My Only Talent Ch. 16

There were a few young guys keeping right behind Suzanne, in the same way that Theo had stayed right behind her in the conga line, and they actually jockeyed for position to get the best view of her as she ran in front of them. The older guys held back some, and then the three women. One very thin, marathon runner looking guy in his forties ran just a step ahead of me. He was wearing a long sleeved green shirt that said "Green Tree Racing, Belfast" and soon started a conversation. "Hello, I'm Ivor Greentree, I stay in Belfast." I shook the offered hand. I thought Belfast was Northern Island, but he sounded one of those Scottish Guys in the radio commercials. "I'm Robbie Roberts. You sound more like Aberdeen, Ivor."

He laughed. "Fine ear for a cowboy, or just lucky, but maybe with a name like Robbie Roberts you should have the ear. I was born in the East Highlands, but my Da moved us to Belfast when I was little, so both the Scots and the Irish think I sound funny. Most of them say I think funny, too."

"What business are you in Ivor?" By now we had passed underneath the 'bat bridge', but the colony had already migrated to Northern Mexico. The slight smell of bat guano remained with us.

'I'm an engine builder, and a right good one. I do work for three teams, and do remote diagos during the race."

I followed up on that. He meant that most of the engines in the cars had more radio telemetry monitors than NASA missions, and someone like Ivor watched everything in real time and tried to anticipate engine conditions and potential failures, in order to prevent or delay them during the race and figure what to do differently before the next race, or how to change the design of the next race car.

By now we had reached a little wooden bridge over the trail, and people were going single file, not using one side of the bridge, stacking up traffic, which there was a even more of than a normal day, I supposed owing to the large number of race people in town. We stopped just before the bridge just as Suzanne reached into her fanny pack, pulled out a black plastic bag and bent over almost double at the waist, and then squatted on her ankles, using two of my favorite moves from her stretching routine. She scooped up some dog poop into the bag, flipped it over expertly to seal the bag, and dropped it in one of the little stations provided along the trail.

Ivor sighed. "This is an amazing town. I never thought I could be grateful for a fookin' dog turd, but seeing that one sit on her hunkers to clean it up was an almost religious experience!"

I laughed. "You've got good taste, Ivor. Texas is a great place for girl watching, especially here."

"Too right! Fine scenery, I'd say."

"We call it 'eye candy'. Walk around the ESU campus and you will be amazed."

Ivor drifted up to talk to one of the other runners, and one of the women drifted back into step with me. "May I ask a few questions about things locally?" she said with a British accent almost like Nora's when she got excited, but not quite as precise and cultured. She was about 5' 6", with light brown hair and a very full figure. "I'm Tessa Formby, from the Tattler." I sort of knew what that was.

"I'm Robbie Roberts. How can I help?"

She gave me her best come hither look, and least the best that can be done while running. "How do I get to the Broken Spoke Dance Hall?"

Fortuitously we would soon approach the Lamar Bridge. I pointed it out to her and said "take that road, Lamar Boulevard, South for about 3 miles, and it's on the left."

She smiled, a very nice one at that. "And the Domain shopping center?"

I pointed west to Mopac. "Take that freeway North for about 10 miles, watch for an exit on the right that will say Domain on the sign. Get into the right lane as soon as you can."

She smiled again. "Just can't get used to exiting on the right, you know! You seem to know your way round. Could you have dinner with me tonight?" I heard no Suzie signal at all for me.

"Sorry but I have exams coming up next week and I really have to hit the books tonight."

"Are you sure you are not going to hit our fun run leader tonight instead?"

I looked at her promisingly and said "That would be tattling, wouldn't it?" and dropped back a bit, obviously. She sped up to work on someone else.

As we continued by the rowing center Ivor dropped back near me and pointed out two skulls full of fit women in tight outfits, rowing hard, and racing against each other. He gave me the play by play. "There's a fookin' wonderful sight! Stroke! Stroke!" as he laughed almost maniacally. "I love this town. It's like Stockholm with the thermostat turned up!"

We passed by the high school, and the under the Mopac bridge. There were lots of bikers, runners, joggers, and walkers, aged from 18 to 88, with dogs, strollers, and in all manner of running outfits. I mentioned the swimming pool off to our right, and then as we passed into the park, the spring fed swimming hole frequented by topless coeds in warmer weather. Ivor took it all in, laughing, 'It just gets better and better!"

We snaked around in the park, past the Stevie Ray Vaughn statue, and the Hyatt, and I pointed out the Four Seasons on the opposite bank. We ran back under the bat bridge, over the freeway choked with visiting cars, then along the lake toward the dam that defined the downriver boundary of the constant level lake through town. We went north across the damn, then turned west back towards the hotel. He commented on the apartments overlooking the lake and along the trail, and soon we were back at the hotel.

"Fancy a Guinness?" he asked.

"I'd love to talk some more Ivor, but I have two more classes this afternoon, and midterm exams coming up next week. Perhaps another time or at least we can talk again Wednesday?"

"Absolutely!" He gave me what I thought was his business card, but he gave me three of them. I put them in my little shirt pocket, the only pocket I had. "Get in touch when you can!" he said, and he was off to the hotel entrance.

Susan came up and gave me a pat on the butt, and said, "Thanks for helping out, my Animal!" I wanted a kiss, but I might have to wait until we got back to campus. We turned north and headed back. My wind was holding out fine, but my stomach was already growling again. I gave Suzanne a quick kiss and had to go to into my 2 PM class in my running stuff. It was good we had a casual dress code, although it did win me some funny looks, and I was cold sitting still. When I got back to the dorm I rushed to open my backpack for the ClifBar like an alky looking for his hidden bottle. I felt better almost right away. The rest of the afternoon went by in a blur. I was having trouble concentrating on school because Suzie signals were impinging on me from all around, like the wind noise from passing cars buffeting mine on the highway. I wanted to go off by myself somewhere to get away from them, but my stomach was soon growling again and was avidly watching the clock until the dining hall serving lines opened up.

When they did, I went down and stuffed myself until I just couldn't swallow any more, and then ate two desserts on top of that. On the way out of the dining hall, inspiration struck. Although I was not a coffee drinker, I stopped by the coffee bar and grabbed ten of those little cylindrical sugar envelopes, for the emergency rations that I was sure I would need later this evening. I found an empty classroom in one of the buildings on the South Mall, and spent an hour 'teaching' each class that had an exam left. There were mercifully fewer people in the building at night, and the roar of Suzie signals was just dull white noise now. I made progress sorting all the review material out, and felt pretty good about the upcoming exams. I decided to work on the last two papers that were due before break, but then encountered a wave of lassitude and hunger. Five of the sugar envelopes kept it at bay, and I finished the draft of the paper for Engineering 101, and my outline for Rhetoric and Composition paper, and then went to the room to sleep about 1 AM.

Tuesday morning, after a massive breakfast and replenishing my store of sugar envelopes, I met Oiler at Painter Hall, where we boarded the bus that would take our F1 tour group north to the research campus where the advanced computing center was. He prattled on about the F1 teams in town. He knew the names of all the drivers, but to him the real stars were the engineers, mechanics, and pit crews, that had already begun assembling the 'blueprinted' engines for the weekend. I had moved the cards that Ivor gave me to my backpack, and I reached in to fish them out, intending to give Oiler one of the three. Before I could even focus on them he jumped a foot high his seat, and everyone in the bus turned to look at us, including Professor Lillehammer and the Dean of Engineering.

He cut back to a whisper, and said "Where in hell did you get those?"

I saw that two of the cards Ivor had given me were different. They were laminated in plastic, with a holographic logo underneath like a credit card, and several QR codes, a magnetic stripe, and some colored bars on one edge. I handed him one while I studied the other. He groaned.

"These are fucking pit passes! How in the world did you ever get them?" I sort of resented his emphasis on the word "you".

I looked at the third card Ivor had given me. It was a more conventional business card, and I handed it to Oiler. He freaked out again.

"Ivor Greentree!" He is a bleeding edge design engineer and a master machinist. This guy is amazing. He is so good that three different teams use him. Anyone else they could demand an exclusive contract from and get it, but not this guy. How did you ever meet him?" Again there was that demeaning emphasis in his tone.

"Yesterday at lunch time, he introduced himself and then told me how much he admired Suzanne's ass!"

Oiler looked worried. 'You didn't hit him did you? He gets in all sorts of fights, because apparently he just says anything, to anybody, especially when he's had a few beers."

"Nah, I kind of liked the guy! And I have to give him credit for recognizing that Suzanne does have an almost perfectly designed ass, which I guess any real engineer should recognize! He invited me out for a Guinness, but I told him I had to study."

Oiler moaned. For him it was paradise lost.

"But hey, I will see him again tomorrow. And if these are two pit passes, you can go with me, right?"

He looked like a kid whose errant dad had finally figured out what he wanted for Christmas.

The bus stopped at the Pickle Campus (really that's what it's called) and we made our way to the little auditorium in the TACC building. I saw Spear Overtop in the queue, and lots of young guys with German or British tightly cut suits and narrow ties, in addition to a few other professors and grad students I had seen around campus. I saw someone waving and saw it was Ivor. I waved back, but we were already seated on opposite ends of the auditorium.

When the group was settled, the lights dimmed and sharp clear image of a wheel and disc braking system appeared on the big screen. The wheel began to spin, and the little arrows that indicated the fluid motion of the air past the wheel and through its cooling surfaces began to move faster and faster, and the temperature of the wheel, bearing, and brake system, as depicted by the on screen colors of their component parts, began to change. Then the brakes were obviously applied, the air flow slowed, and the brake and wheel surfaces got a lot hotter than the bearings, which then heated too and seemed to change shape and vibrate a little bit. A voice from the back, which I presumed to belong to the British boffin who had done the paper that had been submitted and reviewed, but not yet published, said "Bloody hell!"

The image faded, and the backlights came on, showing in silhouette a very shapely woman standing with a laser pointer. She spun and it looked almost like the opening credits from James Bond film. They just needed to add the music. Her appearance silenced the voice and the entire room momentarily, and then the woman's voice said, with a throaty inflection, "This analysis was made possible by the pioneering work of Dr. Nick Gruber, of the University of Surrey, that we have used as the basis of the simulations you are about to see."

The professor's ego was suitably mollified, and he sat back down, his fascination growing as Esmeralda's true beauty was revealed as the lights came up, and her true brilliance revealed as she detailed the material. Oiler then stood at the other lectern, and they went through the presentation contrapuntally, one asking a question that the other would soon answer, using the computational magic on screen to solve the riddles. Esmie was also using her fiancée's experimental technique of a subtle strip tease, provocative pose, or sexual innuendo to highlight key points. The audience was spellbound, and she looked every bit as hot as a typical Bond girl. Of course, she could hold me spellbound just reading the crop price data from the commodity exchange.

After the prepared examples, questions came from the group, especially from professor Gruber. Esmie asked for clarification and restated the problem until it was completely confirmed by the questioner, giving Oiler time to either find one of their prepared scenarios that applied, or improvise one. His coding appeared on a small monitor off to the side of the main screen, and it seemed to me that several audience members were following that work just as closely as the graphic display, and maybe more so. It was apparent to me that the setup they were demonstrating could rapidly adapt and display 'what if' scenarios in response to their questions, and with this audience I assumed they were the important and relevant ones. Oiler told me before hand that previous to using this supercomputer and the new programming language and algorithms the department had developed for it, each proposed analysis would have taken weeks or months to respond to. The murmurs from the audience told me they seemed to get that, too.

Oiler called time, thanked Esmerelda, and introduced the Dean, who thanked everyone again, even me, for my idea to put this whole series of meetings and lunch and dinner together. As we boarded the bus, the Dean said he wanted to join us for dinner, but he had previously not planned to. I said there would be plenty of room, but did not tell him where supper was going to be. I also told him I wanted to include a friend at our lunch at the University club, and he said fine. He and Spear Overtop sat together on the bus, and engaged in animated conversation all the way. During the ride, I got a text from Peggy, saying that they had met my mother's friend, Mrs. Hocheim, down at Three Rivers, and the tour was going well, including the cabrito that they were preparing for lunch. My stomach growled. As we approached the campus and the University Club, Dana Duke texted in a report that lunch and the golf tour was going well, and they would play the back nine after lunch and be back in plenty of time for dinner.

It was buffet service at the University club. As our group fell in line, I stayed back and looked for Günter, but my stomach wanted to cut in line and get a plate right away. When he finally showed up, he was reluctant to get in the line. He looked really nervous.

"I need to talk to you about something private. I could not be comfortable with a group. I am a member here so let me get a table and we can order, and talk in private?"

At this point I was so hungry I felt like a junkie who needed to fix, so I agreed. We sat down and the waiter brought us water and rolls and said he would be back in a second for our order. I inhaled two out of the three rolls in the basket before Günter could even begin. The rolls were just barely taking the edge off my hunger.

He looked like he was about to throw up, but he went forward. "You know that I love Strelsa, and I want her to be happy?"

I was looking for that waiter. "Yes, and I think she loves you too, despite what her parents say."

He turned green. "I didn't think about her parents! If they found out..." his face went from green to white, then back again, but he went on. "I, mean, I,..." he threw up his hands in frustration.

"Come on Günter, just say it plain English, or German if you must!"

He looked even funnier. The waiter came and we ordered steaks. My mouth was watering. He also ordered a double screwdriver, which he downed instantly, and signaled for another, then said to me "Strelsa has fantasies!"

He sat back, relieved, like he had already said his piece. I waited. Finally I said, "Don't you?"

"Jah!" he said in a guttural growl. "And we even talk about them to make each other excited, and it worked gut, until..."

He paused and looked around guiltily; "Until Strelsa want to actually dooo dem!" he was beginning to sound like a drunken and truly bad comic trying to do a Terminator imitation.

His second double arrived, and he finished it faster than I had the rolls, and then sat back. My turn, I guessed. "What does she want to do?"

His face froze, like he was being tortured. "She wants to do.... you ... and me, at the same time!" He collapsed back into his chair, eyes glassy, and he was through for now. The waiter caught my eye, and I tried to pantomime 'no more drinks'.

I knew just how he felt. I think. I said, "So Günter, let me get this straight, she wants to have sex with both two guys, at once?"

He shuddered. I guess it was tougher for him to hear me say it out loud. "Jah! You are the only one she trusts to be nice to her and to never to tell anyone about it."

"So she told you to say this?"

"Noooo, she would never tell me dis, it would hurt my feelings, and she is too nice for that. But I know she wants it, she talks in her sleep, in French, not Polish, and I can understand. If I know she wants it, I have to ask you for it for her!"

"Do you think it will really make her happy?"

"I dunno, but if it does okay she is happier, and if it doesn't then we can just not talk about it anymore and you will not either, and we can go on.

"Well, I would have to talk to Suzanne about it."

He sighed. "Mine gott I am so embarrassed! But she will not talk to anyone else about it, yes?"

"I will tell her not to. Give me some time, okay?"

He actually laughed. "How about ten years?"

He looked like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. I felt bad for him, at least until the food arrived, and then it got my undivided attention. I put away the steak and fried potatoes in record time, and asked for another basket of rolls, then ordered dessert, too. I relaxed a bit from the insane quest for calories, and heard a Suzie signal from Günter. I almost dove under the table to get away, until I realized it was not for me, but for Strelsa. I could actually hear a little male desire carrier modulated with images of Strelsa and Strelsa only. I guess he truly was in love. While I pondered this discovery, he signed the tab and said he had to get back to his office and then down to rowing practice on the lake

I quickly rejoined my group, managing to get into the buffet line unobtrusively and make myself another loaded plate. The only seat left with the group was near Ivor, who was talking to Oiler, peppering him with rapid fire questions. They seemed to alternate between programming, machine tools, engine design, and metallurgy. Every time Oiler would answer a question he would then ask one of his own about how Ivor did things. I just ate and listened. I did learn some stuff. Finally Ivor stopped his questioning and turned to me.

"How to you know Oiler?"

"He is a fraternity brother to an old junior high friend of mine, and he helps me with calculus, too."