Maxine's New Life Ch. 05

10 West of Abilene

The sun was almost overhead as we headed west from Abilene. The highway turned from side by side buildings, to small buildings with parking lots. Then it turned to buildings with huge spaces between them. We were out on the highway with lots of heat and lots of dust for company.

I could tell Marty was suffering. I had a bit of a hangover, but Marty's was much worse. His was a mix of alcohol and God alone knew what else. I didn't like to see him suffer, but I had no sympathy for him. Even worse I was going to have to tell him it was time to reset the relationship gauge to friendship. If he took it poorly, then the trip would disintegrate quickly.

We rode the new improved bikes up the very slight inclines seemingly effortlessly. Sure we bled off a little speed, but we didn't get slow enough to pedal the bikes. Even so, the GPS told us we weren't going to make our day's objectives. Of course the trip plan hadn't taken orgy into consideration. Our plan called for us to make 200 miles on Sunday, we made less than 75 miles. We stopped at an adobe knockoff motel compound a few miles from Snyder, Texas.

Even though he blamed it on the gathering clouds, Marty needed the downtime. The motel compound had an old style cafe and general store. The selection was crap in the store, but I managed to buy a boy's size white tee shirt. I also snagged a men's size small light blue work shirt. My jeans were still clean enough to wear another day at least.

I explained things to Marty when we checked in without confronting him. "We need a room with two beds," I said to the clerk, so that Marty for sure overheard. Since he was doing the actual check in, there was no way he could have missed it. If he asked, I would have explained that I couldn't be his bodyguard and his lover. Funny thing, Marty never asked. He actually seemed almost grateful.

"Looks like rain," I commented to the waitress at the cafe.

"Probably rain every evening from now till the end of the month. Gonna start turning colder soon, birds are all fluffy," she informed me

I nodded my understanding even though I had no real idea what would happen. Marty seemed to be enjoying a discussion with a ranger about grass of all things.

"So what's the road like up ahead?" I asked.

"All Texas roads is shit," she informed me.

"Are there many hills up ahead? Me and the old man there are traveling on small motor scooters." There was no sense trying to explain what a motorized bicycle was to her. I had found that out from the hundred or so other waitresses I had spoken with so far.

"If you stay south, you won't have too much trouble, but you are going to run into some foothills. Shouldn't be anything you can't handle. It might be slow going, is all." That advice came from what appeared to be a truck driver.

"Good." I said smiling at him. It was just a stranger's smile not an invitation. I had been thoroughly screwed out.

We refilled our gas cans before we went to bed that night. We also loaded up on water and crackers, just in case. Everyone said the road would be getting empty, since most of the traffic had been diverted to the interstate highways. The most likely we were to find food and lodging was where the old roads bumped into the federal highways.

The old roads did go through the small western towns, so it was possible to find food and lodging in those towns. Some tourist accommodations still operated, but they were far down the scale from modern travel accommodations. Marty and I were better suited to those older places. We were hardly dressed for a high end restaurant. Our clothes were better suited to a country diner. In my case, I preferred it. I couldn't speak for Marty though.

Tuesday morning the road was dry, so we had breakfast at the cafe next door and hit the road. By lunchtime, I had developed an itch. The itch was where two weeks new growth of pubic hair was coming in. I thought for a while that the stubble was itching, but I knew deep in my mind that two weeks was too long for stubble to grow before I started to itch. There was something else wrong.

In the bathroom of a service station, where we stopped for a water and gas break, I took a good look at my pubic hair. I was really getting concerned because my scalp also itched. It was maddening.

"Marty do me a favor/" I asked before we got back on the road.

"What you need Max?" he asked.

"Take a good look at my scalp, see if you see anything crawling around up there. I have some terrible itching going on."

Marty took a long time looking before he said, "Max you got some kind of critters running around up there." He paused a long time then asked, "What you want to do about it?"

"I want to stop at a drugstore somewhere and get some poison shampoo and I want to get one of those electric clipper things. You are about to share the ride with a new kind of bird, a bald headed bitch."

"I never met a bald lady before. It will be a thrill."

"Well you are going to have to do the head shaving," I suggested. The son of a bitch just grinned.

It was late in the afternoon when we arrived at a town large enough to have a shopping center. Inside the shopping center was a chain type drugstore. Inside that, I was able to buy the pest kill shampoo and the electric clipper. I needed the clipper in order to cut my hair short enough to satisfy me.

"You know you don't really have to cut your hair these days. This new shampoo will work pretty well without taking things that far," the young female pharmacist suggested. To her losing all her hair would be a tragedy of monumental proportions.

"If I just shampoo my hair, how long will it take to get them all?"

"A couple of days at least," she said.

"And if I shave my head first, then shampoo it?"

"Gone in twenty minutes, but so is your hair. It will take months for it to return." The girl behind the counter suggested.

"Think I'll go with the sure thing," I replied.

"What's your boyfriend going to say?" she asked, trying one last time to talk me out of it.

"Not a damn thing if he ever wants to get laid again." I said loud enough for Marty to hear.

Before we checked into the motel, I had Marty use the outdoor electrical plug to power the electric clippers. He shaved my head in under fifteen minutes. He turned his back and kept watch while I shaved my pubic area with the clippers as well. Lastly I shaved under my arms.

I coated my pubic area, my armpits, and my scalp with the shampoo. Then I went immediately inside and showered. I lathered three times to make sure I got the poison everywhere. When I finished I looked at myself in the mirror.

I had dressed myself in a white cotton tee shirt in a boy's size and jeans. If I hadn't had my small breasts showing inside the tee, I could have been a teenage boy. I was surprised by how few wrinkles covered my face. I really could have passed as a teenage boy from a distance.

Marty could not take his eyes off me. He was fascinated by the new me. I'm sure that middle-aged bald women who didn't have cancer were an anomaly. When I ran my hand over the stubble, I had to admit that my head felt funny. I wasn't sure if it was sexy or not, but it was definitely different feeling.

We dropped everything at the motel, then rode the bikes out to dinner. Without the itchy hair patches, I felt much better. I was calm for the first time that day. Marty was really sweet during dinner. It was as if I really was sick and he was trying to be extra nice to me.

"Marty, I just look like I'm terminally ill. You do know that lice are not terminal."

"I can't believe you are taking this so calm. Most women would but climbing the walls."

"Marty, most women wouldn't even consider being in a place that they might get infested. I'm just not very girlie, Hon."

"You are plenty girlie. I'm just amazed how real you are. I can't believe you aren't some kind of fantasy."

"Hell, Marty, I am a fantasy. I am what you want me to be. Can't you tell, I'm way too perfect?"

"You damn sure are too perfect."

"I'm not even close to perfect, Marty. I'm not better or worse than any other woman. I'm just different."

"You can say that again. You are about as different as night and day from the women I have known. I mean I loved Helen, but you are something totally different."

"Don't glamorize it, Marty. I have tons of flaws, they are just not the same flaws as most women. You can trust me though when I say I have more than my share."

"Well, Max, I just haven't seen the really bad flaws yet. So if you don't mind, I'll just wait till I do, then make up my own mind."

"Well, just don't say that you weren't warned." I laughed as I said.

"I will be expecting some terrible things."

After dinner, we went back to the motel to watch TV. I wanted to get to bed early since the days were about to get more difficult. Even though we were skirting the Rockies, there were still hills to climb with bikes that were not designed for hill climbing.

For the next couple of days, those foothills kept getting closer. I personally was not looking forward to the day's mileage shrinking. We were on schedule to finish the cross country trip in under thirty days, but Marty had warned me that it was very unlikely that we could do it. He had not built extra days into the schedule for unexpected problems.

The first unexpected problem was the day after my head got shaved. It rained cats and dogs. We spent the day with the TV and take out food. I was perfectly content that first day. The second day however, began to make both Marty and me a little nuts.

As predicted, the morning of the third day broke warm and clear. The sun began to shine right on time, so Marty and I ate breakfast on the way out of town. The foothills were within reach by the end of the day. We made almost three hundred miles that day, but I knew it was the last day for that kind of mileage. I resigned myself to many fewer miles per day starting the very next day.

"What are you some kind of lesbian freak?" the half drunken cowboy asked, staring at my lack of hair.

"Something like that," I agreed smiling. I really did prefer to defuse the situation if possible.

"What all you bitches need is a man with a big dick to straighten you out."

Now I knew better. I had been patient for several minutes and it was getting more and more difficult to ignore him. I just finally got tired of it all.

"You know I think you are right. The problem is I just never meet them. Instead I meet assholes like you with a big mouth and a little cock."

For some reason he took offense. Oh I expected him to make a move, which put me one up on him. I was also sober and he was far from it, which put me two up on him. He expected me to sit there and argue with him like all the women he knew, which meant he was likely to get his ass kicked by a woman.

On an average day back home, I might have just ignored him in the Cop Out, but I wasn't among friends in that club. I was there because Marty had wanted a drink and I had gone along against my better judgment. I wanted this to be over before someone got hurt. Okay, I wanted it over before the someone who got hurt was me or Marty.

I knew that if I could have gotten him alone, I probably could have talked him into letting it lay. My bald head was just too easy a target for him in front of his friends, so there it was. I just wasn't in the mood to walk away. Marty was an even bigger problem. He was determined to get right in the cowboy's shit. I just could not let that happen.

When the drunk started to stand up angrily, I jabbed him stiff knuckled in the Adam's apple. He began gasping for air immediately. His friends looked shocked first, then as if they had plans. "Guys, you don't think I would do that, if I didn't have plans for you as well. Your friend will be okay in a few minutes. Let's drop this while we can all walk away." I was standing so that I had easy access to the .38. They couldn't see the gun, but I think they either recognized my attitude, or the way I was standing as making me someone to avoid.

They sat still while Marty and I headed back to the motel. Fortunately for me and Marty, they didn't follow us.

When you consider that three weeks had passed and we were just in New Mexico, it seemed like a very slow trip. Then of course when we hit the foothills it got even slower. We went from an average of 20MPH on a good day to an average of 10MPH. Even worse, Marty had suddenly taken an interest in everything around us.

"Look at that view," he said. Marty had stopped his bike on a small rise in the road. From it, I could see the vista he spoke of. It was indeed a beautiful sight.

"If's lovely, Marty, so were the other two just like it."

"I know, I just can't get enough of that view."

"We need to get a move on or we will be out here admiring it in the dark."

"Take it easy, Max, it's just a ten minute ride to the next town."

"I didn't mean we needed to stop this early. I just meant we needed to keep moving."

"Come on, Max, let's stop and smell the roses now and then."

"Marty, are you trying to drag this trip out?"

"Why would I do that?"

"Oh, let's see, this is the adventure you have been planning for what, two years?"

"More like three," he answered.

"Could it be you don't want it to end?"

"Of course, I don't want it to end. I don't want to go back to the world where everything is the same everyday. Can you image a life where golf at the club is the big event of the week?"

"Sure, I just can't imagine you being satisfied with that kind of life. If you don't like your real life, change it. God knows you have enough money."

"Max, you live in a cabin in the woods, when we get back, come and live with me?"

"How the hell did you know where I live? That is a big ass secret."

"Like you said, Max, I have more money than God. Truth is, all the money in the world probably couldn't have bought that information. My son also happens to be a nice guy and he wanted to know I wasn't going cross country with an ax murderess."

"Sure, little 125 lb me chopping off your head in Tucson," I suggested, with a laugh.

"Max, I love you dearly, but you could do just that if you wanted to. Ted just didn't ask the right questions. As it turned out, you are the perfect companion, but he wouldn't have thought so. I'm sure he wanted me to make this trip with a clone of his mother."

"From what I hear, you would have enjoyed that."

"I would give my own life, if it was possible, but it wouldn't have been the same trip. It would have been a great one, but not the same one."

"Marty, it's time we decided to stop wandering in the wilderness and get to the Promised Land."

"Gee, Max, I'm no Moses," he said laughing.

"Good, I never saw myself as a slave; of course, there might be a few who would disagree." I laughed as well. Part of the laughter was at the bewildered look on Marty's face. "So from now on, we ride all day?" I asked.

"Well, most of it," he replied. "Come on, Max, I'm not as young as you."

"Marty, Love, you set the pace. I haven't complained until now." I looked at him before I delivered the death blow. "Marty, you have to know the trip is getting to be less exciting as we wander around out here in the desert."

"Alright, Max, I get it. Time to move this wagon train west," he said.

"Exactly, but at a steady pace. We aren't out to set any records here," I agreed.

"Good, get back on the bike and let's move out," he demanded.

We still only made 10 MPH, but we did ride eight to ten hours a day. We had dropped down to five or six hours on the road before our little talk. It was still Marty's trip; I just tried to keep him on target. Since I was just an employee, I probably shouldn't even have done that much. Still the trip had begun to drag. I suppose it was bound to at some point. Most things in life get old after a while, no matter how much fun they start out.

Marty tried to resist it, but he and I were both bone tired. We were either going to have to push through it, or stop and take a long rest. I didn't mean take the weekend off; I meant a week off or just bite the bullet and push on to California. To make matters even worse, nothing was happening to take our mind off those minor pains that come with age and repetitive movements.

I hated that I did, but I was praying for something evil to come along. As my mentor in Afghanistan had said during my first tour, "You can kick me, you can cut me, hell, you can even kill me, just don't bore me to death." I was on the verge of going into one of those cowboy bars and calling somebody a faggot." You know, just to see what would really happen on Brokeback Mountain.

A Deputy Sheriff from some county in New Mexico saved me from myself. He pulled around me before I even saw him. He must have spotted Marty up ahead, because he waited until he was close to Marty before he put the light and noisemaker on. Unlike Marty, my only thought was the .38 snub nose concealed hammer pistol in the clip-on holster at the small of my back. It was under my work shirt, so it was pretty well concealed and most likely very illegal.

Like a good soldier, I pulled over and stopped the bike behind the deputy's car. While he walked to Marty, I slipped the clip on holster and pistol from my belt and then into the trailer's bed. I didn't figure there would be a problem with it being concealed in the trailer, even if the deputy found a reason to search it.

The Deputy was a nice looking young man about thirty or so. He looked almost as bored as I felt. He had to have been bored to tears to stop a bicycle, even if it did have a motor sitting on top of the rear wheel.

"Morning, Ma'am," he said as I walked up to them. "Could I see some identification please?" I noticed that he did not have his hand on his weapon. It was a good thing that he didn't see a middle-aged woman on a bicycle as a threat. It just went to prove that the lawmen in the west weren't really paranoid, no matter what those eastern liberals and Hollywood types said.

"Of course," I said, as I removed the card case from my jeans. He had to know the jeans were too tight to conceal a weapon of any real size. From the card case I removed my east coast driver's license. "Any particular reason for the traffic stop?"

"Oh, just wanted to get a better look at these contraptions." He handed me my license back, then turned to Marty. "So you built these?"

"Yes, as I was saying, they fall under the Moped regulations where we are from," Marty said.

"Yeah, but the problem is you ain't there any more. I'm gonna have to check the statute for New Mexico. I'm not sure exactly what I have here." The deputy walked away from us while he made his call.

"Max, these bikes are just a little too big to be Mopeds, but I don't think he can prove it on the side of the road."

"Well, Marty, whatever happens with that is on you. I'm just ferrying it to California for you," I grinned, to show that it wasn't a big thing as far as I was concerned.

"Wouldn't have it any other way," Marty said, with a grin. "You know I have never been in jail my entire life. I'm kinda looking forward to it."

"Don't push it, Marty; sometimes those arrests come complete with a beat down."

"Okay, I'll play nice," Marty said, as the deputy walked back to us.

"Well, my Sergeant is on the way out. I think he is more interested in seeing the bikes than anything else. We checked; you two are not in the national criminal data base, so I can't hold you on anything except those bikes. I think I'm going to let the highway patrol worry about that."

"Good, since we are clean with you, how about having your sergeant join us for lunch. I think we can convince Marty to buy, since it isn't a bribe. Only thing I ask is that it be a place you ordinarily eat. I'm not exactly dressed for a fancy place." Marty knew that it was a good idea, so he just smiled.