Memorial Madness: The Incident

Okay. The last installment involved the background material for THIS story. A short recap involved the devilish work of Shitake. That's a sliiiicckkkk one... But, onward... If you haven't read Memorial Madness: The Background, STOP! CLICK! READ! COME BACK!
I don't want you all lost as to why things are happening.

The day of the memorial arrives. The Wife had scooped me up the day before to reduce the amount of last minute rushing. So we were in chill mode for most of the morning. While doing breakfast, I happened to spy the time. So I asked her "What time is the service?" She looked at me and then the clock and said "Yeah, I know. We got plenty of time. It starts at 1:30. Well the family hour starts at 1:00 and the service starts at 1:30. But I want to arrive fashionably late so I don't have to deal with the BS that I am sure will be going on! I just know something is gonna happen. I am trying to give THEM the benefit of the doubt. But I ain't breaking bread with them fools afterward. I just can't deal with that mess!" So I said "Fine with me. I arrive when my driver does and leave when she goes! I don't know most of them folk anyway."

So we had our dressing, leaving and arriving plan set. We chillaxxed a bit more and then got dressed. I told The Boy that I would die before letting him be seen wearing a damn clip on tie while I still breathed. So tie tying class started. And I fear he needs a bit more practice. But out the door we go. On the way we were discussing what we might be expecting and the various devilment that Shitake had been engaging in up until that moment.

We arrive at the Jehovah's Witness hall where Gramma and Aunt Sweetie were members. Timing was impeccable. We arrived at about 1:25. We walked toward the entrance and spied all of the teenagers of the clan gravitated to each other talking about nothing. When we see Cousin CW, whose hot young body had turned into a bit larger middle aged version, headed toward us (sigh). As she is passing around hugs and greetings, she says, "It ain't happy in there. Be warned! They done started up already!" "Already!?!?!?" (Me and The Wife in stereo) CW - "Yep. Brace yourselves..." So me and the wife hover for a minute to steel ourselves by chit chatting with CW and the teens. And In we go!

We walk in and The Wife scans around to find her mom or sister for seating. No luck since she didn't see her sister and her mom was already accompanied. There was an empty row behind her mom. But she decided against sitting there. Okay she said "Ain't no way I am sitting in the middle near the front." So we sit at the right side of the hall about mid way back. We finally see her sister in the same row as us in the center section. By this time the teens had all drifted in and found seats. The Boy (my son) sat next to Heracles by MIL. The Girl (my daughter) sat by Jackie-L on the opposite side from us. We noticed that Aunt Sweetie and her family were in the front row, center section. MIL was in the row behind her with The Law's daughters, Heracles and The Boy. The next row was empty. Scratch that. The Law walked in right then with his wife and sat there. We noticed that Shitake was over by Jackie-L holding Princess (Jackie-L's baby girl). Aunt C, looking remarkably like a thicker version of Shitake (but don't tell HER that) was also over on the far side.

So the service went fine as usual. The pastor, as always, took that opportunity to hold service up in there! And between my bouts of nodding out, I found him pretty amusing. Mostly because I always find it amusing when people use redundancies when they talk. You know like when my step-mom says sausage-meat (sounds like shashuh meat). His phrase was Bible-book. And he quoted many scriptures out of that Bible-book too! He even gave us the Jehovah's Witness version of Heaven. Which I thought not too bad. Maybe I will read one of those Watchtowers that get forced on me in the future... But I digress.

The first clue for me that things might go horribly wrong was when The Wife borrowed an obituary from the man sitting at the end of the row. She remarked on the generally shoddy quality of the work. We (Me, The Wife and Annie Oakley) had done them for the last three funerals so it got critiqued, heavily. The first GLARING omission was when the son-in-laws were mentioned, her father wasn't in the list. He had passed on years earlier and apparently was out of mind (uh huh...) What I didn't know at the time was that Cousin Queen V (The Law's daughter, CW's sister) was visibly upset at the OTHER GLARING OMISSION. That being that The Law's wife wasn't mentioned either. His VERY MUCH ALIVE AND IN ATTENDANCE WIFE!!! And the wife was having a bit of sport at the part about Gramma being an exemplary mother and taught her children morals and such. This ALMOST made the wife snort out loud while the pastor was still doing his thing. But she listened when me and Cousin Glowworm told her to behave in stereo. A prayer and a few final words later the service ended! I even had my post half written at that point, especially about the Bible-book...

THEN ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE!!!!!

I started to look around for everybody who needed greetings from me. Then I notice The Law grab his wife from behind by the shoulders and force march her the hell up out of the hall. A man who I can't ever recall seeing before was hot on his heels saying stuff like "...dinner on my mothers memorial day" "Why she gotta be here?" "...Don't trust her!" as they went past my amazed eyes. Oh, this man, by the way, was Uncle Nutzo. Apparently he decided to wait exactly ONE second after the pastor finished to start his shit with big brother! I was starting to think how fucked up that shit was. Until he tried to take a swing at The Law! Right in the damn doorway!

:: Now this is the part where everything got confusing. Please bear with me if it gets confusing. ::

So Nutzo tries to start a fight with The Law because he had enough sense to leave instead of having some mess going on during the service. Bedlam! A couple of people grabbed Nutzo. He attempted to fight his way out. Was very close to getting the life stomped out of him by an off duty cop. THEN! MIL, who has numerous medical problems, decides to go get her little brother to try to get him to calm down. He bumps into her! Nearly knocking her over. So Heracles sees this, hulks the fuck out, off comes the shirt (I still don't remember what he was wearing aside from his uncle beater). He stands in front of her and dares Nutzo to touch her again! At the same time The Wife was counting her peeps to see where we were. She sees the bump. She yells to The Boy "Get your grandma! NOW!!!!" So my lazy ass son shocks the shit out of us by LEAPING over the chair and gets behind Heracles and in front of MIL. Also heard in a very proper and well enunciated bit of English was "Don't let Annie Oakley get to her truck!!!" Yeah, a white dude, Big M. You may or may not remember him from bike class... By this time I am starting to think of the most efficient way of murdering off Nutzo because this shit was going too damn far.
:: Hey, my wife and kids were up in there! Sue my ass! BTW I had settled on a hand over mouth and one over nose and a big bear hug. My feet never moved though! You'd be proud! ::

AT THE SAME TIME on the OTHER side of the hall. Apparently Shitake, still carrying Princess, decides to get all up in the shit! So she is heading toward the shit right? She basically runs up on MIL. She sees her and the next thing EVERYBODY sees is MIL's cane get raised HIGH up in the air! No. She wasn't just gonna hit her ass. She was about to bring the smite down up in that piece! Then Annie Oakley shakes the hell up outta her shoes! Meanwhile The Girl was walking up behind Shitake to rescue Princess because it seems she had taken a blow or two in the conflict and Shitake's grip was slippin'. Now somebody later mentioned that Shitake took a swing at The Girl. Fortunately The Girl didn't notice that. Her evil ass WOULD have retaliated. And you know how mothers are with their babies right? And you all have been here long enough to know that The Wife is AKA Miss Whoopabitchorthree. Had either of my kids been hit that damn joint might be a smoking pile of rubble at this point with a community of Jehovah's Witnesses wondering what they had done to deserve having their hall treated so...

:: Before I go on I will have to do a quick tactical analysis. ::
MIL had probably the largest contingent of supporters. She had three grand children, Two daughters, one son-in-law, one son-in-law to be (so I just found out...), three in-laws and one niece from the seemingly forgotten husband's family (tha gangster ones...), about five or eight friends (I lost count), Jackie-L (who is staying between her and Aunt Sweetie's house after the argument), probably The Law's daughters Queen V and CW, their sons, and possibly Aunt Sweetie's hubby and grand kids.
:: Tactical Analysis over... ::

Now after a minute or two of struggle and strife, they manage to get Nutzo, Shitake and Aunt C outside. Remember Aunt C was under the influence of Shitake. Things seemingly break up. Or so I thought. I linger around inside before going outside. I find The Wife and Annie Oakley attempting to restrain MIL from heading to what appears to be ANOTHER fight! They were alternately trying to calm her down and cuss her out because she was still dead set and determined to get her smite on! AND Joan Cleaver, a very right and respected lady (imagine Maya Angelou mixed with June Cleaver) decides to go and "... have a word with this Shitake". Her son had to grab her and hold her in place. Can you see it two ladies, one in her 50's and another in her 70's hobbling down to get the way to smite a person or two? Yeah...

Now by this time, Annie Oakley HAD gotten to her truck. So she was armed. And pissed! And barefoot. She shook outta the shoes when the shit jumped off inside. So she was doing the bulk of the cussing while The Wife did most of the calming. Until she had to act like the mother. She later realized that her and her sister were gonna be in trouble for cussing at their mom when MIL finally calmed down and remembered.

Yes, I did say there was a fight going on. Apparently Shitake and Queen V aired their venom and it turned into fisticuffs. Sisters got involved. It turned into a Tag team match. Shitake and Aunt C on one side and Queen V and CW on the other. Now the teens were all in agreement until they realized that their mothers were going at it. Then they started beefing. So now Aunt C's son was about ready to scrap with Queen V's son. While Shitake's son and CW's son were about to get into it.

ALL that broke up when the Ecorse cops rolled up into the parking lot! And they rolled up fast. I guess they mean mugged folk hard enough for cooler heads to prevail. They circled the parking lot once. They stopped to talk to the guy off duty who was at the service. I guess they were convinced that every thing else was cool and rolled out without getting out of the squad car.

This is where I will end my tale. I think everything took less time to happen than it did for you to read this. And I know I am leaving out many details. But I think you have spent enough time on these folks!