharacteristically reluctant to commit
to any of the offers made to me to practice law in New York or
Pennsylvania.  I wasn't even crazy about the prospect of having a career in
the practice of law.  Now, it all made sense.

	Clearly, I had some thinking and digesting to do.

	But right now, Mr. Spurlock was talking.  He had said something to
cause Peter, Dalton, Bryce, and Dr. Ford to rise and begin to excuse
themselves.  Whatever it was, I had missed it.

	Once they had gone, however, Spurlock folded his hands and looked
meaningfully at Ruth Ann, then at Calvin.  Ruth Ann looked down at her
purse in her lap, and Calvin looked quizzically back at him.  Satisfied
that he knew the status of their part in what he had to report, he cleared
his throat again, and began to speak.

	"I don't know, Jamie, if you are aware that I have a connection to
your family."

	I shook my head, and he continued.

	"No reason you should, of course, except that I have somewhat of an
inside track on some things that your grandfather would have explained to
you about now, and he would want me to explain to you and the others under
the present circumstances.  You see, his older brother Seth, who operated
the original family lumber and hardware businesses over near Florence,
married my mother's sister, and was therefore my uncle.  I knew your
grandfather from childhood, and I have served as his own attorney, and he
mine, as long as I have practiced law."

	"I have a story to tell you, which will explain how all of us came
to be here today.  You see, the Carters have been a prominent family in
this region for some two hundred years or more.  They have had a certain
position in society, and they have, for the most part, tried to maintain
that position in some dignity and respectability.  There have been some,
shall we say, disappointments along that line, however, not all of which
have been handled by the family as well as we might, in hindsight, wish
for.

	"Now, in J. P.'s family, there were the brother Seth, who died
several years ago, and a sister Alma, who is still living up in Raleigh,
and who may be well enough still to attend the funeral on Friday.  But
there was a second sister, Sophia, who is no longer living.  Er, it is no
great secret among us in this room that the Carter men have somewhat of a
tendency to involve themselves with wild, handsome, and disreputable men."

	We sat quietly while this statement settled in the air around us.

	"Well, to multiply the tragedy, certain of the Carter women have
that same tendency.  Sophia was one of those.  Before she finished school,
she took up with a young rapscallion of nineteen or so, a fellow named
Riley Pruitt, and she ran off with him.  The family tracked her down and
got her back, but it was too late-she was pregnant.  Her father wanted to
send her away to "visit family connections" in the north somewhere, until
either the pregnancy could be terminated or, failing that, the baby put up
for adoption, but she insisted on marrying the father of her child,
thinking that the family would come around and give them support.  Instead,
they disowned her and had nothing further to do with her or her child.  She
gave birth to a son, whom she named Carter Pruitt, to spite her father.
There were no other children from that union, as Riley ran off as soon as
he found that Sophia would have no money from her family.  I believe he
worked a few odd jobs occasionally, construction and such, but his drinking
always put an end to it, and by the mid-1950's, he had drunk himself to
death.  Sophia worked in the cotton mill, and I think you know what kind of
a life that was for her and her children.  She died young, lung cancer.

	"Carter did not get much of a head start.  He went into the Army,
and might have come out of that pretty well, but he got himself a
dishonorable discharge.  He worked construction and common labor jobs, but
he was a drinker like his father.  He was also a looker like his father,
and he married a pretty young woman from the mill village named Molly
Riddle.

	Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Lonnie squirming in his
seat.  His sister looked at him gloomily.

	"Carter and Molly had two daughters, Emily and Peggy, about as
pretty a pair of girls as you'd ever want to meet.  But neither finished
high school.  Emily now runs a bar, or did last I heard, in Myrtle Beach.
She has had plenty of men in her life, but as far as I know, she never
married.  Peggy, on the other hand, stayed around here.  She's had a
difficult time of it.  At seventeen, she married a handsome devil of her
own, not unlike Riley and Carter.  His name is Ronnie Watkins, and he is
presently doing time over at the state penitentiary for a liquor store
heist.  Thank God, he didn't hurt anybody.  Because those two are the
parents of young Lonnie and Rhonda, here."

	Lonnie was uncharacteristically quiet, staring at his shoe.  I
think he would have been less embarrassed had he been made to stand on
Spurlock's desk, strip, and jerk off.  Rhonda just looked defiant.

	Holy shit, I thought, that makes them my cousins!  But they have an
extra generation worked in there, because they all had children so much
younger than my line did.  I couldn't figure the relationship-but anyway,
they were great-grandchildren of J.  P.'s sister.

	"All his life," Spurlock took up, "J. P. had a pronounced sense of
compassion at an injustice.  He was deeply offended at the wrong done to
Sophia, and saddened by the downward spiral he saw her family endure.  A
few years ago, when Ronnie was sentenced, he began to find ways to be
helpful to Peggy Watkins and her children.  It has been his intent to break
their cycle of poverty and marginalization for good, with this generation.
He intended to see them educated and in lucrative and respectable careers.
That is why, Jamie, he instructed you to continue to fund their college
educations."

	"Glad to do it," I responded.  But I was looking at Lonnie.  He
glanced up, a tear on his cheek, and gave me a small, shy smile.

	Mr. Spurlock now turned to Calvin.  "Now, I suppose, young man,
that you are wondering what all of this has to do with you.  I hope you
were listening earlier, because all of that genealogy belongs to you as
well, I'm afraid."

	Calvin looked up sharply at Ruth Ann, who was now dabbing her eyes
with a handkerchief, and then at Otis, who leaned forward, elbows on knees.

	"I tried to tell you before now, Calvin," Ruth Ann lamented.  "But
I couldn't find the words to do it.  I'm so sorry."

	Spurlock went on, more tenderly now.

       "Son, Ruth Ann and Otis are not your natural parents, but your
grandparents.  Please don't be angry with them.  They have given everything
to raise you up right, and they do love you with parents' love.  But your
birth mother is Emily Pruitt, the sister of Peggy Watkins.  Emily trumped
the socially unacceptable behavior of all of her forebears.  She took up
with a black man.  However, in this regard, she broke the pattern, because
this black man was not a wild, disreputable ne'er-do-well, like the others.
He was Darrien McGinnis, Ruth Ann and Otis's middle son.  A high school
graduate and headed for college, member of one of our black community's
most respected families.

       "It was 1983.  Long after segregation and Jim Crow, and all of that.
But here in South Carolina, mixed relationships were still very volatile
stuff.  Just for being seen with her, Darrien's life was threatened.
Marriage was out of the question, and I think it had only been a dalliance,
anyway.  He was to have a football scholarship over at Clemson, but that
was withdrawn, and instead, he went up north to Chicago.  Emily left the
state and has never come back.  It was J. P., urged by Ruth Ann and Otis,
who paid her off not to abort you, but to let them adopt and raise you
instead.  I know none of them has ever had a moment's regret about that.
But the point of the matter for today's business is this: you are also a
great-grandson of J. P.'s sister Sophia.  And that is why you are in his
will."

       Calvin was clearly struggling to maintain his composure, while at
the same time, not really wanting to.  I saw the muscles of his face
clenching.  I didn't know if he might break down crying or come out
fighting.  He looked at Ruth Ann.  Suddenly, he rose and bolted for the
door.  Ruth Ann burst into tears.  Otis looked even more glum.  Lonnie
seemed to be undecided how to respond as well.  Abruptly, he also got up
and hurried out after Calvin.  Rhonda rose more slowly, and sashayed
seductively out.  I suppose that was her best stab at dignity.

       I turned to Otis and Ruth Ann.

       "I'll do what I can," I said.

       They nodded.

        "I'll be fine at the house, Ruth Ann.  You be with your family, and
I'll see you tomorrow."

       Then I turned to Mr. Spurlock.

       "This is a lot to take in at once.  We can talk further after the
funeral?"

       I shook his hand, and Otis', and left the office.

       Lonnie, Calvin, Bryce, and I had driven over here together.  Bryce
obviously had left with his dad and grand-dad.  But what about Calvin and
Lonnie?  When I reached the Caddy, they were nowhere to be seen.

       Perhaps they would go back over to the club, but I had no idea what
other refuge they might have.  I got in the Caddy and went to my new home.

       * * *

       The place was exactly as it had been, yet totally different.  It was
now really mine.  I stripped off my clothes and draped them over the stair
rail, in case I needed them to answer the door.  My mind began to clear
almost instantly.  I wandered into the kitchen and made myself a plate of
salad and fruit.  But I felt pretty silly sitting at any of the tables by
myself, in kitchen, dining room, or library.  Finally, I settled on the
patio, where I sat on the lower section of a padded chaise to inhale my
lunch and reflect on the day's events.  As I munched my meal and sipped
Diet Cola, I realized that I had no problem, really, living in my
grandparents' house, or the ancestral home town where my father had grown
up.  It wouldn't be where I lived that would make me happy, it would be
with whom I lived.  But living alone was already getting old, and it had
only been fifteen minutes.  I had already been a choice catch in the looks
department.  Now, my fortune should make me a very eligible bachelor,
indeed.  But what about me?  Who would love me for myself, and let me give
love in return?  On the one hand, it seemed I had no prospects at all.  On
the other, there was that one prospect that I dared not even think of, lest
I jinx it.

       I rose and wandered around the first floor of the house.  On this
visit, I had entered only the kitchen, family dining, and foyer areas, and
I wondered if the rest of the house had changed much.  It hadn't.  The
large parlor, library, formal dining room, and family sitting room were
just as I remembered them.  It was a lot of house for me to rattle around
in by myself.

	When I don't have anything else to do, and especially when I have a
lot to absorb, I tend to go to bed.  Upon arising, I usually find a lot has
been settled while I slept.  So I grabbed my clothes and went upstairs to
the so-far-unused guest room bed.  I was sound asleep within five minutes
of crawling in.  I seemed to go immediately into a vivid and symbolic
dream.


       I was in a long hallway that stretched interminably.  It was
carpeted and freshly painted, like a hotel corridor, and it had doors on
each side.  I was naked, of course, but unconcerned about that.  I turned
to my right and opened a door.

       It was the door to a large closet.  Inside, Dad and Dalton DuPree,
both naked and much younger than today, were kissing deeply.  Unaware of my
presence, Dad knelt and took Dalton's dick into his mouth, clearly enjoying
it as much as Dalton was.  He opened his eyes and saw me there.  Smiling,
he lipped the head of Dalton's dick, and winked at me.  Dalton turned his
head also and smiled at me.  I closed the door and moved on.

       I opened a door on the opposite side, and found another closet.
This one contained a naked and perspiring Lonnie, bent at the waist, and
Calvin, fucking him strenuously from behind.  They looked me up and down
lasciviously.  "You're next," said Calvin.  I closed the door.

        In the seemingly endless succession of closets, the next one
revealed Grand- daddy, naked.  He had a perplexed look on his face. "Try to
understand, Jamie," he said.  "It only looks easy afterward.  When you're
in it, life is hard.  I had a different set of choices from you."

       I fled to another door.  My mother sat inside, rocking and knitting,
but not naked.  She looked over her glasses at me.  "I did love him, you
know," she said.  "Can you understand that?  Or that I still do?"

       I let that door close and tried another.  My grand-mother, dressed
for church, looked intently at me from within.  "Whatever you do, Jamie,
don't marry.  No woman deserves that.  At least spare us that."

       I was beginning to feel frightened.  I opened another door.  Dad
again, still naked, but alone, older now.  "You are my joy, Jamie," he
said, and leaning forward, he kissed me tenderly.  The sensation of his
kiss descended through my body and settled permanently in the vicinity of
my solar plexus.

       But he dissolved, and the door closed.  I opened it again, but he
was gone.  Instead, I saw a naked Peter DuPree.  He spoke almost sternly.
"Love is all there is, really, Jamie.  Just love, and to hell with
everything else.  Break your heart for love, or it will break for lack of
love.  That last way never stops hurting."

       Somehow, the door was closed, and another opened.  It was Calvin,
nude and alone, crying.  "They just should have told me, that's all," he
sniffed.  "I'm not mad because she was white-I'm embarrassed because she
was such a tramp!"  He slammed the door in my face.

       I opened yet another door.  It was as if Bryce DuPree had been
waiting for me there.  He also was naked, looking much as he had at the
club last night, as he watched me drop my shorts, after already losing his.
Hi weight was on one leg, hand on opposite hip in an enticing pose.  His
magnificent dick hung tantalizingly.  His handsome face opened happily in
that welcoming, wet-your-pants, sexy smile.  An enormous feeling of relief
flowed over me, and I began to step inside his closet with him.  But,
smiling still, he shook his head gently, and pushed me back out. My face
fell.  I felt tears of rejection begin to flow.  I closed my eyes.  I felt
his firm hands grip my biceps, his lips kiss my cheeks dry.  He stepped out
into the hallway to join me, and the closet door closed behind him.  He
enfolded me gently into his brawny arms and planted his mouth on mine.  We
kissed deeply.

       My eyes opened, and I found real lips of flesh pressing against
mine, real greyish eyes crinkled in smile gazing into mine.  But the eyes I
gazed into, and the mouth that surrounded mine, were Lonnie's.

       I blinked with surprise, and Lonnie grinned.

       "'Bout time you woke up!  I've been kissing on you for at least a
minute!  You're cute when you sleep, Jamie.  Your face all scrunched up and
pouty.  Hey, have you been crying?  You inherit a zillion dollars, and you
come home and cry yourself to sleep?"

       "I don't know if I understand it, either..  I'm just feeling a
little blue today, that's all-Well, here it is.  I have money, but then I
never was really without money, so that doesn't mean to me what it does to
most people.  But what I really want is my dad, and my grand-dad.  It seems
like when I had them, I was too young and stupid to enjoy them, and now,
they're gone.  But I want something else, too, I don't know how to say it."

       I felt weight on the other side of the bed, and rolled over.  There
sat Calvin on the other side, looking at me inquisitively.  In real life,
both men were as naked as in the dream.

       "You O. K., Calvin?"

       "I'm going to be fine."  His mood was clearly much improved.

       "I talked some sense into him," laughed Lonnie.

       "Fuck you. Look, Lonnie doesn't understand this, but maybe you can,
being a Yankee and all.  See, this thing about my birth mother, it's so
screwed up.  In the white community, she brought shame on her family by
going with a black man, any black man.  But in the black community, he
brought shame on his family, too-not because she was white, but because she
was not respectable.  That's why my parents--and they'll always be my
parents, because they raised me-couldn't bring themselves to tell me.  To
black people, respectability is not about money or race, it's about the way
you honor who you are, and the place you have in the community."

       "I think I can understand that."

       Now Calvin smiled, his green eyes gleaming shyly.

       "We came to offer you a good fuck to celebrate, but now, well how
about a good fuck to cheer you up?"

       "That's pretty much the cure for everything with you, isn't it?"

       He shrugged as if he couldn't see how anyone could argue with that.

       As a matter of fact, I really couldn't.

       "Sure, why not.  But are you forgetting that I couldn't get it up if
you tied a balloon to it?"

       "We thought of that.  But we can get it up.  And we both haven't had
nearly enough of your sweet honky ass."

       I kicked the covers back.  "So, who goes first?"

       Calvin's answer was to roll over onto me, his knees between mine,
his nose to mine, and give me a long kiss.  I felt his big dick grinding
against mine.  Then, he began a thrusting motion, sliding back and forth
against my pubic area, all the time tonguing my mouth passionately.  I felt
Lonnie move as he leaned over to the night stand.  There were rubbers and
lube in this one, too!  His hand smeared cool lubricant over Calvin's south
pole, and my south hole together.  Calvin held still for a moment, while
Lonnie unrolled the latex onto his member.  Then, with Lonnie's guidance,
it went straight into me like the proverbial knife through butter.

       I like it kind of rough, really.  I want to feel a man enter me.
And I certainly felt Calvin!  I grasped him with my ass muscles, and clung
to him as he pulled back most of the way out, then I relaxed as he plunged
back in to the base.  He soon got a rhythm going, and I just lay back to
enjoy the ride.  I felt his cock head rap firmly against my prostate at
each thrust.

       "Good thing we are all guys, you know," commented Lonnie as he
watched us hunching away.  We were too busy to answer, so he continued.
"We'd wind up making some pretty deformed babies, the way we fuck, being
cousins and all.'

       "We wear condoms," grunted Calvin.

       He let that drop, but I wondered if Lonnie's mind was working on
some plan about that.  He moved around between our legs and busied himself
licking both our balls and cracks while Calvin continued to bone me at a
steady pace.  I pulled my feet up and rested them on Lonnie's shoulder
blades.

       It took Calvin fifteen minutes to cum, and when he did, it was a
vocal and exuberant orgasm.  His back was sweaty, and he shuddered with the
contraction.  He collapsed onto my chest and lay against me, his pleasing
weight pressing down to remind me that I had a man on me and in me, while
Lonnie got himself a condom on.  Calvin rolled off, and Lonnie rolled on.
I was plenty slick and opened up.  Lonnie slid right in up to the hilt, and
then pulled out so that his dick head was an inch out of my ass, then he
slammed it back in all the way.  He did this a number of times, pounding my
ass hard.  After that, though, he settled down to fuck me much more gently
and lovingly.  By the time he ejaculated, he was just lying atop me and
bobbing slightly, like a raft on a lake.

       I felt his cock spasm inside me, and wished, as I always do, that I
could have the jizz pumped into me, and not the condom.  At twenty-four,
I'd never bare-backed!  But in that regard, I was saving myself for
marriage.

       Lonnie lay atop me for a long time.  He asked if he was too heavy,
but I said no, I like a man on me.  He liked that response.

       Eventually, though, he peeled himself off of my sweaty chest and
stomach, and the three of us adjourned to the shower.  We soaped one
another sensuously, made out in the shower, and felt one another up.

       "I think I'm ready to go again," said Calvin.

       "Me, too," grinned Lonnie.

       "Well, the house is clean, and the welcome mat is out."

       We dried one another, and returned to the bed.  This time, Lonnie
plopped down in the middle of the bed, and I came up between his legs on
hands and knees to suck him, while Calvin pistoned me doggy-style.  There
was still plenty of goo inside my ass, even though the outside had been
washed.  Calvin fucked strenuously, invading deep within my bowel at each
thrust.  I loved the slap of his hips against my buttocks.  After a while,
his low-hanging balls got to swinging so that they would collide gently
with mine on each down-stroke, providing even more stimulation.

       Calvin filled his second rubber, and then he changed places with
Lonnie.  I cleaned up his dick for him, even though it tasted like latex at
first, until I had cleaned all that off.  The slap-slapping continued at my
backside, with Lonnie's balls now swinging just as Calvin's had.

       On the theory that Calvin's dick might be tender now, I concentrated
my sucking efforts on his balls and perineum area.  He laid back with eyes
closed, peeking occasionally to enjoy watching Lonnie's athletic frame
flexing behind my butt.

       I wasn't too surprised, even after last night's exercise, that my
own dick began to get hard, too.  It was Calvin who noticed it.  He pointed
out that he still hadn't had that big dong inside of him yet.  When Lonnie
finished me off with a moaning, hard-thrusting cum, I just fell onto Calvin
and gave him a ride, too.  What a tight young hole that stud had!  He had
said earlier that he is primarily a top and had only been on the receiving
end a handful of times.  I felt privileged to service him.  It took me a
while to do it, but I produced a respectable ejaculation for him, as Lonnie
licked on my ass and pulled on my balls from the rear.

       After a nice, long afterglow, with the three of us laid out in a row
on the bed on our backs, I asked, "So what should we do tonight?  Go to the
club again?"

       "Oh," said Calvin, sitting bolt upright.

       "What?"

	"Well...last night, while you and Bryce were on the tables...I had
a few more drinks...you know, I stayed right there at the bar the whole
time to make sure you were alright...well, I might have mentioned to one or
two guys how you had an awful lot of food and drink over here that somebody
needs to eat...well, someone asked if you would be home tonight to receive
well-wishers, and I said I was sure you would be...and I'm afraid the word
may have gotten around some."

	"Oh, really.  Around the club, or around town?"

	"Hard to say for sure, but probably just the club."

	"How many guys are we talking about here?"

	"Well, I only told two.  I'd say, the way things go around here,
count on maybe forty.  Or fifty?"

	The way things go around here, indeed.

	I'd become the life of the town in one day.