Maxine's New Life Ch. 05

The damn phone rang at 6 AM. I wanted to ignore it, but Marty was all over it. I mean this was an adventure to Marty. He didn't understand that it was just a job to me. I was going to work like hell not to pee on his parade, but there were no guarantees. I doubted that I could ever make myself believe that it was the trip of a lifetime for me.

Marty went to arrange for the pickup of the bikes while I took a shower. I spent ten minutes scrubbing my ass and my hair. After that shower, I took a look at my pile of clothes. I had clean panties, but nothing else at all was clean. I had often worn the same fatigues for several days when we were running a convoy in the mountains, but never had I taken a hot shower and put on dirty clothes. It had always been wake up dirty and just start a new day. It was all part of the 'Play It as It Lays' philosophy of the field.

I smiled into the mirror and thought I have only been a year away from it, yet here I am turning my nose up at clothes that had only been worn one previous day. I felt as though it was going to be a long way to California.

When I opened the bathroom door, Marty was pacing. "Take it easy, Marty, we don't have a schedule to keep." I said with a smile and hoped he understood that it was all in fun.

"I know, I just can't wait to get going. This is like my one last great adventure." he said.

"Then damn it, don't rush through it. It's going to be over too soon anyway, so just let it happen. Don't try to make it happen. You set it in motion, now let it have a life of its own." I suggested

He looked out the motel's second story window at the view of the parking lot. "How come I'm twenty years older and you are smarter?"

"Because you are really thirty years older, and I'm a woman. That math works out so that I'm still more mature." I broke up laughing and so did Marty.

"I'm not seventy yet," he stopped and seemed to be lost in thought a second, then added, "But it won't be long for sure, this is the last great adventure of my life. I just can't wait."

"No, there is one more big adventure. You still have to transition." He looked confused but for only a second.

"Into what?" he asked.

"I have no idea, but it is into something. I have to believe that," I replied.

"Yes, I guess we all do." he agreed.

He looked lost again, so I said, "But if we don't get a move on, they might charge us for another day." He smiled broadly and began carrying things to the motel storeroom. From that locked room, the manager/owner allowed us to recover the bikes and small trailers.

After all of Marty's rush to get started, I was surprised to see him pull into a roadside diner only a hundred clicks or so from the motel. I pulled into the same automobile parking space he occupied. "What's up?" I asked, once I got the lightweight motorcycle helmet off.

"Breakfast, One thing I learned working on the farm all those years, was that you pack carbs and protein first thing in the morning. Lunch is light and cool, but breakfast and dinner you have to pack it in to stay energized."

"Marty, we ain't plowing, you know." I could see my diet going all to hell.

"If you don't do like I tell you, then you are going to be sorry," he flashed that knowing grandfather smile on me.

"What'll you have?" the waitress with the really badly bleached hair asked.

"I want eggs, sausage, grits, toast, and lots of coffee," Marty said.

"Me, I want eggs, sausage, hash browns, and toast." I smiled over at Marty. Might as well at least start out playing along. It took about twenty minutes to eat and drink three cups of coffee. I went to the ladies room before we left, but I knew that coffee would be coming out for hours.

Once we finished breakfast and Marty paid the bill, we went into the parking lot. The bikes started right up, so I followed Marty out of the parking lot. He turned us away from Myrtle Beach proper.

We were between towns when I could wait no longer. I squeezed the black rubber forced air powered horn. It was loud enough so that it caught Marty's attention. He slowed enough so that I could pull up beside him. I motioned for him to stop.

"What?" he asked.

"Wait right here, I have to pee. Too much coffee." I set the kickstand and walked from the highway into the woods. Yes, I know how to pee with my pants, more or less, on. Too bad women can't pee standing up. I personally have had all kinds of rashes from the nature around me. Everything from flea bites to oily plants that create mild rashes on the skin. We won't even discuss yeast infections. In twenty-two years, I had peed in the woods more than a few times, so I didn't blink an eye, when I walked into the woods. Marty just smiled when I returned. He was all pleased as if he personally had something to do with it.

Marty's route took us a little inland. We rode about five hours then stopped at a convenience store for microwave sandwiches. There isn't anything that won't kill you, much faster than those damn sandwiches from the refrigerator section, especially after they have been heated in a microwave oven. I knew then what Marty meant about packing in food in the morning and again when we stopped for the night.

Food on the road was terrible. I decided right then that I was going to try to go with fruit and peanut butter crackers for lunch. Hell, maybe even a candy bar for a treat.

During the afternoon, I saw some beautiful scenery as we rode along the back roads of South Carolina. We tried to stay on main roads, but not controlled highways. It was a challenge, but fortunately that's what GPS does best.

When we finally pulled into an 80 year old concrete block motel outside Hamptonville, SC, it was after five PM and I was worn to a frazzle. We checked in and then emptied the trailers into our room. The one room had worked out so well, that we decided to just go with it. Marty was so cute trying to talk me into it without sounding like a dirty old man. Hell, if he had been a dirty old man, it might have appealed to me even more. Not that it didn't already appeal to me, since I would be a better bodyguard if I was actually in sight of the body, which I was supposed to guard.

Once the trailers were empty, we rode the bikes to the nearby Wal-Mart store. I bought a clean black knit top. I figured it would fare better than the gray I had been wearing. I also bought a five pack of cheap panties. My biggest item to go into the buggy was not a new pair of jeans, since I figured the ones I had on were good for a couple of more days, but a giant can of spray deodorant. Not very ladylike I know, but alas, I am who I am.

That's pretty much how the next week went. Everyday I thought that either Marty or I, was ready to quit, but we somehow managed to stay at it. Marty wanted to stop along the way to visit places he had read about. Most of it was tourist crap, but he also had a list of places recommended by other members of his bike forum on the Internet.

We hit a small Louisiana town during some festival or other. There was a giant fair, all the beer one could drink and fish stew one could eat for ten bucks a head. It was great fun, and afterwards, we walked to the motel and fell into bed, actually into the same bed. It was embarrassing to wake up in bed with Marty. Even more so, since he had and erection and it was pointed right to my ass. I didn't know what to do at first. I mean, first I had to decide what I wanted him to do with that thing. Before I could decide, he rolled over and away from me, damn it.

He had no idea why I was irritable all morning. It was definitely the wrong day for smart ass farm boys to fuck with me. But, unfortunately there was no one to tell them that. It was a quiet back country Louisiana road where it all happened. First of all, it was one fancy sports sedan that pulled up beside us.

In a loud voice, the kid behind the wheel yelled, "What the hell you doing on that bicycle. Don't you know you ain't no kid."

Now I could have pulled out my piece and shot him in the forehead, or I could have not bothered to look up at all. The first would have been messy, and I would have had to hide the body, at least until we could get out of the area. The second just didn't seem like any fun at all, so what I did was smile pretty and toss him the single digit salute. I also broke into gales of intense laughter at his expense.

I realized instantly that I had just screwed up. That farm boy would have gone away harmlessly, if I had just ignored him. My job was to protect Marty not get some kid pissed off at us both.

"Hey old man, you better get control of your daughter," the strapping blonde teenager said.

"She ain't my daughter," Marty said, as he to gave the kid the universal signal for trying to hitchhike with a helicopter.

The kid pulled the sports sedan across the road cutting us off. We probably could have ridden around him, but I preferred to face him head on. Head on seemed more advisable than having someone do a bowling alley thing on us from behind. I didn't think Marty and I would fare too well as the pins with that sports sedan being the ball.

He jumped out of the sedan and ran around to get in Marty's face. Marty smiled sweetly toward me. He might have tried to fight any other time, but he knew better. He was apt to be shot by mistake, so he backed off. He did point toward me. The roughneck kid turned to look. He found himself staring down the barrel of that snub nosed hammerless .38. "What the hell?" he truly was mystified. He had to be wondering, how in the hell an old man and middle-aged bitch could have gotten the upper hand on him. I mean he was obviously so much smarter and so better looking, and in so much better shape than us, it just made no sense at all.

He was still wondering, when Marty said, "Now are we going to have to murder you and hide your body in the woods, or are you going to be a good little boy and head off home?"

The kid looked at Marty, then looked at me, then at the .38, and said, "I'll be headed home."

"Good for you." Marty turned his attention to me. "Let him go, Max." I nodded, but only because I didn't want to dig a grave in the middle of the day. The kid was in the car and out of there in a matter of secondss.

"You know, he is headed home for a shotgun? He is going to be waiting up there to save his boyish pride." I was absolutely sure that I was right about the kid.

"Yeah, so what do you suggest?"

"Call the local sheriff and have him send us a tow truck. We don't want a deputy, not with me hauling around this .38 and us riding on what might or might not be legal bikes."

"Good point." Marty said.

We went to ground and waited thirty minutes for the tow truck. Marty instructed the driver to take us to a motel in town. On the way out of the country lane, I saw the kid's sports sedan parked just off the road in a driveway. He had been waiting for us just like I thought, or maybe not, Marty and I would never know for sure.

Marty saw it at the same time I did. "You know we could have been in a world of shit, you and me. Those bikes are probably not legal and that pistol of yours would most likely land you in jail. Calling this tow truck was just brilliant."

"No, brilliant would have been calling some bad ass biker gang to kick him in the head. Too bad we don't know anybody like that," I said.

"The trip has just begun," Marty said in reply. Marty was also wearing a huge smile. He was having the time of his life and why wouldn't he be. Marty was doing exactly what he wanted to do, and had the company of a woman 25 years younger and of questionable morals. Marty was living every old man's dream.

While you are riding a frail bicycle, you tend to keep your eyes on the road. At least I did, what with the threat of squirrels and rabbits throwing my ass in a ditch filled with water on the side of the road. With that threat removed, I was able to take a better look at the plants growing along the cracked blacktop. There were beautiful old trees with Spanish Moss hanging everywhere. If those trees had been white, they would have looked like a young woman in a bridal gown. That moss was just flat gorgeous.

I also noticed the sun, more than just the heat waves rising from the asphalt. The sun was so bright that everything looked clean. It was as if the sun had burned off all the red dirt covering everything. The truth is the dirt was just baked hard like a clay pot, but that's not how it looked at that moment.

The two Workman bikes were tied carefully to the tilting flatbed truck. It was the kind of flat bed commonly used to tow cars. The three of us lifted the bikes onto the flatbed, so he had very little work to do. I didn't expect that he would be giving Marty any discount though.

I forced the driver to stop on the way out to the main road. We were about to pass a thousand year old country store. It was the kind you see in movies like 'Deliverance'. I wanted to at least buy a Coke in a place like that once more in my life. My dad had been a bird hunter in the south when I was growing up. I was a bit of a tomboy, you reckon, so I had been out with him plenty of times. I didn't realize how much I had missed the rural south until that moment. I don't even know what caused it, but my youth just came crashing down on me. It was like the old crack in the dam trick. It's a trickle, then a flood of memories.

I could see my dad, as he would have been at my present age, standing on the sagging porch of that half rotten frame building wearing mustard colored hunting clothes. The big twill pants held up with suspenders and the giant coat with big pockets for the quail he shot. It made me want to cry. And all those sights came pouring in because of an old rundown country store.

The woman in the store wasn't nearly old enough to be a good fit with the store; she was just too damn young. Hell, she was younger than me. "This is a neat old place you have here," I said.

"Thank you, I have a lot of trouble keeping it this way. My husband wants to fill the place with the latest stuff to try to improve the profits, but I tell him this is my hobby, not my profession."

"Good for you," I said. "We need places like this to show the kids how it really was back in the day." I didn't just say it, I meant it. "Me and the old man over there are on a bicycle trip cross country. We had a bit of trouble back there and had to call the wrecker here to get us out."

"Could I go look at your bicycles. My son is 11. He is in the house playing video games. I sure would love to show him the bikes to."

"I don't see any reason why not," I said, looking across the store at a very restless Marty. He was antsy about something, but I didn't know what. "You run get your son and we will pull the bikes down for him to get a good look at."

After she left the store, I walked over to Marty. Come on we are going to give the locals a demonstration of the bikes."

"Why?" he asked.

"You told me this whole thing wasn't just about your ego; it was about promoting these things as alternate transportation for the poor."

"Well, it is," he said. He knew he had been snookered.

"Well, I doubt you are going to find anyone any poorer than these folks."

"What about him," Marty said, nodding to the driver.

"Marty, have you ever seen anyone ride one of these and want to quit?" Marty just smiled.

Once we got the bikes down, the driver rode one and Marty rode the other. I talked to the store owner and her son. The exhibition was supposed to be a couple of minutes, but it ran almost thirty because people kept showing up from nowhere. Several of them rode the bikes and got the information on building one themselves.

When we were back on the road to town, Marty said, "We need to set up a dealership and have you ride around doing demos."

"Hell, Marty, I'll drive her around and help." The tow truck driver was a big, big fan suddenly.

Unfortunately, he had to drop us at the Sheriff's office. The bikes bothered me and so did the pistol. "Miss Maxine, if you trust me, you can leave that piece with me. My shop is right down the street. When you finish here, just stop by. Don't worry, I know you can kick my ass, I ain't planning to steal it."

"Thanks, Eddie, I'll owe you one."

"Max, I would rather you owe me one, than ten other women give me one," he said, with a giggle like a schoolgirl.

The man who came from the small brick Sheriff's substation was a sergeant. "Which one of you is Marty Southland?" he asked.

"I am," Marty said quietly.

"Got somethin' for you," he said handing Marty a box. Once Marty opened the box, he removed a Deputy's hat.

He put the hat on then turned to me. "So how do I look, Max?"

"You look great, so are you a deputy now?"

"He is, Ma'am, anything ya'll need just let us know."

There wasn't a lot of hoopla to the ceremony and there wasn't supposed to be. Marty had somehow managed to bribe the local Sheriff without ever meeting him, which was just fine with me. It just amazed me the things one could do with a smart phone, and of course, a boatload of money.

"So how long do you want to stay here?" I asked. Once we were checked into the motel.

"Oh, I'm ready to go anytime."

"Come on, you already paid to stay, we might as well get your money's worth."

"Max, you are not going to be a snob with me you bitch. I worked from sunup till sundown in the blazing sun growing tobacco on my daddy's farm till I went to college. In college, when other kids were building bonfires, I was learning to improve the strain of tobacco. Now I am no longer growing that shit, I throw my money around. God knows Teddy don't need my money. I made sure he had his own long ago. So yeah I make my life a little easier,"

"Little my ass," I interjected.

"Okay, a lot easier, I don't see you giving the money back."

"Get this straight, big guy. You hire me to do a job, you don't buy me, and you can't pay me enough to do it anything less than my best. You meet my price and you get the best I can do period."

"But if I gave you a fifty thousand dollar bonus, would you give it back?"

That took the wind out of my sails. I swallowed hard and said, "Don't do that unless you want to have your last illusion shattered." I flashed him a knowing smile that could have meant anything and dropped it.

We were back on the road in dirty jeans the next day, just as if nothing had happened. As a matter of fact, we were back on the road four more days just exactly the same. The landscape turned from lush to dry and still we moved west. The bike I rode began to act hinky. I told Marty something was wrong with his toy, but he didn't want to believe it.

When the engine died 15 miles outside of Abilene, Texas, he had no choice. First he went off on me with that fucking man thing. Screaming at me that I must have done something to it. I let him blow off steam for what seemed like half an hour, before I said. "Sure, Marty I pissed in the gas tank. The fucking motor is locked up. It ain't like there is some magic touch you have to resurrect it by laying hands on it. That fucking motor is toast. Make a call on your magic phone and let's get the hell out of this Texas sun."

After he ranted about me trying to tell him what to do, he made the call. They sent a furniture van to pick us up. "What kind of tow company uses a covered furniture van to move cars?"

"One that has the Rolls Royce tow contract," Marty replied.

"Why the hell did you call them?" I asked.

"The owner builds and rides these bikes. Not the kind I build, but he builds motorized bikes. Come on, I'm sure we will get to see his."

Sure enough the unmarked furniture van pulled into what had once been a used car dealer's lot. The driver expertly backed it into on of the bays.

"Steve, damn man, you look younger in person." Marty said, with a bigger voice than I had heard in the last couple of days. Meeting Steve was already a positive for him.