On Channel 12

Then Milt was home again. Cheryl was grateful for his presence; Milt provided distraction for Gladys.

"Damn, Cheryl! Garbage can right there," Milt complained as he emptied the overflowing kitchen trash. "And, Cheryl, one, two, three things of ice cream? Really?"

For pointing out her laziness and poor diet, Cheryl attempted to make Milt sleep on their couch.

"Don't think so; that my bed yeah," Milt laughed after putting a fresh bag into the small garbage can.

"And, what you been doing? You can't wash nothing?" Milt asked as he lugged their overflowing laundry hamper downstairs and into the garage to wash his clothes and her clothes.

Cheryl's excuse nearly every time was she was pregnant.

Because of the hard physical labor, Milt Duhon slowly began to lose the pounds, lose the inches around his belly and thighs. Hours and hours out in the blazing hot sun of the Gulf Of Mexico bronzed his skin and lightened his dark brown hair some. If Cheryl noticed his improved physique and face, she didn't say anything.

Milt came home after working a fourteen on, seven off; the baby was coming close and he wanted the extra income for the baby, to find Stan Monroe's car in his parking spot. Tromping up the stairs, which used to be a chore, especially after such a hard week at work, and opened the door to see a smirking Stan sitting on his couch, drinking one of his beers, and a red-faced Cheryl sitting next to him.

"You ain't got no business being here I ain't here," Milt said firmly.

"Oh, Fat Fuck?" Stan sneered, calling Milt by his favorite name for Milt when they were in High School.

"I got a right..." Cheryl shrilled.

"I ain't here? You ain't supposed have no man over here unless their momma or girlfriend with them," Milt thundered, surprising Cheryl.

Normally, Milt complained but he didn't raise his voice. He didn't get dark in the face. His eyes didn't squint angrily.

"Time you're going, yeah," Milt said.

"Aw, fuck you; I'll go when I feel like it," Stan sneered and threw the empty can of beer toward the overflowing kitchen garbage can. "Get me another beer, huh, bitch?"

Milt reached over the coffee table, picked Stan up by his shirt and carried the stunned drunk to the open door.

"A man tell you it time to go? It time to go yeah," Milt said and slammed the door in Stan's face.

Milt had hoped for a blow job from Cheryl; she didn't seem to enjoy vaginal sex all that much, but was very good at sucking him to climax. But after throwing her friend out, she was not inclined to do her husband any such favors.

She flounced into their bedroom and called her mother to complain.

Barbara, however, tried to set her daughter straight.

"I don't care that's your friend; he ain't got no business being there your husband ain't there," Barbara said.

Of course, though, Cheryl would not admit that she was wrong.

It was an unhappy seven days for Milt; Cheryl spent much of his week home in very little clothing, showing him her large breasts and round buttocks and hairy pussy, and denying him any access.

It wasn't a happy week for Cheryl either, though. Milt didn't wake her in time for dinner, or if she went for a nap after the strenuous activity of waddling from bedroom to bathroom, he didn't wake her in time for supper either. And Gladys was not inclined to heat up leftovers for her lazy, insolent daughter in law.

Milt washed his clothes, but not hers'. He also cleaned up their apartment, very noisily while she was trying to nap, or watch television.

"Hey, Duhon, come see," Clay Webb called out when Milt showed up at the office after that unhappy week at home.

Clay introduced Milt to Chris Dumas of Pilot Petroleum Exploration and Development, Incorporated.

"This boy I was telling you about," Clay said. "Real smart yeah, just let his little head do his thinking and next thing you know, he married."

So Milt went from being a roughneck to being a mudlogger with a raise and better benefits.

"Thank you, Mr. Webb," Milt said sincerely.

"Fuck you, boy, tired of looking at your ugly ass face," Clay said affectionately.

At their apartment over his parents' garage, Cheryl got up shortly after Milt left for another fourteen day shift, took a shower, even shaving her legs and underarms, which she hated to do.

Outside, after making sure that Milt's truck was gone, Stan got out of his car and started to walk up the outside stairs.

"My boy told you, you ain't got no business coming around he ain't here," Howard said.

"Aw fuck you, I got a..." Stan sneered at the old man.

"Boy, come on my property talk to me like that?" Howard said, grabbing Stan by the collar of his shirt and jerking him backward down the steps.

"You know who my old man is?" Stan screamed from his sprawled out position on the driveway.

"Yeah, Sheriff Monroe," Howard said easily.

"I can't have me no friends?" Cheryl screamed from the top of the steps.

"Your husband ain't here? No ma'am, you can't," Howard said, not turning to look at the girl.

"Hey, Boy," Gladys said from the kitchen door of the home, holding up her cordless phone. "Your daddy want talk with you yeah."

Ronald Monroe did not mince words with his son.

"You tell them nice people you real sorry, get your stupid ass back in your car and get on home. Now," Sheriff Ronald Monroe bellowed into the telephone.

Stan did not tell the Duhons he was sorry, just slapped the phone back into Mrs. Duhon's hand and stomped back to his car.

Cheryl ranted and raved, then looked on in astonishment as Gladys and Howard simply went back into their home and shut the door.

"What you paying them?" Barbara asked her daughter when Cheryl called to cry about the unfairness of it all.

"What you mean?" Cheryl asked.

"Rent? Utilities? Food?" Barbara asked. "That boy busting his ass two weeks out there; yeah, he got you pregnant, but he doing his best provide for y'all. What you doing? Sitting around 'la de dah, I'm the queen, la de dah, I don't got to pay nothing, la de dah.' You go tell them people you sorry yeah, 'cause you know you wrong."

But Cheryl did not go and tell her in laws she was wrong.

And when Milt came home two weeks later and told her about the better job, all she wanted to know was, how soon they could move out of the apartment.

"What? Why? We ain't paying nothing in rent," Milt said. "And my momma right there help out with the baby; you know you going need help, huh?"

Chapter 3

Milt was off-shore when Cheryl went into labor. Cheryl didn't know who to call, but fortunately, Gladys did.

Chris Dumas sent a helicopter out to the rig, dropped Sweet William off to hustle Milt onto the waiting helicopter and flew him back to Lafayette, Louisiana.

Milt arrived at Lafayette General two hours before Sierra Barbara Duhon did.

In his head, Milt did the math and Sierra was a big, healthy baby girl, despite being six weeks premature. She had her mother's blonde hair and dimples and was quite possibly the most beautiful sight Milt had ever seen.

"Whew, you stink!" Cheryl screeched when he bent to kiss her.

"And you smell like a basket of daisies?" Milt asked.

In between Sierra's birth and Summer's conception, Cheryl did manage to harangue, cajole, wheedle, and whine her way into a small house. Milt and his father, and Sam Mouton, who no longer held resentment toward his son in law, worked on fixing the small home up while the three women told them what to do.

Sam Mouton got sick. The man had smoked three packs of Winstons a day since the age of twelve and it finally caught up with him.

When he was in, Milt would watch his beautiful baby girl so that Cheryl could spend time with her father, giving her mother a much needed break. Milt's mother also helped out as much as possible. Although Barbara still held a grudge against Milt for depriving her of the large church wedding she had wanted for her daughter, Barbra had grown tolerant of Gladys.

Sam died three weeks before Summer Samantha Duhon was born and Milt was horrified at Cheryl's reaction. The morbidly obese girl waddled up to her mother and demanded half the inheritance from Sam's estate.

"Honey!" Milt gasped. "That your daddy yeah! Let your momma bury him!"

"Sooner we get my half, sooner we can get out of that little shit hole we living in," Cheryl snapped.

"You want half? Huh? You want half?" Barbara screamed, tears of pain and rage pouring from her eyes. "Which half you want? The medical bills? The bills for his hospital? The funeral bills? Which half you want?"

"You didn't have no insurance?" Cheryl asked, unfazed by her mother's tears.

Milt and his parents quietly agreed to pay for Sam's funeral. They also quietly agreed to 'sell' their house to Clark Duhon, who had just gone through a bitter divorce and custody battle with his wife.

"That way, there ain't no inheritance her get all worked up about," Howard said, indicating their daughter in law with a nod of his head.

Barbara very nearly did not come for the birth of her second granddaughter, still quite upset with her daughter's behavior. But Gladys insisted that Barbara put her feelings aside; surely Cheryl's outburst had been hormonal.

Milt had been in when Summer came along, but was back off-shore three days later. Barbara came to the house, but two hours of Cheryl's angry demands was all Barbara would take and did not return to help her daughter with caring for a young girl just learning potty training and an infant.

By the time Summer was potty trained, Cheryl had browbeat her loving husband into buying a larger home in a better neighborhood. Part of what had sold Milt on the idea was, just down the street, the Angels 270 street gang had tried to rob an old woman at gun point. A man had come along and beat all three of the gang members, putting them in the hospital. But night after night, the Angels 270 drove slowly up and down the street, music blaring and thumping, looking for this man that dared disrespect the Angels 270.

And that's when the Duhon family met the Guidry family.

Paige, at fifteen years of age, was a sought-after babysitter. The girl took no prisoners when it came to following parents' orders, was not afraid to tell her charges 'I am not your friend; I'm your babysitter' and never had her numerous male admirers come to any house she was babysitting at.

Chelsea, on the other hand, at twelve, was barely old enough to babysit, and was a complete pushover.

The benefit of getting Chelsea to babysit on the numerous times that Paige was already booked with another family was The Duhons also got Linda, Chelsea's step-mother.

By the time Cheryl got pregnant with Skye Marilyn Duhon, Barbara had joined her husband. Years of second-hand smoke had taken their toll. And the medical bills had also taken their toll; the house had been sold, and all that Cheryl had left to inherit was the crystal rosary that her great grandmother had given to Barbara at her First Communion. Disgusted, Cheryl threw it into the trash.

Disgusted, Milt dug the rosary out of the trash, cleaned it up, and set it aside to give to the first of their daughters to grace them with a grandchild.

Gladys had succumbed to Alzheimer's and, with heavy heart; Howard put her in Pine Groves Assisted Living. Less than a year later, Clark, who by now was living in the house, received a phone call from the landlord at the small apartment Howard had rented to be within walking distance of Gladys. They found the old man walking down to Pine Grove to see his Gladys. Problem was, Howard had neglected to put any clothing on when he left the apartment to go visit his wife.

Because Gladys didn't remember being married to Howard, the facility kept them in separate rooms, but their rooms were right across the hall from each other. Often, Howard would come into Gladys's room, sit in a small chair, and they would talk.

The morning nurse, coming to give them their morning medication and assist them in getting ready for breakfast, if they needed help, found Gladys holding Howard's hand, crying quietly as Howard sat in the chair.

"I told him I think I love him yeah," Gladys sobbed. "But he didn't say nothing and that's when I knew he done gone to see Momma."

Gladys didn't wait long to 'go see Momma,' passing away just a few weeks after her husband.

"So we can sell that house, huh?" Cheryl asked Milt at the funeral home.

"They done sold it already to Clark have the money for Pine Groves," Milt said, angered by Cheryl's lack of empathy.

"Well, you see if they any kind of refund," Cheryl said. holding a wiggling Sky in her pudgy arms.

"Yeah, I do that," Milt said and took Summer up in his arms to talk quietly with his older brother.

After the birth of Skye, Cheryl did make a slight attempt at curbing her massive weight. She switched from regular frozen dinners to the Lean Cuisine and Weight Watchers' frozen meals. She even attempted to walk around the block where they lived. After throwing up, Cheryl decided that a treadmill would be better. After using it twice, it was now used to drape winter coats over.

She also thought a dog would help her get into shape. A dog, one that would need to be walked, one that would go at a leisurely pace. So, she got a Yorkshire Terrier from her brother in law, who bred the animals.

Sierra, Summer, and Skye soon had full responsibility of Mr. Bill, the seven pound 'poop machine' as Milt called the whimpering, whining beast.

"Man, cher, want get in shape? Come work with me," Milt said to Cheryl as she was trying to cajole, whine, wheedle, and beg him into buying her an exercise machine she'd seen advertised on television. "And no, you ain't getting no machine; what you done with that treadmill huh? Oh, yeah, it a good coat rack yeah."

Cheryl didn't like Milt's answer, but she had to admit, he was right. She resolved she would clean the coats off of the treadmill and start using it again. Tomorrow.

"Daddy, Mr. John on the phone yeah," Sierra called out.

"Tell him Millie still ain't showed up no," Milt called back.

He heard his daughter say something.

"He saying he really need talk with you; y'all don't be long, Jeremy going be calling," Sierra begged.

""Done told you..." Milt said into the phone.

"Listen, Milt, I'm sorry, I honestly did not mean to hurt your feelings," John apologized. "Really, I should have realized I'd hurt your feelings when we didn't even have coffee."

"Thank you," Milt said, not being a man to hold grudges.

"Now, listen, you a good cook, and you tell a story and I'm thinking you'd be real good doing a little half hour cooking show," John said.

"I'm doing stuffed pork tonight; you and Linda stop by?" Milt said.

"That's why I ain't losing no weight," Cheryl snarled. "All you ever cook is them fattening meals.

"Sierra, come see," Milt said as his oldest girl stared at the telephone, willing it to ring.

"Yeah?" Sierra asked.

"See me putting a gun to your momma's head? You see me making her eat?" Milt asked as he rapidly chopped the bell pepper and onion for their supper.

"Hmm, no, I don't see no gun, I got it!" Sierra said then screamed as the telephone rang.

Chapter 4

Aw cher, I'm Milt Duhon and this here's 'The Cast Iron Stomach' and you sitting there thinking 'Man, what happened that cute little girl used do this show, huh?' Well, she having her baby," Milt smiled into the camera. "And this ain't no 'Mall Bites' neither. You cooking this stuff thinking you going lose weight? Ooh, you in for a big surprise! Ain't nothing losing weight on this show, hear?"

He showed the camera a cast iron skillet.

"First thing we got to do is season this up. No, I ain't talking we get some salt, some cayenne; that come later," he said and turned on the gas stove. "No, no, we season it up so it ready to go. Now, you go down to the store; you know that nasty old bacon? All full of fat and stuff? So nasty even your dog won't eat it? Yeah, you get you some of that and..."

He lay out several strips into the skillet and it began to sizzle loudly.

"My wife says 'oh I want me a dog, I got to have me a dog' and I'm thinking 'yeah, a big old dog, a real dog? You know, kind a man be proud of having.' But instead, we got us one of them useless little stick a stick up it's butt and you got you a mop kind of things and..."Milt said and started flipping the bacon over.

He got the rest of the bacon ready to go and as soon as the sizzling began to die down, he scraped the bacon out and threw them on a wad of paper towels, then dropped the rest of the bacon in to the sizzling pan.

"And you accidentally drop some of that nasty old bacon on the floor? That nasty bacon so nasty even your dog won't eat it? Guess what? That dog eat it all up and he's all 'oh I love you Daddy, you the best Daddy in the whole world yeah,'" Milt said and finished frying the bacon.

He then poured the grease out of the pan into a glass mason jar, telling the audience to always save the bacon grease.

Then he quickly wiped the inside of the skilled with a paper towel, making sure to liberally get the sides of the skillet.

"And, that how you get your skillet all seasoned up," he smiled. "Now, I'm talking with my girls and they all 'ooh, Daddy you show them how make skillet chicken, huh?' and I'm telling them anybody know how make skillet chicken; that too easy and they all 'nuh uh' and they all telling me all them people they know don't know how make skillet chicken, so, what you need you is..."

He taped three shows and by the time the third show had finished taping, the Performance 12 Five O'clock News crew was devouring the meatball fricassee he'd made.

"Um, hey, wait, where you going?" Bill Henderson, the floor manager asked as Milt walked to the door of the studio.

"Man, got cut the grass then get started on supper yeah," Milt said.

"But we got two more shows to tape," the man said.

"Be back tomorrow," Milt smiled.

"Kathy!" Bill called out for the intern.

"Yes sir?" Kathy asked.

"You going cut Mr. Duhon's grass," Bill ordered.

The next morning, John found a note to call Bill Henderson, so he did so.

"That man is golden, you hear? Bill got right to the point. "He's funny, he's smart, his meals are good and fairly easy to fix."

"Well, he's got three more days before he has to go back off-shore," John said. "We'll tape what we can while he's in."

Milt taped nearly two weeks' worth of programs before demanding to use his last day at home to relax and be with his family. He also needed to wash his clothes; Cheryl wouldn't do it. She said the smell was close to intolerable and she just couldn't stomach doing it.

"Hey, Milt," Ray Betton called out as Milt was loading his clothes into the back of his truck. "You get a new kid cut your grass?"

"No, why?" Milt asked, praying that their neighbor wouldn't start talking about hunting, or some new gun he had.

"Man, they was some cute, and I mean Key Yute! Girl out here other day doing your yard," Ray whispered, holding his hands in front of his chest. "Man! Big old boobies wearing her a bathing suit."

Milt resolved he would have to slip the poor intern a couple of bucks when he got back in, even if he wasn't going to do any more taping.

By the time Milt finished his fourteen day shift and got back to DeGarde, Louisiana, he was a celebrity.

Babbage's Department store had sold out of cast iron skillets. Both Early's and Super One Foods had sold out of bacon.

John told him, he wanted to do a little 'promotion' with Milt; tape one show with Vee Aucoin, with Jack, with Cheryl, and with Thomas, then with Thomas's wife, Mary, who by now was almost as well known to their viewers as Thomas was. He also said that they'd all dress in what was Milt's uniform of black pull over shirt and olive green trousers.