Buster & Holly Ch. 04 - (Addendum)

[Please read the previous 3 chapters first]

Buddy & Holly

Ch.4. "Martha"

Buster & Holly: Martha

A quarter of a century had come and gone since the divorce. Soon after the old pastor who had married them also divorced himself from the church and moved away. Quick action by the elders soon brought in a brand-new young man, straight out of bible school and shoe-horned into the job. It hadn't taken long for Martha to rein him in and throw the marriage lasso over him. Subsequent to that, in quick succession, came her three rug rats, all male, much to Martha's disappointment. Coming right out of bible school, Jeff was the proverbial greenhorn, still wet behind his ears not only in the work of the pastory but also in experiential female relationships. Unlike Buster, however, Martha (and her mother) had easily maneuvered the young man into the marriage bowl which was capped off having him sign on the dotted line for yet another cracker box domicile. It just so happened to be in the lot right next to Martha's parents.

Jeff was not without his surprises, however, For over the last twenty years he managed scratching and clawing out a way in which to win himself a master's in theology. Then, just two years after that, with great sacrifice to all, his doctorate. All in all, Martha thought him to be a good man and a faithful husband. Today, however, Martha found herself sitting alone in an empty house. Her last child was now flying the coop as he and his dad were headed down the highway to drop Jr. off for his first year of college -which just so happened to be Jeff's old alma mater. Yes, she thought, Jeff had been and was a good husband, all things considered.

Alone and sitting on the couch looking out her front window, Martha reminisced on her life. Looking back over her marriage to Jeff, she had resigned herself to the fact that Jeff had been willing to participated more in the attending to his "flock" and securing an education than in having a close at-home relationship with his own family, which, sadly, included her.

Spring had sprung. Mom and dad were off enjoying the first month of full retirement. Driving off to visit out of state friends who had themselves only recently retired, she already knew what the future held for them. Before leaving, they had commissioned Martha with the daily chore of feeding the fish in daddy's aquarium. Living next door to your parents had both its good points and it's bad. Brian, now headed off to school with his dad had taken over the feeding of fish for the first week. Now, however, the core had landed squarely on her lap. And so it was that Martha now found herself standing in front of that large, bubbling tank, sprinkling the regimented portion of food on top of the water. The feeding of the five thousand, as Jeff had joked.

Locking the door behind her, Martha sauntered back over to her own empty house. Jeff wouldn't be back till the end of the week. Having acquired his PhD., Jeff had, to a degree, outgrown his small, largely simple minded flock. The offering of a teaching position at his old school had been too much to resist. Men! They find it ever so difficult to turn down prestige and money. Martha knew from the first hearing of the offer that Jeff would jump at the position. In turn, it caused no small turmoil for it would require the selling the house and moving away from everything and everyone she had ever known. The thought of it weighed heavy on her, leaving an empty feeling inside along with a bit of nostalgic fear.

Never before had Martha lived in an empty house. That, coupled with the fact that there were also no parents next door to take the edge off of her disorienting loneliness. Martha, therefore, decided she'd grab her shopping bags and drive on into town and do a bit of shopping. Perhaps she would see one of the women from church and hopefully be able to coerce a luncheon gathering of hens.

It had always been a small town. Rural farming had long been its chief reason for continued existence. A new high school had finished being built next to the old one just outside downtown proper. Ed's hardware store was still in business -for now- along with Shirley's A&W root beer stand which had opened over the weekend for yet another summer of rolling skating young car hops and the squealing of teenage tires.

Ed had retired two years prior and turned the business over to his son, Robby. She felt sorry for Robby. For rumor was that a large national chain of hardware stores had recently acquired land over in Fairfield. The writing was on the wall as there was little doubt it would be the death knell to Ed's hardware. Poor Robby. He was such a nice man, just like his father. Located right next to Ed's was Jack's, a local cafe. It had long been established as the area local breakfast and lunch hangout for farmers who made it into town in need supplies and gossip. Right next to Jack's was Kelly's, a barbershop complete with a half dozen or so pool tables in the back. Jeff, in one of his sermons, had labeled it a 'den of iniquity.' Martha didn't always agree with everything that her husband said or preached. For time without memory, she and everyone else in town knew that teenage boys, after school and especially after Friday night football or basketball games, those roaming gangs of dermatological disasters, were known to congregate in the back room to both play pool and on Friday nights, to take advantage of the worst kept secret in town, the buying and drinking of under-the-table beer.

The last building in the row of downtown, sunny side business buildings, was Benson's. It was a centennial grocery store complete with old hardwood flooring, tin paneled ceiling tiles and the ever rotating ceiling fans. As Martha sailed the old rambling Rambler down main street, it was in the passing of Ed's hardware that her heart skipped a beat. It had been at least six months, on Homecoming weekend, since she had last seen him. She knew that by living so far outside of town, he was now more likely to frequent Fairfield businesses than here in his home town. For there stood a certain handsome man, her ex, with phone in hand, probably talking to the woman who had taken her place.

Buster, unlike Jeff, had remained remarkably not just slender but athletically toned, retaining a youthfulness about him which would always have strangers guessing him years younger than he actually was. As with many small rural towns, there were the standard gossip rumor mills of which Martha, due in no small part to her mother, had often participated in. After all, what else was there to do such towns for stay at home moms? But to her credit, she never entered into the conversation when the gaggle of hens spoke of him and his bride living out in the weather beaten house south of town. Martha wasn't stupid. She knew well what the gist of the conversation which they kept to themselves was when she entered the room.

Buster had been a lanky and relatively uncoordinated lad throughout high school. When married to him, the few times she had freely given herself to him in a desperate need for sex, she had found him to always be clumsy and unimaginative. Yet today, viewing him standing in the doorway, all those youthful characteristics were seen a thing of the past. No longer capped with a full head of hair, now he kept it shaved while sporting a close cropped white goatee. She sighed. Her ex had morphed into some 5th Avenue Marlboro cigarette ad hottie.

Martha rolled the Rambler to as stop directly in front of Benson's. As she got out and walked into the store she stole a quick glance his way. Had he noticed? Too quick in her step into the store for her to respond back, she imagined catching a glimpse of a free hand waving to her while yet conversing on the phone. Had he really waved or had she imagined it?

Despite her original intent, Martha grabbed only milk and eggs. "Just put it on the tab would you Bubbles?" she told the woman behind the counter before rushing out the door. Walking more slowly upon exiting, she stole another quick and casual glance to her left. He had vanished. Dare she?

Martha started the car and backed out quickly before driving on around the corner of Benson's store and pulling into the rear alleyway. She knew that often men would choose to park around back and sure enough, there was that familiar old, half beaten to death, green pickup. She dared.

Pulling to a stop in front of Buster's truck, she sat patiently until he existed the store with a large box of nails and some tubes of caulk, dropping his arm load into the back of the truck. It was in the turning to open the drivers side door that he finally looked up and caught sight of her. She motioned to him. To her chagrin, he seemingly cast a less than enthusiastic look her way before closing his door and walking over to her.

"Hi Buster! How have you been?" she heard herself ask.

"Martha." His acknowledgment of her was short and to the point. With a shrug of the shoulders he asked in a cold conceding, "What do you want?" What had she expected? Their paths had only crossed once in a blue moon over the years. He had always been polite but also, always removed and resistant to anything beyond being polite.

"Listen, Buster, I know. I, I," she stuttered before blurting it out, "Can we go somewhere and talk? Please?" Martha found herself truly begging the man. "Really. Something's come up and I really, really need to talk to you. Please?" she continued to plead. Surprised by her extruded desperation, it nevertheless appeared to stir something in him. "Some place out of eye shot," she added. "There's no need to feed any of the gossip mills. Please, Buster. I wouldn't ask you if it wasn't important."

She suggested to him a place where to meet but he put up a hand to stop her before she finished, telling her to meet him elsewhere in an hour. With her heart pounding within her, she agreed. Backing away, she sped on around him and headed back to the house for a quick powdering of the nose and change in clothing. What was she thinking? What was she planning?

Buster's choice was decidedly better than hers. The barn sat an eight of a mile back off a one lane, country road of which no one traveled down except for old man Cortney when he drove his tractor or combine down it to plant or harvest the surround fields. The new interstate, a half mile further on, had turned the road into a dead end. The old farm house that had been Cortney's parent's had long since been leveled. A single squalid old barn had been left to stand. To his credit, Cortney kept the grass mowed on either side of the drive that led back to the barn. As she got closer to it there she saw no evidence of Buster's truck, leastways from this side. A grouping of volunteer Mulberry trees had sprouted up on the north side of the barn but there remained two dirt tire tracks around the south side. She followed them around the back. The old green pickup sat there waiting for her to show. Buster remained with as she pulled ing along side.

Turning off her engine, it appeared it was up to her to get out and come to him. As she approached she could hear the screeching of the window's objection as Buster rolled it back down into its socket. The trucks passenger remained inside.

"Okay, against my better judgment, you've got me out here. What's so important after all these years that you've got to have this secret rendezvous, Martha?" Hearing him use her name with such disdain, it flooded her consciousness with a host of bad memories.

"Buster," she hesitated as the words formed inside her head. "Look. You have every right to still be mad at me. I get it. I did you wrong. I did you bad wrong. There's no excuse for what I did to you. I made it impossible for you to do anything other than what you did. I harbor no thoughts of it being your fault at all. But there something you need to know. It's about mom." Martha drew a deep breath before continuing. "Mom hated you."

With his right hand still on the steering wheel and his right resting on the window sill, Buster turned away from her before letting out a sarcastic laugh. "Tell me something I don't already know, Martha."

Continuing unabated, Martha added, "She hated me for marrying you. She took pleasure in making sure I treated everything you ever did for me with contempt. Did you know it was her idea for me to marry you on the weekend that I was-" Martha looked down and away from his returning gaze, nearly coming to tears at the admission of it. "Mom knew I'd be in the middle of my menstrual cycle. She actually laughed when I told her how you had exploded and then drove off."

"Well, well. That never seemed to have bothered you much back then, did it? Why are you telling me all this now, Marthat? I gotta be going. I thought it was something important. Geese Louise."

"No, no please, Buster. There's more. Mom did everything she could to poisoned me against you for a reason, Buster." Martha drew a deep breath and then began, "I've come learned something since then. A terrible, terrible secret. It's about mom's Grandpa Dix. I don't remember much about him except that he scared me. After he got released from jail he stopped over at mama's house. Dad had never met him before he got sent away. And never having met him, when he showed up to the house, dad let him in. Mom wasn't there at the time to hear her tell it. She had gone out shopping. But when she got home, and this I do remember, mom went ballistic on dad for letting him in the house. She was screaming at both of them and even threw a dish at grandpa as he turned and ran out the kitchen door. That's really all I remember about him. She never told me why she hated him so much. Then a couple of months ago, mom sort of told let the cat out of the bag as to why. She confessed to me she too didn't remember all that much about the man. I guess she was only six or seven at the time when he got sent off to jail. But one night-" Martha hesitated in her story telling.

Looking up at Buster and took a deep breath. "All this was after the divorce, Buster. One night last fall, I was over at mom's when I found her crying. Ya. Can you imagine mom crying? Anyway, dad had driven over to work at the church. Mom had apparently taken advantage of him not being there and stolen a little bit too much from that bottle of whiskey she hides in the a kitchen. I did my best at trying to get some coffee down her and calm her down. That was when she began talking to herself about her Grandpa Dix."

In an abrupt confession, Martha blurted out, "Grandpa Dix use to molest her, Buster. Those weren't her exact words but that's what gleaned from what she was mumbling." Martha took another breath and shook her head. "Thank God, she didn't remember talking about it to me the next morning. But there's something else, Buster. She told me after Grandpa Dix got sent away, she came to realize who it was that use to come over to the house at the same time Grandpa Dix was molesting her. It was your great grandfather, Buster. It was Jack Hodges. She said he was the other man who use to join Grandpa Dix in molesting her."

Buster had purposefully chosen not interrupted her. By letting her tell her story, keeping it short, he reasoned he could get back home all the sooner. But the sharing of this began to explain much of what had in turn happened between he and Martha. It changed the hue. He could see why Martha had pushed him to such a point where he, himself responded by basically molesting his own wife himself. It also explained some of why her mother had such disdain for him.

"I'm sorry to hear all this." It seemed to Martha that Buster had softened.

"Buster, will you forgive me? My mother may have instigated much of it, but I played along. How can I ever apologize to you for honeymoon night? You were so good to me while we dated, Buster. You were patient. You waited, just like I asked you to. I knew it was hard for you. You were just being like every other man who was about to get married. You wanted to touch me. And I know you wanted to look down my blouse." With regret choking her voice, Martha added, " And then, oh Buster, then that look on your face when I took my bra off and those socks fell out. Will you ever forgive me?"

"It's all water under the bridge, Martha. No need for you to bring up the past. Let it go."

"Buster," she pleaded, "back then I didn't exactly have much for you to look at anyway. I was a carpenter's dream." Martha chucked. "Flat as a board. But thankfully, having those three kids and having mom's genes finally kick in, it changed all that. If I could do honeymoon night all over again," Martha opened Buster's door and then stepped back, " I would have loved to have shown you these."

To Buster's complete surprise, Martha drew her dress in one sweeping motion up over her head. She didn't have lick of clothing on underneath. Indeed, Buster quickly surmised, Martha had, indeed, sprouted a pair of breasts. With mouth agape, both hands held in protest, it was Buster's turn to protest.

"Martha, no. Please." He sighed. He could see what was happening. Perhaps, for the first time he was also seeing the woman who had hid herself inside. This was now a woman desperate to be loved. "Oh, Martha. There's no need for you to do that." And yet he continued to look at what had once been formless and void. Even the inverted nipples had now popped out. The years and the delivering of those kids had indeed been kind to her and to that husband of her's. Unlike when he had been married to Martha, she had now given her pastor husband something sizable to play with. Back when they had been married, Buster had never been given any experience of enjoying such weighty breasts. That was until a certain young lady had opened his truck door, wearing a thread bare, sleeveless shirt which hung low enough that, even in his inebriated condition, allowed for an unrestricted gaze at the most beautiful pair of breasts, even to this very day, he had ever seen, let alone marry and enjoy playing with for the last twenty-two years.

"Put your dress back on, Martha," he smiled at her as he reached for the door to close it while his right hand reached for the keys to start the truck back up.

"Buster," Martha almost shouted as she added, "We're moving!" A pause in action drew up between them. "Mom and dad are going to put their house on the market when they get back from vacation. The plan is for them to find some place in down in Tennessee. And Jeff, he's taken a job over in Indiana so we're putting our house up as well." She stopped, still holding on to the dress with one hand while holding his door open with the other. "I may never see you again, Buster." She laughed to herself, "Every time I went into town, I was always looking for you, Buster. I always had the hope of bumping into you. It, it, it...." again she stuttered. "It gave me hope. I mean it wasn't like I had anything to say to you or thought you had any feelings left for me. It was just that you were still there in my life. But now," he voice trailed off as tears began to flow.

Buster looked out at the woman who had once been his wife. Though it wasn't really romantic in the way it was now with Holly, at the time he had had feelings for Martha. Now he was suddenly realizing some of them remained. He confessed to himself that when had come into town, he too had it in the back of his head that the two of them might bump into one another. It wasn't so much as a desire to see her as he knew that would have presented an awkward circumstance. After all, he never really hated Martha. He just hated how she and her mother had always sought to emasculate him. A man can live with a lot of things but when there is no respect....

"Hey hey. There's no need for tears," Buster tried to console her. "There's always those high school reunions." As soon as Buster said it realized he had never been to one. Martha, still sniffling, moved inside the open door. Taking his hand she placed it on her breast.