𝑫𝒂𝒗𝒊𝒅 𝑩𝒐𝒘𝒊𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑪𝒉𝒊𝒄𝒌𝒆𝒏 𝑹𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒉

☆16☆

Throughtout the next few months, Melvin and David saw each other. They mostly wrote letters or called one another. But Melvin would take some time and come down to visit him. Some of the people in the small town were curious about the two's relationship. Some thought David was hanging around Melvin so he wouldn't do any more reports on it. Others thought they were really good friends.

One day, they went on a picnic to the Chicken Ranch.

Mona looked out her window as they set everything up.
"C'mon girls!" She hollered up the stairs. "We got visitors!"
At once, all the girls ran out of their rooms like a stampede of elephants running across the plains. Mona opened the door as they all ran out onto the porch.
"Well, hello there fellas!" Mona greeted cheerfully.
"Hello Mona!" David yelled from where he was at. "We came out here to have a picnic!"

"Can we join ya'll?" One of them yelled.
"Yeah, nothing has been happening all day. We'd love something interesting to do!" Another hollered in unison.
"I love picnics! And grass!"
"Me too!"

"Now, now!" Mona spat at them through her teeth quietly. "Ya'll know it's rude to invite yourself to somebody else's event!"

"Sure, all of you can join." David replied. "If it's okay with Melvin."
Everyone turned their head towards Melvin who just looked at David blankly. He hesitated to answer, not really wanting to invite them all.
"Well, uh, sure. Why not? But we don't have enough food for all of them."

"Oh that's fine! We can just come out and visit with one another!" Somebody yelled at them. "If anyone wants something , we can just bring it ourselves!"

With that, some of the girls rused into the house while others came towards them. Mona sat down beside David. "This is real nice of you two. Especially you Melvin." She smiled at them, as she picked a bug out of David's hair.

"Yes, I know we haven't met yet, but we still got off to a rough start." Melvin replied, feeling a bit nervous about meeting Mona for the first time.
"Melvin, it's kinda nice to meet you."

"Kinda?"

"Well, you did go off and tried to expose her brothel." Somebody chimed in. Their voice sounding bitter.
Melvin realized the voice was beside him. He turned his head and was met with a woman sitting beside him.
"What? We all saw it." She shrugged. "Didn't we ya'll?"

The replies were a mixture of a bunch of "yeah", "uhhh-huh", "we certainly did". Along with many other sayings and words that meant yes.
"What's your name?" Melvin asked her chuckling a bit.

"Mary Lou. But eveyone around here just calls me Lou. That's 'cause I like Lou without Mary in front of it. I looked at myself one day in the mirror, and I told myself that I am not a Mary Lou. I am just a Lou. So please, just call me Lou." Lou explained to him.

"Yes." Melvin nodded as he smiled a bit. "I understand."

Everyone that had gone into the house was now coming back out as David began grabbing stuff out of the basket. They all got settled before they all began to eat together. Melvin got to see that they too, had their own lives, personalities, memories, likes, and dislikes.
This made Melvin regret what he did even more.

Everyone was happy like Ed Earl said they would be.

The end-

Just kidding, there's more to this story.

All of a sudden, everyone heard a  deep, raspy, ear piercing noise.