PART FOUR – the Aftermath

   Well, we took our conference a third time. It wasn't easy even after repeating the run several times. You simply have your tough teams in your conference somewhere that year, and they're on your schedule and in your way. The coach's European based style of fast moving, fast shifting skill game? Has morphed into an even more complicated Swiss watch of a changing everything. Our game never sits still.

   The game style itself provides a seeming complexity to our game. No one knows what field conditions are affecting our switched positions and field placement. That's the big Bloody Bridesmaids team secret. Our playbook, our plays. The big secret? Is that we don't even have one. No one is expected to memorize "plays". We drill on our automatic skills a lot, but if there's anything, there's only one real play.

   The closer the ball is to the net, and for longer? The much vaunted red zone. I don't play my position, of fullback. Not really. I just start there. The closer the ball is to the net? The closer I'm playing up. If the ball is in or near your red zone? So am I.

   Most scores are from the red zone. If the ball is in or near it? There's an extra player up in there too. A big strong versatility player, that gets physical and is smart with constant roving blinds and screens and everything else. With extra girls up in the red zone? We can make it very difficult to get the ball out of your red zone. Up here, Lightning and Right and their center feeding them constantly is its own bad threat.

   When our coach found Little Lightning, he obtained his first mega star. He already had felt lucky landing Right as another star freshmen, and now he somehow had the Pride of the Midwest expressing every interest in the world, and out of the blue and with no recruitment beyond standard mail outs. He saw solid gold in his line up on his building team.

   It worked. Light and Right teamed up and quit being jealous of each other quick. From then on, we had a young, highly talented front line. Most teams get one star wing, the lethal sharpshooter, and things like speed, ball handling and ball stealing quality just added to their star shine. We had two of them, both top of the line. The coach just needed a competent or better center to feed these snipers.

   Sunny has proved better than Miss Moody, though its painful to admit it. She's about the same skill set as Moody, but just feeds Light and Right and sets about helping them keep possession and keep working. As a new freshman center? She's scared and intimidated. Her job being explained to her as the easiest thing in the world? Stay near Light and Right. Feed them. Steal the ball? Get it to them. Start passing around, take possession and drag the other team to the ball? Then feed Right and Light at angles.

   It works. I basically play up most of the time. Other girls come up and sort of guard the back of the red zone when we have it up there. We move up more, and in, and make more of a mismatch. You're forced to drag your entire team up and back, into a glut.

   More players in a smaller area is a cluster fuck. The longer we keep possession in your red zone by bringing up a fullback and parking her on your ass, the more this dense mess exists. You can't read things coming in, like normal play. The bulk of a normal team's drilling? Is on nothing playing us. We're infamous stats hogs in our conference. If we're not scoring? We keep doing it anyways. The other team gets desperate, and starts clearing the ball. Back where we have less people, taking the heat out of their hot kitchen.

   We drill on that. The new Bootsie is playing alone. Up from the goalie, who is out the box and up a little as well. After a clear, she eats up time slowly bringing it up. Allowing people in switched positions and playing up to react back out of the red zone. I work back, and I don't have to sprint. Half backs are all doing what I'm doing, too. One of them more than the other. They switch with each other, and stagger out in their own drills.

   What seems like a complicated system, the big secret is that it looks like clockwork, but its simply one set of easy rules of thumb. Creates chaos, and we're focused, doing something easy that we drill on. Commentators have said we look like a team of bees, more than soccer players. The way we move, swarm, fan out and re swarm. Coach smiles and loves it. He gets to play the high end Sherlock Holmes coach, the thinking man's coach. Interviewed, he's smiling. I know because he's making up everything that he's saying about what we do.

   Freshman mega stars, starting? It worked up front, but the young mega stars on wings grew into what you'd expect hovered over by a coach that knew what he was doing. The only thing better than mega stars? Are when they get seasoned. And the more games those two got, the worse they were on the other team. Little Lightning in particular, and now being conference winners… has recruitment now to the point that my coach sits back and chooses among the picks of the litters.

   The coach built a young team into something that could work at his level of play? And watched it mature into something. He now has such an influx of all pure top talent to recruit, that he has no fears losing seniors and other important positions. He sends new girls in constantly, for shifting halfback experience. Constantly resting and reinserting key players. We took our third conference.

   That was our third appearance in the national playoffs. We're used to being here. The coach is used to being here. First national playoff game? This team has knocked us out before. Coach tried it honest, but when the downhill bad stuff started, constant fast breaks to disrupt our play forward hot red zone full court press style of play? He got rattled.

   He put a number on the piece of paper. Get this number out of the game. Hey coach, wondered when you were gonna ask. Late in the first quarter, I have a mission. I'm going to harass and knock around that star player, and try to either draw her into a stream of penalties forcing her to spend time off the field, so we can work? Or, better yet. Make it permanent.

   We weren't getting blown out. We were just getting a constant stream of fast breaks. Weak in our backfield playing up? Its the risky part of our style of play. They had a Little Lightning and a Right that were getting these fast breaks and shots. They were capitalizing on a few of them. We were down 2-1 going into the half.

   I adjusted the roster to requirements and sent her off to the sidelines, with a really good limp. I drew the wrath of the entire team after that. I laughed the more I got marked up and hurt, because I drew so many penalties it just helped more. Their best star? Off the field. Incidental contact, you're allowed to slide in. If your foot is near the ball when an injury occurs? Your foot is allowed to be there. You were going for the ball.

   The secret? You have to time it so the ball is there when you attack, that's all. The whole second half went our way slowly after that. Their 2-1 first half, we followed up with our own 3-1 second half. 4-3 by halfway through the fourth quarter. With their star providing breaks out of the way, we could manage to keep our red zone crush going. I got told to beat up on the goalie.

   No, I don't dare rough a goalie or try to get a fight started. The camera's there too much. The ref's gaze is there too much. My job is to take shots on goal, from close. I'm not as much taking shots on goal, as I am just putting the ball into them, as hard as I can. I'm not like Light, Right, nor even Sunny the happy feeding center at this. I'm not a goal scorer. But if I get enough shots from close enough, I can possibly hurt the goalie, if they aren't big and solid enough. Its the only legal way to beat up on a goalie.

   It looks stupid. One of your least skilled sharpshooters, taking close shots. Its not to give me scoring opportunities. Its to create a possible ricochet. Light and Right are near and moving in fast. The sharpshooters are waiting on rebounds. Off of a goalie that gets the wind knocked out of them. Or deflects instead of catches, or even a weird post angle.

   No goalie is perfect. Every so many diving catches they pull off and make it look easy, some get missed at the catch and get deflected. That's what I'm going for, not as much as shooting to score. After my roster adjustment, incidental contact… we went from losing 2-1 first half, and facing a potential 4-2 loss if we repeated the first half? To our own winning second half. We're up 4-3, and a late ricochet from beating up a top rated but fairly small stature goalie, got a ricochet gift. Flopping to cover Lightning's rebound answer, Light passed it to Right nearby for the big boot up close where it was impossible for the goalie to get over to the opposite side.

   Goalies dive for Lightning, scared of her. Right's right foot is actually deadlier than either of Lightning's own. We made it to the final series this time, before coming undone and getting barely edged out. We're all heartbroken, but the coach gave us an epic pep talk after our final loss.

   "Girls? In a couple short years… we've gone from trying to pin down a conference championship, to trying to pin down the national title. This? Was a win. A big one. Any other coach, I think, would be yelling and complaining, talking about what we should have done. I'm not. What we should have done? We did it. We just came up a wee bit short."

   We just looked at him, amazed.

   "We dominate our conference now. We're national news and get mentioned in other team's games. We're taking in so much talent every year, that you get more rest and can play that much harder when you're in, every year."

   He paused.

   "You know the real reason, why the boys football team is in a death spiral, and we're on our way up?"

   We didn't know.

   "Momentum. They lost heart, and they don't work out with their heart in it, during the off season. You girls? Work out year round. You watch diet, year round. I drive past the townhouses, and I see my starters out at first light, jogging. Getting past the conference finals, and just arriving at nationals? Is considered a winning season. Girls, we win every year, just being here. Nothing more is expected of our program. But, if we keep coming here, we're going to take a national title home one of these years. You start now, we almost made it. We can take this thing next year."

   "We go into the season for three in a row now, kinda expecting to be conference champs? Like it's business as usual. That's a fact. That's huge confidence. You girls used to haze each other, and have your own petty shit going on? You quit doing it years ago, and you all work together as a team now, for years. And look what it gets us. We're winners now."

   It was a let down, but the coach is right. Conference championships are the bread and butter of the collegiate world. And every one of them, is like a ticket to the nationals.

   You can play an all skill game, you can play physical. Coach does both. And his all skill game? Is unique in America. Other coaches are trying to imitate it, and its not working for them. You also don't just decide to play his style of game. Its a commitment. Every year he's devoted to it though, its worked better and better every year. Standard soccer team coaching handbook is useless to support it.

   The Bloody Bridesmaids are a regular fixture now, for the time being. Little Lightning's new picture for the sports montage has gotten a little better. With three straight conference championships and taking a credible and serious run at the national title? She gets three rings for her photo this time. Its still Teddy Ball posing with her. They moved her photo for the montage to the center, and blew it up some.

   Until the football team makes a move, right now women's soccer is the premier sport in the program, as far as bringing home banners.

   When you walk into a home stadium for someone else-s home night game? You walk into it, and look around way before the game starts. You get these big banners to hang up, when you do things. There's a smaller one for making the conference playoffs, and a bigger one for making it to the finals. Now, you win? You get that big nice one.

   When you come into our stadium? The people that change the stadium from sport to sport, have a list and photos of how our team arranges the banners. They get taken down and put back up as different sports play here. Football and soccer overlap, so its mainly a game of switching between football and soccer. With a men's and a women's soccer team, that's like three.

   When you see banners, you can tell how old they are. There's years on them. You come into a place, and its all banner-ed up, going back years ago to present? That's intimidating. You're walking into the home field of some kind of powerhouse. That's us now. We're feared. They fear losses first and foremost. They fear getting injuries, because we play a very tough, physical, in your face game. You can try to out muscle us, good luck. They fear getting outplayed, or looking like they got outplayed, with our unique playbook.

   But, as nice as being a powerhouse really is, house filled with all these intimidating banners, we're not a dynasty. We need a national title for that, to get crowned.

   Our coach? Has gotten more money renegotiated. Girl's soccer coaches naturally don't pull the paycheck of men's football coaches that bring home banners. Its always smaller, fact of life. But, the coach signed on at a very reasonable salary. If you pay a little more per year, you can extend that introductory reasonable pay. Our coach agreed to a several year deal, bumped up a little for every additional year.

   When that runs out, you renegotiate pay for the next string of years on contract. Now, if you had winning years, like our coach has? That's money in the bank for when you renegotiate. He can double or triple an introductory paycheck with enough winning seasons.

   What the athletic director can do? Is "soften" that sudden day. With unasked for bonuses every year, to placate such a coach. So he doesn't get tempted to get lured to another big school. Create a bidding war. So, he's been getting steadily bigger huge bonus paychecks, to hopefully prevent him from demanding the moon and the stars when his contract suddenly ends.

   When we're at the coach's house? His smiling wife and himself beaming, says it all. You can look around and see that he has basically a second paycheck coming in. He's not allowed to hand us money, but he can take us out to dinner and have us over and treat us nice. We can't get sports cars, but… little gifts for the entire team, or for the starting line? Sure.

   We'll never be boy's football and basketball level, its impossible. But as winning teams, we get noticed alongside them. All the "little" sports teams here are in that boat. Its just a fact of life. The boys basketball team does a little better year in and year out than the football team. As a side team, dominating? We get the best we could possibly get. Well treated second bananas.

   Little things. The football team has the big school spirit night, where that year's team gets introduced. There's an announcer, and each player gets talked about, then brought out to stand one at a time. Boys basketball too, same night. If you separate football from the others? You get progressively less attendance.

   So, everyone's there, revved up, and have to go through the other teams, waiting for the football announcements. Boys basketball coming right before, indicating its second spot in importance. Those two teams? Get national TV coverage. Wrestling comes third, they always have some stars people tune in for.

   Women's soccer got slowly moved up into the fourth spot, closer every year. The more you move up? The more introduction some of your players get. You don't want a title winning side team to feel left out. There's no getting out of the realistic view of this. If you don't play football? Don't bother. And now that coaching is off my future radar, I know this is going to all end one day.

   My masters could take two years, or it could take three. I'm going the extra year. I can do it, it provides me some educational benefits. Its a big show of loyalty to my coach. He likes having an older, more mature, seasoned captain. I get to reward him. For myself? I make choices in my masters, picking among the classes I take. By extending another year, I get to take the other classes I picked around. Its like getting another masters similar to mine, in all but name. It allows me to have a bigger and more in depth master's thesis.

   Its also another conference ring, and one more ticket to the nationals. Another year, to try to decide where the universe wants me. I'm having second thoughts about going for my doctorate now. From the moment I shared my possible interest in going MP? Gentle pressure came back. Mike spent time with me, and lightly broached his idea back. Maybe FBI. As mild as my interest in MP seemed to be, his FBI idea was just as mild. Food for thought kind of thing.

   Little Lightning is a year behind me. Me taking a third year in my masters, catches her up to graduating with her own two year masters, at the same time. She's nervous about this all ending, and there's no doctorate for her to look forward to. If I were to go military? She's lost. Gentle pressure there.

   I got a year to analyze it all, see what I think the universe wants. I get another year to study Mary the waitress. Work on myself that way. While not quite as good as the doctorate, the extra year of masters, taking the classes I chose against for my own paper… is almost as good. Much broader depth to draw on, if I want to try to publish one day.

   There's no professional soccer to graduate to in America, really. Not like football and basketball. For everybody else? Its the Olympics or nothing. That's a once every four year deal, too. Doesn't pay well, its year round tough practice, waiting. Little Lightning has a slight chance of getting to try out for them, and as a utility player I have almost none. Being captain or co captain on that team, buys you nothing. They're all former captains and co captains.

   The timing is all wrong, too. If you're one of the biggest stars in your sport, a year before it comes around? That's your best chance to try to land a spot, get in and out of something that's personally rewarding and doesn't pay. You better have a career lined up for when it ends. One thing at a time. Finish my thesis and extra classes, make sure we land another conference championship and I get another ring, another ticket to the national title tryouts.

   I have a year to try to figure this out, I have almost no emotions to get in the way of my decision. Wiz has removed money concerns, both by his under the table insurance policy and by imparting the code onto me. My desire for it ignited now, it makes it that much easier to tune money and personal prestige out of the decision.

   Right is finishing up her second year in a master's as well. Athletic prowess and the pressure it brings to bear, got her picked up for a two year masters program. She got masters level credits, for basically taking Lightning's undergraduate main course load. A sort of associates in human relations undergraduate program, wrapped up as a masters to go with her women's studies degree.

   It makes her a sort of big gun going into human resources. Lightning as well. I don't have to worry about Right, she has Target. She'll most likely get married, and Target is talking about moving to DC, to move up in his career. He can keep being a bigger fish in his "other big city" FBI office, or moving to DC is where the action is in his career. Mike sort of recruited him and got him looked at and groomed into something in the way of a promotion to the "head office" that DC is for them.

   Target was nearly tearful and full of emotion, when he took me aside and told me. The big Swellsville case? Getting to look like he discovered and worked it privately, before exposing it to official status? Was a huge feather in his cap. He ended up with a promotion, and it led to him meeting Mike, and getting recruited to go there, another step up. Wiz gave it to him. Most of the guys in on the ground floor of that? Moved up in their careers, and reported similar to me.

   The family had lost one of their own, and it had been a member of some note.

   I feel silly relating little perks of my life now. After Target came and handled my situation with the self defense? The treatment and smiles I got from anything with a badge was unreal. The athletic director more or less fawned all over me, because of what I gave the coach. Extra years of dedicated service. I could have gotten a bug up my ass at what was tried on me, and the director always played damage control on that.

   I think strategically, it added to the gentle pressure to let me do what I wanted. Get a masters, extend my masters, extend my thesis time. I took full advantage. If I did go for my doctorate? It was like heading into it with a second masters in all but name. If I did cut and run without going doctorate, I still had options if I even went the psych career route. Which I probably won't.

   Lightning always did have a special devotion to me, and felt like she owed me for saving her. I tell her all the time, I feel like I got the same from her. Her star power got me my rings. It brought the coach a whole peck sack of new stars, all on board from day one with his coaching style.

   We're a powerhouse looking to get crowned a dynasty now. Only a national title can do that. Four conference rings and a national title ring to a football player? Almost guarantees a pro career. For me, there's little beyond extra degrees and personal satisfaction.

   Little Lightning has been in enough interviews now, and sounded credible enough in them that its a boost to her eventual career, too. Experience with the national media is no small matter, when you go looking for a decent career in human resources. Remember the girl that once led the girls in her town to make fun of her and hound her? The one that used to email her gang bang porno clips, so she had a job after high school ended.

   She ended up working as a waitress somewhere. I hope it was the night shift, and she got to look up and see Little Lightning in an interview or some other clip and caught it. Maybe the truckers at 3:30 some morning, thought women's soccer would be fun to get the leg show if nothing was on the TV at the counter.

   Interviews, no matter how brief? Are huge things to the school. That's the school logo and name, flashed on the graphics at the bottom of the screen. That's advertisement and prestige. They could be interviewing any school at the moment, and they picked yours. We basically get a president's dinner, every time we get one. The value to tape and license our season games? Went up every year we took conference, every closer run we took at the national title inched up what they had to pay to license our national playoff appearances.

   It'll never be anything like boys football or boys basketball? But we're up with women's basketball in pay now. Quite an achievement, for female soccer. Me and Lightning are both known in any interviews by our nicknames. My Italian menu name, and her Swedish pronunciation nightmare ensures that we get our nicknames flashed in big letters above our names.

   Me and Lightning sometimes get unsolicited emails from out of the blue as a result of our limited exposure, and really it could be about anything. Seeing our nicknames flashed bigger than our real names on the TV screen, had them thinking we were foreigners. We both got a kick out of that.

   No one will ever recognize our real names, its too easy to go for Hurricane and Little Lightning. Take my uniform off, be outside of my sports world? I'm just another big tall quiet girl, wearing a half a grin. Little Lightning, too.

   Right and Sunny have normal names, that people can remember easier. Light is actually something of a "minor star" because of all the practice DVDs and coaches only DVDs the coach and school mail out to all the high school programs.

   A season ending like it did, just edged out of a national title. Heavily favored to take conference again the next year, and being looked at to probably score a national title before too long, if we can keep our performance level as high as it is now. The Bloody Bridesmaids have become undisputed girl's soccer conference powerhouses. The interest and little mentions and clips we generate for those couple of seconds every week which amounts to all the national media attention this college sport generates in the off season, about nothing. Getting them at all though, is a big deal.

   Once our season starts, what little national media time is available for women's college soccer… and trust me here, it ain't much… what little of it exists? More or less ours. The Bloody Bridesmaids have accidentally turned into the face of female soccer in our TV market. Which is a big chunk of the middle of the country.

   This year our regular season taping and leasing rights earn a little more again, nothing major. Our expected playoff rights, command a slightly higher fee every year we make national playoffs. But again nothing major.

   But the banners, the titles, the prestige? We bring all that to a comparatively cheap program. Its a lot of bang for the buck. As one of the "sideline" sports, we're a standout for second banana. The school is responding to this cheap but winning situation, with a little more support. What the football or boys basketball would consider minor bumps in their budgets and would sneeze at?

   Huge infusions of money, for a sideline sport in the overall scheme of things, like us. Its a big deal. We only get so many full scholarship deals by law, but the school if it chooses to, can offer things like low level partial scholarships to effective walk on players. High school athletes that can otherwise attend the school? Are willing to practice and play small team roles, for the chance to do things like get rings. Conference rings are a big deal in college sports. They look like the more expensive high school class rings and even then some, really.

   The lure of being a "scrub" player, that understands their role as being all they can personally be, and just rotate in and out to give breaks to stars? Is fed half by the desire to get a conference ring, nothing to sneeze at, and… small partial scholarships from the school. The smallest package for a walk on that agrees to help? Are books and fees. The chance for a growing percentage of tuition covered? Add in the lure of the conference ring they get for riding our coat tails and we get more "support". That comes out of the school's pocket to forego profits on some more paying students, but it helps.

   With a rich roster of scrubs that are half decent, happy to get books and fees and percentages of tuition on top of it… every walk on helps. A star can get a break more often, which means that when they're out there? They can sprint harder non stop, expecting a break to keep on doing it.

   We nicknamed it "overdrive", and "turbo option". Take your pick. This is a condition where everyone is sprinting and trying beyond what they know they can't keep up the whole game. But, if you can smoothly rotate them out and around? They can take breaks, and perform at that over the top level in bursts. When these bursts are happening in streaks, it aggravates your opponent. Wears out any starters they planned on pacing through the game.

   Teams we really should have lost to? More than one has been beaten by a game long "turbo" setting. Without the experience rotating the players so often, other teams try it and it turns into a cluster fuck for them. If there's not a clock stoppage, its easier than you think to land a too many men on the field penalty. We drill on it, as a core skill. Once the coach says "go" we go into our churning mode.

   This puts players like Light and Right and me? Into a great position. We're coming in and out of the game so often, we get to sprint all out when going at it. We drill on it. We scrimmage it. We play the boys team and get knocked around by them so we can play a more physical game in that respect. Our boys soccer team we scrimmage so much can muscle us around. Doesn't mean they don't have trouble keeping up with the full court press.

   What we can almost but not quite pull off besting the men's soccer team? We get a lot closer to when we can pull off the churning breaks and appearances of all the players. The whole team is sprinting faster than game pace possible. Other teams can't keep up and the announcers have their own words for when we get this going for extended periods of time.

   The game might be going lackluster, a real even-Steven match up. One of the girls draws a big penalty? We go into turbo mode for that big penalty for X number of minutes, guaranteed. Its hell for the other team. The whole team has to be on board. Winning a fight or a pushing shoving match feels nice, but… if you can flick someone's ear too often, and get a nice big punch and fight going that you don't participate in? That penalty is golden.

   I beat up on the girls that take those unanswered pot shots. When they get back in from their penalty? They're automatically on my smack list. I have to pick and choose how many times I can legally get away with incidental contact, and I'm aiming it at them. I've perfected a nice move. I get in front and stand still and close my eyes and just take the big penalty. I deliberately rotate in to be in front of someone. It stops their progress from turning into a fast break, it knocks the hell out of them and rattles them, and it can generate penalties.

   I've gotten so used to it over the years? I just go limp and take the shot… I don't get hurt and it allows me to lay a heavier "hit" on than I ever could legally. I'm a big strong girl, and it knocks the wind out of smaller girls to run into me. I can run or whirl into the contact, and they get knocked around something fierce. I can't risk getting a big "charging" penalty. So, I get to legally hand out the same abuse. They, are running into me, its incidental.

   Its functionally equivalent to charging, and its legal. I can knock the wind out of the other team's stars and rattle their cages. In turbo mode? I can get moving faster.

   I can't possibly bore you right now with anything resembling a game by game breakdown of this year. We took conference, and we made use of our ticket to the nationals. We made our now usual splash and more. At the end of our appearance there? Light had an ace up her sleeve. She had been nurturing it and milking it.

   She was pointing to a different spot of the net coming in. A sort of a quick "Babe Ruth" pointing over the fence. Goalies now had to instantaneously guess correctly. Was it another of her fakes? Or, did the shot go where she pointed or almost so. She had been shooting at where she pointed for a couple missed shots late in a tied up game. When she came in for yet another. A dropped pass ball, near the net. She's coming full steam, and arcing around giving her power shot the power stroke. On a lean, button hooking around. Power leg you're shooting with cocked back, and…

   She stopped on a dime. Gracefully enough and seemingly impossible of a maneuver to pull off. Momentum should be carrying her, it was a dancer's grace to pull off. To leap at the end to be just leaning there, and could stand without falling over.

   She had been in full power lean, pointing, and… stopped in mid air. She tapped like a golfer on an important but close putt on the green. The gentle little tap to the low opposite corner. It merely went across the line, but that was all it took. No power, a soft putt really. Goalie bought it, anticipated the fast shooting star, and… wound up skidding on her chest after taking sideways flight to be ready to deflect a shot that never came on that side she was face down committed to.

   That shot won us the final game and broke the final tie. It got us our national title. I had already got to see and hear my graphic up on the huge screen at the big, major stadium you play these finals in. Lightning got hers in too, trust me. Lightning was flirting with a hat trick in any national playoff game, she was just on fire. We all were. Right's graphic is a girl with a cartoon sledgehammer for her right leg. A little more power and accuracy than Little Lightning, just only in that one foot. Little Lightning was just behind her in power and accuracy, just with both feet.

   Together they had an incredible run over the seasons. I got to see what it was like to be in on the final dance. The national playoffs have the really big crowds, the really big professional football stadiums for some of the final games. We had plenty of interviews and little clips and talking spots here and there all season, and more than ever before. As a now perennial conference powerhouse, we got more of what little attention is paid to women's soccer.

   But, seeing the dance up on the big screen, knowing it was one of the few games I would ever be in anything even loosely resembling prime time… this was it. My big moment in life. Its hard to get to be state or conference winners, and rarer still to get a national title. Plus, we had a PR boost, the Bloody Bridesmaids nickname. A short national clip got put together.

   Lightning's dramatic fake out that left a goalie skidding in the dirt while she playfully putted to the other side, our dance, then some game clips that featured various dramatic moments. A shot of us celebrating afterwards. The Bloody Bridesmaids finally get married. Our dance? Was jokingly titled the "bridal dance". We went from a "mere" conference powerhouse, and into fledgling "dynasty" status. The national title banner? Is fucking huge. There's game jerseys and our numbers and team names up there, too.

   Smaller memorials go around the national banner. After you're dead? National title banners still go up. There's nothing better to have up when other teams visit. Shots of national title banners get a few seconds of airtime during any recorded game for broadcast. Sunny's star is enshrined as the starting center in the mix. If we come to big homecoming events in the future? We get little mentions and introduced to say a few words.

   Its the crown that takes you from conference powerhouse and into talk of a dynasty got made.

   I'm happy as a pig in shit, and I don't really have emotions to fully enjoy the moment. Which is kind of a waste. I soon found out that without the good emotions, that had cleared out along with the negative ones? I wasn't really capable of credibly hopping around. I was satisfied and happy though. If I didn't exactly feel the moment, I certainly did appreciate it from a purely deductive standpoint. My male brain from growing up around boys, was me yanking on another push and guiding it to my advantage.

   Mike began coming to visit me a little more often than usual, and seemed to take an inordinate interest in me. With a couple months to go, I was on the brink. Enter a year of my doctorate, even though my heart wasn't in it anymore, and pretend I wanted to go through with a couple year doctorate. Or? Start looking more seriously at other options. The gentle no and push I got with my stated MP desires, also generated Target and then Mike to gently keep suggesting… FBI.

   This prompted Mike to come and have a more in depth talk with me. I told him this would be a long format talk, and he smiled and agreed. I went all through my thing, from before the Wiz, during it, and after. My need for the code. My need to let the universe make me into what it wanted, and put me where it wanted. And why. I explained basic karma. Mike, to his credit and mine, nodded.

   I gently prodded him, and he let me go on and on. I described my emotional thing. How the PTSD picture? Was comforting and reassuring, not scary. My little acting lessons. My application of Wiz's verbal descriptions of not setting the sixth sense off, and how it allowed me to watch and study long term. I introduced him to Mary the waitress.

   Mike liked my psych degrees and how I used them. He loved having a "pet psychologist" and made sure I didn't mind playing that role as often as he wanted. The universe had seen me become that, use it. I told him little psych profiles were his for asking.

   "Okay. There's the regular academy, and I think you'd do okay there, what with your sports background, and everything else you shared with me. A masters and more in psychology? You'd be recruited just on that. Your sports prowess? Just adds to it. A lot of football players, are aggressively recruited for the bureau. There's a psych profile that a social, outgoing football player that was socially successful in college? Is a perfect fit for the bureau. Leadership, alpha like traits, lots of kinda big guys."

   He had another idea though, and would I hear him out. Sure I would. Mike wanted me for undercover work. If I went through a completely separate academy period, longer than the original, but different. I could do that. I wouldn't be qualified for "regular" FBI agent status. I would only be qualified for undercover work. Specializing in it. When not working in that capacity, that is to say undercover? I would be with Mike. Act as an assistant to his job.

   I told him I'd give it serious consideration.

   Mike liked Mary the waitress. He understood my condition, and agreed with my assessment that instead of fighting it and why, I would turn around and pull on that push, making the most of it. He grasped the analogy, and liked me playing Mary the waitress. As my best character, he wanted to try to form an operation around that core concept.

   He said it didn't matter exactly what my character was, but the fact I had one? He just had to find a use for a "real waitress" that could serve a plan. He would try to form the plan, around my unique strength. Suddenly, my weird hobby of designing my other life. Where nothing was perfect but a little more stable and therefore "better". I had an incredibly unshakable back story. It was complicated, and accounted for me admitting my sociopathic behavior. And, me explaining how I was a healthy sociopath, which I felt I really was.

   I had an alternate ego. My in depth fantasy world I had created and gone over with a fine tooth comb? Was indistinguishable from a real one, Mike said. I put Mary's gestures and mannerisms on, and talked "in character" for hours with him. He liked the utter and complete ease. My behavior that felt slightly insane to me? Was one of his favorites.

   The "undercover camp" didn't run constantly like the main academy did. It was separate, different, and took in small classes when it did. Mike suggested taking a year to be even more ready. Ply my trade as an athlete for another year. Another year of classes. I would concentrate on things like fighting and basic handgun work. Tailored for what I was going to use it for, not the military styled stuff Wiz and Elise could perform. Mike wanted Elise to give me another finishing school if her schedule freed up in that next year, as well as play with handguns and the occasional shotgun.

   When I asked Mike if he "really" thought I'd be a good pick to try doing all this, he surprised me. I thought Elise or someone more like her would be a better fit to what he wanted. He said I was the bravest person he knew. Naturally, I first thought he was pulling my leg, then that he was teasing me. But he wasn't. Naturally, I made him explain.

   Apparently, my "bravery" was when I refused to leave Wiz after he was dead on his feet and I got grazed in the shoulder. Then, making myself into a human warm meat shield piled up in front of him. Instinctively trying to protect him. We were soup cans out there, and he had his one he could take, it was my turn. My turn just never came.

   Mike also surprised me right after that, when he corrected me. Apparently, I had called him an MP and former MP one too many times. Mike was the one that wasn't an MP. The guys were all former Air Force MP's, he was former military intelligence, but formed a similar bond with other service members as the others did inside the bureau. He was former Army Military Intelligence. The FBI had recruited him for it.

   Mike smiled. Ate one of his little candies he allowed himself to finally finish.

   "I don't do, dangerous things. I think, I plan. I send other people out, into harm's way. It works on your nerves, over time. If you can appreciate that."

   I nodded, I agreed.

   "Makes you like the coach."

   "We were all standing around, in a loose bunch. That shot rang out? We all scattered and got cover. Elise, thank god, just happened to be coming back the other way. But, you were the only one that didn't run for cover. You used yourself as a shield. You have no training for all of this shit, you're just reacting. You don't even know its considered the brave but stupid thing to do. You just did it. That's close to jumping on the hand grenade to save people. So yeah, everyone was impressed. Not something we can tell you and clap you on the shoulder about, either. But, when you showed interest in MP, that's why we started suggesting the bureau."

   It became Mike's turn to share. He smiled reminding me of Target's fight video he had of me. Right had no doubt showed Target the Hurricane brawling videos, so Mike could have seen those as well.

   The one extra year of doctorate coursework was just a bonus. It was the vehicle to me living as I did, eating as I did, my job. This all came to pass, another year of ritual. Lightning's picture in the sports centerfold montage was updated. She had two conference rings on each hand, held up. Also a chain, held up showing the fifth ring. The national championship. The delicate chain draped over a couple of both hand's fingers, it hung heavily as the forward upper center of the photograph. The ring was closer to the camera than the model.

   A national title, over four conference championships in four years. Not to mention all the smaller conference playoff banners, and those national playoff banners. Some final round banners, both conference and national playoffs, to round it all out. We just missed the national title again, and got edged out barely in the end, by a new rival.

   Another winning season, we were still conference bullies and took credible runs at the national title, and were expected to have a more then even shot the next year. It was done. If I left now, I left the team with dynasty possibilities. I asked the coach, if I did leave after this one year of doctorate? Would he be okay.

   He said yeah, and smiled. He said he knows rationally that me and him has to end eventually. He has such a pressure of new talent coming in now that recruiting is easy and always fruitful. He's got more raw talent than he can sign up coming in. He's set. A new crop of Light, Right and Hurry come in every year.

   Lightning can't play anymore if she's no longer a student. She's looking to extend her soccer tour if I go and do something for my career. Coach said if they can come up with "some kind" of another masters? It was a possibility. The other possibility, was that Lightning could sign on as one of the team's coaching assistants. Not an assistant coach, mind you. Just… team coaching assistant. Its a paid job, but not nearly as well as coaching and assistant coaching bring you. She would secure private townhouse and room and board again, either way. Part time assistant position as her masters job. She's going to play soccer a little more. Masters in media broadcasting now. Two, two and a half years easy. The coach told me what I already guessed and surmised was happening there. Captain Lightning. With her practically insane drive and dedication, he loves her as an example to everyone else.

   They scared up a masters for her to take. Basically a generic media degree. Basic broadcasting. She had been exposed to it over time, looking over the shoulder of computer crew guys we spent time with. Both before Wiz and after Wiz. The "guru" that edited all the video and audio, would let her watch him make cuts and splices. Go through back and forth, slowing searches to one frame at a time in either direction. It would match up well with her human relations.

   The universe was gently guiding me. Refining my search for my code work. Mike assured me he cold make use of my unique talents. To him? My shortcomings were all "talents" that he liked and could put to good code use. As Wiz the oracle said, when you're in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing? You can just tell. Lightning was taken care of for an extended period of time while I got situated. I went through my training program, and became… Mary the waitress. She became "Merry".

   Target and Right ended up in Washington DC, as did I. I am for all intents and purposes a waitress now. Everyone thinks that I'm a waitress. Mike knows, but no one else. I spent time with my parents over the last year. A little schedule of visits, during which I was smiling wistfully, and gently explaining I would be an FBI agent, and they wouldn't see me for long stretches of time. But, that I loved them and wanted to part on the best of terms.

   There was no fighting, I was so gently resigned it wouldn't have done any good. Mike agreed to try to get Lightning an entry level position in their human resources or media department. This would put Right and Lightning in Washington DC, where I would be. They would just see me as a waitress. I didn't mind. They would be worried about me and my lack of a real career and paycheck. When in secret I made more than they did, and even saw to Little Lightning's monthly gift cards.

   After undercover school, I had to scramble and become a truck stop waitress for a little while. Before I got on at the steakhouse. The steakhouse, is Mike's idea. It took almost a year for me to get in there. I worked as a truck stop waitress to kill time before finally making it. Being persistent, cheerful, and "experienced"? Got me hired the third time I expressed an interest.

   If you were an FBI agent, there's the big Hoover building. Its actually a complex of buildings. Some together, some a few here and there scattered around. The annexes. If you leave the main doors of the Hoover building, and decided you wanted a decent steak? You would start looking around… and find my steakhouse near enough to Hoover that we get all the Hoover business, because we're a short distance away.

   Mike wants me to investigate random agents. If I play hard to get, and they chat me up and pick me up over time? I'm able to investigate them from the inside access. I won't lie. Becoming Merry the waitress, suits me fine. She doesn't have a dead boyfriend that she can tell you what his blood and guts taste like, what that does to you, to get it blown and sprayed into your eyes.

   She has normal issues. My motel room apartment reminds me of having a dorm room to myself. If I wasn't a starting athlete and was relegated to dorm rooms? I would share this single room with one or more other girls. Having it to myself, seems a slight luxury to a college student.

   I live several blocks away from the steakhouse, quite walk-able. Single, I can exercise anytime I want when not working. I fit in with the girls there easily. Mary the waitress didn't have my objections to the girly club. She functions well enough as half tomboy and half girly girl. Therefore, Merry the final form waitress was that way.

   Mike's operation is pretty straightforward. As the closest go to steakhouse to Hoover? I get access socially to all the agents over time. Any names that chat me up, I run past Mike. If its the right friend of a friend? I casually date and report. The idea works, because there's a sort of "cheerleader squad" around DC to date and marry FBI agents. Just about every young waitress and barmaid has dated one, and the analogy to dating football players is perfect. Its functionally equivalent.

   I'm being used for something near and dear to my heart. Mike's looking to hit pay dirt, and get me dating casually with any bad agents he suspects. I have a special hatred for dirty cops, you know.

   As the one not a cheerleader girl? I stand out. I'm a challenge, to lie to and wear down. I'm bait. I wondered about my cover, and I realized how perfect it worked eventually. I had stopped at home and was on my way back. I ended up in line with someone that knew me. They knew the Hurricane. They didn't know Merry the steakhouse waitress. They did the thing where they smile and stare a bit, the do I know you routine. I smiled and showed them my driver's license. My feminine gestures and smiles finished it off.

   Target figured it out one day. He smiled, and it just dawned on him. He never said a word, but he did drop a few hints. He's family, I can trust him not to spill the beans. Seeing me one too many times with "Uncle Mike" made him realize what I had become. I shook my head when he asked, but my smile gave it away. I was family now.

   Somehow, I just knew I was doing everything right. I doubt Wiz is going to one day years down the road come back to me as an agent, at least I doubt it. There's too many football fraternity agents, if you take my meaning. Just not his style.

   I get to live as Merry the waitress. My own paychecks get socked away, and I can't touch them. I live on Merry's paycheck. Mike and Target always slip me a couple 20s each when they stop in and smile. I meet my "Uncle Mikey", and publicly he dotes on his niece. Mike is really the only person that I can be myself with, to everyone else? I really am Merry the steakhouse waitress.

   Because I'm functionally equivalent to a sociopath, I have a unique use for my condition. Remember, take being crazy and find a way to use it to your advantage, right? When life pushes, pull on that and add your own power to it, and redirect it to something useful. I'm able to have mechanical three pumps and a dump sex with agents I'm looking into. I take the worst behavior of girls today? And wield it as a Sun Tzu styled weapon.

   Mike likes my Sun Tzu observations. Wiz's book was great. If you're strong, appear weak. Deceive. I was an agent, and appeared as nothing more than a waitress in town. Another potential "cheerleader". No one would ever see me coming. They wouldn't even see me leaving. If they get hit? They get hit later on down the road, after I'm a memory. I just get them concentrated on, if I confirm any of Mike's suspicions. I stay under radar. If need be, access to their laptop and cell phones and car keys and other keys is priceless.

   I can make duplicates of desk and file cabinet locks for Mike. Later on after I'm gone? Mike has these things and can come in, look around, and make arrests. Mike has me be thorough. I slowly get all the keys duplicated, and figure out what they all are later. Better to have them and have a chance of finding the locks. Any lock I see him use, watching him? I know one of my keys fits. I can find out by waiting until I'm sure the target location is empty. I casually try every key and then label it when I already have it. I have them all, I deliver it to Mike.

   He then gets to go through the car(s) and vehicle(s). House and apartment. Desks, file cabinets he has access to. All the lockers. Regular duty locker, gym locker, any classes he takes and gets a locker for? Another key and access to look around. Access to the cell phone and laptop are bonus goodies.

   Its pretty easy for your "girlfriend" targeting you? To get on your laptop. If you have a real password, I just figure out where you sit and play on your computer, finishing up work details. A surprisingly cheap, well placed camera? Gets it.

   Mike says our waitress operation? Is a cheap, but moderately effective long range program. He's happy with our success. Because I'm working all day and all night, undercover? I get a special pay rate that reflects it. Its not quite triple a regular agent's pay for my time in? Close though. It all gets automatically deposited in its own little financial world. One day? When I figure out what to even do, I'll pull an "Elise" move. I'll have my paychecks stacked up, and be in a position to do almost anything I want. Just have to figure out what that even is.

   Just ten years of this, affords me a nice nest egg. I'm doing the right thing. I have a real career that matters, even if only Mike knows, and trustworthy Target knows and suspects. My parents know only that I'm an FBI agent, and they aren't to tell anyone. They have another job that when people ask about their daughter, they have something to say. That they don't see me much, I live in this one state. Which I don't. My real name and identity? Slip away into the ether.

   My parents know that if they would luck into seeing me traveling? On accident? They're to realize that I'll have some other name. I'll contact them and whisper in their ear if its okay or not. Mike had to give them a little sort of "class" on having a daughter in the FBI and working undercover.

   I assured my dad that if nothing else? Ten years of this was a serious career, and it paid me well as I lived under my regular cover paycheck and got by. Ten years would see over a 100,000 a year get deposited into my dormant and growing "real" bank account. My "small" pension at ten years was the first possible small retirement possibility. It was an "enhanced" ten year minimum vested retirement though, on account of my almost triple income.

   Most people, that is to say normal people? Found undercover high pay and disappeared life to be toxic to girlfriends, wives, kids and families. Wife and kids got ignored for long periods. You were a huge paycheck and never around. Bad overall statistics on personal relationships. My fake "work" relationships, were calculated to end predictably. As a single person, I guess in a way losing Wiz became another advantage for the universe. I no longer felt love, and could engage in occasional mechanical quickies with my prey.

   They got to hump a mud puddle, basically. The bare minimum of basic quickies I can hold out for. I want as little sex as possible out of these things. I get my own personal quickies in on the side with Little Lightning romances, and take the three months minimum break on personal attempts to satisfy myself when they end. Three as a minimum number of months, not to be misconstrued as limited to. Six or nine can happen. Mechanical "work" doesn't count to me. They're not real. They're the accidental trappings of Merry the steakhouse waitress.

   Only my personal quickies, my real private life? Actually counts to me. I'm aggressive and fun in bed, but I don't go full "mommy". That was a me and Wiz only deal. I have time every evening, to write and try to get published in the psychology field. If I ever make it? I'll have numerous other things done to get looked at for polishing and publishing.

   There's a wild alley cat, a young male. Its around enough near the rows of motel apartments. I started feeding it and letting it in. I like it. I get one of my wants in life as a waitress. I get my giant shower. Apparently, better motel rooms want big, romantic shower stalls. This was a motel room, before they started going full efficiency apartment. A few extra bucks a month, gets me the slightly bigger room. Bigger shower, more feet between walls. Bigger bed and more drawers lining the longer walls. The big shower means something to me, deep.

   I smile when I conjure up the persistent and lifelike shrug and smile. Its the perfect company to a hot shower. Not as good as getting pampered, but its something. No whirlpool though, no big tub. Can't have it all. Merry has no car, either. It makes her finances work. If a ride was needed or even useful? Mike fixes me up. I work on my articles and text ideas in my field for an engaging hobby. Little reading glasses I find useful for this endeavor.

   A cheap flat screen TV, a DVD player, screen casting from my laptop. Used DVDs are a buck a piece and less at junk stores and flea markets. Its one of Merry's hobbies. She has two collections, really. Hers and Wiz's. I guess basically, I'm in love with a ghost. Certain action movies make her feel like she should cry, even though she can't. The cat likes movie night, too. The cat, accepts and just loves me.

   One agent boyfriend? Was cheating on his wife and kids with any cheerleader waitress he could. When he turned out to be one of those backhand and fat lip kind of guys? I took penalties for the team. I dumped him quick, and got him watched for it.

   His next dalliance was with a regular waitress somewhere else, a barmaid actually. He was simply loosely watched until it was obvious he had a new side fling going. She was approached and blew him in for being a wife beater girlfriend beater guy. Big no no at the bureau.

   I took it, and his next girlfriend turned him in for it. Mike was waiting on it. Draw that penalty.

   I finally got pay dirt. I landed a friend of one of the cops on Mike's suspect list. Payoff for the operation, if I can get anything on the main suspect, or even leapfrog onto dating him. A weekend party finally came. I bought extra half gallons of liquor, and played the side girlfriend that was fun to be around. Serving drinks all weekend, making little plates to nibble on.

   Keep drinking guys.

   When I finally had them both passed out, I made impressions of each key of the main suspect friend's keys. Two firm presses into the special forming clay, each side. Mike was giddy. He gave me something to put on his phone, too. He had a random tech explain the procedure to him, and he practiced it until he could do it. And Mike was no self professed computer and smart phone expert, either.

   I practiced the phone trick, until it was quick and automatic. Mike could now watch all his texts and his calls were automatically audio logged. His laptop got the treatment as well. His keystrokes and constant internet location get logged without his knowledge.

   At this early stage in my career? I was moderately happy. Not that I can feel true happiness, but it is a situation I know that I should be happy in, logically looking at it.

   I'm not happy, because I can't be. But, I guess I'm the functional equivalent of happy.

   I got to obey all my instincts. I somewhat successfully took all the bad stuff and turned every so called symptom into something useful. I also added all my own unique abilities from my sports life into it as well. I had a deep rooted and burning hatred for dirty cops, and with good reason. One had killed my future husband. The more of those I could help get or implicate? I was doing something that really mattered in the world. I was important. Racking up an Elise style financial nest egg was just a bonus. Elise knows "what" I am in a general sort of way. She knows no specifics and never asks.

   Because she's family, and understands the general nature of me being undercover, I get to sit in the booth opposite her and chat. Its heaven, contact from my former life that's family cleared to talk to and be myself with. Elise just started calling me "Merry" 24 7. To allow us "guaranteed" ability to safely meet. A frank comparison of her six figure gold shield pay, and my triple digit yearly income deposited… she admitted I was in what I called an "Elise style" setup, and smiled that I was imitating her. Flattered.

   Elise told me in no uncertain terms. Never wish for her gun-play portion of her life. I wasn't missing anything. I told her… yeah. Merry the waitress, as a cover in DC? Really shouldn't own a gun. So I don't get one. Which sucks, but it is what it is. Which is why I suppose the universe gently guided me to be big, strong and athletic. A brawler on top of it, at that. If I was slick enough at it? I could take out a muscular football player if I attacked ruthlessly enough with decent technique. I had done that. No guns, no brawling, and I didn't figure I was "missing" anything, believe me.

   Mike believed in working smarter, not harder. I was on board with that. I found out, I can also play the office assistant and people think I'm convincing at it. I guess puttering around the coach's office, helped with that. So far though, just Merry the steakhouse waitress.

   I found out one weird tidbit about myself that I hadn't known already. They gave me several very thorough physicals. I'm not going to have kids any time soon. And by not soon? I mean in this lifetime. I incorporated that into my elaborate fantasy backstory. My fiance left me for not being able to have kids, basically. We grew apart.

   Mike worked on my backstory with me. He said there's a tendency to make a backstory… too perfect. He said mine had the requisite hangups. Tomboy that had girly girl issues, hanging out with the guys. And simply every girl, has the one that got away story.

   Mine would have been… well, you know what it was. My real one grabbed too much pity, oh you poor thing. I can't have kids, and "the good one" fiance got away? It works. I know its weird to enjoy being someone else, but I hope you understand, knowing everything.

   Every girl seems entitled to their little things. Mine? I guess I mention karma. I went to college for psych? I dropped out after a year and a half, before I claimed my first introductory degree. Allows me to be a bright girl. I read. Everyone knows I wish I could write articles and publish. People need a reasonable dream, and that one completes my character. Grants me a real hobby to use, way I look at it.

   I got out of cooking. I used to love it. Brought me some joy to be making meals in the off season for my girls I played den mother to. Brought me a lot of joy to cook for Wiz. So, Merry not really cooking? Both further changed things about the real me that could identify me, as well as felt good to be rid of another little trauma. Everything reminded me of Wiz, even cooking.

   Its a perk at work, to eat stuff there. To take stuff home, if you work through and after hours. The day rules and the night rules of thumb? Like night and day. They have a specialized morning crew. Special breakfast only cook, certain waitresses that do the morning breakfast rush thing. There's a long lunch that slowly gives way into the night crowd. Which swells and ebbs in waves, and also according to if it was the weekend or not. We get a bar crowd for steaks.

   Breakfast is a locked down separate thing. Most girls like to come in after breakfast, when lunch is still rolling slow. You handle lunch, and into dinner. The longer you stay for the night busy part, or to close? The more overtime you get. Also, the more tips you make. I wanted lunch and night access to any agents around. Working the long days and into the night, wasn't so bad. Once the day manager and cook left, and it went over to the night crew and hours? It was a lot more laid back.

   As long as we all took turns staying late, to prep things for the next day? We pretty much had the run of the place. When you come in at 10 or 11 in the morning, and stay until 10, midnight, 2 in the morning? There's plenty of little breaks here and there all along. Especially in the middle of the week. Weekends were more steady and hectic, but paid more, too.

   Free food, a new life. I was the functional equivalent of… someone else, that didn't have near the trauma I had. I fell into a new ritual. Six days a week, I went in around 10 or 11 am, and stayed fairly late. Midnight or 1 was usual. Monday through Friday, and usually Saturday, too.

   I have a new nickname, now. Off campus and away from it? The Hurricane goes off radar. When your name is spelled "Merry" instead of "Mary", there's predictable jokes. Since I am such a girl, it made sense to me I would incorporate and own the whole situation. Merry, is known to hand something over. A candy bar, for instance, and wear her half grin. Say "Merry Christmas".

   So? I'm no longer The Hurricane. I'm Christmas. Five six days a week? I wake up and get ready, and I wear a little zip up waitress dress. Like I'm used to it, other than play acting Mary in my basement when I wore the junk store uniform. Every so often, you get another uniform. I find myself zipping into one for clothes, and unzipping it when I get home at midnight.

   Never really pictured myself as all but living in a dress. Oh well. It further hides me. I always did like Mary as a model. She had clearly feminine gestures, but not that overly dramatic thing a lot of girls drip with. Mary had an easy femininity.

   The hand gestures do all the work. Mary pops an appropriate face, she's a face girl. A cute "oh" face when she over reacts to your revelation in conversation, a pout-y "pooh" face to show too much reaction. A little smile after each display. My go to half smirk, is my centerpiece around which everything else is assembled.

   That half smirk was my first face, and its my best face. I wear it at all times, no matter what. I like doing the little fun faces Mary was known for, and I get to smile back into my signature half smirk. The hand gestures really do most of the work. My face changes like a display sign blinking between announcements. I finally visited my parents briefly. I don't know what they thought about Mary the waitress.

   I can only go by their reaction and because I was in and out, it was a brief stay. Just stopped in to let you know I love you, that kind of thing. But, no fights. No arguments. Maybe with my new feminine gestures and cute little faces and smiles, I could be allowed around people again.

   It was a long time before I approached a small child, other than to take the order. I found myself like a person that hates cats, eyeing one up they can't avoid. Without real emotions, I look at children like little alarm systems now. A girl asked if I didn't like children, because I had related that I can't have any. I was looking at one before going over to get the order. I looked at her, and grinned.

   "See why I dropped out after only a year and a half of psych classes? You're right…"

   It was time. To test kids. I smiled and ignored the kids, and concentrated on the adults. That was my usual approach to kids. They were like a handbag sitting on furniture. Little kids can pitch a fit and be scared of the lady with the scary monster face. Go off like you tripped an alarm at a bank, for the love of god.

   I came in smiling, used my cute "ooh!" surprise face, back to a sweet mommy's smile. I wiggled the bait, the lollipop as my closest thing to the kid coming in. Concentrate on the goodies, kid. I got giggles and smiles. When I was done with the order, the waitress that had noticed I didn't like kids? Announced I was good with kids.

   Wow. I'm functionally all but a sociopath. An honest to god psycho walking around, hidden. My fake, made up routine… I'm "good" with kids? Christ, who the hell's bad with them. I gotta watch the little pains in the asses don't point and scream at me. I'm a dogs and cats person.

   So, I mentioned it before. There's a small young male cat eating out of garbage cans and dumpsters. A real alley cat. I got him to come to me, and he came in for attention, not even food. He wasn't all wild, he knew what people were. He was wary as hell, but would decide to come in if he knew it was possible he could get treated well, like he had known before.

   I brought him home his own steak trimmings tray. See, some people cut big strips of fat off of their steaks and leave them on the plates. I simply drop them into a container. Quite a bonanza for a half starved alley cat, right? I laid one at a time out, closer and closer. A trail into my room. He ate his way in. I left the door open for a while. He had no problem being inside, once he looked around.

   He liked sitting on the bed, nosing through foam containers. He would sniff out french fries, and eat some. Pretty much anything, though ice cream and milk shakes was a favorite. He eats like a small garbage disposal system. I never did figure out where he did his business. Outside somewhere. He rarely wanted out when inside, but I figured that was what it was for.

   I remembered the cat at the townhouse. One day, it just never came back. It wasn't young, so I never really knew what claimed it. I liked this one. He must have liked me, too. He brought me dead mice and rats, and guarded them for presents at my door, waiting on me. He quickly worked his own way into my ritual.

   I'm used to barn cats and their ways. Some are wilder, some are more friendly. This little guy operated on different rules. City rules. Apparently with a human sponsor, he was now allowed the run of the second floor where my own room was at the end of a row. Presidential suite, was the little local in joke. The corner rooms cost a little extra a month. Bigger, larger showers and beds, more dressers.

   I guess before, if he wandered here he got yelled at and kicked at. He walked with me down it now. When I saw a guy lived down the way yelling at him, I bent down and clicked my mouth at him. He zipped up and I made over him a little. Glared at the human giving him the raspberries. My glare worked better when I dropped my face for his benefit, and suddenly he seemed to have something he needed to attend to in his room. Now, he has the run of this cement walk. Stairs at either end, he's never really trapped. He can wait out of the rain or snow, for me to return. He hunts pigeons and other birds that will alight up here.

   I put some stale bread crumbs on a plate, to lure birds in for him. He grabs one now and again, all proud of his achievement.

   So, here I am. This is what I do, and this is why. On some basic level, a dirty cop shot and killed my fiance. Shot me too, but that barely registers. Now, I hunt them for a living. Bad cops. I guess I have custom Elise like therapy of my own now. Elise was hit young by a violent rapist. She grew up to hunt and kill them. A dirty cop had showed me what my fiance's blood and guts tasted like. I hunt them before they get that bad, is how me and Mike see it.

   Mike has a list of suspected ones though, it happens. He knows one or more of his suspects, are actually pretty dirty. Operation Happy Waitress? Is cheap, can run as long as he wants, and is starting to generate results.

   When something happens to one of "my" agents? Its never while with me, ever. You remember which girlfriend you had, when disaster struck. Not one two three girlfriends back. A different random girlfriend was with them when they ran into getting charged. Me? I'm buried a couple girlfriends back.

   Mike thinks its perfect. I guess it is. You could rifle my motel apartment, you find nothing that isn't Merry the steakhouse waitress. You can't see my laptop turn into an FBI desktop, without a password and knowing where to login. It doesn't look like what it is, and without the password? Its a regular laptop. It actually is, my laptop. I have to stick a special thumb drive into the computer, and turn it on? To even get hit for the complicated password and then my FBI desktop goes up.

   When the computer boots up with that special thumb drive, its like a whole different computer. I enter my complicated password, and then that's it. I live with cable TV and internet are built into the rent, actually kinda neat. The laptop just… puts itself online, and logs me into my stuff, on this desktop.

   Wizzy, followed by a string of numbers that are his birth date. Followed by Hurry, and a string of numbers that represent my birth date. Ending with MissYouLoveYou. A nice, complicated, numbers and letters password, words that really aren't real words, too. Overly secure. I can't forget it. No one else but me knows it.

   I'm actually allowed to do anything I want with the main laptop, turning it on without the special thumb drive. I do all my articles and online research on it.

   I laugh some days, at the crude absurdity of it all. Associates, bachelors, masters in Psychology. For all intents and purposes, I have two masters. Hell, even a year in on my doctorate. Yet? Here I am. Fast walking plates of food after sweet talking orders. Day before Merry the waitress gets her little hours "paycheck". Light on cash. Just like any of the other girls here. I'm happy to get small tips early into my shift, so I can "afford" to get a pack of smokes.

   Yeah, I smoke cigarettes now. I'm no chimney, and it takes a couple days to kick a pack of light cigarettes. I think of Elise, and run around with an unlit one in my mouth. I have hundreds of thousands of dollars in a bank account? I'm "worried" whether or not I get a few early tips to make the purchase of the heavily taxed cigarettes possible.

   I could tell you that I do this because its yet one more item that obfuscates the reality that Merry the steakhouse waitress is really one Frusta Sferza Frustino. But why lie to you, even though I easily could. That occasional light cigarette feels good. When you take slow, long, deep pulls? It feels borderline "great", even. After a few puffs off a joint out back with the other workers on break? It feels even better.

   People that do smoke, often report it reduces stress and nervousness. I really don't exactly feel those emotions, but I would say I know where they come from, if that makes any sense.

   God, I wish I could cry. How strange is that. What normal person would ever wish it. Gee, I wish I was bawling right now. But its Washington DC, and there's a Pentagon elsewhere. So, you'll see uniforms here and there at times. The first time I saw an Air Force MP uniform, I stared. Once you can pick out one branch's uniform over the others? The Air Force MP get up is different. Only the MP's tuck their pants legs into the tops of their boots. Only the MP's roll their sleeves up.

   If you know these things like I do, you simply can't miss it. The first time I saw one, when I was done staring was when I wished I could cry. I wonder if I could cry under physical pain, and if I ever break a bone maybe I'll find out. Maybe I could "go" with it, and enjoy the bigger cry. I really don't know. I wasn't born like this, and I can remember having a good cry and feeling slightly better or at least drained from it when it was over. The relative few uniformed Air Force MP's I ever see at work? They get anything I can give them extra for free and not get into trouble for it. The one thought I liked him, and tried to talk to me. I just smiled a thin little thing and turned around and walked away.

   On a hectic day, we take turns taking individual breaks. You go sit down for a couple minutes, or if you smoke? Go out back for that. Can't have a gaggle on break when its busy, after all. I lean back against the wall next to the back door, and inhale and exhale.

   By myself like this, I can close my eyes for a few seconds and concentrate on Wizzy. Then, when I open my eyes… he's there. The persistent picture or movie you get with PTSD, is extremely lifelike. Just for a little bit, its like he's there. Smiling and shrugging. What can you do.

   I might be the only person, that "enjoys" their PTSD. The hallmark of the condition, is that persistent image. You usually get a static image, and most describe it as a picture or poster. A very few get the little "movie". Its the same thing, just a movie clip instead of a picture. I loved him, and I now love my little movie. Somehow, its like having a guardian angel following me around. Watching over me. Whispering in my ear now and again.

   In bed before falling asleep, I'll touch myself after deliberately bringing the little movie up. I feel sort of like I'm putting on a little "show" for him, while doing it. I like doing it in the shower the most. Obvious reasons there.

   I took a week off a couple times over the years. Uncle Mike thinks I should go to the beach, or… anything normal people do for fun and relaxation, really. Naturally, I don't. Me and Mike visited Wiz's parents a couple times. I like it, I feel temporarily closer to him there. The mother is really nice, but I get a sense of fake off of it. I guess I would remind her that her own son is gone, at that point.

   The father is genuine, though. He seems to actually like it when I visit on that rare occasion. After my first little visit, the next time I stopped back he had a little Christmas present for me. I mean, its late summer and here I am unwrapping some little gift. He's a really nice guy, I can see where Wiz got it from. Short, but a wide bull of a man. Steel mill workers aren't typically shrinking violets, and he's no exception. Yet, you should see him cradle the little family dog in his arms. Like a baby, with sweet baby talk and everything. Yeah, Wiz got everything from this guy. His desire to be a tough guy, the sweet nature with weaker people and creatures, everything.

   Once, I even got to see his protective nature. Another thing Wizzy got off this guy. This thick guy normally won't say boo to anyone normally, but late in the game, its there. They had a family and friends weekend BBQ get together sort of affair. I kept to myself, and mainly say a few words to the mother, and mostly talk to the father. Everyone else gets more or less a pleasant hello and goodbye. Some guy's wife or girlfriend had a couple cheap beers and was kind of giving me mild raspberries.

   I tower over this little girly girl, but I just let her go. She means absolutely nothing to me. After a few polite hints from Wiz's father, she would apologize after each one, but get back to it. A really low level queen bee sort of thing. Even the husband or boyfriend smiled and chuckled and made a polite little joke to knock it off. Once again, she "apologized" then quickly went back to it.

   Wiz's father finally piped up. He had been down the road of the polite jokes and suggestions, that she had shrugged off. He made one final polite but slightly sarcastic joke to let her save face, then opened up on her. He didn't yell, but he used his voice forcefully. When the boyfriend or husband tried to smooth things over, he cut it off in no uncertain terms.

   "That? Is my son's wife. That makes her my daughter in law. That's family. You? Not family. You can knock the shit off, or you can both leave. We're all done pussyfooting around now."

   Though quiet about it, something in his glare and tone was quite menacing. Men looked around at nothing, smiling nervously. Women looked to their men, and saw no one was going to challenge this bull of a polite man. Then? He threw some crumbs down for the little rabbits that would hop around all but begging around the big cement patio.

   Yeah, this is where Wiz got primed to become who he was. The MP's, his zen mentor, was just how he finally got there. This, was what he had always wanted to be. While built like a short bull? I knew what I was looking at. He wasn't the bull in the yard. This bull, was a bottle baby. Sweet and protective, and you don't cross them.

   There's a few more pictures, in their own little spot in the house. I asked if they wanted his several long distance running trophies to go with the pictures, and the father said yes. Now when I stop, the shrine grew a tiny bit. The gaggle of trophies and a couple track letters, flanked by framed pictures. One of his "candid" MP photos he sent home, is the centerpiece. The frame has a fleur de lis motif at the top center, and his two medals hang off of it.

   Most MP's don't ever get one, and he has two on his picture frame. He got the first one for backing up Target and getting him to the hospital before he collapsed and drowned in his own blood, and the second one? Well, you know how he won that one. I usually bring something for the shrine when I stop, and it could be anything, really.

   All service guys have that little rectangle of tiny colored bars they wear. I got online and figured out how and where to buy duplicates of his from his uniforms in his footlocker I now keep locked and tucked safely away. They make little picture frames but thicker, made just to display them. I got them one of those to put them in so it could go in the shrine. Another time, a similar thick frame designed to hold military patches went into the display.

   I had to get the biggest one they make for the patches. Because he had patches from his "MP" uniform, as well as those from his regular computer job. I ordered a real name patch to go in it, because I can't give up one of mine. They'll never know that and don't need to.

   I was amazed to show up once, and see another medal on it. Someone had stopped like I do, and asked permission to put a purple heart with the others. That time, I brought a couple photos I had picked out from all those I had from the big funeral. I hope its nice for them to see the long line of smartly uniformed servicemen paying their respects, marching carefully in unison near the horse drawn hearse cart. He's up and just around a bend in the road where he's planted, and the way the uniforms are coming around the bend? It kind of looks like the line of people could be a lot longer, the way they disappear around the bend.

   One of them is a shot that came out nice of the little "honor guard" some of the MP's put on for 24 hours, and I made sure the dad knows what it means.

   Me and Mike stayed in a nearby motel the first time, but the father all but made me stay there every time after that. He said the bed I slept in, had once been his. He had talked about home and where he came from, and I can recall what seems like a million little stories he idly dropped just bullshitting and passing time with me.

   I go for a walk when I'm there. I know I'm walking around in his footsteps, and I somehow feel a little closer and I like it. He said he used to walk up to the little park "out back", and that if you were a local you knew to take the trail up the back way, instead of going up, around, and over and then up the long driveway road to it. I couldn't find it.

   Its "just to the left of the big tire swing". Which is a cinch to find. There's a big hill and on top and looking out, is a big tree. Someone climbed up and tied on a bull-rope swing. The bull-rope is so thick, the single knot at he bottom is actually a small hard seat when you use it. He described how scary as a kid it was, and you dared each other to back up the hill more, and run and swing way out and over, on a big arc off the edge of the little cliff, around and back.

   I'm about where I should be. Looking up at the hill, and there's the swing at the top. Just to my left, should be the trail. But nothing. I ended up back there again, and I saw a guy about his age walking by. I asked him. Where was the trail, the back way up to the park.

   Nice guy, and he explained it was still there, my instructions had been correct I remembered. But this used to be a trail and was turned into a paved road with new houses. It hid the trail. He showed me. Guy actually knew Wiz, though I had to use the name he knew him by. When we got to the back edge of the park, up that steep deer trail? I asked. Where was the tree at.

   What tree, he asked. Wiz had described a weird tree, and said you couldn't miss it. A tree will grow around obstacles, and some odd obstacle long gone had somehow formed the tree into a sort of stair step shape. He called it "stair tree", and Wiz had said directly next to it? Was the "name tree". He was amazed I knew about it, and showed me.

   Locals had been carving names and little things into the tree for a long time. He had said way up, was his oldest brother's name, and his name and year he did it, was nearer the bottom. There were by now others and they were scrolling up as the tree grew. I could just manage to reach way up, and run my fingertips over his real first name and the year carvings.

   When I was quiet and hugged the tree for a little bit, I opened my eyes to see the polite smile. I gave a very basic explanation, then he nodded and understood. I explained he had died before we could get married. He walked me around politely, talking. I was interested in all kinds of "places", repeating stories I had heard about his childhood. The guy had grown up with him, so he knew where anything was I described only a local would know. After a while, I walked him back to his parent's house, and returned to Wiz's parent's house.

   The next day before leaving that individual pilgrimage, my last stop was that name tree. I ever so slowly spent extra time carving my own homage. I wanted it bigger and deeper, because when you looked up at the names scrolling up? Over time, they turn into a sort of a blob as they grow. The ones that were bigger and deeper and done more carefully? Don't go blob.

   "Merry + Wizzy", then I added underneath it… "4ever". Standing back admiring my work, I carefully added to it "+ Light" after the Wizzy.

   Merry + Wizzy + Light… 4ever.

   I snapped some cell phone pics, and on a lark sent one off to Little Lightning.

   I would say memories, mementos, and a few things like this were all I have left of him ever being here and in my life, but… I have more. I have a little movie clip I can play on demand and no one knows I'm enjoying it, and any time I feel like it. I have a code burned into my soul that he gifted me. I don't just drift through life, I have a purpose and a reason. I matter.

   I've taken his place, as one of the ranks of those that are agents of karma. Relatively few people are called by the universe, and of those lucky few, even fewer answer that call. If you, reading this. If you ever get that call, and you decide to answer it? Don't expect to be paid back in any way, meaningful or otherwise. It won't happen. In fact, it will cost you and probably cost you dear. Wiz once or twice did say, that no good deed goes unpunished.

   Beyond the actual shooter, they arrested two cops on the murder conspiracy. It all seemed to trace back to the one, and he had the more damning texts. I've never told a single living soul, but if the dirty cop they nailed for conspiracy ever manages to make it out of state prison somehow alive? Well, let's just say that state of affairs won't last very long. I'll be very careful about it, but I'm sending that son of a bitch to hell myself. No way I'm waiting around for the universe to balance that karma debt out, his ticket to hell is already punched on that score.

   I know I can do it, and I will. I only hope I can manage to get him alone with enough privacy that I can add some interest to his tab. I don't really have emotions to get in the way. If I have to make it quick to get away with it, I will. But given the chance? I'll sit and watch him suffer. I would say that I'd grease his ass, but Wiz loved little puns and word play. He'd make up his own words to say things. So… I'll Elise his ass. You know, dump the mag into all gut shots, then sit down and smoke a joint and a cigarette to enjoy the show.

   I woke up in his bed at the parent's house. For my little smoke break, in between my dual four hour sleeping shifts I get every night. I took one of his "lady justice" medals from the other MP's with me, on my middle of the night walk to have my smoke. I'm up at the base of the big tire swing, overlooking his little community that produced him. Sitting there. Cigarette in my left hand, looking down at the medal in my right palm resting on my lower thigh, just above my knee. My thumb caresses the medal, just like my thumb used to rub the back of his hand when we held hands like lovers will do for extended periods of time.

   I sometimes wonder, at times just like this. Did he tell me he was coming back eventually, just to get me over that initial dangerous period, right after I lost him? Maybe, although I don't think so. I do think that he really believed it. There was simply too much time and too much space in his "will" letter he left me, devoted to that single topic.

   Had he simply related it on his deathbed, knowing his time had come? I could suppose either one. But, no way. Not once I got that "will" letter. No, he had penned that before we left for the final operation in Hellsville, just on the slight off chance "something" might happen. He had believed and meant it.

   I've had a good long time now, to analyze everything that went on. Life is like a sports game. In the game? You make quick snap decisions on training and instinct. Sure, Monday morning armchair quarterbacks can all sit back and pick all your decisions apart. Over time, I've gotten to reflect and decide. What big mistake led to his death? Everything was going so well up until that horrible moment.

   Mistakes happen. Its inevitable. Target and the people at home base putting calls out on the radio? They all together made a huge one in the moment. Target took a round in the face for it. Hey, it happens. Sure, in hindsight its obvious what would have prevented it. So what was our big mistake, that we all made. We sure as hell made one.

   Some mistakes don't cost you. Sometimes, you just don't see the forest for the trees, and later on when its pointed out, you kind of kick yourself. We made one of those harmless mistakes, early on. We were thinking Little Lightning was relatively safe, that no one necessarily knew where she was, other than the soccer coaches. When Target heard our story for the first time? He immediately pointed out that error. The mother sent clothes and gift cards. She had an address. Duh.

   That mistake hadn't cost anything. Yeah, armchair quarterbacking it all, its plain to see now. Elise as the sexy devil at Halloween, me as the French maid. Elise was truly a different woman, in or out of hair and clothes and makeup. You literally would swear it was two different women you had seen or even talked to. Elise had seen to me enjoying the same. When Elise and me were suddenly jeans and T shirt ponytail no makeup girls once again? We were two different women. Anyone who had seen us at the bars that night, wouldn't realize the two women with the state police were the "hookers" they had seen or met.

   That, was the big mistake in the moment. Wiz playing "pimp", was easily recognized milling around with all the state police. Then again, when everyone went back to do the trick interrogation tactics on the gaggle of rapists. He was "the one" the dirty cops all recognized. There would have been off duty cops at the bars that weekend, and almost certainly at the after hours club. He was, to them, obviously the "undercover cop" responsible for their happy little corrupt town system coming unraveled. Easily recognized? It had cost him his life.

   I'll try not to make any such mistake myself now, obviously. Living or dying in and of itself doesn't really bug me. But, I have to be alive by definition to be an agent of karma, and to be there when the universe needs me. I also need to be alive, when he finally comes back to me. I definitely want to be around, in case a certain dirty cop gets out of state prison alive. And there ain't no way in hell, I'm forgiving and forgetting that one. I'm willing to trade my own life, for his, if it comes to it.

   Sometimes when I'm sure I'm alone, I talk to his little movie clip I'm playing. Like now. I stubbed out the end of my smoke, and inserted the butt into the hollowed out "ashtray" stump. Another little thing I knew from memory and listening to him describe his home town.

   "I'm going back to bed now, hun. I'll see you in the morning, when I get my shower, before I leave."

   I looked down at the lady justice medal again before getting up to go walk back and sneak back in to bed.

   "I miss you, Wiz. I love you. I wish you could talk back to me."

   An owl hooted from somewhere quite nearby. I grew up on a farm, it doesn't startle me in the least.

   "Is that you, hun?"

   "HOO!"

   Kinda makes sense. I used to call him a night owl, because he liked to stay up late on his laptop. I'm far past and over worrying about losing my grip on sanity. Believing my dead partner in life is coming back to me one day, as long as I do the right thing.

   "All right. Did I do what I'm supposed to?"

   "Hoo…"

   I guess he already has my attention, so its softer now.

   "Okay. Just checking, honey. Goodnight…"

   "Hoo."

   Wiz said once, that people have two lives. You're born and you have your young life. Then, when you're all grown you can get another one. I had both of mine as he had said it. So this, must be my third life. And?

   The third time, is the charm.