Tales from the Road Ch. 02

Ro went back to the new job while I said my goodbyes to the guys on my ride. They and everybody else knew. The word of my setting up the competition's Scrambler was all over.

I went back to the ride seeing Ro stretched up changing light bulbs.

"That gives me sooo many nasty ideas."

Ro screeched in surprise and fell back to me. I grabbed her waist wanting to grab her ass. "Well, you could at least have turned to let me grab the good parts."

I got the look and a quick kiss before she wiggled out of my arms. The kiss and momentary titty grope was the important part.

Ro minded the ride while I was the pack mule. Taking our stuff from where we stashed it near a truck to the actual scrambler trailer. I was very careful in how I set them in there, the inside of the trailer was filthy, and I didn't see any cardboard to put down. Then I remembered that tarp I had slept under back when I made that highly intelligent decision to go work for the circus.

I dug it out of the bottom of my back pack and spread it on the floor and made up our 'bedroom'. Still near the back, but we had a clean spot to start with.

The bad side of switching shows was no hot showers. We snuck back and used Carroll's the last three days while we scrounged black buckets and got a solar shower made up. It wasn't the greatest, but it was better than nothing.

We spent the last three mornings at this stop going through the trailer. The hardest part was sweeping it out without raising too much dust.

There was an area in the front of the trailer with spare parts and pieces. This trailer was about five feet longer than the ride needed, and some shelves had been put in the front. One of them had been converted to a bunk.

There were two spare tubs, one all mangled, and an extra tub spindle... with a chunk of the gear missing. A couple of bent support tubes and lots of extra pins. Many of them showing well-worn slots in them.

Ro snickered two stops later when I got two pieces of conduit and three shower curtains to make a spot big enough for both of us. We added two more buckets to keep from running out of warm water, and Aldo was taking a serious look at adding a heat exchanger to the generator. It would cost very little and make his operators very happy.

We wound up sleeping in the trailer for a little over a month before a sleeper came available. But it was a small one. Ro bribed one of the guys in a large sleeper into trading... for cooking his breakfast from now on. He had to pay for the ingredients, but he was tickled to get his grits in the morning.

We were getting down toward the end of the season, and I had been getting parts and making repairs along the way. We had assurances from Aldo that we had spots at winter quarters. The guys liked Ro's cooking.

Five weeks from the end of the season, and Aldo came up to us in the morning with a sad expression. "Dom has decided to sell the ride. It's not making enough for him."

"What?" Ro exclaimed. "What happens to us then?"

He sighed, "You'll have the pick of any open position."

"How soon is he selling?" I asked.

"He's putting out feelers now. Probably change hands around the end of the season."

"Give us first chance," I blurted out.

"Huh?" he and Ro both said at once.

I turned to Aldo, "Give us a chance to talk it out, a day or two."

He shook his head grinning, "Okay, not like it's going to happen overnight." Then shuffled back to the office trailer.

"What the hell?!" Ro said glaring at me.

"Why not?"

"We can't afford this ride, we barely have a few hundred dollars between us."

"But it's making money, just not enough for Dom on top of our salaries."

Ro had an objection ready, but that last part made her think. "So as owner operators we'd have some wiggle room." She said slowly.

"Yeah, and all the repairs we've been making have eaten into that, but we have done most of the serious ones already. I only had two more pillow blocks to replace that I know of, then it will be just a bunch of piddly stuff."

It was sinking in. "Then we have to work out some kind of deal with Aldo or somebody as a contractor."

I shrugged, "Yeah, but it's not anything new. Casey is doing it now with his rides." He had three of the kiddie rides and was looking at adding one or two more. "He might give us a few pointers. It's not like we would be competing with him."

We talked around it for a bit.

Ro invited Casey and his wife Molly for breakfast, they declined and invited us up to their camper for breakfast instead.

He had a one ton truck with a camper in the bed that pulled one of the rides that Molly drove, and a semi and low-boy that hauled the other two that he drove.

We laid out what we were thinking of doing, and they agreed it was doable since we already knew the ride. They gave us a few pointers on clauses to put in or make sure were not in the contract, even giving us a copy of theirs.

The trailer was nothing special beyond the overhead I-beam, but he did know something happened to the truck just before he joined up when it was pulling something else.

I had guessed something along those lines, the different colored brackets and such and extra cab stops where a longer cab would have been kinda gave that away.

I asked Aldo, he smiled. "Twelve point buck on the passenger side."

I had to smile at that. It would have creamed the cab, but the frame and such would be pretty much unhurt.

Ro and I talked it over for two days and made an offer to Aldo and Dom.

Come the end of the season, we would buy it contract for deed. Payments would start thirty days after the start of the season, but we would have to agree to a one year contract with the show with an automatic one year extension unless there was a damn good reason on either side not to.

We didn't offer Dom as much as he wanted for the ride, but it was more than the offers he'd gotten so far, and his dad was going to keep it in his show.

We had a deal.

We put a lot of quarters in payphones the next week.

The first was to her parents telling them she was coming home with me to work on our new ride instead of the planned one week visit during winter quarters. I was soooo disappointed not to be making a trip to Alaska in December.

The next was to my folks telling mom I was going to be around for a month and a half. She was tickled and delighted to finally meet the woman she had only seen a picture of.

I looked at Ro, she had a sheepish grin. Seems that when she sent her folks a picture of us, 'it was only fair to send one to your folks as well'.

The next was to Leon and his dad Matteo. I wanted to bring the ride out to the farm and clean it up and go through it, maybe repaint it. Ro was pushing for bright pink since there was nothing else like that on the show. I wasn't sold on that idea.

The other thing Leon would do is order a set of prints and documents on the ride and the truck so we had everything we needed on the way it was designed to be, and part numbers where possible for ordering parts on the road.

We had NO idea what we had just gotten ourselves into. We saved and scrimped everywhere we could. A week to go, and we had round trip fuel money to get back home and then to the first stop. Any major repairs and we'd be begging family for help.

Hector sent us off with two large bags of donuts as an incentive to come back.

It was a long ass three day drive home. We just hung the tarp under the trailer as a make shift tent instead of trying to crawl up in the trailer in the middle of the night. At least we had the foam and we were headed south into warmer weather. I was NOT looking forward to a Wisconsin winter if we had gone to winter quarters with Aldo.

We pulled into the farm early afternoon, and I was never so glad to shut the truck off and stand up.

Shortly the whole Müller clan came piling out of the house. Seems our arrival was an excuse for a family celebration. A call was made, and soon my family showed up as well.

The back doors were opened, but it was just a trailer full of steel beyond the main pivot. Unloading and such would wait until morning. It was time for the big feast and telling of our travels on the road.

Our time at the circus seemed to be the point of interest. The kids and Matteo were fascinated at the pulling power of the elephants, and Günther about fell off his chair laughing when I told him it only took one beer to get an elephant drunk.

These Germans liked their beer.

Since we had an early start planned, we stayed at the farm instead of going home with mom and dad. The real surprise was Yohanna putting us in the same room with one bed. She winked as she said goodnight.

I asked Günther about it the next morning. He grinned, "We weren't married until we came to America."

"What?"

He shrugged. "Her family didn't think much of me, so we moved to a new town. She was just assumed to be my wife when she didn't correct anybody calling her Mrs. Müller, sooo."

I related that to Ro later, she just grinned and gave me a kiss, 'Works for me."

We began the unload. A lot more difficult when we weren't assembling the ride as we went.

Leon got the loader, and what couldn't be carried was put in the bucket or slung under it and set aside. We had about three quarters of it out when Günther came out. He had a balance problem and used a cane just enough to steady himself.

He looked at the main pivot running his fingers along the seams, then inspecting the top supports.

In a matter of half an hour, he had taken over the unloading process. Directing kids to get three empty barrels and two old doors to spread all the small bits and pieces on. Shuffling and sorting as he went.

Leon elbowed me grinning, "Grandpa was a steel worker in New York before his accident. He's like a pig in slop around all this."

We smiled and let him dig in.

He was exhausted that evening, and Yohanna sounded like she was cussing him out in German. When she turned back to the kitchen, he smiled behind her, and she smiled and rolled her eyes. They knew each other too well.

He was moving a little slower the next morning, and two of the younger kids had instructions from Grandma to not let him get too involved. That meant they were his laborers for the day.

The box of manuals showed up, and he dug out his calipers and was going over the ride and all the parts. He was in the machine shed for a bit, then sent one of the kids into town with the flatbed truck, coming back an hour later with several bags of sand.

I followed it into the shed. Günther had a couple of saw horses set up with a few of the beams across them. On one end he had a makeshift sand blasting shield I had seen them use on tractor parts. He was soon sandblasting away with help from the kids, and there were several cans of primer nearby and they were not the cheap stuff.

I went over to Leon's dad. "Matteo, I can't afford all this."

He sighed and smiled, "You want to be the one to tell him to stop?"

I looked at Günther bent over the sandblaster housing and sighed.

Matteo chuckled, "I haven't seen him this enthused about anything in a long while. Let him be and we'll settle up sometime down the road."

I didn't like it, but there was nothing I could really do about it. And I was outvoted on the color. Ro, Mom, and Yohanna were tickled on the pink. It may have been three against fifteen, but those three carried some weight to their votes.

Günther was going to object again until Yohanna gave him a look. Matteo had the nerve to chuckle at his father. I just grinned and tried to grab Ro's ass.

And again it was not the cheap paint.

Once he was done sandblasting, he dug out the welder while the kids were put to painting. They had painted many an implement and could match any professional shop around.

Ro and I were glorified gofers on our own ride.

In a little bit, I realized what Günther was doing. He didn't like the shape of most of the pins. I didn't either, but until he showed me how much they were actually worn with the calipers compared to the specs, I just never realized how much.

He had a system going. He'd cut a section of rod from a long stock and a slice from a tube. Weld it on the top then pass it to a kid to clean up the welds on the grinder. Another kid drilled the pinhole on the milling machine. In a matter of half a day, we had a completely new set of pins with half a dozen spares.

Günther had taken about a hundred and fifty dollars of rod and tube, and welded up a full set where the factory was charging thirty-five dollars per pin.

I was looking around at all the work being done on my behalf, and had no way of knowing how I was going to thank everybody and said so to Leon.

He leaned close like he was passing on a secret. "Well, Mom and Grandma have been being pestered by the kids to get a ride on it once it's done."

I groaned, "I'd say yes, but the motor is three phase, two-oh-eight."

He chuckled, "I'll tell Dad and Grandpa you said yes."

I just shook my head.

By the end of the week most of the parts had gotten their first coat, it was hard on the eyes, Ro picked out a BRIGHT pink.

Günther had switched to the inside of the trailer. Taking bits and pieces he snagged from his junk yard to make hanging spots for tubes and such on the wall.

I chuckle at the old German mindset. That old man did not believe in throwing anything away. Out in the collection, there were a few implements that had wooden parts in them, mostly rotted away, but they were kept. I have no idea where some of the bits came from that had nothing to do with farming.

He even insisted on making a small three castor cart to let the ends of the beams roll back and forth on as we would move the truck to install them so the paint wouldn't get scratched dragging on the floor. After all his work, he was making certain it looked good for a long time.

I worked on the electrical while all this was going on. It wasn't a lot, but like my first ride, it needed a lot of TLC.

Just before Christmas, we had it finished and assembled. I told Ro we were going to have to invest in some serious sunglasses to look at it in the daylight. She swatted me. Günther agreed with me, but he was out of swat range of Yohanna.

I did chuckle a bit, the one concession I got out of her on the pink. We painted the heads of the pins green and the clips bright yellow. We'd know at a glance if any of them were not in place. At least the bicycle rack stayed silver. Thankfully the seat tubs were all natural clear coated aluminum, or it really would have been blinding.

We could only stare. It was the same ride we had brought in, but it didn't look it. It looked like a brand new PINK ride.

Ro wrapped her arm around mine, "And just think honey, if we had the kiddie version it could be momma and baby."

I groaned, the ladies chuckled, the men just shook their heads.

Mom was happy we spent Christmas at the house. We had agreed to no presents, but they still did a few gift certificates.

We made it back to the farm, and I about fell down laughing. The motor unit had been pulled and there was a long monstrosity of several drive shafts hooked together in a frame... hooked to the PTO on the old Allis.

And it seemed the neighbors were invited. We had a one ride carnival and a long table full of all sorts of homemade food.

Ro cried at her Christmas present. Günther took the small access door from the side of an old semi sleeper and mounted it in the front wall of the trailer. With all the extra junk taken out and the racks to hold all the support tubes, there was now a nice bit of space in the front. They had framed a small area with shelves and a bunk.

He turned beet red and the ladies cackled when Ro gave him a big kiss on the cheek.

The kids and a few adults all enjoyed the ride. The tractor only got it up to around three quarter speed but it was enough to have fun. The electric motor was only ten horsepower, but it had one hell of a gear reduction cluster for some serious low speed torque.

It was almost sad the next day as we disassembled and put it away. Günther even had the kids put scraps of old carpet on the wall pegs to keep from scratching the tubes. We had a case of pink spray paint, a couple of cans of green, and a bunch of yellow for the pins. The pink and yellow were expected to need it the most.

We were about ready to pull out, when I got my Christmas present. I hopped up in the truck for the first time in weeks. Yohanna had one of the girls give it a good scrubbing, but that wasn't the surprise. I looked down at the fuel gauge to get an idea of how far we could go before having to fill up. "What the hell?"

I looked, then looked again. It said I had full tanks. Great, now I'm going to have to track mileage until I know how far I can go. I got out to put a stick in the tank and got the shit shocked out of me. The gauge wasn't wrong, these suckers were actually full.

I turned to see Matteo grinning. I made like Ro did with arms out like I was going to give him a big kiss, he pulled back. I stopped and stuck my hand out.

He pulled close, "It's off-road, so run it way down before you fill up, and there's a five gallon can of the road fuel in the back of the trailer just in case."

I looked at him and had no idea what to say.

He just smiled, "Frohe Weihnachten!" ( Merry Christmas )

I did manage to snag Leon before we pulled out with instructions to find out how much all this extra cost. We were going to pay them back somehow. Ro and I had decided that was going to be a priority.

I had also been forced into regular communication with my folks. We would find a payphone that could be called into, then make a collect call to ourselves at our parents' number. They would decline the call saying we weren't home, but the operators would let us leave a call back number at no charge. A few minutes later they would call and we, read mainly Ro, could update them on what was happening, where we were, and vice versa.

When we rolled into the first stop, Aldo was waiting for us like he was worried we'd not come back. Hector grinned when he handed over a fresh bag of donuts and said that's why I came back.

It was downright fucking embarrassing. The guys were laughing their asses off when we started setting up.

A PINK ride.

I was damn glad this was long before digital cameras and cell phones.

Ro was grinning.

We had an extra day to set up being the first stop of the season. And despite the pink, I was damn pleased with the ride. Going through all the bearings and getting things trued up and square had made the ride run smoooooooth. I had to borrow a stopwatch and checked it four times.

Empty and balanced I was getting just a hair over two point four rpm out of it. A twenty year old ride, and it was running nearly as fast as a brand new one. And I could even blame that little bit on the old motor and gear case. We cleaned and did what we could, but it was still an eleven year old motor hooked to a twenty year old gear case.

Two weeks down the road and with a full load and I still got a little over two point three... damn!

Oh yeah, and Aldo had relented to several of the spouses and put a heat exchanger and a large tank in with the generator. We had hot showers again! And it was just large enough for two.

Ro and I meshed really well on the ride, all the wall racks Günther had put in cut a good fifteen or twenty minutes from the setup time. And, while I will never admit it to her face, that damn bight ass pink seemed to increase our rider numbers.

We had rough numbers from last year, Dom's and then ours. And there seemed to be a good five to ten percent jump. I told Ro it was just the new paint job, the pink had nothing to do with it. She'd roll her eyes and go off to do something.