Courtship for the Clueless

"I think I may finally be over what those bastards did to me that night. It's you who cured me, my darling love. Your respect for me in and out of the bedroom, the caring you've shown me, treating me like I am someone really valuable ... all that. I'm yours, Roger. I'm your woman. You own me. You have no idea how much I love you. I won't ever leave you, my love."

Roger turned his head to her and kissed her gently, reaching to put his drink on the nightstand and put hers next to it. He said, "I love you too, Tiffany. For the first time in my life, I feel I have a woman who will be there for me no matter what. I would very much like to take you again, my precious, but you've worn me out. Let's go to sleep now, and when morning comes, so will we."

She groaned and gently tweaked his nose. "Come here." She kissed him again and they snuggled close as they sank into sleep, her head on his shoulder, one leg thrown over him and his hand cupping her breast as statements of possession, each of the other.

17.

A few days later, Tiffany came home looking excited. "Roger, we've been invited to the local car cruise. Wendell Ledbetter and Bobby Toombs arranged it. You and me, The Little Old Lady, and the F-3. It's Saturday night from six o'clock to midnight at the Giganto-Burger in Birmingham. There are usually anywhere from 18 to 24 cars and pickups, the best hot rods and restorations in the area. I'm so excited!"

"Can you get the day off?"

"Already arranged. Will you help me polish the F-3?"

"If you reciprocate with my Dodge. How do you dress for a car cruise? Will they expect me to dress like a California surfer or something to match the car, and you like Daisy Mae from Li'l Abner?"

She laughed happily at the mental image. "No, it's casual dress, Wendell tells me. But now that you've given me the idea, I may dress like a country girl. Ariel from Footloose should be about right." She twined herself around him and nibbled his earlobe. "You know of a handy haystack, Roger?"

So on Friday night, the two of them drove down to the Giganto-Burger, a Birmingham institution. An independent burger joint, the only changes to the place through the decades had been in updating the kitchen equipment and the paint job on the concrete building. Two flat roofs angled out from the main entrance, with booths around the interior defining a 20 x 20 foot dance floor. The jukebox, a replica Wurlitzer Bubbler, played from a computer drive loaded with thousands of numbers from the 1930s to today over an eight speaker setup, four on the walls inside, two on the canopies, and two on the tall corner poles of the parking lot. The canopies, with angled parking slots, served as cover under which people ate a dozen varieties of burgers, hot dogs and sausages, regular and sweet potato fries, onion rings, fried chicken, and sodas or thick shakes brought to the cars on trays that fit onto the doors by teenaged girls on roller skates, just as their mothers and grandmothers had before them. Overhead, a 3-D neon sign in the shape of a burger with everything rotated atop the restaurant.

The floodlights on the corner poles turned the night into day as they pulled in. The custom at Giganto-Burger was that those eating inside parked on the perimeter, while those who wanted the ambience of car service pulled under the canopies. But on Saturday night the hot rods, lovingly restored cars, and restomods of the region occupied the perimeter. It wasn't a formal car club with rules, dues, and jackets with the club badge on the back, but everyone understood the protocols. Roger and Tiffany found spaces to back into next to Wendell Ledbetter's powder blue 1965 Mustang convertible.

As always happened when previously unseen cars arrived at the cruise, the owners of the other vintage vehicles drifted over to say hello and eye the rolling iron. Apart from Wendell, there were a few familiar faces: Bobby and Wanda Toombs, and their Miller-Meteor; Judge Reitz, dressed like a Kentucky colonel, with his 1940 Lincoln limousine; and Fast Freddy Gates with the green International Harvester 1941 K-1 pickup truck he'd loaned them for the calendar shoot. Freddy, the salesman in him coming to the fore, began introducing everyone to the two newbies.

Tiffany came in for more than a little ogling from the guys in the crowd. She had chosen to dress in a pair of straight leg jeans tucked into her multicolor-stitched boots with a Western belt, a plaid shirt with the tails tied up to expose her taut belly and accent the boobs that filled the shirt to bursting, and the straw Resistol cowboy hat that went with her pickup. Roger by comparison was almost invisible in chinos, plain black cowboy boots, an open-collar chambray shirt, and a blue blazer. She chatted with the guys, easily parrying their patter, while at the request of a couple of the gearheads Roger popped the hood on The Little Old Lady so they could get a look at the plant. Their eyes got big as he told the story of how he'd come to have a NASCAR competition engine in a '62 Dodge Dart Super Stock.

After a while, he got back to Tiffany, who was posing with a girl about 10 years old behind the wheel of the F-3 while her dad snapped some pictures with his cell phone. After they left, he asked, "I'm feeling a mite peckish. Would you like me to bring you anything?"

"Some curly fries and a thick chocolate shake would be nice. Thick, mind; Giganto-Burger has two kinds of shakes, one that is basically chocolate milk and one that is made with ice cream, heavy cream, and flavored syrup. That's the one I want."

While he was waiting for his order, Roger dropped some money into the jukebox and programmed some car songs, including of course "The Little Old Lady From Pasadena." Picking up the cardboard carryout box tray Giganto-Burger used for to-go orders, he limped back to where they were parked, leaning on his cane. Despite the walking he and Tiffany had been doing in obedience to doctor's orders, his left leg still ached a bit from working the clutch.

Tiffany was confronting a man about her own age, who seemed upset about something. She said firmly, "I told you before, I'm not interested. Now please go away!"

"I don't take orders from whores!" snapped the man, raising his right hand to strike her. Without warning, he sprawled on his face as Roger reversed the cane, hooked his ankle, and yanked. He twisted around and Roger set the rubber tip of the cane onto his adam's apple and pressed just a bit. The perp froze, realizing that if Roger leaned on his cane he would fracture the larynx and he'd choke to death. Now that he had a look at the face Roger recognized him: Bucky Buckmaster, former Gardendale High baseball player and present day jackass.

"You seem to be a slow learner, Buckmaster. The last time we met, Tiffany made it clear she had no interest in knowing you. If you had succeeded in landing that punch, right now Deputy Ledbetter here would be putting the bracelets on you, reading you your rights, and hauling your sorry ass off to the slammer. It's a good thing you fell down when you did.

"Tell me: What brought you here tonight? The cars? Or did you come to get some take-out? If the former, get yourself gone. If the latter, get your order and get gone. Either way, don't come back. And if you happen to meet Tiffany or me on the street in the future, just keep on walking.

"Do we have an understanding between us?"

"Yes," he croaked. Roger let him up. Bucky got to his feet and gave Tiffany a venomous look.

"This isn't over," he snarled.

Wendell grabbed Bucky in a come-along and bore down a little bit. "Yes, it is, Buckmaster. And let me tell y'all something. If anything happens to Roger or Tiffany, their homes, or their cars, you'll be the first person we come looking for. Now, pick a direction and start walkin'. Git!" He walked Bucky a few steps towards the Giganto-Burger before letting him go and returning to his friends.

"I truly am sorry about this. We don't normally have that kind of excitement at a car cruise. But I'll tell you, the regulars are really excited by The Little Old Lady and the F-3, guys. Have y'all thought about entering them in the Birmingham Regional Auto Festival? The Alabama State Vintage Automobile Association sponsors it, and it's coming up in a couple of weeks at Legion Field. There's a $350 entry fee, and the only rule is that the car has to drive to the field under its own power. It's not for museum pieces, if y'all see what I mean. You really ought to think about it. I think both of them could contend in the Vintage Restomod division."

"We'll think about it," promised Tiffany. "Come here, you," she added, pulling Roger close and giving him a heartfelt kiss that earned her whistles and applause from the old car fans watching. "That's a down payment for later, my hero."

After they got home, they curled up in bed together, along with Roger's laptop. They looked up the Birmingham Auto Festival. Everything was as Wendell had told them; $350 entry fee per car; all cars must be registered and roadworthy and had to drive to the site, no trailering allowed. Cars to arrive beginning at 6 AM, park where directed; all cars to be on the field by 8 AM. Public admission from 9 AM to 6 PM Saturday and Sunday. All cars to be off the field by 8 PM Sunday night.

"Seems straightforward," Roger said, "but look here." He pointed to the screen. "The Festival will provide each entry with an easel that will support a 3 foot by 4 foot display board. You can put anything you want on it about your entry. Considering the hundreds of photos I took of both of them, we ought to be able to put together a display covering the restoration from Before to After. And writing the text won't be a problem."

Two weeks later at 6:00 AM, Tiffany and Roger were at the entrance to Legion Field with their restomods. After confirming their payments, they were directed to different sections of the field, Tiffany to the Pickup Truck row, Roger to the Vintage Restomod section.

Legion Field is the kind of municipal sports field that you find all over the South: Concrete stands surrounding a football field with an oval track around it for track and field events, with the grass within the oval just barely big enough to shoehorn in a soccer field if the goalposts are removed. Although football season was past, the stripes on the field were still faintly visible. The organizers were using them to position the cars, one between each five-yard line, with about five yards between the rows across the field. They were guided into position and told to leave the windows down before going to the judges' table and picking up owner's badges.

After leaving the field to eat as a nearby 24 hour diner that had a reputation of one of the best places in the city to get an old-fashioned country-style breakfast (Roger was disappointed by the coffee, grumbling that the big brass urn desperately needed to be cleaned of old coffee oils), they walked back and through a side gate exclusively for the owners. With the sun up, they wanted a look at the competition.

Some of the cars were getting a last polish before the gates opened. The field was divided into four sections based on the age of the cars and trucks: Antique, for anything made before 1925; Pre-War, for any made from 1925 to 1942; Vintage, for vehicles made from 1946 to 1975; and Classic, for the years 1976 to 1996. These eras were further divided into Restored and Modified divisions, subdivided again into automobiles and trucks. Altogether, there were nearly 200 vehicles arrayed on the field.

They wandered the field. The oldest car they saw was a 1912 Stutz Bearcat with its trademark monocle windscreen clamped to the steering column, brass polished, white body and red leather seats gleaming, looking as if it was ready to pull up to the starting line of The Great Race. There was a lovingly restored Studebaker US6 truck in US Army livery that had found its way home during what militaria collectors affectionately referred to as "the Late Soviet Union Yard Sale" of the mid-1990s. In their division, Tiffany's main competition looked to be a dark green 1954 GMC 100 with its sheet steel bed replaced with pine planks, and a cab that looked shabby compared to what the Impossible Mission Force had done with her F-3. Roger's biggest opponent was a white 1955 DeSoto Firedome sedan; although it had a hemi engine like The Little Old Lady, the Firedome's 170 horsepower rated V-8, 2-barrel carburetor, painted air filter, and automatic transmission wasn't in it with a NASCAR racing engine with a 4-barrel Edelbrock carb, chrome steel air filter, and four speed manual transmission, despite its elaborate flame paint job, fancy chrome rims, electronic door lock and release that had replaced the original door handles, and 1950s Velvet Pimp interior.

As they made their way down the rows, Tiffany said, "There are a lot of gorgeous cars and trucks here. But I think we have a chance. We're really only competing against about a dozen cars and trucks in our divisions, and I think we can shade all of them."

"I don't know, Tiff. There are some cars and trucks in our divisions that have really been tricked out to match their periods. It may come down to the personal prejudices of the judges. Does the quality of the workmanship count more than the look of the cars? Does a fancy paint job mean more than a power plant that roars with the thunder of a herd of horses? I guess we'll have to wait to find that out."

Looking all the cars over took most of the morning. But after awhile, sensory overload sets in, and you need to be somewhere else. They took a cab to the downtown area, had lunch in a quiet restaurant Tiffany knew about on a side street, and then wandered around window-shopping.

Roger had bought his farmhouse fully furnished as part of an estate settlement, and while all the furniture was serviceable it was out of date, pedestrian, and worn. He hadn't paid much attention to that, because as a writer he lived deep inside his head much of the time and didn't do much entertaining. The only rooms in the house that reflected his personality were the library/study where he did most of his writing, the bedroom and master bath, and the kitchen he'd updated and upgraded. Tiffany thought that he could do better, and although she hadn't said as much to her lover she was looking to nudge him into buying some beautiful, comfortable furniture. Antique and classic, not the up to the moment fashions; pillow talk had established that they had similar tastes in furniture and style, with their favorites being Renaissance Revival and Art Nouveau.

They stopped outside a large antique shop that had a newly reupholstered living room suite in the Nouveau style displayed in the window. The couch was deep and inviting, and the chairs were backswept as if by a breeze. The three tables that were part of the set were influenced by leaves and vines, with surfaces big enough that plates and glasses suitable for a house party could be put on them without worrying about their crashing to the floor should the table be bumped.

"Now that's what I call a proper living room set!" Tiffany declared. "It's gorgeous!"

"It needs a cabinet to take the electronics," Roger pointed out, "and finding one that would go with the set without wrecking the back so you can run the cables and the power cords would not be easy. That's a problem when you go antique these days."

"Don't be a killjoy. Let's have a look at it close up." They went inside.

Two or three other couples were also browsing the store. There were shelves and bookcases containing smalls, and the interior had oriental carpets (machine-made imitations, they noticed) on the floor that the gallery owner used to define room sets. They looked over a couple of dining rooms, one Second Empire, another Greek Revival, and admired a replica Federal period bedroom set done a hundred years later before going back to the front for another look at the Art Nouveau living room that had pulled them in. This shop didn't go in for price tags; instead, cards with the store logo stood on little stands discreetly placed as part of the display with the style and asking price handwritten on them. The shop owner drifted over, sensing that they were not merely lookie-lous.

"A lovely suite, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is," agreed Tiffany, looking the owner in the eye. She and Tiffany were the same height. Long-legged, with an hourglass figure, lustrous black hair worn up, and Mediterranean olive skin, she was the sort of looker that always put Tiffany en garde when it came to Roger; the sort of gal who might have a go at boyfriend-snatching. "I think this would look wonderful in the living room."

"And what does your husband think -- or doesn't he get a vote?" she teased.

"Oh, we're not married," Tiffany said, parrying the inquiry, wondering what ploy the raven-haired beauty might try next.

"No, Sharon, we're not," agreed Roger, joining the conversation. "But as it happens, I do get a vote, and I believe Tiffany and I can agree that your Nouveau set here is a thing of beauty that would indeed grace our home -- but not at that price. Is it firm, or do we have some bargaining room?"

Taken aback by his familiarity, Sharon took a closer look at him. "Have we met?"

"We have. I had dinner with you and my editor, your old friend Irina Slonimska, some time ago. I can't say it was an enjoyable evening, as you made it clear you'd find a Cossack and his horse more enjoyable company; but that doesn't mean I can't deal with you on a professional basis."

Sharon cast her mind back, remembering the last time she had seen Irina. "Roger Chamberlain? I didn't recognize you. Was I really as bad as that?"

"Yes, you were, but that's water under the bridge. Can we negotiate price, or is there no wiggle room on the set?"

"We can always talk. Question is, can we come to an agreement?"

Tiffany stood quietly as the shop owner and her lover went back and forth, Roger sitting down in one of the chairs to try it out as Sharon argued for a higher price from her position on the couch, leaning forward to give him a better view of her décolletage. It cut no ice with Roger, however. In about ten minutes, they had agreed on a number that was about 60% of what was on the display card.

"Well, we seem to be agreed on the price. But do we have a deal?" Sharon asked. Roger stood and stepped over to where Tiffany had waited while he negotiated.

"I think Tiffany and I need to talk it over before we say yea or nay. If you'll excuse us, we'll let you know our decision in a little while." Taking her hand, they started for the door.

"I won't hold that price for long!" Sharon called after them. Roger looked back at her.

"If you can find a mensch who'll pay full ticket, I wouldn't expect you to. Don't worry; we won't keep you in suspense. Just give us a few minutes." They walked out of the gallery and down the street, out of sight of the gallery.

"What was that all about?" Tiffany asked.

"Remember the night we first met and you took me home with you?"

She smiled and squeezed his hand. "Kind of hard to forget. A girl always remembers a lover who fucked her so long and well that she passed out in his arms twice from the pleasure of it the first time she bedded him. Why?"

"She was the one Irina tried to fix me up with earlier in the evening. She made it clear she had no interest in me even for sport-fucking because what she really wants is some rich Jewish guy, hence my wisecrack about the Cossack and his horse. A real ego-bruiser, she was. Of course, now that we're together I don't worry about things like that any more.