Chapter 42

Thia came down and I met her with a hug and a more than fatherly kiss. After several seconds we broke the kiss, but I didn’t release her. She also showed no interest in having me do so.

Thia and I had always enjoyed our hugging and kissing, but it had never been more than fatherly until she instigated at after her mother died. We were still trying to find the level of emotion we could live with, while she also struggled with her gender bending desires. None of that ever seemed to matter when we were together. We just simply were ‘together’. We never tried to make rules of conduct for our visits. We were just together, and happy to be that.

However the thing with Jon had to come up. “You know your grand son is such a dog. He chases any women in view, no matter her age. If she is the least bit slutty, he is right there,” Thia said.

“Are you by chance feeling a little left out?” I asked with a laugh.

“With me, it’s just a matter of far away blank looks, and a little stalking around the house. That is only because he knows that you and I are close. He’s a little afraid of you.” she said. “So you need to change the locks on this place, and end his fascination with it.”

“You know, I’m not going to do that. Both of you have always had free access to this place. I will have a talk with him about using it for that purpose,” I agreed.

“Why bother, you already told him not to use the house for his sexual meeting. You threatened to take away the pickup truck,” she said.

“Then I’ll take it away so that he can ride to school with one or more of the other students, or ride the school bus,” I suggested. “Hey you can even drive him to school. Oh you can’t do that, because you are either working, or sleeping when he leaves.”

“I know punishing him punishes me. It’s always been like that. Just tell me this Dad, why are you men such dogs?” she asked.

“Would you really want us all to be wimps?” I answered her with a question.

“No of course not,” She replied, “but it would make life easier for us women. Oh did you recognize the girl from last night?”

“No, who was it?” I asked.

“Oh no, ask Jon who she was. When you do, don’t let him get away without telling you.” she said with a laugh.

Alright have him come talk to see me after school. I’m going to be home all day tomorrow doing the wash. I’m also going to buy groceries as well,” I admitted.

“Be sure you wash those sheets on you bed twice,” she demanded as she converted my living room sofa into a day bed. She allowed me to hold her naked all night. It was one of those times when sleeping together was really just an affirmation of our closeness, and not really about sex at all.

She left early so that she would be home before Jon left for school. That left me alone to sleep a few more hours. I did the unthinkable. I slept until 10AM. I didn’t care at all that the sun was way over the downtown buildings, or that the air had a lot of it’s warmth already. I still walked my old familiar route. It included the convenience store where I had the altercation the last time I was home. There were different thugs in the parking lot. Even though we stared at each other nothing else happened. One of these days, I knew, something bad was gonna happen again. That old mob mentality would kick in from out of nowhere, and then someone would possibly die. I would have stopped using the convenience store, except that it was a block closer to my house than any other. Yeah some of it had to do with whose gun was bigger. Their 9mmd were bigger than my, 22mag. But the .38 was an even match for them. The other thing I factored in was that they had either never fired their piece in anger, or never fired it at all. I figured that also gave me the advantage, since I had often done both.

I at least got my late morning coffee without incident. As usual the older Vietnamese clerk charged me a quarter for a bucks worth of coffee. I had argue with her right after the original incident in her parking lot, but she wouldn’t hear of it. The quarter was our compromise on free coffee for life.

When I returned from the walk, I took my shower, then dressed for the day. I took the sheets off my bed, then put them into the washing machine. I figured I might as well start with them, and then move on to the items in my back pack.

I looked into my refrigerator so I could use it’s emptiness as an excuse to go to the downtown diner for breakfast. I might be the last one left who called it that. It was in the old downtown, not the new downtown of the bigger and better Triboro merged city.

Anyway, I found my excuse in the empty refrigerator because Thia kept her promise. She came by and emptied my refrigerator after I left town. What she couldn’t use herself she trashed. That is why I never bought in bulk. My idea of buying in bulk was a can of Pillsbury refrigerated canned cinnamon rolls. There were at least a half dozen cans of that icing, which came with them laying around. I iced them with peanut butter instead of the sticky white icing. It was so that I could fool myself into thinking there some nutrition in them.

I drove the Accent to the Walmart store, even though I had no intention of buying much of anything. So much for good intentions. We all know where that road leads. I always liked the scene from my childhood favorite movie, Bullitt. The scene was where Steve Mcqueen goes into the market, and buy one of every type TV dinner in the store. It was his grocery shopping for the week.

Of course I couldn’t do that, but it was a cool image. I also hated the jazz music featured in the movie, but it was still the 1960 definitive music of cool. Yes the movie came out when I was nine years old but my dad loved Mcqueen. So of course I grew up watching those movies.

I left the store with nine-seven bucks worth of easy to prepare foods. I also left with twelve boxes of instant iced tea mix. That was only because there was no more on the shelf. The reason the check out was so much, was because I bought giant jars of generic Tylenol, Aleve, and Metamucil from their pharmacy.