Chapter 64

Bill Carmody's turn:

Interesting turn of events, I think. Two years ago I had Dan Richards on my power plant project. I knew him and Alan Addison from a previous power plant project where we were engineers, all three of us, on the same project. They're technically beyond reproach. Now I'm on THEIR payroll.

'Their' is, of course, 3Sigma Engineering. We're redoing several rural substations in Georgia. I ride herd on contractors, mainly, and make sure that they adhere to plans, and I track progress, etc., etc. If you've been around construction, you know what I mean.

It's good work. The rural South is a favorite area for me, and I'm working with people who know what they're doing.

Every week or so I make a run from wherever in Georgia back to Auburn, Alabama to touch base, hand carry some documents, show my face, see my spectacular adopted grand-daughter, Cindy Richards, once The Engineer's Apprentice, now, surprisingly, a degreed engineer. Sixteen. Baccalaureate in Electrical Engineering. Make that 'granddaughters' – plural, because if Cindy's my granddaughter and she has three sisters, then they are, by definition, my granddaughters as well.

I had that fact explained to me by Susan, the cute blonde one of the bunch. I accept it. I also see electrical drawings now with 'CSR' and 'DMG' initials all over 'em. Sometimes I don't have the heart to tell people that those are sixteen and seventeen years old, respectively.

I lost my wife to cancer almost twenty years ago. Make that 'perfect wife'. As perfect as a man can wish. Since then, the home we had outside Houston is only a base. I travel. Where the work is, where the scenery is different, the faces, the challenges, all those things change. I'm getting a bit old for it, maybe, but I'm still almost ten years shy of my retirement target age.

Since then, I won't say I've been exactly celibate, but that's almost the case. I haven't had a really close relationship with a woman. Or a man, or anything in between, for you pervs.

Most Fridays when I go to the office, I deliver what I have to deliver, get my ass handed to me by Rebekkah – Beck, who's most of the admin for the company, or Maddie, who's the rest of it. Maddie's a college student who gives Beck some relief. Beck uses that 'relief' to homeschool the two kids in the community, Terri, Alan Addison's daughter, and Rachel, who belongs to Beck and her husband Sim.

After work, sometimes I hang around the apartment complex with this gang. They like to style themselves as The Community. I can go along with that. I've never seen anything like it, so why not? Some Fridays they all get together and play music and get happy together. I get treated well. My adopted granddaughters are a little bit too old to sit on my lap, but Terri and Rachel aren't, and if I can be the Community's grandfather, that's a fine function to play.

Other Fridays, though, a guy who I knew from the Navy has retired from real work. Bubba Henry retired from the Navy as a chief petty officer machinist. I worked him hard as a superintendent on a couple of my projects.

Now he has a hobby. Some people would call it a 'shitkicker bar'. It's a country and western joint, but Bubba – Vincent's his given name – says his is a REAL country and western bar. I don't think anything in his juke box is newer than the mid 1970's. Fridays and Saturdays he has live music, but he's equally picky about those, too.

So if you're of a mind to listen to classic country, the Bubba's Goat Locker is the place to go. I go there, shake hands with Bubba and his lovely wife, drink my beer, listen to some Hank Williams and Bill Anderson and some Waylon Jennings and Charlie Pride and Johnny Cash. I might even dance a few. These are people who don't think that asking a lady to dance is prelude to a fistfight in the parking lot.

This particular Friday night I hit the place about eight, just about the time the live music normally started. I walked up to the bar. Bubba was there, idly wiping the counter between two guys sitting there nursing bottle beers. Me, I prefer tap beer, and Bubba keeps a couple of pretty good ones, Yeungling and Shiner Bock.

"Hey, Bubba," I said.

"Hey-ey, Bill!" It's a long way since I was a newly commissioned ensign and he was a chief machinists mate. I'm glad I'm 'Bill' to 'im now. "Wanna mug?"

"Yeah. Shiner. Warm mug." As if he didn't know. He had a freezer full of frozen mugs, but I wanted to actually TASTE the beer I paid for. "What's going on?"

He shrugged. "Friday night. Getting started early. He motioned toward the booths lining the far wall. There were two guys there putting their best moves on a drunk chick.

That's common business at bars all over. I generally don't give it a second thought, but my eyes were adjusting to the dim interior of the bar and I looked twice.

And almost shit myself. I knew the girl. Make that 'woman'. I felt sick. Cindy's mom. Donna. Who showed up four weeks ago announcing her intentions of turning her life around. If so, this was the three hundred and sixty degree mark. She's back the way she was.

I'm an adult. I understand that people make their own choices, for whatever reasons rattle around inside their heads. I've seen enough stuff in my life to where little is going to shock me, but I have a vested interest here. You see, I take Cindy seriously. I've watched her closely ever since we got together in a construction trailer one day and gave her a pocket protector and a hard hat with Engineer's Apprentice on it. I watched her very close when Dan Richards announced that he married the cute little redhead, even though I thought she was entirely too young.

I knew Dan to be a man of honor, though, and I could assign no bad to Cindy. I simply told him that if he hurt her, I'd have his body put inside a concrete foundation pour.

I watched. Smiled a lot, because Cindy took off in ways nobody expected.

And here was her mom, fixing to hurt my Cindy.

"Don't remember seeing them in here before," I said to Bubba.

"They, the two guys, they come in ever' so often. I've had to run 'em out of here. Got 'em arrested for fightin' in the parking lot. I think the sheriff's department got one of 'em for a DWI. That kind of shit. She's new, though."

The band started the first number, a raucous one from Hank Williams. They were doing a pretty good job of it, too.

I sipped my beer, listening, tapping my foot. The number ended, to applause. They pulled up the next one, just what I was looking for – a waltz.

"Bubba, kinda watch my back. I think I know that lady. I'm gonna ask 'er for a dance."

"I'll watch. Be careful. Those are not our regular clientele."

I laughed. "Bubba, you run a shit-kicker joint. You don't have clientele."

"I may put in a fern," he laughed. "Be careful."

I eased my way around the floor avoiding two couples already dancing. Got to the table. The two guys eyed me in a less than friendly way. Donna, it seemed, was a bit out of it.

"Mind if I ask the lady to dance?" I said.

The older of the two said, "Sure, long as it ain't the horizontal bop."

I'm thinking that this guy's all about 'class'. Donna looked up. Her eyes blinked, her mouth opened part way, then tears started.

"Oh shit, Bill..."

"Donna."

"Oh shit, Bill," she repeated. "I'm fuckin' up. I AM fuckin' up, and I KNOW I'm fuckin' up." A sob came out. "Bill, stop me. I don't wanna..."

"Heyyyyy," the younger guy drawled. "Whatcha doin' to our date?"

"She's not your date. She's my old friend. Donna, you wanna..."

The young guy started to stand up. "Don't," I said. "I don't want trouble."

"I DO want pussy," he said, standing to full height.

Okay, size wasn't a problem. I'm bigger. However, he's twenty-something and I'm sixty. And his buddy's starting to stand. The younger one, across from me, his eyes widened as the one next to me turned and started "Muthafu..."

"That's not a pleasant way to carry on a conversation," Bubba said. He was holding a pickaxe handle. "Y'all might wanna leave again."

The younger one scooted sideways out of the booth. I made room for the other one. He was glaring at me malevolently.

"C'mon, Dana," he said. "Let's go somewhere else."

"No. I'm Donna. And I have a daughter to take care of. You just go."

They left me standing there. Me. Donna. Bubba. Donna buried her face in my chest, sobbing. "Bill, get me out of there. I don't wanna fuck up."

"Something I can do to help?" Bubba asked.

"No, buddy. This lady needs some help," I told him. "I guess it's sort of up to me. On second thought, tell the band to play another waltz."

Bubba gave me one of those looks. I remember them from decades ago when it was an old, knowledgeable chief petty officer saving a young ensign from his own bright ideas.

I winked at him. "I got this one, Chief."

The music started up with another waltz. "Donna, would you dance this one with me?"

She looked up at me with wet eyes. "Dance with you?"

"Yes. If you would."

"I would be pleased."

I held her. She was unsteady. The sobs had subsided, though, and she fell into my arms for the dance. When the music died, I waved at Bubba, getting his attention, then pointed toward the door.

We headed outside. I was wary, but there was a sheriff's department car sitting there.

"Donna, can I take you home?"

"Bill, can you call Cindy? See if ... if she'll take me tonight. I don't need to be home alone."

"Okay," I said. "Let's go see Cindy."

I dialed up Cindy on the phone as soon as I got onto the road.

She answered. Excited. After all, I was her Mister Bill. God knows I hated to have to say what I was getting ready to tell her.

"Hi, princess. I have your mom here with me."

"Really?!? That's good, right?" I could feel the happiness waning in her voice, replaced as that agile mind of hers ran through the list of possibilities.

"Yes and no. Can we come over? She needs her daughter."

"Sure you can, Mister Bill. Is she okay?"

"She's more okay than she was a half an hour ago."

"Can I talk to her?"

I looked over. Donna was leaned against the window, mouth open, breathing, but asleep.

"She's asleep, baby," I said. "You and me and Dan need to talk a bit. Right now she needs her daughter. I know you got it in you, baby."

"She didn't..."

"Sort of. Maybe. Maybe not. But I got 'er right now and we're getting her to a safe place, okay?"

"That's what she needs."

When we pulled into the apartment parking lot, Cindy and Dan's door came open and the two rushed outside.

Donna was out, but breathing. "Mom?" Cindy said tearfully. "Mom?"

Donna's eyes fluttered, then opened. "Oh god, Cindy. Help me."