Baton Rouge Bingo

Leo Tolstoy opened his novel
Anna Karenina
with this wonderful quote: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Tolstoy clearly had never met
my
family.

Then again, I doubt he could have even conceived of a family like mine.

Don’t get me wrong—I have a
great
family. My parents are amazing, but they’re a little odd. Okay, they’re a lot odd; I’ve never met anyone with parents even remotely like mine. They’re what would have been called hippies in the sixties, and no one’s ever come up with a word that fits people like them more accurately. Even
hippies
isn’t really accurate—but calling them left-wing radicals isn’t really accurate, either. They are both very passionate about their beliefs—vegetarianism, nuclear power and nuclear weapons should be banned, gays deserve full equality, sexism and racism are societal evils that need to be eradicated, etc. They also are huge fans of marijuana—they always buy it in bulk, always have the best stuff you can imagine on hand, but they don’t sell it. Anyone who wants some can have some; I don’t think I’ve ever paid for pot that I can recall. I think my parents’ sense of social justice comes from growing up remarkably privileged. My mother’s family, the Diderots, trace their history in Louisiana back to 1720—the Diderots might not have been original settlers, but they arrived in New Orleans within five years of the original settlement on the riverbank. There was a plantation before the Civil War, and the Diderots made a lot of money in shipping. My grandparents have a beautiful old mansion in the Garden District, and I have an enormous trust fund Papa Diderot set up for me when I was born. I’ve never touched the principal, and frankly, the quarterly interest payment is more money than I need. I give the leftover money to charity.

My dad’s family, the Bradleys, are newer money than the Diderots; they made their money in oil in the 1930s. The Bradleys feel inferior to the Diderots; my mother’s family has a long societal lineage, and Papa Diderot loves making Papa Bradley feel inferior. The Bradleys are more conservative than the Diderots, which of course means I am much closer to my mother’s family than my father’s. They have a big house on State Street—which to the Diderots might as well be outer space.

New Orleans is a horribly snobbish city, all things considered.

My name is Scotty Bradley, and I am the youngest of three. I have an older brother, Storm, and an older sister named Rain. Yes, that’s right, my parents named their eldest children Storm and Rain. (Rain has renamed herself Rhonda, but no one in the family calls her that.) The story is that they were going to name me River, but both sets of grandparents gathered around my mother’s hospital bed and demanded she name me something more normal. So Mom decided to name me after both grandmother’s maiden names. So far so good, right?

Except that Maman Diderot’s maiden name was Milton, and Maman Bradley’s was Scott. So on my birth certificate my name is Milton Scott Bradley. Yup, Milton Bradley. I’m sure she thought it was highly amusing, but grammar school was an absolute nightmare until Storm started calling me Scotty.

I’ve been Scotty ever since.

My own home life isn’t exactly normal, either. I have two boyfriends who live with me. Yes, I am in a three-way relationship, which often confuses people when they try to wrap their minds around it. I met both my guys over the same weekend, and I was crazy about them both. I couldn’t decide between them, and they made it easy for me. There have been some bumps and bruises over the years, but for the most part it’s worked beautifully and we’re very happy together.

My guys are Frank Sobieski, who’s a retired FBI agent (he retired after twenty years so he could move to New Orleans) and is now a professional wrestler. Frank is tall and lean, with big, well-defined muscles. He has an angry scar on one of his cheeks, which makes him look mean and threatening, but when he smiles his blue eyes light up and he looks so handsome my knees get a little weak—even after all this time. We have a private detective business together—Bradley and Sobieski—but we don’t get a lot of business. Fortunately, between Frank’s pension and my trust fund, we don’t really need anything else.

The third side of our triangle is Colin Cioni. Colin is shorter than me—maybe about five-seven—and has curly bluish-black hair, dimples, olive skin, and an amazing body. He is solid muscle and is built like a little tank. Colin used to be a Mossad agent but now works for Blackledge, an independent CIA-like agency for hire. He’s gone a lot on assignments he can’t tell us about. I worry, of course, but always hope for the absolute best. He’s always come home so far.

As for me, I’m a college dropout. Yes, sad but true. I have sandy blond hair (that recently started thinning a bit in the front) and was a wrestler in high school. After I dropped out of college, I became a Southern Knight—a male stripping troupe that got booked all over the country for shows. I did that for a few years before giving it up and getting certified to be a personal trainer and to teach aerobics. I still stripped every once in a while, but as an independent contractor. In fact, the weekend I met Frank and Colin I was dancing at the Pub/Parade on Bourbon Street during Southern Decadence. Someone slipped a computer disc into one of my boots, and a friend wound up dead at my front door—and we were off to the races. I showed an aptitude for police work, so I became a private eye licensed by the state of Louisiana.

That’s pretty much it, I guess.

On with the show!