She didn't accept his ring right there. She didn't gush all over him and go off into the sunset with him. But she also didn't slap his face. She left the parking lot that day by herself, her mind very troubled. But the next day she called him up and agreed to have lunch with him. By the end of that day they found themselves at Mike's house, in bed, her newest ring on her finger.
The next day she broke the news to the radiology tech. He did not take it very well. He screamed and yelled and cussed and Maggie was forced to flee in terror, honestly fearing for her safety. The words "bitch" and "cunt" and "whore" followed her to her car.
Mr. Radiology then made perhaps the worst mistake of his life. After Maggie left he went to Mike's fire station carrying an aluminum baseball bat and intending to express his displeasure with Mike in dramatic fashion. It was pretty dramatic all right. He'd failed to take a few things into consideration before launching his attack. One was that Mike was in exquisite physical shape as a result of his passion for working out. Another was that there were two other firemen in the station and firemen are fiercely loyal to each other.
The scuffle lasted approximately forty-five seconds. Radiology did not land a single blow with his bat or anything else. The Spokane Police arrived in force less than three minutes later. They charged in with their batons out, just itching to thump upon the person who had dared to storm a firehouse (the cops are VERY protective of firefighters and paramedics). What they found was their aggressor lying unconscious on the floor, bleeding from multiple places on his head and face. Radiology went to jail after a two-day stay in the Spokane Trauma Center.
The last thing that he did not take into account was that assaulting fire personnel is heavily frowned upon by the legal system, even if a deadly weapon is not involved, which in this case it was. The proverbial book was thrown at him and he ended up spending a year in the county jail which, of course, resulted in the loss of his job.
Neither Mike nor Maggie was ever bothered by him again. Less than six months later they were married. Nina and I both drove to Spokane to attend.
Did they live happily ever after? Does anybody? They are still married today and have two children that are a few years older than mine. Mike was promoted to engineer in 1989. He made Captain in 1991. He's being pressured from above to apply for Battalion Chief these days but he insists he just wants to be a Captain forever. He has his own station, his own crew, and he still gets to run into burning buildings once in a while.
Maggie went to work at Holy Family hospital, moving from department to department for a few years until she found her niche in labor and delivery. She's been there ever since and is now the dayshift charge nurse.
As a couple they are considerably more wealthy than the upper-middle-class status that their income alone would have provided. Since his first year on the fire department Mike has been taking investment advice from me. He's never committed as much as I have but the net worth of the Meachen family is currently around 1.8 million dollars. They have a large house, paid for, in the River-View area of Spokane. You can see the falls from their bedroom window and their deck.
They remain our best friends. We get together either at our house or theirs no less than twice a month, sometimes more. We spend every New Year's Eve together partying the night away. We go on skiing trips, boating trips, Vegas trips, and the occasional cruise together. We couldn't ask for better friends.
Tracy, like Nina, pounded out her undergraduate degree in three years. She was accepted into the UC Berkeley law school and graduated with honors in June of 1989. She could have had a job with any number of prestigious firms as a litigator. Instead she applied and was instantly accepted at the Spokane County District Attorney's office as a deputy DA.
She moved back home in early July of 1989, saving me the bother of warning her about the impending earthquake that was going to strike the bay area in October of that year. She has been with the DA's office ever since and she has made quite a name for herself as the prosecutor that doesn't like to plea bargain. This has made her butt heads with her superiors on more occasions than she cares to count but they can't argue with her conviction rate, which is impressive indeed. She is particularly fierce when she gets her hands on a manslaughter case and even the judges seem to fear her when this happens.
It was in July of 1994 that she went to work one morning and was handed a new case file by her boss. The suspect in the case was one Dennis Castleton. He was a first sergeant in the United States Army home on leave for two weeks. The cops had filed a charge of second-degree murder against him but it was expected that the charge would be reduced to manslaughter. Sergeant Castleton was not an ordinary soldier but a member of the elite Army Rangers that had seen combat in the Persian Gulf War. The victim of the crime was a two-time loser that had been recently paroled from state prison after serving six years for armed robbery. The victim's name was Richard Fairview.
Apparently Sergeant Castleton had been leaving a bar with his wife when Fairview, a methamphetamine addict that was out of product and desperate for more, spotted what he thought was an easy mark. He approached Castleton, pushed him roughly up against a car, and demanded all of his money. Fairview had no weapon (if he'd had a gun he could have sold it for crank) and was relying solely on his intimidating size to get what he wanted. Why not? Castleton was only five foot eight and a hundred and forty pounds or so. I guess Richie hadn't learned much from his encounters with me back in high school.
When the cops arrived they found Richie Fairview dead on the pavement. An autopsy would reveal multiple skull fractures from having his head bashed repeatedly into the side of the car and a crushed trachea from having a hand chop brutally into it. Sergeant Castleton was without so much as a scratch on him.
Tracy reluctantly had herself removed from the case on the grounds that the victim had once stabbed her brother. The case eventually went to trial but the jury deadlocked 9-3 in favor of acquittal. The DA elected not to re-try it and Sergeant Castleton was released. He was given a court martial by the military and ultimately reduced one grade in rank. He would go on to fight another day. I only wished I'd had the opportunity to buy him a drink at some point.
Tracy, like many of my friends and all of my family, is considerably wealthier than her colleagues thanks to her wise choices in investments. She owns a large house not terribly far from Mike and Maggie's. She vacations in some new, exotic place each year. She's actually been to Russia, to Africa, to the Middle East, and even did a brief stint on a very expensive Antarctica tour in 1993. She always returns from her vacations refreshed and ready to get back into the fray of the Spokane County justice system.
In addition to her DA duties she is also active in many victims rights organizations. MADD is chief among them, although she is not a mother. She is very radical on the subject of DUI laws. Sometimes I think the Iranians would think her a tad radical on that subject.
Her personal life could use a little improvement. She is driven by her job and her relationships with men reflect that. She's been married twice now, both marriages conceived in passion and haste, both dissolved after less than two years. No children were produced either time. Most men have a hard time with her aggressive, pushy nature, not to mention the long hours that she works at her job and her volunteer work. Husband number one was a fellow prosecutor and you would have thought he'd have understood. He didn't. Number two was a detective sergeant with the Spokane Sheriff's department. He hadn't understood either. Both I think were drawn to Tracy by her good looks and strong personality and then driven away when they found that personality was stronger than they'd thought.