Chapter 2

"It's good you found Rose. She can help you as you put together your supplies. You might as well put her in your will too. We didn't find anyone for you to leave your things to," Rosco said into my head.

"That's for damned sure. She can have a nice life here. The house, car, pickup, and everything is already paid for. Hell, even my tractor is paid in full. If she's careful with her money she probably won't ever have to work again, and she seems like a sweet kid.

"Hey, I don't want her blubberin' over me after I'm gone."

"Go ahead and tell her what's happeinin' then. It won't hurt nothin'. We'll even help her believe it and then check in on her every now and then after the deal is done. She won't get anything but insurance out of your tractor though. You're leaving in a wreck, remember?"

"I do now, and I'll check and make sure the insurance is paid up. Hell, I can even buy some of that accidental death crap. It'll be a kick to fuck an insurance company for once."

"Go ahead, we don't mind and we'll be providing a perfectly good accident either way," Rosco said.

"Hell, you may be ok after all."

He was gone then and the next thing I knew Rose wiggled the bed to head for the throne and it woke me. I got my own ass out of bed and headed for the guest bathroom down the hall.

Rose and I met in the kitchen a few minutes later, and since she had a pot of coffee I asked her to sit down and have a few cups with me before we got started.

To get the ball rollin' I acted like this was a little prenuptial conversation for understanding about how our marriage was going to be. I eased Rosco and my temporal relocation into the talk slowly and soon enough we were hip deep in what I would have considered unadulterated bullshit myself a couple of days ago.

No doubt I could have talked to Rose for weeks without making any progress but Rosco saved us all the grief with a few words of his own. I just watched and though I couldn't hear what he told her I could see a change in attitude wash over her face.

"So, I stay with you for your duration, and then to the rest of the world you die in a truck wreck and I end up a grieving widow with title to everything you own?" Rose asked.

"Well that is really the gist of it."

"Why didn't you pick me up two years ago?"

"He just offered me the deal lately. Anyway, two years ago I couldn't even get it up, besides, back then it wasn't a DICK like it is now, it was a weewee. They did a little paint and body work on me while they were fixing my ticker and all."

"They do some damned good work. The real deal works fine for me though, I mean gettin' the word from the start and knowin' what's coming. I already know I'm gonna miss you when you're gone, but it'll be a load off my mind to know you were saved at the last by outer space catfish."

"Thanks, I appreciate it."

"It ain't like they're lettin' you take a truckload of stuff with you ya know. You're gonna need to do some careful shopping," Rose said.

"Don't I know it, and I don't want to spend up all my money and leave you short when I'm gone," I said.

"Don't worry about that. It ain't like you can run out to Seven-Eleven and pick up something you've forgot after you get there."

"Yes, don't worry about money. We put a no limit Mastercard and a box with a million dollars cash in the pantry. You don't have time for bargain hunting. You need to get started," Rosco said into both our heads at the same time.

"I'd better get your breakfast on the stove," Rose said, and then she started rattling the pots and pans.

Rose was a good cook and she fixed me right up even though there wasn't much in my fridge to work with. We ate together and she said she wanted to go grocery shopping after we got the paperwork started. That sounded even better to me.

After we finished eating we checked out the Mastercard and the box of hundreds. I put the card and a ten thousand dollar bundle in my pocket and had Rose take another bundle for mad money.

Rose took my car and followed me in my pickup to the courthouse. We took the blood test in one of those doc-in-a-box places and then went in the courthouse for the marriage license. Back outside we walked across the street to a lawyer and told him we needed a will for each of us. We were done with our part in fifteen minutes.

Rose left the lawyers office and headed out for groceries. I took off for Jim's welding. I knew good and well I'd never find the kind of two-wheel dolly I wanted in a hardware store.

At first Jim didn't want to fuck with building a dolly. When I waved the cash in his face it became his life's ambition and we went into his little office to take a look at available wheels.

While we were finding eighteen-inch pneumatic tired wheels for the custom all-aluminum dolly I spied some industrial casters on a page and dog-eared it.

Jim wanted to give me more trouble when I told him I wanted dual wheels on the dolly, but I waved the bundle of money again.

"Jim, you just strike the arcs, I'll plan the dolly."

Things went a lot better afterward. While he was doing the hard part I went back to his office and started in on the catalog again.

I'd already figured out the casters I put on my chair were going to have to be my total wheel supply for the rest of my life. I found some industrial strength rough terrain eight-inch pneumatic models and ordered twenty-four.

While I was at it I picked out several other smaller sizes. Even if they didn't touch the ground I was going to have Jim weld them onto the chair's new base somewhere. I just wasn't going to let him do more than tack them temporarily in place.

Jim's catalog supplier wasn't just for welding shop materials. They had a full line of hardware. His office wasn't much of a place to sit and comfortably peruse though. I walked back out where he was working.

"Jim, I need to use your catalog, but I want to go home to make my list. Mark yourself down as working double time while I'm gone. What the hell, put me down for the whole week."

"For that much money I'll call my old lady and have her come out and suck on your dick for a while."

"No need, I found my own in Nashville last trip. We're gettin' married in a couple of days."

"Keep the catalog as a weddin' present then," he said, and laughed.

Time marched on and both Rose and I shopped on. Her grocery-shopping trip had expanded. She didn't make it home for lunch. Just after one she drove up with a furniture van following her, a computer store truck, and a telephone service truck too.

"Honey, I'm home," she said as she came in with a bag of groceries and put it on the kitchen table.

"I see that and I see you've got company behind you. What's all that for?" I asked.

"That's to drag you into modern times right at the last. The furniture truck has two desk and two nice desk chairs. The computer company truck has the store's owner and your two new computers in it. The phone truck is here to hook us up to the Internet with broadband," she said, and smiled.

"I don't know how to program a computer," I said, and it even sounded lame to me.

"Hell, no real person knows how to program computers. That's for behind the scenes geeks. All you need to do is learn how to search for what you want. You can order almost anything you need from the Internet.

"It's like a catalog for everywhere and you don't even have to call them up to order. Just click on what you want and give them the credit card number."

"Didn't I hear something on the news about identity theft and credit card fraud on the Internet?" I asked.

"I'm sure you have, but all that is Rosco's worry. If someone steals your identity they sure as hell won't have long to use it, now will they? You've got your own things to worry about. Let Rosco handle the bills.

"Now, help me get the groceries in and these guys will take care of everything else while I'm taking care of your lunch."

There's nothing I like better than a woman who can plan ahead. I listened closely to everything she mentioned for the next few minutes and then tried to do exactly what she said.

By suppertime that night Rose and I had his and hers computers in the living room. She took about an hour to show me how to work Opera, but it didn't have a damned thing to do with fat ladies or singing. By the time she gave me a rundown on Googling we were on our way. Rose went to bed about midnight but I was still surfing when she got up the next morning.

"Damn, you took right to that didn't you?" she asked, when she came to the kitchen to start the coffee.

"I see what the point is now. This is fun, though I think it's more fun for me since I'm using Rosco's credit card. Did you know you can even buy a car on this thing?"

"I've never tried. How do you get the financing worked out?"

"They took Mastercard no problem."

"You bought a car last night?" she asked.

"Hell yeh. I thought you'd look extra cute in a new Corvette, except it isn't exactly brand new."

"What?"

"It's a 1963 Corvette Stingray split-window coupe, fully restored. It had the 375 horse Fuel Injection engine and even has the knock-off wheels and the thirty-six gallon fuel tank. Still don't have a trunk though."

"How did you know that was my favorite car?"

"Hell, ain't it everybody's? They said it would be here about four this afternoon."

"I don't believe you."

"Ask Rosco. I had to talk to him about it first to make sure he didn't mind. He thought it was great."

"I still can't believe it."