When he moved north where they had gun laws he got Special Occasion Permits to shoot off his guns. He and the boys went out weekends to shoot trout in the irrigation ditches that criss-crossed the town. This was strictly illegal, from the fish protection point of view of the government, but as Ladanian was a town official he figured the government could take a hike. That’s where he was one Friday in May, camped down by the ditch just below Bottom Line, and that’s where he intended to stay all weekend.

Billy Hillyard and Blueberry Hill arrived promptly that same Friday evening for their relationship retreat. “Diamonds in the rough”, thought Lil.

The party lines that also criss-crossed the town quickly spread the news.

The trio plunged immediately into an intense weekend of exploration. There was individual and group yoga, Sanskrit chants, guided meditation, visualization, purification, deep breathing, sunbathing, tea breaks, nutrition breaks, sauna breaks, silence, primal screaming, poetry-reading, journaling, finger painting, body painting, dream work, unstructured play, and frequent experimentation with the contents of Lil’s gris-gris bag. The activities moved from room to room throughout the house. Most involved various blends of aromatic oils and emollients, and special music and lighting. The sessions went on until late Saturday night.

By Sunday morning the relationship was building famously. Lil served breakfast in bed. The threesome enjoyed heaping bowls of fruit salad with various nuts and seeds thrown in, topped up with heavy cream, and steaming lattes and chocolate truffles on the side. Lil resisted the temptation to whip up a batch of her North Shore Superior blueberry muffins from the recipe she got from Meeshaw back in the bog trailer days.

After breakfast they went to relax in the hot tub. Lil served pink champagne. Day Two was to be a similar program to Day One, but on a higher plane. It was a beautiful May morning. The trees were in full leaf. The warm spring sun was dappling through the leaves, and the nesting birds were making music as they swooped and darted above the yard.

“This is swell!”, enthused Blueberry. “I never realized a relationship could be so much fun. Or that I could have one without having to wear a cowgirl outfit.”

The early morning peace was shattered by a loud knocking on the front door, and an even louder bellowing. Ladanian Hill had arrived. Lil pulled on a robe and went to the door. The beefy chief building inspector was not in a good mood.

“Word around town is you three are sitting in here naked watching porn!”

Lil thought, “This is going to be a tough nut to crack.”

She said, “Come in and see for yourself.”

Ladanian was a good ole boy from down south, and a mean sumbitch in a barroom brawl, but his Ma had taught him how to behave in a lady’s parlour. He waited politely.

Lil sent Billy and Blueberry for a self-guided meditation in the bedroom. “Try not to make too much noise,” she cautioned.

She led Ladanian to the treatment room in the basement. He was a bit spooked by the candles, and the unfamiliar aromas of the oils, and told Lil he wasn’t putting up with any of that “touchy-feely tom-foolery”. Lil touched him just so, and fooled him into lying down on the message table.

Once she had him somewhat settled Lil launched into a special program she’d developed and used only for acute cases in extreme circumstances. It was a kind of crash course in enlightenment. Lil called it her Two Chakra Tune-up. It was based loosely on the teachings of George Clinton: If you can free a man’s ass, his head will follow.

For the duration of the long afternoon she guided Ladanian through a variety of fruit beverages enhanced by the contents of her gris-gris bag, a process of psycho-social encounters and role-playing involving an extended family of stuffed animals, and some frankly invasive massage techniques that afterward Ladanian had to admit he got a kick out of and were the best part. She helped Ladanian reconcile with his inner enfant terrible. She cooled him out, and freed his mind, and showed him how to open new opportunities by first embracing himself, and then others. He embraced Lil several times on the way. By the end of the session they shared feelings of light-headedness, and a mellow satisfaction with each other.

“Hot damn!”, said Ladanian. “That feels good!”

At the end of the day they were all best friends. Billy, Blueberry, and Ladanian wandered off arm-in-arm into the cool spring twilight. They were looking forward to all the neat things they were going to learn from each other. Ladanian even decided to cancel the contract he’d just signed to train building inspectors in Iraq for the reconstruction of Baghdad. The job would have paid well, but what he could learn from Billy about gun powder would be priceless.

When they’d turned the corner and were out of sight Lil went out to the garage. She started up the Avanti and sat for a moment listening to the soothing rhythmic rumble of the big V8. She drove out of town toward the superhighway. She wanted some quiet time in the donut shop with a newspaper and a cup of coffee. She wondered if the Two Chakra Tune-up would work on the board of trade. She wondered if the weird movie was still playing at Junior Mennon's new drive-in theatre.