Zen Riders: Backside of Backwater

Harrys notes: Next in the story, an attempt of mine to enter last year's Summer Fun contest, saved in this splice engineered to keep rolling down that highway, there's a party coming after this one

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Seven Miles from Backwater

Mr. Hill parked just off the lower drive, happy with sport and glad to bring remembrance to his old friend Monk through the land they'd once walked together as youths. His introspection brought thoughts of many years ago when he'd stood near this very spot and made the decision that brought all these lovely acres to fruit and beauty. He stepped out to piss and remember.

He'd gotten too old to continue doing all needed to keep everything going on the hill. Seemed like when one project was wrapped up two more were waiting for his attention. The wife pitched in when it wasn't in the ball-melting days of summer, but then there were a lot of those lately and only so many days between them and cooler weather. He'd needed help that wasn't afraid to sweat, or money.

There was plenty to be made selling the various preserved goods made from fruits and vegetables grown around the home site, but it was a catch 22 sort of problem. If you were sitting at the farmers market there was no one tending rows, or mowing, or keeping the place going.

People would pay to sweat off the pounds while enjoying the fresh air and scenic views, but those kinds of people wanted nice accommodations; the same amenities needed for a B & B. No help there. Maybe he should start a commune or a chubby boot camp. There had to be someone interested in fresh air, rewarding work and a full belly at the end of the day. He'd written a description to explain his needs.

The Ad: Summer Interns

Opportunity for personal growth, a rigorous fitness program, free room and board. Most disciplines and experience sought are in the fields of agriculture, animal husbandry, food preservation, culinary, artistry or merchandising, but love of the earth, food, and comradery will be the benchmark applied to all.

Accommodations will be spartan as this new program is implemented; interns may have to sleep on a couch while a room is refurbished, or beds are acquired. Camping on the extensive lawns or a bower under the cedars is a very good alternative for the adventurous but you may have to clean or mow the selected site first.

There are two bathrooms accessible from the front and rear of the main building but be warned; the boss likes to look out the front door while contemplating his bowel movements.

He'd posted the ad on a porn site; possibly not the smartest choice to take, but he figured there were a lot of healthy young people just looking to party in the wild and be fed well at the end of a long day.

Toe in the gutter: Intern's handbook, page 2.

Timewarp: Ten years ago, while Harry grins like an idiot in the future.

There was only one applicant the first year. Trudy arrived late on a Friday in a small black SUV for her interview. She stepped out of the car in pleasingly filled distressed jeans, tank top, a wide smile for the evening shadows, then one from him as he came out at the dog's alarm.

"Hello, I ran a little slow. This is beautiful country." They closed the distance to shake hands; kindly eyes locked on a kindred stranger. "Trudy Blake, you can call me Tru."

"Hi Tru, I'm Harry. You missed lunch; we can raid the icebox for sweet tea or ice pops to cool down."

"Ooh, ice pops." He turned and led the way into the big room, quickly through the sunroom, letting the senior member of the family begin greetings and interrogations. Her answers had been well-mannered and polite behind him. Returning with a red pop in a long plastic sleeve and a pair of scissors, he handed it to her and snipped the end. "Plastic is the devil, Harry."

"It is indeed." He'd paused a moment to watch her suck on the ice pop. "Excuse me." He headed up two steps to the main level. Ku was saving butterflies from electronic annihilation and doing poorly.

"She's here," Butterfly's continued to die. "Said to call her, Tru. I almost laughed, Tru and Ku, hilarious. Butterflies crashed to the bottom of the screen as the game ended. "It should be interesting to see her face when you introduce yourself." Ku stared at monitor with disgust then swiveled her chair to ask.

"What's she like?" Ku crossed the door to eavesdrop on the conversation a room away.

"Looks soft, pale, but healthy; a summer here should look pretty good on her I'd say. City girl, bet this is the first time she's ever been outside of a car in the country. There's something lost or sad behind that fiery smile and flirty eyes." Ku turned away from the voices to look at him.

"You like her!" A brilliant smile and a shit eating grin and she was gone to the sunroom. Harry looked at the empty door with upraised brows then went to the desk and brought up her e-mail. Freshman at the university, studying agriculture, home was a very nice neighborhood in a city north of here.

The sound of pleased laughter from the women, then louder voices, joking, exclaiming, made him believe this just might work. He heard the freezer shut as ice pops were replenished; they brought him one. Their voices, one familiar and known, chattering away; one new and musical, halting when the sensory overload hit.

"I love this room." Tru let her eyes wander over the things hung on the walls: canvases, framed stitchery; the colors drew the eye, subjects' interest. She drew a hand over the books in a converted entertainment center. Ku pulled her through the hall door and to the bathroom, their original destination, then came back to lean in the door.

"You like her too," he said, pointing at her smarmy expression. "Give her the fifty-cent tour, every corner and closet door." Ku blanched but nodded. "Start with the basement." Her grin returned, relishing what the sight of preserved and frozen food in large quantities would elicit. "She's been in there a long time; should we worry?"

"I told her it would be her bathroom too if she accepted the position; look in all the doors. You're right, there is something about her that makes me want to hug her like family."

The tour began when Tru came out of the bathroom to be led away by Ku through a door behind him. Downstairs to the dusty basement with a large brick fireplace equipped with a wood stove. The jars stacked against the hill side wall and displayed in a re-purposed bookcase were colorful and delicious looking. They walked arm in arm across the yard, remarking on the grass and the daunting task it was to maintain it. He lost sight a short time later as they passed the corner of the porch.

Tru tried to absorb all the images presented, the setting, the grounds, the old, converted farmhouse. Ku kept a running commentary that the potential Intern replied to with laughter or exclamations. They entered a door to a small anteroom filled with books and a swing by the south and east windows, then through another to a long room. Concrete block walls and floor held old and new furniture, another wood stove, a window shelved over with more books and luggage.

Up a step through a door, short hall, another step up, the second bathroom, hall shower in the wall then through more familiar territory, past all those eye-catching paintings and up the stairs.

Harry examined the face that returned from the final leg of the tour. He imagined the thoughts that whorled behind it had something to do with sleeping upstairs in a house full of strangers and strange, puzzling, trans-generational things lurking in the shadows, and noises.

"How long has it been since you two have had a girls' night? I'll sleep on the couch, catch up on tv and y'all can get acquainted."

Ku was instantly alight with the thought. Tru was silent, calculating the last time her childhood friends spent a night together before they turned to snobbery and worship of all thing's bling, bitches. They looked at each other, smiling.

"Now time for my tour." He led the way out the sunroom door toward one of the open bays in the garage then out a door in the back past a greenhouse, half under high steel trusses and a tin roof sharing space with the ends of the long room; pavers led between it and a cozy alcove with a large window on the south.

Harry had stopped walking when he faced the hill to the south; she, a pace away, accepting his silence and gaze. Left with the sight of the forest rising across pasture to the south, it became the focal point of her meditation.

She didn't fit into high school society: home life an antiseptic bastion against even the slightest suggestion of dust; gardening was forbidden, Nerd's and Earthers were the only dim circle of people she actually spoke to but was happy with neither. University looked to be much of the same.

Her thoughts were interrupted when Harry finally walked away. She followed while he took her down every overgrown row, shit-topped turned earth, and compost bin. And there, between peas and potatoes, she asked the one question that was most important to her.

"Will I be loved here?" The look of lost and hope in her eyes broke his heart.

"Trudy, you already are." She'd fallen into his startled arms, holding tight, tears flowing; they'd sunk to the ground. Harry, because of her dead weight, a narrow row with deep gutters and the well-known feeling of row diving, eased them down. She ended up on top and astride in relief, joy and purpose to have found a thing unknown in her life and began fumbling at his belt. He'd protested that sex wasn't a requirement for the position, then found it was indeed.

The sound of motorcycles in close company left him with his dick in his hand and her for a moment of time before tucking in to greet the Zen Riders and give instructions where needed.

Incoming.

Her procession grew as they idled through Backwater; all lights were out in the diner. She blip'd the throttle as they passed. Sharon hooted riding bitch behind Liam; her three companions, one riding bitch behind Lizzie, the others scattered about the gathering pack joined in, sounding nothing like the frightened, disheveled girls that witnessed what the outrage of men and one pissed off woman looked like.

The acceleration of the two lead riders turned the heads of both freak and straight; brought smiles, dismissals and frowns, all unseen as, once again the Zen Riders rode to say goodbye to their president.

Ahead, V.P. Michael and Preacher Bob joined the funeral run; behind, Fast John led the prospects. A truck followed the sound of bikes through the hills.

Michael and Preacher idled down the drive seven miles later, spoke quickly with Harry and went up the drive. Tallman chatted as Zen were directed to shop, lake or house. Liam personally accompanied the last of the alligator to the smoker. Lizzie stayed downhill with Harry while preparations were made.

"Who's this on the back of your scooter?" She was cuter than Sandra from the diner and smelled a lot better. Lizzie put down the kickstand and came to lean against the truck with him. They looked at the occupant left sitting on the bike while Lizzie tried to place a maybe name to one of the three women found in her room after leaving Liam to beer and gator; a few tics of the cooling drag pipes and she had an answer.

"My hairdresser, Mr. Harry. I forget her name. There are two more with no names. Do you like my braids?" Four pigtails were tied at her nape with a leather thong; the effect sparked a question in his mind that fled from lips without hindrance.

"Does no name girl do dreads?" he asked, not knowing how grateful no name girl was to have been rescued, as all those found when Lizzie returned to her steamy room; naked, wet, and eager to show their gratitude they descended on her. She smiled beside him, washed by many hands, dried, patched up and all the sore spots kissed. Liam was in for it tonight, but she was getting on top.

"Absolutely, Mr Harry. "No name girl blinked; her eyes found Harry's long hair. "Looks like Liam has the food going." Smoke billowed up hill. "I should go check on them." Smoke came from the far side of the lake. No name girl got her ass off the scooter while it got started.

"Yep, come on up to the house." A car drove up. A woman got out. "Sarge! I was just thinking about you. Come meet my friend, Trudy Blake." Lizzie shutdown and laid the bike back on the kickstand; she took a last glance at a new puff of smoke. Music came from up hill, loud, familiar, moving. "Bob found the player. My favorite song." They gathered by the truck, except for a silent no name girl who danced beside her savior's knucklehead. Fade out to sounds of greeting and idle chit chat.

Under cedars, beside the drive, a bike starts up, three voices rise, fade with distance gained as they mount up and move away, up hill, up house, that place between, sprinkled with paint and chrome, marred only by three spires of smoke, very loud rock and roll, and cheering as their Prez arrived with music of another kind: the rapping of a throaty v-twin.