Chapter 43

The Workman trike arrived at Walmart and was assembled by noon. I went out to the Ford F150 expecting to find a dead battery. I hadn’t started it in over two months. I was pleasantly shocked, if that were possible, since it fired right up. I supposed that the tiny solar battery maintainer sitting on the dash must have worked after all.

I was also surprised when I found that I could get the trike outside the store alone. The people inside wouldn’t allow me to go through the storage area to get it out. I got the patio cashier to watch it while I walked to the Ford using my cane. That was necessary since my back was burning with pain.

When I returned to the patio, I conned a passing employee into helping me load the trike into the Ford’s bed. I played the gimp card, and got a passing customer to help as well. I had no idea how I was going to unload it, but that wasn’t an issue at the moment. I had a tarp at home to cover the truck bed if I had to leave it for a day or two.

I drove straight home and began looking for help. My first choice would have been one of the guys I knew. They were all busy with the curse of the drinking class, their own work. I was able to convince Lillian to give it a try. It turned out that the skinny chick, and the gimp, could in fact get a small trike out of the bed of a full sized pickup truck. It was a painful chore for me, but Lillian came through it just fine.

Part two of the grand plan was to attach the motorized bike trailer to the bottom rear of the trike. I had to cut a few pieces of steel and drill a couple of holes. But I got it done without any damage to my new trike. I made Lillian the present of three hundred dollars in cash. It was the value of the work she had traded for the trailer.

The build was hard for me to believe. First that I got it done at all, considering my level of pain. Secondly, that the one day job took three days. I only managed to work in hour long spurts. I also took the time to grease everything really well. By Saturday afternoon the bike was ready for a road test. It was late and I feared a breakdown would leave me walking home in the dark, do I decided that I needed a hearty meal and a good night’s sleep before I road tested the trike.

I proposed a night out for just Lillian and I. We went to her favorite place to eat. It was a pancake house, a couple of exits east of the downtown interstate highway. The one which ran through Sanford NC. It was a very nice place for a pancake house. The food was more than just acceptable, the large burger was a complete meal, once I added french fries. Lillian’s endless pancakes were good according to her. She held up for a total of five large pancakes.

“So Sarge, has Addie talked to you yet?” she asked.

“Oh no, is she planning to steal you away from me?” I asked playfully.

“Nothing like that. She told me I needed a will. It seems between everyone wanting to take care of me, and the work I do, I have a rather large estate. She thinks I need to make you the administrator. Just in case something happens to me,” she informed me.

“Okay, but nothing is going to happen to you before me, I promise,” I said.

“I know you won’t let it,” she said. “She also wants to talk to you about Emily.”

“I thought that item was no longer on the table,” I admitted. “Even so I admit I am curious about how Emily is doing.”

“Addie wants to talk about it for some reason,” she said. “She seemed very secretive about it.”

I just nodded.

I had a few good days in a row, and that evening was the topper. A good deal of it was due to the new pain killer regiment, which I had invented. The pain was manageable without leaving me fuzzy minded. The lack of pain seemed to make me less shaky as well. So I seemed to be on the mend.

When we arrived home Lillian decided that she wanted to spend the night with me. That hadn’t really been part of the plan, but It was a nice surprise.

Lillian proved to be just as warm and loving as I remembered her. She flinched when I showed my pain to her, in the form of shifting my weight to try to get comfortable. Finally I fell into a deep sleep for a couple of hours, which was probably pretty average in those days. I usually had two or three periods of deep sleep before I answered my screwy alarm clock. Sometimes the answer was to just turn it off, and go back to what passed for sleep.

That morning I just went back to sleep. Lillian stirred. When I woke next, she had gone home I presumed.

It was 10AM when I got my ass in gear and went out to try the trike. Since I wanted to try just pedaling it first, I chose the same route I had walked. On Sunday morning the town was empty of traffic. Those folks going to downtown churches seemed to be there already.

The first circle was slow going since I had some new pain when I pedaled hard. I continued to pedal even when the motor was engaged. Even though I probably shouldn’t have ridden the bike so far on my first outing, I headed for the caboose park. When I arrived there, I had to stop the trike and get off it. I decided that I need to include a cane as part of my repair kit. I could use it to take a break and walk around, if nothing else.

I had read from a bike rider’s forum, for serous riders like I used to be, that his cell phone was his best tool on the road. I could see that, but I like to have some real tools with me. I had taken the time to add a layer of Slime inside all my tubes before I certified the trike ready for the road. So I didn’t have any tire repair tubes with me. But I did have a wrench kit to attack the motor frame and electrical wire cutters and also black tape just in case.

By the time I reached the caboose park, everything had gone fine. Since the day was young, and I wasn’t sure about the batteries, I headed home. Since I wasn’t sure, I made a note in my Swiss cheese brain to add a test meter to my kit before I went on any long distances rides.

I was thrilled to find when I got home to find that I had way more battery left than I expected. The pedaling while I ran the motor might have helped, but I doubted it. Still the battery use was more than acceptable for now. I doubted seriously I would be able to handle the trike headed uphill without that motor. I would someday soon be able to manage the trike on level ground and maybe even slight inclines which would be better than nothing. Like I said all in all, I was thrilled.

When the phone rang after dinner that Sunday night, I was still riding a high from getting out of the house on the trike. I saw that it was Addie and realized that I should have been expecting it. Lillian tried to warn me that it was coming.

“What can I do for you Addie?’ I asked.

“I need for you to help Emily out with something. She is out of her depth,” Addie said.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“She took a job as a bodyguard, and it didn’t go well for her,” Addie explained.

“That’s pretty ambiguous, how about some details?” I asked.

“She took a beat down trying to keep the client’s X cutting her throat,” Addie said.

“Did the client come through alright?” I asked.

“Afraid not, and the X was in he wind,” Addie explained.

“Was this one of your jobs?” I asked.

“Yeah, she was just supposed to sit with the woman till the trial the next day. He came the night before the trial. The bastard came, beat her down, raped his ex-wife, and then killed her. The prick just walked away,” Addie said.

“Tell me that Emily fought back at least,” I demanded.

“She didn’t do anything as far as I can tell,” Addie said.

“She still felt like she could call and the whole city police department would come running. That’s how the average ex-cop gets his or her ass beat the first time. They run into somebody who doesn’t give a crap for the Marquess of Queensberry Rules. So what do you want me to do?” I asked.

“She is in the hospital in Raleigh go see her. See if she wants anything from you. Do not tell her I sent you.” Addie said.

“Well, she is going to know you told me about the beat down,” I said.

After the call I drove to the hospital to make it in time for visiting hours. I went to her room and found it strangely quiet. There were no old friends or family members visiting. I walked in expecting her to be beat down, but she look much worse than I expected. She had bandages all over her face and one of her arms was in a cast of some kind. She was breathing hard. I felt really bad for her. Since I was still in pain from my accident, I could almost feel her pain.

I just sat down by her bed. I figured out how to use the hospital’s WIFI, so I send Addie some pictures in an email. “Do they have this clown?” I asked in the email.

‘They have him, and I’ve been asked to take the case. I should take it just to make sure he get the needle for killing his wife.’ she suggested. ‘Get rid of this email.’

‘You got it,’ I wrote back. I deleted all the emails on the mini tablet.

What I wanted to do was bust a cap in his ass. I hardly knew Emily, but I knew that she didn’t deserve this, I thought, nobody did. There was nothing like that battered face to justify the .22 magnum I carried most days. The idea was to shove in his gut before he started swinging. If he continued then it was going to be a while before he had another steak. Emily didn’t buy into that way of thinking. If this hadn’t changed her mind, nothing ever would. She should go into teaching school or something. I had no idea what she could do, if she would ever needed to defend herself again. It most likely would never happen again, but it would always be a possibility.

The sun was up when someone shook me. I jerk awake while reaching toward my .22mag revolver in the right front pocket of my cargo pants. I stopped myself before I got to it.

“I’m sorry sir, but you have been here all night. You need to leave now. Leave me a card and I’ll tell her that you were here,” she suggested.

“Don’t bother,” I said. I left went home and took a four hour nap, then went back to the hospital. I carried a piece of Boston crème pie in a small box. I hung around, but she didn’t wake till after eight.

“How long have you been here,” she managed to ask.

“Not long, I just wanted to come, so that you would know that we were thinking about you,” I could see her eyes droop, then close completely. I sat back down and ate the Boston Creme pie myself.

Emily woke up at nine fifteen or so. She said, “How long you been here?”

“Just a few minutes. So how you feeling?” I asked.

“I’m thirsty,” she replied.

My answer was to allow her to wet her lips with a damp cloth. “Are you trying to make me feel guilty for ratting you out?” she asked.

“No, but no man likes to be rejected.” I said.

“That is not the way I remember it,” she said.

“You have had a shock. You are just confused,” I suggested.

I stayed all night again. During that time she probably said about twenty words to me. When her daughter arrived from where ever the hell she lived. I said a few words to her then headed home. Lillian was dog sitting and I knew they both would be ready for a break.

I got back to my own life after taking two days off. My life consisted mostly of riding my new trike in a less populous area. I chose times when there was the least amount of traffic on the roads.

The trike was so safe, I didn’t really need a helmet, but I didn’t need the one with a two wheeler bike, until I did need it. The extra large coffee cup held my brains in place, which had minimized the damage. I felt that I couldn’t have handled any more brain damage.

Two days after I returned home, I had figured out that if I rode at ten in the morning, and again at five thirty in the afternoon, it would be the optimum safe times. I also took the back county roads, so that I encountered very few automobiles which also increased my odd for a safe ride. So I decided to postpone the morning ride until 10AM and move the afternoon ride to 5:30PM. When school came back in session I might move the times again.

School was still running for most of May and part of June. Since I was spending more and more time riding my new trike time seemed to be flying. I was up to a three mile ride in the mornings, and another three in he afternoon. By the time school was out the on June fifth I was on a pretty comfortable schedule.

The new schedule was hard on my body clock. I had very seldom been asleep when the sun came up, gut at that time I was sleeping through the sunrise regularly. During that same period of time, actually about two weeks after her beat down, Emily showed up at my door.

“We need to talk,” she said without so much as a hello. She also pushed her way into my house without an invitation.

“Well I’m getting ready to have a cup of coffee on my deck, it you care to join me,” I suggested.

“Not your fucking coffee, but tell me where I can at least get restaurant coffee, not the swill you drink,” she demanded.

“Come on we can go to Tonya’s cafe. It is out near the highway,” I suggested.

Since I had just gotten home from my morning ride, it was lunch time. “You drive,” I suggested.

“Fair enough, you buy in that case,” she informed me.

“Fair enough,” I replied

While she made the short drive to Tonya’s place I asked, “How’s the healing going?”

“The cuts and bruises are doing pretty well, the broken wrist is a bitch,” she said.

“That must make masturbation a real exercise in patience,” I suggested.

“Okay, I can’t do it alone that’s why I’m here,” she finally smiled.

“Somehow, I doubt that,” I said.

When we were seated inside I saw the table cards for Aunt Bee’s Sweat Potato Pie. “There is something you don’t see everyday,” I said pointing to the card.