Doing What a Man's Gotta Do

Tearing off the August calendar, I stared at September's page. It brought up haunting memories. My eyes went to September 11 and my thoughts back to 2001. This story sprang up from thoughts of those events in our troubled past. It's not a war story, though, just a wisp of memory floating ephemerally in the back of my mind.

Kenjisato diligently reviewed this work and made it much better. Since his efforts, I couldn't keep my fingers off it and struggled to add more, so any errors you see are those I created in my post-edit tinkering. Apologies in advance and to my grammatical editor.

The long, open highway stretched ahead as I headed home after a grueling week of long-haul deliveries. My body ached from hours behind the wheel, and I yearned for the simple pleasure of a relaxing weekend. The thought of kicking back with a cold beer, like Dad in the old days, and escaping the demands of the road had me counting down the miles. Little did I know that this mundane desire for relaxation would soon be shattered in the most unexpected way. As I cruised down the freeway, exhaustion tugging at my eyelids, fate had a different plan.

Chaos ruled the highway that afternoon, triggered by the reckless antics of an asshole tow-truck driver cruising at seventy miles an hour. I caught sight of a loose big-rig truck wheel perched precariously on the back of his wrecker. That should have been the first warning to trigger my lane change, but heavy traffic had me boxed in the middle.

When he hit that pothole, the world around us plunged into pandemonium. The Chevy behind him became an unwitting launchpad, going airborne like in the movies, as it hit that tumbling big-rig wheel with a terrifying grace. The Caddie to his left, caught the brunt of the antifreeze spray and shrapnel from the impact as the undercarriage of the Chevy disintegrated.

Panic gripped its driver, who slammed the brakes, setting off a chain reaction of screeching tires and swerving vehicles. In the adjacent lane, an elderly couple in a Mini-Cooper executed a series of frantic 360-degree spins. I found myself boxed in, with no escape route except to take my Peterbilt Model 389 over the wreckage strewn across the road--debris from the shattered vehicles, an oil-slicked roadway, and that wayward truck wheel. As the vortex settled, the reckless wrecker driver had vanished, leaving behind a trail of chaos, and I was left to grapple with the consequences and damn glad I wasn't pulling a trailer. A jackknife would have wiped out half that crowded roadway.

The scene was reminiscent of service action, watching an IED take out a vehicle in a convoy. Everything moved in slow motion. The noise level left your head ringing, and even the shouting came out as muffled voices.

"A man does what a man's gotta do," I huffed, bailing out of my rig to assist with triage. We were damn fortunate that outside of the elderly couple being dazed and confused, no one was lost or severely injured. However, several vehicles were disabled. The driver of the Chevy stood stunned, looking at her new car's appearance as though it had gone through a car shredder at the junkyard. It would, in the end, I knew from its damage as engine parts, her transmission, and shredded steel lay strewn down the highway.

I made it home much later than anticipated, shaken, not stirred. Pissed at the tow-truck driver still, I walked into my shop and saw the words I'd uttered: 'A Man Does What a Man's Gotta Do.' They were routed into a wooden wrench symbol that hung over my dad's workshop bench some eighteen years ago. Years before, Dad had made the wrench for his dad in woodshop class. Worn, dingy with dust, and oily grime from a mechanic's hands, it hung proudly as a reminder of our roots as a family of long-haul truckers. Dad ingrained those words into my psyche from when I was six, watching him work on his Peterbilt truck. The love of trucks, grease, and tools ran through our family's veins, as did American red-blood cells coursing through them.

Staring up at the wooden wrench, my thoughts of his younger days flashed through my mind. At every bar-b-que with a Clydesdale beer in hand, he proudly pointed out to all his friends he had taken a bus to Denton, Texas, and drove that new Peterbilt parked in the driveway home from the factory. His buddies knew every truck stop encounter and every word of that story by heart, having heard it from him so many times as he retold it, while deep into the second six-pack.

Each weekend, he made sure it was well-maintained and ready for the week-long trips out of town. Beginning as a six-year-old, 'Dad's little helper' handed him various wrenches as he lay stretched beneath that big rig, and by age twelve, I was confidently using those tools to tear apart anything with a motor. By fourteen, with Dad's help, I had rebuilt two Chevy pickups from the ground up and sold them for a third. Dad was proud of that and the knowledge that it kept me home and out of trouble for years. At sixteen, there wasn't anything on a truck I couldn't fix with him at my side because, as Dad said, "A man does what a man's gotta do." That included reassembling Peterbilts like they were tinker toys by the time I turned seventeen.

My eyes also took in the prominent Infidel flag displayed side by side with that grimy wrench. It was an anathema that reminded me daily of how my life had radically changed over the past eighteen years. Dad's vision of the Waverly family tradition saw him and me behind a fleet of Peterbilt cab-over trucks roaming the American freeways, building our empire one truck at a time. At eighteen, I planned to get my CDL (commercial driver's license) and begin our American dream of driving as a team.

September 11th, the year I graduated, brought that idea to a skidding halt. It was a day etched in infamy, one that changed the course of my life forever. Watching the horrifying events unfold on television--four passenger planes crashing into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and a field where heroic passengers intervened--I knew I had to do something. The day after I turned eighteen, I decided to join the military. Dad was pissed, but he understood my sentiments. His world was put on hold, and my life took a new direction. It would be eighteen years before that detour brought me back home.

I shook my head to clear those cobweb thoughts of how time had passed since that declaration of war on America. Picking up a flashlight and a handful of red mechanic towels, I snatched up my creeper and headed outside to inspect the undercarriage of my Peterbilt. I hoped not to find anything, and if I did, I vowed to track down that asshole wrecker driver and teach him a thing or two about trucker safety.

Sprawled out beneath my well-worn Peterbilt, I saw no significant damage as I inspected my oil-soaked undercarriage. Wiping away oil splatter from the brake lines, I checked for telltale seepage. The tires were uncut on the inside, bringing a sigh of relief. No car parts were stuck in the undercarriage from the road debris I'd run over. Thank goodness for that high-road clearance on the Peterbilt.

"Fucking bastard!" I spat out the epithet at the long-gone wrecker driver while flat on my back beneath the rig. My military-style universal sigh of relief barked out at that negative inspection. That's when I heard a youthful, out-of-sight voice ask from behind my head, "Mr. Waverly, can I talk to you about something?"

I recognized those southern tones, Melinda's syrupy voice. She and her single mom rent the place next door. They moved in last year. So that you know, they aren't the best of neighbors, in my opinion. They borrow my lawnmower, saying they are getting one next weekend. That weekend never comes. Their dog used to shit in my yard until my self-defense BB-gun trained him to mess in his own space.

Melinda was often truant, so her mother said one day out of the blue. I guess she was concerned about her. So were the cops who sometimes seemed to show up, bringing her home. Still, I didn't avoid them and maintained a more than cordial relationship with Ginger, Melinda's mom. Ginger was probably a teenage mom by accident, given her youngish looks. She is good looking. That right there was reason enough to stay friendly. Our 'friendship' was casual, and mostly spent horizontally.

"Problem?" I sighed, doubling my legs and pushing my mechanic's creeper out from under my Peterbilt. The creeper rolled out, landing my head inches from her toes. She looked down as I looked up.

"No problem ... well, maybe," she answered, her eyes sweeping the length of my greasy mechanic's overalls. I wasn't sure what she was checking out, maybe my oil-covered overalls. They could have used a wash before I crawled under the Peterbilt. After cleaning up some of that oil from the freeway wreck, they were worse now, but I was never in the 'mood' to impress anyone with my mechanical cleanliness skills.

"Melinda, sugar, you should be wearing panties," I remarked while pausing our conversation. I was still lying on the creeper looking up. She grinned, looking down, but she didn't move; she just stood her ground while twisting her toes in the dirt.

"I gave up panties for Lent," she retorted mischievously. It wasn't Lent; I knew that much. She was only mouthing off again. Still, she didn't move, giving me another moment of observation.

"Mike, can I, um, talk to you about something?" she asked again, bringing us back to the original train of thought after I got that upskirt eyeful of smooth pussy. I sat up, got off the creeper, and walked into the garage; she tagged along.

"Spit it out," I answered, squirting some Gojo's Natural Orange soap and wiping my hands on a clean red mechanic's towel. The smell of orange overpowered the scent of dirty motor oil.

"You know my mom?" she asked, watching me wipe my hands with a dry rag.

"Yeah, your point?" Like, what the fuck did she really want to ask?

"I mean, like 'know' her -- like in that biblical sense?" she pressed, looking up at Dad's grimy old family motto on the decades-old wooden wrench.

"Ya want to know if we fuck?" I barked, cutting to the chase.

I'd been around Melinda; her vocabulary was well-rounded -- and there was nothing biblical about most of her conversations. She could hold her own in a swearing contest any day for a bratty kid. I knew that from hearing her and her mother go at it through the open kitchen window nearly every other day.

Melinda, I figured, would just shut the fuck up at that point. I was blunt, and it wasn't any of the kid's business to know what her mother and I did to get us enough of a sexual high to ease our distinct tribulations. Mine revolved around caring for my dad, now in a nursing home. Ginger's worries included working two jobs: manager at a laundromat by night and house cleaning for the wealthy over on the heights by day. Not to mention still being single and trying to keep Melinda in school and out of trouble with the crowd she hangs around. But Melinda didn't -- shut the fuck up.

"I wasn't trying to pry, Mike. Just ... kinda not sure how to say this to you -- to ask," she blurted out. Her voice trembled.

It got my attention as I snapped around to stare--she wore the expression of a child's wonder plastered on a sensual woman's body. For the first time, as I heard an unusual tremor in her voice, I realized, up this close, she was damn near a doppelgänger image of her mother.

"How old are you now?" I asked, studying her svelte form as though for the first time. It dawned on me that I didn't know much about the kid, her grade, or her age outside of knowing she was in school. Maybe I'd gone off the deep end trying to shut her down. That put a cringe in my thoughts. She'd come over to see me, obviously, with something on her mind, and I'd just up and shit in her yard, so to speak. Not very damn helpful; I realized too late I was being a dog of a neighbor.

"Eighteen," she answered with a huff, "and old enough ... to fuck if I want to."

At that point, her self-assurance wavered, and she looked away toward the Infidel flag hanging on my garage wall. "I was wondering if you wouldn't mind telling me something about serving, you know, over there?"

My head fogged over at that question. Her voice sounded so sincere. Something in it was troubling, but she didn't have the words to go with it.

We'd gone from an inquiry about fucking her mom to what it was like in the service in maybe fifty heartbeats. I studied her look once more as she found my eyes again.

Something in that look made me want to open a scabbed-over wound briefly. It wasn't like I was on the front lines. I was a diesel mechanic and kept things operational. Still, it wasn't a nine-to-five cushy job. I saw the damages and the effect on men and drivers returning from the front lines. My anxieties were secondary ones compounded by the trauma experienced by the front-line guys and the civilians caught up in the melee.

Opening the fridge, I handed her a beer. She took it, and we walked to the backyard and sat under the oak in Dad's well-worn Adirondack chairs. I spoke about basic training, then A.I.T. (Advanced Individual Training) that followed, my time in Iraq, and the facts that came out later about Iraq -- the lies. I recounted how 9-11 connected with me and my enlistment. I ended by stating my post-war service in a few sentences and how I left service when my dad got sick to care for him. My words were light on details, though nothing was as embellished as the lies recruiters fed me.

I took a swig from my beer, the condensation running down the cold can. "You know," I nodded, "after Iraq, coming home was like stepping into a different world. Everything had changed, and I guess I had too."

Melinda's eyes glistened with curiosity as she listened intently; her beer was nearly finished.

"I remember the day I told my dad I was enlisting," I continued, my gaze fixed on Melinda's attentive look. "He was furious, said it would ruin my life. But he didn't understand why I had to do it. How could he? He never fought for anything bigger than himself."

Melinda absorbed what little I had to offer. She was quiet in the lull, having nearly finished her beer. The silence between us grew thick, the crickets chirping filling the void.

Finally, Melinda broke the silence, her voice barely above a whisper. "My mom was in the Navy. She never talks about it. They kicked her out, and it's always been a sore spot."

Looking up at her, I said softly, "I had no idea." That piece of information surprised me. I didn't know Ginger was ex-military. She never said anything about it. Connecting the dots and understanding why she left didn't take much. Unwed pregnancies and the military don't go together.

"What's your reason for asking about my military service?" I got around to asking. It was the polite thing to do.

"I signed up -- Air Force," she breathed quietly, downing the last swallow of beer.

"What's your mom got to say about that?"

"Guess I'll find out tonight when I tell her," Melinda stated, her shoulders slumping slightly.

"Mike," Melinda added, "I'm leaving. Tomorrow morning. I need to get away and find myself, be more than what she wants me to be."

Another long cricket moment ensued. It was so quiet. It was as quiet as the day I had the same conversation with Dad some eighteen years ago.

"You know," I said, trying to be more reassuring, "it's not always about where you come from, but where you're going. Sometimes, you have to pave your own path."

Melinda smiled, a glimmer of hope in her eyes. Her voice had a new tone when she said, "Thanks, Mike. I needed to hear that."

I thought about my words of encouragement. The kid had waited until the last minute to spring it on her mother. She probably wanted to avoid arguing about it. Nearly the same as happened with my old man and me when I enlisted. He was pissed but got over it. I'm guessing Ginger will, too.

Melinda looked down as I sat in the recliner, watching me finish my last swallow. She had that look that usually says there is more to ask. It's usually something uncomfortable that follows the quiet void in a serious conversation. Her expression reminded me of the one on Mom's face when she'd had enough of Dad's attitude--that treatment of her as his prize and him as the center of the universe. Mom hugged me, looked me in the eye like Melinda, and said, "Take care of yourself first. Mikey, don't let him take your independence away from you."

The divorce was messy. I cried after she left. Still, I'd told the judge, "I want to stay with Dad."

As Dad had put it, "You were born four months after we got out of high school. Your mom ain't changed since. She can't take care of you, son. All she knows how to do is washing, cooking, and cleaning. She ain't got no money to buy you trucks or tools. Stay with her, and you'll be miserable for the rest of your life."

"Mike," Melinda too a deep breath as she set the empty beer can down. Her voice ticked up an octave, "Yeah, I have to get away and be myself. But I don't want to go into the service as a virgin ... can you be a good mechanic and fix that for me?"

My head flicked up at that pronouncement. I shook my head in wonder. "What's your momma gonna say about that idea?"

"Mom already believes I'm not a virgin. She said she didn't want me to get knocked up, so I've been to the doctor and had the implant last year -- still not done it. I've seen how she acts when she returns from one of her 'walks' in the evening. That mellow look is just from getting laid by you. Mike, this can be just between you and me, right?"

"You sure?" I asked.

She nodded and held out her soft, delicate hand. We made it to my bedroom before I asked her again.

"A man does what a man's gotta do," she breathed as she stretched alongside me. Melinda's eyes were wide, her lips pursed, and her breathing labored. It got quiet between us. My rough fingers cupped the back of her head and held her as I kissed her soft lips. Although she didn't kiss back at first, she didn't resist either. I pressed again; her lips tentatively pressed back in acknowledgment. I broke the gentle kiss and returned to study her bright-eyed, flushed face.

"One last chance," I whispered, "to back the fuck out of this, Melinda. There comes a point when you don't get to say no after we're too deep into this."

Her eyes widened more than before. Her lips pursed again, making mental decisions. She swallowed hard. Then her lips pressed mine in a prolonged kiss; her tongue finally met mine. That was all I needed.

I began placing light kisses above her eyebrows and more kisses on her eyelids. More landed along her neck and created a trail down her shoulder blades until my kisses slipped lightly down and around each supple breast. Gradually working upward again, then spiraling around the jutting nipples, each landing kiss drew more robust responses from Melinda's body. I watched and smiled as her body twitched in response to my lips and the tip of my tongue as it worked its way over her body.

"God, that feels damn good," she hissed.

My meandering kisses continued until I was once again hovering above her nipple. I watched her hands clench the bedsheets as she tensed, expecting the next kiss to land on her hardened nub. Instead, I opened my mouth, exhaled long, warm breaths over the nipple, and rolled down the pear-shaped cones that held them skyward. I watched the goosebumps rise around her areola as the heated air hit it. My kisses continued to the other breast for a repeat performance; they met the same results. My hands lightly caressed her inner thighs, and I felt Melinda's legs drawing taut under the building excitement. Her hands were busy clutching handfuls of sheets, but she fought the urges struggling to break through her resolve and erupt like the hot fuck she was becoming.