Chapter 1

Set in Coletown
Keith Boyd
Fred Boyd his brother.
Alice Boyd his sister in law.
Nephew John 15
Niece Gabby 13
Jo Anne Wall
Windy Wall her ex husband.
Lewis and Ellie Keith’s in laws.

Gatehouse

The Trailways bus stopped in the parking lot of the Coletown Diner. I didn’t need the driver to announce that we were at my stop. I recognized the diner. Of course the last time I had been in the parking lot, it was filled with cars. That afternoon there was only one car in the lot.

I struggled off the bus and spilled onto the cracked pavement of the parking lot. I could barely kept my balance. My balance had been much better when I had two real contact points with the earth. The last time I had been in Coletown I had both my real contact points working.

On that April afternoon I was making do with one real contact point, and one peg leg. I had learned the hard way that I couldn’t count on even a new generation of prosthesis as a contact point. No matter how inspired and innovative the limb, it just wasn’t quite real. It also hurt after a while even if I sat completely motionless. Sometimes the pains were phantom, but sometimes they were very real.

The man in the SUV, which was the only occupant of the parking lot, looked a lot like me. Well like a thirty pound heavier me. No, he wasn’t over weight, I was too thin by at least twenty five pounds. Not only that the muscle mass had changed, first to flab, then to saggy skin. In other words there was nothing attractive about me. I lost a lot more than my left leg on that hot dusty day in the sand box.

I hadn’t been injured on either of my first two deployments to Iraq. It had taken three more deployment to Afghanistan and a return to Iraq before my number came up. I had to be one of the unluckiest Air Policemen in air force history. It took the jihad assholes eighteen years to get me, but they got me good.

“Hello Keith,” my brother said to me as I approached his SUV.

“Hello Fred, thanks for coming down to meet my bus,” I replied.

“Least I could do. Let me throw that bag in the back for you,” he suggested.

“I got it,” I replied lifting it before he could.

“Okay, but you are staying with me and Alice. Don’t even think of giving me any shit,” he said.

“I got nowhere else to be, so why not,” I agree.

Fred drove the Chevy SUV about ten miles to his house along a county road. I remembered that the road lead into a swamp. Fred’s house was about five miles before the first water crossing, but he still told people his lived in General Briggs Swamp. He should have said that he lived on General Briggs Swamp Road, if he wanted to be accurate. He just didn’t need to be that precise, so no one ever made an issue of it.

We were close to his house when he asked me, “Tell me Keith, what did you do the thirteen years you weren’t doing guard duty in the middle east?”

“Force protection, it’s called force protection not guard duty. A lot of the time I guarded missile silos in nowhereville. I suppose for most of those eighteen years, I was almost a hermit. I spent at least half my military career living in a tent,” I said.

“Well you did retire a Master Sergeant,” he said.

“I didn’t retired Fred. I got a medical seperation,” I said.

“Yeah but it’s the same thing isn’t it?” he asked.

“Fred I have no idea what the practical difference is. I’m going to just take the money and run,” I said. “I’m also going to move out just as soon as I decide where I’m going to live.”

“Are you also going to look for a job, or can you make it on your pension?” he asked.

“I have no idea. I’ll try to figure that out once I begin making a life for myself,” I said.

“Do me a favor, don’t rush into anything. We really are looking forward to a long visit,” Fred said. It was the kind of thing family said often, but meant seldom.

“Don’t worry Fred it won’t be too long. I’ve got an idea or two about a new life change,” I said. “I’m trying to decide exactly how much I won’t to be involved in life these days.”

“What does that mean,” Fred asked.

“Truth is I’m not sure what it means,” I said.

Neither of us spoke again until we arrived at his home. Fred’s wife Alice came out the door to greet me. She was followed by two teenaged kids. I recognized them from previous visits and pictures at Christmas time.

“Uncle Keith,” Fred’s son John said.

“Hello you two,” I said to Fred’s kids. I also hugged his wife Alice who was very attractive even after fifteen years of marriage. John was the first kid. It was a very good thing that nobody in Mississippi ever counted the number of months the new parents had been married. It would have been embarrassing to say the least.

“Uncle Keith are you moving back to Coletown to live?” John asked.

“Somewhere around here most likely,” I said. “Right now your dad wants me to stay with you guys. Do you think you can manage it?”

“Of Course,” John’s sister Gabby said.

“Thank you Gabby. I don’t have anywhere else to go tonight,” I said with a laugh.

“Come on in, I have lunch waiting for us all,” Alice said.

“That sounds good to me,” I suggested.

“John carry you uncles bag to the guest room,” Fred said.

“Actually I was hoping we might clean out the Gatehouse. I always thought it would be the best place to spend a few days,” I explained.

“That thing is filthy no telling what critters live there,” Alice explained.

“Okay tonight in the house, tomorrow we will take a good look at the Gatehouse,” I said.

“It doesn’t have a toilet or a kitchen,” my brother Fred said.

“Well I can live without either of those. Remember where I’ve spent the last eighteen years,” I informed them all.

John actually grinned like and idiot. Gabby looked horrified. Fred and Alice looked at me as they usually did sometime before my visit ended. Like I had at least one bolt loose. They did smile indulgently though, also as they always did.

It was after dinner while I was watching a movie on TV, when Alice said, “Please don’t stay in the Gatehouse. You are welcome to stay as long as you want, just not in the Gatehouse please.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“Keith, if anything happens to you, we would never forgive ourselves,” she said. “Even the kids would blame us.”

“You overate your importance to my well being. I haven’t done all that well at taking care of myself, I admit. But I did manage to survive,” I suggested.

“I know but please don’t get yourself killed where we should have prevented it. You owe us that much. After all I have sent you coffee cans filled with chocolate fudge every Christmas that you were deployed,” Alice said.

“Since you put it that way, I’ll find somewhere else to crash long term,” I said.

“I didn’t mean that,” she tried to explain.

“That fudge make a lot of guys happy. I owe you,” I said. “Not to mention convinced more than one lady to be friendly.”

“You truly are a dog,” Alice said with a laugh.

“I never denied that,” I admitted.

“How can you and Fred be so different?” she asked.

“One of us is just got lucky,” I said. “Obviously it isn’t me.”

Fred came in to join us, so we began reminiscing. We kept that up till 1AM. “I’ve had a long day. I’m going to bed,” I said and I did. Sleep didn’t come right away, so I thought of the Gatehouse, as I often did when winding down.

The Gatehouse had a long history. It went back to the days of my great grand father. His father had owned a rather large, almost plantation. Then came the little disturbance between the north and south. When that ended, like a lot of other folks he was forced to swap land for money.

Then in the days of tenant farmers, he had a small cluster of tenant houses on the rear of his land. He had left to deteriorate after refinancing the farm. There had been even more consolidations when he passed and his kids divided up the family farm. My Grandfather wound up with fifty acres which included the tenant farm houses. They had been abandoned for many years by that time and were mostly rubble.

When my grand father passed her left each of his sons, and daughters twenty acres. My father’s share of that was ten acres. He said it was enough for a vegetable garden and a rabbit patch for hunting. Also on the place was the family home handed down from his grand father.

Fred’s family lived in that home. I had given Fred my share of my father’s estate. In exchange he had given me a deed to the plot of land with the tenant houses. Our grand father had use one houses for a storage building. It had remained reasonably free of weather damage for many years. It had been damaged after it was passed on to me. A lack of maintenance was the basic problem.

I had paid the tax but other wise ignored it, until now. I still wanted to make that building my home. Of course that would be after I renovated it. I drifted off to sleep with dreams of a place of my own finally.

I was up at 6AM and into the shower which was difficult without my grasp bars. It is hard to soap up and lean against the wall without a bar, but I managed it. Getting in and out of the tub required an aluminum folding device like a cane and crutch combination. I managed, but it wasn’t easy or a pretty sight at all.

By 6:30AM I was in the kitchen trying to figure out the Star Wars coffee maker. In the end I gave up and drank a glass of orange juice while I waited for the rest of the family.

I waited almost an hour for Alice to arrive and demonstrate the single cup coffee maker. Every cup was supposed to be fresh and delicious. I’m sure it was, if you were into fresh coffee. I however drank stale coffee all day long. I brewed ten cups in the morning, then reheated it all day in the microwave. I had known all along many, many things were going to change, I just hadn’t expected coffee to be one of them.

Fred came down to have breakfast before driving to the Heritage Dog Food plant. He was in fact the very busy plant manager. That fact meant I wasn’t going to be able to count on him for renovation help. It was a good thing I had a few bucks saved.

All during my hospitalization and the time in rehab my government pay check went into the bank. Afterward I spent a couple of months in government housing while I went through a ‘how to live on you own’ course. During that time the money also accumulated in the bank as well. The point was I thought I had enough in the bank to renovate the gatehouse. I would find out as time went on for sure.

First priority was to get some means to get around. I had looked at several possibilities on line over the last two months. Three wheeled motor cycles were as expensive as a small sized used car. I researched a DIY electric bike. It was expensive for what I would get, but it was the least expensive option. Best of all I could do it myself.

Over breakfast I conned Alice into driving me around that morning. In exchange I agreed to go shopping with her for the family’s groceries. I looked on it as a good learning experience. I needed to know where to go and what to buy on a regular basis.

First we went to a high end grocery for a few items Alice couldn’t find anywhere else. Then she went to a Walmart ten miles away for many items on a typical family’s shopping list. Alice however did not by generic or Walmart’s own brands. She bought only national name brand items. I noticed she wouldn’t even go down the pet food aisle.

I knew Fred had a shop full of tools, so I didn’t go down the power tool aisle myself. I was pretty sure he would complain about me using his tools, but also complain about my tools taking up space in his garage. Since that made it a lose, lose situation, I skipped the tool aisle completely.

It was after lunch before Alice and I went shopping for my DIY project. What I planned to buy was a couple of used bicycles at the second hand store. One was just for a frame and the other for the wheels and any other usable parts.

At the Consignment Store I purchased a twenty inch girls bike. It was one with a very low frame design. I was going to need that for the convenience of climbing on board it. I could balance myself on the good leg while I swung the carbon fiber leg over, only if I didn’t have to get stand on the peg leg to long or lift too high with it. There would still be a learning curve involved, but then life is one giant learning curve.

On the way out I purchased a sixteen inch bike just for the two wheels. I even took the wheels off and left the bike in their trash pile. It allowed them to sell it for scrap, so they weren’t upset.

After a quick trip to Fred’s house to drop off the bike and wheels, we were off to the Home Depot to buy angle iron, nuts and bolts. I also bought a few drill bits and washers. It all came from the parts list for a set of DIY plans on a bike building site. The guy, whose design I was using, was some kind of genius according to all the people who built the same bike/scooter.

I had spent less than one hundred dollars so far. It sounded more economical than it really was. I had the parts to finish the frame but nothing else. I had no motor and no batteries. The frame also had no brakes, so it was hazardous to my body for sure. On the better side, I did have a three grand leg I could drag on the ground to stop the trike. That would probably do a real number on my stump.

I went to bed exhausted after that first complete day back in Mississippi. I didn’t even watch TV after dinner. I slipped into bed, and then into the arms of Morpheus immediately. I woke up a couple of times for bathroom calls, but went immediately back to sleep.