Chapter 19

Day Nineteen - Friday

I woke at six with brown hair in my face and Sue's head on my chest. I hated to wake her but we needed to get going. I kissed her awake saying it was time. She smiled and asked if she could interest me in some loving.

"How about when we finish the job. We'll celebrate," I said hugging her.

She smiled and got up going straight for the washer to put the clothes she had washed the night before into the dryer. I put on my shorts and the T-shirt I had brought saying I was going to start the coffee.

Over at my trailer, I started the small pot first and also assembled the big one. The small pot is really fast so I had coffee by the time Sue looked in on me. I brought her a cup along with one for me and she pulled the light switch and kissed me.

Ruth and Tiny came walking from the back, Glenda and Martin from the side and Charlie and Shawna from the front. The eight of us discussed the previous day. Charlie and Shawna were really excited that I was doing work for the NASCAR guy. He said knowing someone like that would be a career maker. I told him about the offer of traveling with him. Charlie almost drooled.

"Not for me," I told everyone.

I asked Glenda where her Victoria Secret stuff was. She blushed and said she didn't have the guts to wear it out here yet. Tiny told her he would love it if she did.

Martin added, "If she wore it out here, she'd wear me to a frazzle. Just trying it on for me had us acting like we were teenagers."

Glenda blushed but said, "You were the stud yesterday. You probably won't be able to handle any for a week."

"Try me sweet stuff, try me," Martin grinned.

I asked Glenda if she could cut my beard shorter again so I could have a close cut beard. She jumped up heading for her place and came back with her scissors and a big towel. She worked my face over till she stood back and looked me, "Now you're really handsome."

Sue, Shawna and Ruth all agreed. I told them I just wanted to look more business like. Charlie kidded me saying, "Yep all the yuppie business types I know have two foot long pony tails."

We sucked up two rounds of both coffee pots before saying it was time to get going. I put everything away and rinsed out cups before heading over to Sue's to get dressed. The coveralls were a nice light blue and came out of the dryer looking good.

We stopped at a Burger King for a sausage, biscuit and egg sandwich along with a container of milk each. That should get us through till lunch.

We walked into the shop at eight sharp. Gene was staring at the frame. He had one of his squares measuring angles and a tape measure holding it to check a length as we approached.

"There is no way you did this already," he said.

"It's not done. We have most of a day yet probably," I said pointing to welds that had not been cleaned up.

"Where?" he asked.

"All these have to be cleaned up to look like those in the front. We have all of the chassis and cage plus we have to finish the rear. I haven't drilled any of the holes yet or mounted any of the tabs."

"You'll do that too? For the same money?"

"Sure unless you want to pay us more. Now I need the plate metal for the tabs."

"My guys will drill the holes but I'd really get off on you doing the tabs. I'll get the blanks over here right now."

We got out all the equipment, put the old battery on the charger and put in the fresh one. I showed Sue that on some of the welds the straight grinder would work better and on some of the welds the conical one would be good. She understood and started in as a guy walked up with a handcart full of plate blanks.

I measured up and cut all the blanks marking each one with chalk and numbering the print, continuing from the last number Sue had stopped at.

I shaped any that needed it and smoothed all the edges of the rest.

I double checked the prints and measured multiple times then tacked the piece. I tacked a group of tabs then went back and re-measured. I repeated the process till I double-checked every thing to make sure they were all accounted for. I got an electric drill out of the truck fitted the grinder bit and started grinding the welds. I had done a good job and there was hardly a bead. I used the files followed by the sandpaper on each one.

Sue had finished up the tube welds on the tabs. We finished by eleven. I went out to the truck and got my drill bits and clamp set. I checked the print and had Sue help find the exact spot for the hole. We measured several times checking to make sure the hole would be at the right degree of the tube. I set the clamps, making sure once more the hole was where it should be, turned on the drill then used the control arm to lower the bit while squirting a little oil on the bit and bar contact.

There was only about two dozen holes. By almost one o'clock we were done. I put all my tools away and closed up my table while Sue swept up around the frame. We stood together looking at the frame checking all the contacts admiring our work.

I went to get Gene. He said, "You done with those tabs already?" as we walked to the frame.

He was looking at the welds shaking his head, "This is beautiful work." His hand caught and he saw the hole. He started looking at the print then back at the frame and asked, "You drilled all the holes already too?"

"Thought you should get your money's worth. We want to do more for you as you need us."

"You have my business. If the other team owners find out about you, you'll be all over the area building frames. You really do nice work."

He had one of his senior crew chiefs come over and had him check it out. Everyone was happy so Gene came out with a check for us. We shook hands then I looked at the check. "This isn't what we agreed on."

"The extra is for the speed and the extras you gave me. You know the tabs and holes and especially for the nice work. Just say I gave you a tip so you'll do more work for me."

We shook again then Sue said she would follow me to the storage place.

When we got there I remembered that I had not ordered the material for the bike frame. I used my cell phone and ordered two sets of the material to be delivered to the shop. After giving them my credit card number, I asked if I could get some kind of account with dating. They had to have my credit card account as guarantee. That was reasonable so the deal was done. I told them this order should be paid for when they shipped it. I was assured it would go out today.

Sue said for us to go to the computer store to get my equipment. Sounded good to me. Sam was glad to see us but said he wasn't worried as I had already paid for the PC. He had ordered an Internet account from GTE for me and had it all set up with the Windows 98 installed.

Sue said she would show me how to do everything else but the big thing would be for me to get used to entering everything on as near a daily basis as I could.

We loaded the computer in the pickup and headed home stopping at the grocery store for some romaine, four big porterhouse steaks, some potatoes to bake and a couple of packs of frozen chopped spinach. I wanted to make some Caesar dressing and found a small food processor that was the perfect size. I bought the other ingredients to make the dressing and we were on our way home.

We brought everything into my place and looked at how we were going to re-arrange the living area to accommodate the PC. Sue had the solution, "You don't use the counter much. It's so big, the PC will fit on it and you'll still have counter space. It'll be perfect for you.

We made all the connections and plugged the phone cable into the convenient wall phone outlet. She turned it on and let it boot, helping me put in passwords as we went. She booted Internet explorer then used the passwords Sam had written down for us. She showed me how to type in the address for a site. She pulled a card out that Gene had given her. She had me type in the site and it came right up. We looked through the site with my marveling at the information that was available.

"You ain't seen nothing yet," she said and typed in the name www followed by biggirlclothes then a dot com. A site with very large women decorating the page showed up. Sue was in the middle, much, much heavier in the picture than she was now. I pointed to it and she said that was a hundred and thirty pounds ago. When I lost all that weight, the things that didn't shrink were these as she fitted her tits in her hands through the coveralls. She smiled at me and asked, "Does that make you a happy camper?"

"Sure."

"The weight loss or the tits?"

"If you wanted to lose the weight then I'm glad you did but of course I'm happy you still have a very nice chest. If we had met and you were a hundred and thirty pounds bigger, I would have enjoyed you just the same. It's you I like."

"You say the nicest things."

She explained how she had an agreement with a clothing manufacturer. They supplied her with a catalog that she displayed on her site. She took orders that were sent to both the manufacturer and her. She followed up on everything to make sure everyone was taken care of and checked her bank account for the money being deposited from credit cards. She said she didn't make a ton of profit but it had grown until she could soon live on it very nicely.

"You do this all on the Internet?" I asked marveling how compact everything was.

"The more big girls that get on the net, the more business I get."

I called the bike shop to tell them that we were going to have porterhouse steaks. Charlie said they would knock off before six and be home. I told Sue that I needed to run to the bank to get a business account and she said she would go do some of her order input and be back over.

The bank was easy, I showed the corporation articles that were still in the truck and signed the signature card. They said my checks should be there next Wednesday to pickup. I deposited the five grand check and drew out fifteen hundred from my personal account in a cashier's check for Sue. I asked for a visa card for the business account and said it would arrive at my home address in a few days.

I showered and put on some shorts and a T-shirt to make dinner. I had just popped a beer and was looking through the card-printing brochure when Sue came in. She gave me a kiss and I said, "I have something for you."

"Save for later, we have to start supper soon," she said now giving me a hug and another kiss.

"Some foolin' around would be fun but I have something else for you," I said reaching over to the counter for the cashiers check, "Your cut and part of the tip for the job we did." I smiled at her as I gave her the check. "Your part of the job we did together."

She frowned at me, knitted her eyebrows then looked at the check. Her big brown eyes were silver dollar size almost matching her open mouth. She looked back up at me with a shocked expression, "You can't give me this. It's too much."

"Probably not enough. Without you being there helping me as much as you did, I would still be there grinding welds. You were great. You're a fast learner, not afraid to get your hands dirty and you really work at doing a good job. That's worth a lot. Consider that a couple of tough day's pay and your part of the grand tip we got for the job."

"If I'm going to get this kind of money, you have to teach me how to do more so I can help you on more jobs."

"Well, we have a couple of more car frames to do and I'm sure we'll be back for an encore for NASCAR and we have some bike frames to do. We're probably charging too much to do a car frame like that but even at three grand we would come out pretty good. We won't have to kill ourselves to get them done so it will take us a lot longer. There is lot's more money on the way.

She said, "I'll be right back and ran to her place and came back quickly, giving me another smiling kiss and hug when she arrived. We went out to the patio and were soon joined my Martin, Glenda and Ruth, who joined us drinking a beer. Sue drank a diet coke. She wanted to keep her now small figure.

They all contributed toward deciding how the business card should be designed and we drew one up so it could be printed. Sue offered to make a copy on the PC and when I said that would be great she went inside.

Martin kidded me about getting into the computer age. I told him I probably was a little late getting there.

I was trying to write down all the dollar transactions I had done so far. I listed everything by date from the first cases I did right up to today. I wrote down all the money that I had given Abe as well. I was glad I was doing this now or I wouldn't have been able to remember it all pretty soon.

Tiny came over and told me how to account for all the money I had put into the business and how I could get it back out without paying taxes on it. When I explained how my biggest expenditure was the auction, and what I made on the subsequent sale of the equipment he whistled and complimented me on making a good deal.

I fired up the grille about five thirty. Sue had already put the potatoes in the oven and had the spinach in a bowl to microwave. I prepped the steaks and made the Caesar dressing and pulled the lettuce apart while carrying on a conversation through the screen door. The other folks said they were headed home to eat and left. We set the table, complete with wineglasses. Sue and I cuddled and kissed a little until Shawna opened the door and said, "Get a room."

Her hair was still wet from a shower. I handed her two beers took one for myself and carried the steaks and put them on the grille. We were done eating and cleaned up by seven-thirty. Charlie looked at me and said, "Let's ride." We all had to dress to ride so we split up to meet in five minutes when Sue watched me pull my bike out of the shed. I fired it up letting it idle while I helped Sue with her helmet.

I put her on first to show her how to sit and where to put her feet. I told her to put her body against my back and just lean when I did. I instructed, "Stay right with me and it will be smooth as glass." Charlie took off with Sue and I close behind. He rode north instead of back toward the city. Way out highway 41 we came to a place called the Florida Bar. It had a bunch of bikes in front. I recognized several of the guys outside and inside from the club. I noticed that there was another group wearing different colors. They were all getting along so I figured they were not competing clubs or else the other club was an affiliate.

Hap saw us and came over with another guy checking out Sue, "Well welder man, you just keep coming with new rides." He gave Sue the once over again and looked back at me winking, "How do you like riding Jake's old luxury liner?"

"It's a real nice ride, I'm working on Snakes old shovel so I can have some wind in my face too. I know why they call the monsters like this garbage trucks now," I said trying divert Haps eyes glued to Sues bulging T-shirt. "There's so much junk and garbage on it, you need a program to figure out what toy to play with next."

It wasn't that funny but must have tickled Hap's funny bone as well as the guy that came over with Hap.

Hap pointed at the man next to him, "Steven Big Jones from down south. They came up for a visit and are camping near here. These guys are a spin off of our chapter in Miami. Jones, Steve is the best welder you'll ever meet and Charlie is definitely a great wrench."

The man nodded, he didn't offer his hand or anything. His eyes were, for lack of better words, dead, completely emotionless. I'd hate to play poker with him.

Hap pulled me aside, leaving Sue with Shawna and Charlie while Big Jones went back to the bar.

"You did good with the cops. My man at the gun shop said you brought in Charlie's piece to modify. How come."

"Easy, Charlie can't shoot for shit and really doesn't want to learn. Bloodthirsty Shawna can't hold it up with an eight-inch barrel so I'm having a four-inch put on it. If they ever need it, she will be able to shoot."

When I said blood thirsty, Hap started laughing again, "You need to buy them something that Charlie can shoot, like an automatic or a .38 special revolver."

"When all this shit happened I picked up another 9-mil for her. She's deadly with it. Now along with the big gun, I feel safer in the neighborhood."

Hap nodded and told me that one of his prospects had a broken frame and could I help the kid out. I told him that I would drop by Saturday around noon so I could have some of the Saturday chili after I fix it. Hap slapped me on the back and said I would be welcome to some chili.

He went off to the bar and I rejoined Charlie and the girls.

Charlie asked, "Hap tell you what he needed? Probably a kid with a cheap broken frame."

"I'll take care of it real fast this Saturday," I said.

Shawna was quick, "Yeah and eat so much of their chili till you can't walk. That stuff is dangerous."