Instead of the opening number of I Love Rock ‘n Roll that was planned, Tala began to sing I have a Father who can, in perfect harmony her sister and cousins joined in. There was a reverent silence as the acapella voices filled the city square. Paul had heard them sing that song a hundred times over the years, but today there was an incredible sense of reverence. Then as soon as they finished, Amber seated herself at the drums and began to beat-out the driving sound of I Love Rock ‘n Roll. The crowd went wild and the street party of the century was on. People who had heard the Verron family perform before knew that they were on today’s agenda and got permission from Verron Security and the organizer of the festivities, Princess Renee, to set up the sound system to record the entire concert. Paul only agreed to do it if all proceeds from the sale of the proposed double CD would be donated to the people of the countries in Africa that were beginning to rebuild, but often needed that little extra financial push to get them on their feet. He was especially interested in providing good educations. Desiree and Marie were still working there occasionally and were still involved in developing improvement programs to help them become economically sound.
The crowd was entertained for the next four hours by the King’s Family with everything from gospel, bluegrass, rock, blues, country and even some classical music. The highlights were Amber doing a sensational Janis Joplin on four different songs, Tala, Katelyn and Kary playing Chapel Hill Boogie, King Verron playing Peter Frampton’s Do You Feel Like I Do, complete with the voice overlay, and lead guitar on Tightrope by Stevie Ray Vaughn; Kary, Joe and Paul doing a half dozen Stevie Ray Vaughn and Kenny Wayne Sheppard songs, Hunter doing songs by Kenny Chesney and Garth Brooks, then bringing the house down with Blake Shelton’s Boys Round Here, then switching to singing songs by Journey. Soon they switched instruments and did a session of bluegrass, with banjo, dobro, mandolin, fiddle and string bass. The King and his brothers got together again and did four songs by the Eagles. Paul then left the stage and let the family have it to themselves. He mingled with the audience a while and was in such a good mood he did an interview with several of the TV news people that where there. He soon realized he was hungry and stepped over to a nearby vendor to get a pizza wedge and a Diet Coke. He was surprised that people actually left him alone while he ate it. After finishing his gourmet meal, he decided to go see how Zeus was doing. He knew that the big guy would probably have a belly ache in the morning. He began to gradually make his way through the crowd and back to Zeus.
Igor Banach was a big strong man of 6 foot 3 and 275 pounds and had always worked hard his entire life to provide for his wife and two sons. When he wasn’t at work at the mines, he was in the gym and could easily pass for a professional body builder, but it had not always been this way. He began working in the coal mines in the Lublin Coal Basin in Poland when he was just 17. His Dominika was pregnant with their first son when he began his first day in the mines. He was soon recognized as a leader and an organizer and the coalminers union began to develop his talents as a union steward. By the time he was 30 years-old his second son was born and he and his family had a modest apartment near the mines and lived better than most in his neighborhood, especially since his Dominika also earned extra money as a seamstress at a fine-ladies dress shop in Lublin. Then when Patryk was 10 years old and little Milosz was eighteen months, his world began to fall apart; it was the day of one of the largest mining disasters in Poland’s history. Deep under the earth at 850 meters, there was a methane gas explosion that should have never happened. One hundred and twelve miners were trapped beneath the rubble for nearly a week before they were finally freed. Fifty men died in the disaster. Igor lost his left arm and crushed his left leg so badly that it could not be repaired. Placed on disability, Igor was barely able to survive, much less provide his family’s needs. Dominika began to work three different jobs to help the family while Igor could do nothing more than sit at home.
Then one day eight years ago a young Prince Hunter Verron-Hall came through Lublin recruiting miners for the mines in a place called Verron. There were a couple of Russians with him that told how on Verron people could be completely healed of the worst injuries and then the Russian held up a picture of himself after being wounded in Afghanistan. Both legs had been blown off by a landmine. Igor convinced Dominika that Verron is where they should go and within a week they were gathered in a warehouse and escorted through a portal to Verron. After being processed through their immigration center, Igor was escorted to the medical center and placed in a regeneration chamber. He was soon stronger than ever and working in the much safer and cleaner environment of the Verron iron-ore mines. For the first time in his life he had an interest in taking care of his new body and began body-building.
Life had been good when he got here. Within a year he had saved enough for the family to move out of the apartment, which was far nicer than anything he could have afforded in Poland, and into their own home. He still often stood out on the sidewalk and looked at the beautiful three bedroom 1600 square foot cottage that he and Dominika had made into a home. It was beautifully landscaped and had custom designed draperies sewn by Dominika. She opened a business making custom curtains and with all the building on Verron, had soon saved a sizable amount of money. Patryk joined the Verron Marines as soon as he turned 18 and Milosz thought of nothing else but being a Spaceship pilot one day. The boy was smart and ambitious and Igor had no doubt that he would soon realize his dream. With straight A’s in school, he had been offered a scholarship to the new Verron Military Academy. With Patryk, 26 years-old now, a Master Gunnery Sergeant in the Verron Marines and Milosz preparing to attend the Academy in one more year, Igor knew he had done his work well. He had raised two fine sons, but not all was perfect in his life. With him spending over-time hours at the mines to help earn extra money and with Dominika working late into the night to meet deadlines made to customers for finished curtains, the two of them had grown apart and felt like strangers when they were together. Igor realized there was a problem and since they were already in their new house and he didn’t need to earn so much as he used to with one child now on his own, he began to cut back on his overtime and spend more time at home. Problem was Dominika was not at home for him to spend time with.
Dominika continued to spend more and more hours away from home and when Igor suggested that she hire extra people to help her with her work, she began to get irate and told him to stop trying to tell her how to run her business. He realized that she had become very independent and he decided to respect the fact that she had been the chief income earner while he was handicapped and he couldn’t expect her to move into a lesser role just because he was well. Then she began to come in later and later, finally one weekend she did not come home at all. Igor chided himself for being so slow and dimwitted; he finally realized Dominika was having an affair. When he finally confronted her, she swore she was not seeing another man and as much as he wanted to trust her, he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Like every jealous husband, Igor did what seemed like the natural thing to do, he followed her. After about three days of his clandestine activities he found her sneaking into the house of a neighbor no more than a block up the street. He sort of remembered the man as being a strong handsome military type and his heart felt sick as he thought of his Dominika in the arms of another man. He kept his discovery to himself for a couple of days and often dropped subtle hints to his wife when she came dragging in long after he was supposed to be asleep.
Finally he could stand it no longer. One evening when he would normally be asleep, he slipped from his bed and walked silently down the sidewalk to the house where he just knew she was seeing another man. The backdoor was unlocked and his heart began to pound as he slipped inside, wondering, “What if he has a gun and shoots me.” With his heart racing in a mix of emotions he moved slowly down the hall to the sound of voices. He looked through a partially opened door and realized his wife had not lied. She was not seeing another man, she was seeing
his wife.
All hell broke loose after that. Lorna Anderson was the wife of an Officer in the Verron Air Force. He was often away on assignments in remote areas for weeks at a time and then back home for a few weeks, then away once again. Lorna had been looking for work to fill her empty days and began working with Dominika as a seamstress in her curtain business. It all started out as just being friends, but it soon turned into something entirely different. Dominika, when confronted by Igor, declared she was in love with Lorna and that Lorna was in love with her. Now that half of the sorted affair was out in the open, Lorna was now bold enough to inform her husband that she was in love with Dominika Banach and wanted a divorce. Emboldened by Lorna’s decision, Dominika informed Igor that she wanted a divorce as well and moved in with Lorna. A very frustrated Captain Anderson granted her the divorce and moved off to some remote duty station where he didn’t have to deal with her anymore. Since they had no children, the break was clean.
Dominika and Igor were raised Catholic and needless to say divorce in the Catholic Church was not easy to obtain. Finally after Dominika pressed the issue the divorce was granted by the government of Verron for obvious reasons and Catholic Church or no, Dominika and Lorna were now both divorced and living together. That is where the problems really began. While Igor was hoping that Dominika was just going through a phase in her life and would one day come to her senses and return to her husband and family, the laws of Verron made it perfectly clear that homosexuality was not allowed on Verron. When the two lovers were confronted with the question of their relationship they of course took a typical feminists approach to the question and informed the authorities that it was their life and they would live it anyway they chose to live it. The matter was brought before King Verron and he personally delivered the decree to Dominika and Lorna stating that they did in fact have the right to share their life with anyone they chose to share it with and have a same sex relationship if they desired, as long as they didn’t do it on Verron. He then gave them the fair market value for the home Lorna got in her divorce and the business built by Dominika and added a substantial relocation cost to the bottom line and asked, “Where would you ladies like to live beside here? I’ll have your things professionally packed and shipped to anywhere you decide to settle.”
Dominika and Lorna were now married and living in San Simeon, California. Their custom curtain and upholstery shop was doing very well. Dominika had made no attempt to contact either of her sons and had not responded to a single letter sent by Igor. Patryk started spending more time at home with his younger brother ever since Igor fell into such depression he no longer cooked, had begun drinking far more than he should and often missed work. He hadn’t darkened the door of the church since the divorce; he was too embarrassed to face the people who knew what happened and that would include just about everyone. Guys being guys, he tried to smile at all the jokes at work about his not being able to please his wife so she found someone who could. He was already feeling down enough just having the woman he loves and adores find comfort in the arms of another, but when the other person is a woman, it just really made him feel like a fool and a complete failure as a man, a father and a husband.
The boys had been attending the festivities every day during the week on the square in St. Paul, but he just couldn’t bring himself to celebrate when he had grown to hate the country and the man that forced his wife to leave and seek comfort in the arms of her lover. Igor just knew that things would have worked out given enough time, and as far as he was concerned, she was still his wife. He got up this morning determined to make a statement about how he feels about the man who ruined his life. He was there when the arrogant little dictator gave his wife and her girlfriend their ultimatum. He didn’t have a single doubt that he would still be seeing her on occasion if she still lived down the street and he wouldn’t be so ready to end his life, or the life of another.
Patryk and Milosz left early for the last day of festivities, they didn’t want to miss a moment of the fun and it was all over the TV and Radio that King Verron and his family were going to be providing the entertainment for the people of Verron on the last evening of the celebration. Igor waited till the boys were gone and managed to get dressed and out the door by late afternoon. He slipped the CZAK P-64 9mm into his relaxed fit jeans; the small handgun was hardly noticeable in the large pockets of his jeans. The old CZAK had been around a long time. He bought it illegally while in Poland from a street merchant during the riots and protests that were taking place at the mines. He and his family had been threatened a few times so he bought it for protection of them. He decided that if he was going to have a gun in the house with two small boys that they better learn to use it properly, over the years the three men had spent many hours practicing their marksmanship with the old relic of Poland’s military past. Patryk even used the old gun to compete in a competition, and won, beating older men with much more modern pistols than his completely original CZAK. He was proud of his two boy’s ability with a weapon.
Igor wrote a short note for his sons and headed out the door for the city. There was no way to get there in a personal vehicle, so he headed for the closest shuttle location and caught the shuttle to town. Igor hated crowds and on this day there was a lot of crowd to hate. People were everywhere, he could hardly move. He began to have second thoughts about why he had come, and wondered how in the world he would ever be able to find anyone in this wall of people. Then he looked up along with everyone else to see the grand and glorious entrance of the Dragon King on the back of that huge dragon of his. It just made Igor want to throw-up as he watched the cocky little King strut through the crowd of worshipers toward the bandstand.
For a moment he almost believed all that crap King Verron was telling the crowd, especially at first, right after he sang the National Anthem; he always loved that song and had to admit Paul Verron had a pretty good voice. But when the speech began, he immediately began to get upset again with the King filling people’s heads with a bunch of lies. It was almost torture for him to sit through the hours of concert being given by the privileged few on stage. What made them think the people of Verron would want to hear them perform instead of some well-known professional performers. He was actually getting angrier that the people were loving the music and hanging on every word spoken or sung by the King’s Family. He tried to act happy when people around him began to sing along or dance to the songs being performed. Igor didn’t know who Peter Frampton was and had never heard the song King Verron performed, but it lasted way too long for his taste. He was wondering if the man would ever leave the stage. There was no possible way for him to work through the standing crowd and get closer to the bandstand, he’d start a riot and draw too much attention to himself if he started pushing people aside to get closer. Then he saw the man himself exit the stage and warmly greet a group of people on the front row. Shaking hands and smiling, he began to work his way through the crowd toward one of the concession stands. As Igor watched, he was handed a large slice of pizza and a soda and ate it while he listened to his family perform and spoke casually to people who came by to chat with a King.
Igor was too far away and it was much too crowded for him to get close enough to attempt a shot, so he kept hoping that the King would move on from where he was and he could work his way closer. When the pizza was finished he signed a few autographs like some kind of rock star and began moving toward the rear of the crowd. Igor hoped he would head for that dragon where the crowd was a little thinner. Once the King began to walk through the crowd they parted as if on cue to allow him through. He continued to move away from the stage and was getting closer then he stopped at a concession stand to speak to a lady that had called his name, some Chinese lady. King Verron gave the lady a warm greeting and was given an egg-roll to eat and stayed chatting with the woman too long. Once again he was on the move. While he had been filling his belly, Igor had managed to work his way closer to his intended target. Finally luck was with him. The c
rowd parted to allow King Verron through and the path was clear of all people between him and Paul Verron; in a few minutes, if he would ever stop shaking hands and talking to people, he would be directly in front of Igor. He was almost there when he stopped to have his picture taken with a group of kids 8 to 10 years old dressed in Commando Grays and wearing caps with dragons on them. He was disgusted that every kid on Verron wanted to be a Dragon Guard.
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