Chapter Eleven

"You should meet my aunt Shelley," Julie said as she stabbed her spoon into the mountain of soft-serve ice cream. She was glad Uncle Dale had yanked her out of the stands the second the game was over, so she wouldn't have to wait around for Dad. And, unlike Dad, he hadn't told her that's enough while she was filling her cup to overflowing. He also hadn't told her only one more topping, Julie, that's enough! when they were at the make-it-yourself bar.

"Why's that?"

Aunt Shelley had just broken up with her boyfriend, and Julie thought she was lonely, and she also thought Uncle Dale seemed kind of lonely too. Uncle Dale had money, and Aunt Shelley never had any. It could be a good match. "Do you like blue-eyed blondes?"

Uncle Dale licked his spoon. "I like every hair and eye color the Good Lord has seen fit to put on the crown of creation." He took a sip from one of the clear, plastic cups of water he'd insisted on filling for both of them. "I've met your aunt Shelley already."

"You did?" Julie leaned forward and smiled. "Did you like her?"

"The first time I met her, she was a baby."

"Oh." Julie sat back. She plucked a candy corn from off her ice cream and ate it. As far as she was concerned, her aunt and uncle were the same generation. After all, they were brother and sister to her parents. "But she's not a baby anymore! She's almost Mom's age now!"

Uncle Dale chuckled.

"What's so funny? "

"I was just thinking…I'm actually closer in age to your grandmother than I am to your aunt."

"To Nana Hayes? What? How?"

"Your grandmother was a secretary at my high school. She was 22 when I was 14. She used to bring your aunt Shelley to the office and put her in a bassinet right next to her desk. Until the principal told her she had to stop."

"What? That's silly, Uncle Dale. My aunt Shelley is four years younger than my mom, and Nana Hayes told me she didn't even get married until she was 22."

"Well…uh…Are those gummy worms?"

Julie looked into her cup. "They're coke bottles." She ate one. "I mean really, Uncle Dale. If she was 22 when she had my aunt Shelley, she would have had to have gotten pregnant with my mom when she was only 17, because a pregnancy takes nine months." Julie knew this and much more about sex and reproduction. After all, she'd had her first sex ed class last year in 5th grade, and her mom had given her the talk along with a bunch of books and a promise to answer all of her questions frankly. Yes, a pregnancy took nine months. Julie stared at the rainbow sprinkles scattered on her ice cream and thought about when her own parents were married and when she was born. "Wait," she said. "My parents got married in June. If they got married in June, and I was born in January, that's only seven months!"

Uncle Dale must have gotten some ice cream stuck in his throat, because he started coughing. Then he took a sip of water and said, "Well I think, uh…I remember your dad saying you were premature."

"I was 8 pounds 6 ounces when I was born. That's what my baby card says."

"Well thank God you got out when you did, then, or you would have been enormous. Do you have enough ice cream? Did you get enough to eat there?"

Julie looked at her cup. She was feeling a little full, but the ice cream was so good. She took another bite. She was just starting to think about those seven months again when her uncle asked, "So you want to be in the F.B.I.?"

"Yeah. Because I could never work for the D.E.A."

"Why's that?"

"I think drugs should be legalized."

She expected Uncle Dale to say that was foolish and just dismiss her, but instead he asked, "Why's that?"

"Five reasons." She was planning to try out for the middle school debate team, and this had been one of the suggested pro/con topics. She'd researched it in the school library. "One, more tax revenue. Two, reduced organized crime. Three, lower enforcement costs. Four, people shouldn't go to jail for victimless crimes. Five, government abuses in the so-called War on Drugs. We have been fighting this war for nearly thirty years," she announced in her best debate voice. "And we haven't won. It's time to throw in the white flag."

"Well…" Uncle Dale pushed his half empty ice cream cup forward, "just don't throw it in quite yet. I've got less than five years until full retirement."

"You can retire before you're even 50? I thought people retired when they were like…70."

"I can retire with 25 years of service, and I started right out of college. I'll do something else after."

"But you agree with my points?" Julie had expected him to be more defensive.

"You have some good points. We could maybe legalize and regulate some of the softer drugs, but there's always a flip side."

"What? Tell me. I have to be ready when I debate this."

"They're discussing this in middle-school? In Texas? Really?"

Julie shrugged. "For debate."

"Well, legalization would lower the cost and risk of taking drugs and so likely increase consumption. And drugs really do ruin lives. I've seen it. And if manufacturing drugs becomes a legal way to make good profits, businesses might switch from investing in more useful production – like food – to investing in drug production instead. Also, Jules, these drug laws give us a lot of leverage to keep really bad guys behind bars. "

"Are you saying no one is in jail just for smoking pot?"

"I'm saying if I'm going to get a federal prosecutor to bother to touch one of my cases, it has to be a lot bigger than some recreational marijuana use. And the DEA hired me even though I did a little pot back in high school. So did your – " He stopped speaking suddenly and concluded, "your average teenage idiot like me."

"Are you saying my dad smoked pot in high school?"

"I never said that. I did not say that. I wasn't around when he was in high school. How could I even know? Do you need more water?" Uncle Dale stood up and looked at her water cup, which was three-fourths full. "I should top this off for you."