John Allen

Lucy Allen Seabolt/ Martin and /Rita

Soup of the day 28

On day 28 of my freedom I awoke early for my twenty mile ride into the larger town of Cleveland Mississippi. I filled the small gas tank, on the Honda powered trike before I left. The trip took me about forty five minutes. I didn’t mind the leisurely drive, since I had nothing better to do. I didn’t drive the bike at anywhere near full speed, because I still had concerns that it might flip over. It was a known issue with tricycles.

Besides it gave me time to think about my personal life without any interruptions. As I had for the last week, I reran the images of Lucy and me watching the movie. Even though she and I agreed that it never happened, I couldn’t get it out of my mind. The pendulum of my emotions swung from self loathing to raging sexual urges.

Lucy was far from beautiful, but that didn’t matter. She had stood beside me for the last twenty years. She meant a lot more to me than a convenient piece of ass. She was family and that was both a blessing and a problem. In a perfect world her curvy body would be an asset. Since this the real world, her boobs and fancy haircut were a temptation. Even her slightly wide hips, real woman tummy, and chubby thighs were a temptation.

When I arrived at the Community Action Second Chance Thrift Store and Consignment shop, I took a look around. The walk around the store beat the hell out of trying to solve the problem of what to do about Lucy.

I bought a couple of tee shirts and some cargo shorts. You know the ones with all the pockets. They looked brand new. Who ever they belonged to must have hated them. I had no idea why people gave away almost new clothes. Unless the previous owner died suddenly, I thought. I stopped thinking like that and just paid the six bucks for the two tee shirts and a pair of shorts.

I turned around and drove the twenty miles back to Rosedale. When I arrived home I filled the gas tank. The plan was to measure the gas used, and then figure the miles per gallon. I knew that I had left home with a half gallon of gas in the tank. So all I had to do was measure the amount of gasoline consumed.

I used a washed and carefully dried twelve ounce coke bottle to transfer gasoline from a red plastic gas can into the tank of the Honda motor. I had rigged the gas can with a small plastic tube so that I could fill the coke bottle without spills. That was if I was careful, and I was very careful.

I filled the bottle four times, before the tank was refilled. It took a couple of ounces more to fill it to the cap. When I left for Cleveland it had been that full. So I figured it was fifty ounces to cover forty two miles.

With a handy calculator on the computer it came to 106 per gallon. Which was fine, but I only had a half gallon tank on the Honda. So I had about a fifty mile range on the tricycle. I would need to carry an extra gas can of some size, if I was planning a trip. Since I had no place in mind, I didn’t figure it was a priority. I covered the trike with the plastic tarp, then went inside to do more research.