Chapter 9

I awoke at six, as usual, but not in a bed or room I recognized. It took a second to get my head straight remembering I was at Steve's house. It was only about six in the morning but I heard some activity outside the room. It sounded like someone was in the kitchen. After washing my face, brushing my teeth, and dressing, I walked out and found Glenda messing around in the kitchen. She said, "Have a cup of coffee in here. The big pot on the patio isn't done yet. We forgot to set the timer last night. Are you hungry?"

Smiling, I said, "Glenda, I'm always hungry, but I have to watch what I eat now that I'm older and not as active. I am going to have to go over to my trailer and get my pills. You know how that is with us older guys."

Glenda said, "Martin has to take a lot of pills too. He's given us a couple of scares with his heart, so he takes several. You have a pacemaker right?"

"Yes Ma'am, it's one of those dual kinds that monitors high and low pressure and jolts me into slowing down or going faster. So far, it hasn't been active except when I first got it."

"That's good, Mark. How long has it been since your heart attack?"

"It's been eight years now, Glenda. I got my pacemaker about four years ago."

Glenda smiled, "Well, you look good, Mark. You're like Martin, you just keep on tickin'."

People had come into the patio and were having coffee while watching the morning news on the big television. A news item caught my attention. It said that Judy had been released on her own recognizance until a sentencing hearing. I guess she had pled guilty, or something like that. That was good, she could get together whatever she needed to if she was going to be put into jail. I guess I could take a bird but no cats. In the years we had been together, I had cleaned litter boxes daily. Now I had no more cat litter to worry about and no furniture torn to shreds where they sharpened their claws.

Martin came over and had some coffee. While he was sitting next to me in the kitchen, Glenda said, "Take Mark over to his place so he can get his morning pills. Since he's feeling pretty good, he should bring his cart back so he can get around if he wants to."

Martin waved me out and as we walked to his cart, he said, "If you don't do what she asks real quick, you'll never hear the end of it until you just give up and do it. Learned a long time ago to just do what she wants done."

As we rode over to my trailer, Martin kept thanking me for fixing up his car. I said, "It was my pleasure, Martin. That's what friends are for."

He nodded and smiled as he pulled up to the trailer. I went inside, swallowed my pills, and grabbed the shed key to pull the truck cart out. After locking everything up, I was getting ready to go back to Steve's when Shirley and Betty came around the front of the trailer together. Betty said, "Take us with you. We'll go visit on the patio with you this morning, okay?"

They both said "Morning, Martin," but both got into my truck cart. Martin drove on ahead as I drove slowly over to the patio. As I entered the patio with the two ladies, Juanita asked me, "What's the matter, Mark, were we not enough women for you over here?"

Blushing, I answered, "Well, I wanted to bring a couple of my own, a couple of single babes to liven up my day."

While we were having coffee and eating a breakfast sandwich, Ruth asked me to see her later so I could fill out some forms. She said since I was going to work for S&S doing various things, I was eligible for their medical insurance. I told Ruth, "I have VA benefits and I'm still covered under my ex-wife's insurance she has with the post office. There's no sense in you guys paying for insurance when I don't need it."

Ruth said, "Fill out the papers anyway. When you lose your wife's insurance, you can pick ours up. Besides, you might want to get the life insurance that goes with the package. A guy your age can't get life insurance cheap."

"Thanks, Ruth, I'll fill out the forms in a bit."

Betty said, "You know, you received all that publicity that Samantha got for you. You might be able to go into county politics if you want. It would be good to have you as a commissioner, someone that could look out for this area out here."

"I'll think about it, Betty," I said, thinking politics and me were not compatible. "But I have to tell you, it will probably be just thinking about it."

Shirley offered, "You know those guys get paid for their position. I don't know how much it is, but anything is a lot for a guy in your shoes."

"That's a little different then, Shirley, I'll look into it."

Betty wouldn't quit, "You know what, if you would run for commissioner out here, I'll bet we could get a lot of people to help talk you up with other voters. You've made a lot of friends and a lot of people really know you now for saving that judge."

"I'll think about it, Betty."

"Think hard about it, Mark, you can help a lot of people if you could get that job," Betty said.

Shirley said, "You know, you should have a lady on your arm when you meet people at a fundraiser or party for you. I'll be glad to dress up and be on your arm."

"I want to do that too, Shirley, don't hog the man," Betty said, acting offended.

Glenda and Alice had come over to sit with us. Glenda said, "You know that is a great idea. We do need someone to bring up a few things that need attention out here. We pay a ton of taxes, or at least the park does, and Steve and Sue do with their businesses. We might as well have someone that can get some of our money spent out here."

I said, "You know I don't know anything about county government. My attitude has always been the farther away I can get from government, the better."

Alice said, "How hard can it be? You have to go to council meetings all the time and listen to people bitch about potholes. When you have to vote on something, just learn everything about what you're voting on and vote what is right."

Tiny and Phil had been listening and pulled chairs up to our table. Tiny said, "You might be surprised what those guys get paid. Seems to me they just turned down a raise because of tax revenues being down. But they make around a hundred grand a year on the council. I'll bet we could put together a campaign real quick and get you voted in, just on your notoriety on TV these last few nights."

I held up my hands and said, "Hey folks, my head's still spinning from getting kicked out of my own house and getting a divorce. What's it going to look like for a guy in the process of getting a divorce running for public office?"

Phil said, "You'll get all of the male sympathy vote. Every guy out there will see the injustice of it all and vote for you just to prove you were taken advantage of."

Shirley said, "I didn't think of it that way. We ladies will have to cool it so you don't get a reputation for being a chaser. We can just tell everyone how you have taken care of us and not mention that you've taken care of us after dark."

Glenda said, "Shirley, you're sounding more and more like Emma, saying she's slept with almost every man over sixty out here. I swear we have some of the nastiest old ladies out here."

Betty commented, "There's just not enough nasty old men to go around. Every new man that moves in out here is big news to us ladies."

Glenda said, "We're getting off the point. Mark, will you run for county council or not?"

Tiny offered, "Let me get my laptop and we'll look up the commissioners and see what all they do. I'll bet they are busy for that kind of money."

Tiny had some kind of doohickey that he connected to his laptop that displayed his screen on the big TV. He Googled the Hillsborough County Commissioners. Their page showed the seven commissioners. He then showed a map of the seven districts. Actually, four of the commissioners had dedicated districts while the other three were "at large" commissioners and worked for the county as a whole.

The next page was a PDF file of all the activities of the commissioners. The actual commission only met two days a month, but every one of the commissioners had a dozen other assignments like the airport committee, the military liaison committee, etc. etc.

I wanted to see what the commissioner from our district brought to the table, and what his background was.

The man wasn't that old, actually, none of the commissioners were that old. Our district was the largest as it used to be the least populated, but over the years the area had built up extensively. Our man had a business degree from the University of Florida and had been successful in business before becoming interested in politics.

I said, "I've seen enough, the man probably has to eat, sleep, and live politics and other people using up his time. I'm not that guy, I'm not willing to put in a twelve hour day everyday then go to a cocktail party to butt kiss. I'm really trying to retire or at least slow down. That's not for me."

Glenda said, "I never realized those guys had so much to do. I can't believe they work that hard. They're always at big dinners and parties. We see it in the newspaper all the time."

"You know," I began in defense, "I would be willing to head a group to get something done out here when we need it, but I don't want to have to do that every day. Let me heal up and get back in shape, then we'll talk about what needs to be done out here."

Thankfully, that topic was trashed. Tiny even winked at me as he shutdown his laptop and put the TV back on the regular morning news channel. Most of the folks heading to work had left. Dennis came over to me and said, "When you get to where you think you can help, I have a couple of projects in the lab that I could use an assistant to check on results at each stage of testing. If I have another pair of hands, I could get this done a lot faster."

I answered him, "I'm going to the doc next door so he can check me out. If he says it's okay, I'll come over and help out. I may get tired too quick to be of much help."

"Any help would be appreciated, Mark. I just don't want to pull a guy in to disappoint him when I have to send him back right away."

Just before nine, Juanita said, "Give me a ride over to the doctor's office. I'll go with you in case I have to drive us back."

The trailer park had installed a cart path next to the highway all the way to the shopping plaza. It sure made it easier to get around if you used a cart instead of a car. It was a lot faster since you didn't have to go through the contortions of doors and locking everything. With a cart, you just took your key and got out.

The doctor gave me a very thorough physical and had me get an x-ray of the area that had been fixed. The nurse took some blood, and after looking at the x-rays, the doc said, "Looks to me like you're healing very fast, looks good. Take it easy, but you can probably be on your own if you want and you can move around, just no lifting or straining of any kind. If you want to go for a walk, do so slowly and not very far. Come back to see me next Monday."

I was grinning on the way back to the park as I was free to do something of value like help Dennis in the R&D center. I dropped off Juanita and told her where I was headed. She told me to take it easy and she would see me for lunch.

Dennis wasn't kidding when he said I could help. He was sitting at a bench with a microscope and several other instruments. When he looked up he said, "Does this mean I can get some help?"

"I'll do as much as I can, Dennis. Show me what you need done and I'll begin."

"These parts are the disassembled experimental motor we've been trying out for our carts, the police scooters, and the bigger motor for Steve airplane adventure. We've run these motors for seven hundred and thirty hours, equivalent to running the motor for two hours a day, every day, for a year. The motor is stopped every half-hour, sits for five minutes, and is then restarted. You can see that this experiment has been running for over thirty days. Once the experimental time was complete, we tore the engines down to check on the amount of wear. We have two different oiling systems and we need to compare to see which is better. What you have to do is inspect each component under the scope to check the amount of wear. Use that computer to write up the wear description of each part. Look back at a couple of pieces that I did to get an idea. The biggest issue is to spot any unusual wear characteristics."

I had to give it to these guys. They were thorough about getting test results. This was just to compare two different oiling systems. I wonder how many tests they had to run at the same time to keep good answers to potential problems of the new engines.

In minutes, I was lost in diagnosing each part. The computer was set up with the part name, number, and a picture. All I had to do was analyze the part, write up what I found, and go on to the next.

Before I knew it, Dennis said, "Hey, it's lunch time. Let's take a break and get some lunch. You're almost done with the first motor. You might be able to get both done today. Abe wants to get this smaller motor into some carts as he says they are more fuel efficient and considerably more powerful."

Lunch was the usual soup and sandwich. Mercy made me go into the room I had slept in so she could check to see if I had been pulling on my stitches. Even though I assured her I had been good, she checked anyway. She said I could go back to work with Dennis, but to not overdo it and that I should come back for a nap if I got too tired.

Dennis and I went back to the lab where he was working on setting up a couple more engines for more testing. He had a set of engines in a test room that was full of dust, another with salt-water mist, and still another with blowing sand. They were really tormenting the test engines to see whether they would hold up.

I was able to finish both engines by three in the afternoon. I was getting tired, but made sure that there was nothing else I could do for Dennis before I left to go back to the patio.

Glenda said, "Put on your swimsuit and go up to the pool. Get some sun for a half-hour or so. Betty and Shirley are up there, they will take care of you."

I took a bottle of water with me and went up to the pool. Betty, Shirley, and the infamous Emma, were on loungers gossiping. I told them I had been directed by Glenda to get a half-hour of sun and that my two neighbors would watch out for me. Emma butted in and said, "Why don't you have me watch out for you. I'm sure you would rest better on my couch than out here in the sun."

Just smiling, I said to Emma, "These two ladies are just fine, Emma. Thanks for the offer though."

Shirley spread lotion on me and whispered in my ear, "You did that so good, Betty and I may give you a treat."