Chapter 65

Day Sixty-five - Tuesday

My eyes popped open to see the red numerals on the clock say four-forty five. I listened to see if I had heard a noise and awakened because of it.

I closed my eyes to get that extra forty-five minutes of sleep.

"I'm gonna be a dad," was running around in my head. "Well dummy, you were fucking like bunnies, and she did tell you that she was trying.

"I always thought it took a month or so after you quit taking birth control pills before you could get pregnant. Did I think that, or was I just wishing for it.

"Wow, a boy, my boy. The little sucker will get two of the nicest milk spigots around, that's for sure. He'll have to be a big'un to drink all the milk Sue is going to produce. Women's breasts swell up when they are pregnant and give birth. Hope Sue's don't pop,

"This whole thing has been fast, really fast. My vacation plan was to do what? Enjoy some leisure, not working. Perhaps meet some new friends. Do some interesting stuff that would give me memories for when I went back to the platforms.

"Well, I have some good memories, that's for sure. I also have some damn nice prospects to look forward to. Funny, I'm not worried about the future at all. Somehow I just know Sue and I can take anything on. Even when we're not together, I have a comfort level, just knowing that we're getting back together in a little while.

"Now that I've pondered about all this, it's time to get up. Oh boy, I get to kiss my wife awake, wow, MY WIFE. Makes my heart go pitty pat, that's for sure."

I gave a nearby nipple a quick suck, or would that be a quick deep throat. Next, I kissed her lips as she moaned and moved about from the intensity of a nipple suck when a person is asleep.

The more I kissed her cheeks, eyes, and ears, the faster her breathing became until Sue opened her eyes, and seeing me, hugged me tight, saying the magic "I love you," over and over again.

We got up to go our separate ways. Sue to the pot and me to the coffee pot, to meet in the shower. Our mutual washing became fondling that became, oops, fucking, until my no longer needed seed was running down her legs. We finished washing, weak-kneed, but with pleasant smiles on our faces.

When we turned the light on right at six, we were greeted shortly by Sandy and Mandy, accompanied by Drew and Bob. Those four all had nice smiles too. Phil and Judy showed up right after six with boxes of breakfast sandwiches and pastries, claiming they were still celebrating winning the bids.

"So, Phil, what's happening with those bids from South America that you were working on that you felt were a lock?"

"They will come, these others take precedence today," Phil told me. "I'll take care of the others when the time comes. Nice to know that you remember what I've told you though. You really do keep up better than any of us have a right to expect."

Sue said she would front the money for the new property for a month. I was determined to really do a pay as you go. The cost of the property, the cleanup and the repairs to the building was just more than Tiny could squeeze out of cash flow, and still pay bills and make payroll. The company could have borrowed the money commercially but why not pay Sue the interest instead of a bank.

So Tiny started off the day making sure Ernie was setting up a closing. Since he had a contract for the building, Tiny had called the contractor to do the repairs to the building and to prepare it the same as he had on our place. We were not going to pave the full twenty acres though. The thought was to clean up the property and put in grass where it was not paved. We could always pave more of the property, as we needed it.

Abe wanted to begin putting rebuilt equipment over there as soon as possible and we needed more space to store old equipment before he could rebuild it. We were going to open a large part of the fence separating the two properties and pave a wide strip to the paved area around the big building.

Tiny was letting the contractor into the property, so I went over to look at the place in more detail. The offices were a small area in the front corner of the building. It was just three rooms and a bathroom, with windows looking outside and to the huge warehouse. When you walked out of the office area you felt small, as the ceiling was so high and the warehouse so big. The place was two hundred-fifty feet deep by seven hundred feet wide, which figures out to be one hundred seventy-five thousand square feet of covered area, enormous. I finally realized what the building reminded me of, a large airplane hangar. Too bad we weren't closer to the airport, as this would be an ideal hangar for small to medium planes and helicopters.

The place was too big to air condition so it really wouldn't be good for a manufacturing facility. But part of it could be partitioned off and insulated sufficiently that we could air condition a large area. I paced off the office width. It was approximately thirty-six feet. If a partition followed the line from the office, all the way back that would be nine thousand square feet. That would be large enough to use for almost any kind of manufacturing and it sure would not detract from the useable remaining space. I would keep this in mind and make sure Abe began storing his equipment on the other end. I couldn't see him ever using the entire building for rebuilt equipment.

Enough of the daydreams, I checked on the shops to see how everyone was doing. Everything was humming smoothly. The contractor's cabinetmaker and helper had commandeered the area nearest the door of the frame area. He had a large stack of materials that he was working his way through.

Hank had painted the trailer already but this time he had winged pickup trucks chasing motors and the S&S logo. The way he created the paintings against the light blue background caught your eye instantly.

I went to see how he was doing with the tractor, but he was in the paint booth with the red light on, indicating that it was unsafe to enter without protective gear. I would see it soon enough.

Phil said that this coming week he was going to have a seminar in our large meeting room. The seminar was going to be like a trade show with representatives from our major manufacturers. He had sent out over five hundred invitations and had already received back over three hundred confirmed attendees. He had speakers on preventative maintenance issues, plant-manufacturing problems, and even had some speakers on small business financing. The idea was to educate our buyers and let them know about our ever-expanding line of commercial products. Phil was planning these seminars, at least quarterly, to targeted customer groups.

Abe was in my downstairs office with a guy a little older than I was. He introduced Jed as the person who was going to be his second in command within the rebuild shop. It had become too much for him to watch over, so he had been proactive about it and found a guy he trusted to work with him. Jed had been a production supervisor at a large forklift manufacturing plant. Abe had met him while buying parts to rebuild a forklift. Jed was fascinated with the quality of our work and told Abe that he could work for a company like ours. Now he did.

Abe took me aside and said, this guy is going to be my replacement one of these days. I don't know how long I can keep up the pace you've set. You and I started out real small, but the place has really grown far beyond what I could ever believe. You've paid me so well, it's like I have more than enough for my retirement years. I'm not quitting, or retiring yet, just letting you know it could happen. Get to know Jed, he's a good man, you'll like him.

Debbie had me returning calls for a while and talking to our steel supplier. Their prices had gone up a little, but we were now in a high enough discount level that our margin wasn't really affected yet. I sent Tiny a note so he could keep track of our costs per unit.

The local car builder had an order for three frames, three sets of sheet metal and three motors. That was a bunch of bucks for him. The order had been paid for in advance on a credit card. Since there wasn't any dickering with him this time, I called him and thanked him for his business. He said the blueprints for the frame and sheet metal were to be delivered later today, so the sooner we could deliver, the better. We had the entire conversation without him digging me on price, amazing.

Debbie said that since they had separated the faxes, her job had become considerably easier as she wasn't calling people back that she couldn't help. She also said that she was getting a good handle on the racing business, saying we had a great reputation so far. All we had to do was maintain our quality and we should be successful for a long time to come.

I called Sue to see if she wanted to have lunch and visit the gym. She did, of course, so I took off for home. We changed clothes and worked out for a solid hour, and came home to eat with her people and Glenda. Martin joined us today, talking about the manufactured home next to Sue's being for sale. He thought that we should buy it so we could rent it to Sandy or Mandy, as it appeared to him that the two of them were about to set up separate households. Sue said she thought so too, and would look into it.

Sue and I went to the pool to refresh our tans. Sue was brown enough to look of mixed heritage, while I was tanning nicely but nowhere near Sue. The time we spent together was nice though. We never spent much more than a half-hour at a time, just enough sun.

Back at work, I noticed two very large cranes next door. The contractor had the weight of the door suspended now and was working on how to straighten the rail that had broken. I asked to be lifted up to look. The heavy steel had bent about four inches. The only way to straighten it out was to heat it. This would take four or five guys with torches along with something to either raise the bent area or pull it up. The contractor got on the phone and within twenty minutes a flat bed pulled up with four more lifts. I went over to the frame shop and took five guys that could handle gas torches, along with my portable backpack from the truck. It took longer to get equipment together than it did to get the lifts to the site.

The contractor had a cable attached to the rail with just slight pull added. I directed my men to heat the rail along the bend. While they were heating the rail, I was cleaning off the old weld. The problem probably was the sloppy weld had made the wheel jump the rail. After the guys had been heating the rail for about ten minutes, I had the contractor put more upward pressure on the rail a tiny bit at a time. When the rail had pulled past the other side, I told the guys to shut down for a minute. While the steel was cooling, I had the contractor let the rail come back down signaling to him when it was positioned correctly. They had pulled the outer ends to give an inch clearance so I had them release pressure there until the ends were touching.

Using my backpack, I welded the rail closed. Using a battery operated grinder, I smoothed the weld so a wheel could easily pass over it. Next I had the contractor let me down so I could go get a couple pieces of steel to put under the rail for additional strength at the weld. Once that was in place everyone on lifts got down to watch as the door was lifted back into place.

When everything appeared to be where it should be, the contractor had us move away from the door. He hit the button to open the doors and the electric motors began pulling the giant doors open. The entire back of the building opened up. Like I said, this place was just a big hangar not at an airport.