Old751 - Riding Off to the Future

The news had also reached my drop-off warehouse when I got there. Joe and Bud seemed pleased with themselves for the part they had played in my big move. Bud told me that they had a few pallets to return so I wouldn't be deadheading this time. It didn't happen often, but I never minded when it did. I did take the time to visit with Joe about where I might be hauling loads to, just so I would have some idea of what kind of trips I was looking at.

He said that twice a month he would have loads to go out east and it was a long run, but Rick did a good job of giving those runs to different drivers. I would be looking at making it once every couple of months at best. I liked that because it would leave me more time to get things settled in Smithville once I found a place to actually be get settled in to.

Bud waved from the warehouse that I was loaded and ready. I shook Joe's hand and thanked him for looking out for me. Bud asked how many more runs I had with Steve, I told him two more and I wasn't sure when I would be starting with the Thomson's, I wanted to find a place to stay in Smithville and get moved before I did. He wished me luck and added that he would see me in a few days then.

I checked the load, did my walk-around and pointed the Beast toward Thomson Trucking and my future. An hour later, what Charlie had warned me about with my first run with a new truck happened, I heard a small grinding sound slowly grow into an angry pulley wanting in the worst way to fail. George had trained me well in those two short days. I pulled off at the first place that was safe and shut the Beast down. I set out my safety lights, made sure that I was visible to oncoming traffic and as far off the road as I safely could be.

I opened the hood and started looking for anything that looked out of place or odd. I lightly touched the pulleys one by one to see which one felt overly warm. When I touched the air conditioner pulley, I felt it move to my touch. Closer inspection told me that the pulley was being held on by one bent bolt that was wanting to go look for its missing buddies in the worst way. It was a quick fix if I had spare bolts, which I didn't, a little longer fix was to remove the belt and live without air conditioning for the rest of the trip.

I did notice the F-250 and its camper pulling off the road in front of me while I was suddenly figuring out that the fanbelt, I needed to remove was trapped behind the 3 others. I hated cutting a brand-new belt, but I couldn't leave it hanging there. My knife was sharp, but the fanbelt was fighting me. The guy from the truck stepped up and looked at what I was doing and told me to hang on. He went to his camper and returned with a bolt cutter that made quick work of the stubborn belt.

I thanked him for his help and gave the Beast another once over to make sure that there weren't any other obvious issues. He commented that it looked like a brand-new truck, and I told him it was her second run and I had been warned to watch for issues. I watched him pull out with his fancy looking camper trailer and had a light bulb go off over my head. I closed the Beast's but didn't latch it. I fired up the big diesel and just sat and listened for a few minutes. Not hearing anything out of place except the quietness of the air conditioner fan, I climbed out and did one more check under the hood.

Everything looked and sounded good, so I buttoned her up and eased back out onto the interstate. I had been stopped for a good 90 minutes. I called Steve and told him that the Beast was going to need service when I got back. I told him what had happened and what I had done to get back on the road. Next, I called Julie and welcomed her to the world of dating a truck driver. It was now the second time that our plans had to be changed for road issues. She assured me that at some point in our relationship, the Café was going to have a say in our plans too.

I still had to get to Thomson and get that new job nailed down. I pushed the Beast hoping to make up a little time. Rick and Ann were in the office waiting when I stepped on the porch and stopped to wipe my feet, grandma would be proud. My hands were still covered in wanna-be mechanic dirt and grease, so I asked for a bathroom before shaking either one of their hands. I managed to get most of it off while making a mental note to add gloves to my toolbox for Old751.

Grandma would have sent me back to do better, but she wasn't here, so I got away with it. Rick readily shook my hand, but Ann hesitated. I told her that I didn't blame her, they were still pretty bad. I told them about the trouble I had on the road, Jack said I was lucky because if that last bolt had let go it probably would have wrapped that belt around all the others and I would have lost a lot more than my air conditioner.

So, Ann interjected, I understand that you have another stop that you would rather be at than here. Let's get you under contract with us so you can get on your way. I thanked her for her thoughtfulness and started going through the contract. I only had to add in the name of my trucking company, my banking info for my checks to be deposited in, and my tax man number to make it all legal.

Presently I was finally on my way to the Lost Café. I wouldn't be starting with Thomsons for a month so that I could try to get settled somewhere. I started noticing all the trailers being hauled up and down the interstate. Some really looked tiny and cramped but others looked very roomy. It was going to take some fast research, but the idea had lots of merit.

I got into Smithville in the mid-afternoon. Julie had texted me to go on into her house and that she would be over in a little bit in response to my text about really needing a shower. 2/70 air conditioning doesn't work any better today than it did 50 years ago. I grabbed my go bag and walked into Julie's empty house. It felt a little strange but welcoming at the same time. I was drying off when I heard her come in. I was debating with myself whether I should get dressed or just assume when Julie burst in the bathroom door.

Darn, she said. I was hoping to get here before you finished, but this is close enough. She grabbed my hand and pulled me toward her bedroom while trying to undress herself with her other hand.

Lying next to each other in the afterglow of a quick but intense session of lovemaking lazily touching each other to let our fingers learn each other's bodies. I asked if this was going to be a regular greeting when I stopped or if I was getting special treatment as the new boyfriend. She responded that she wasn't sure yet but if it was always this nice, it would happen often. I pulled her even closer, not wanting it to end, but she had a Café to run, and I was still 3 hours from the end of my run.

I told her that we had some things that we needed to have a talk about and asked if she would have some time available in a couple days. She told me that she would be able to free up some time again in a couple of days, would an afternoon work best. With my drive from home, the afternoon would be great, and I could get things done in the morning. My list of things I needed to get done just kept growing.

We slowly untangled ourselves and got dressed. She did remember to ask when I started for Thomsons. I told her that except for the two runs for Steve, I had a month to try to get things all sorted out. She asked me if it could be arranged that we could take a couple of days and spend them together. Answering her, of course, if the Café could survive without her for that long. She informed me that Suzy and Gayle had been trained to do almost everything needed to run the front and that Manny had been training his brother Jorge to take over the kitchen when he needed to. The Café would be in good hands if she disappeared for a few days.

I must have looked surprised because she went on to tell me that she had been working toward that for a long time but the increase in business made it more appealing to Suzy and Gayle to want to step up. They had pretty much taken over mothering the waitresses and she had been able to take a step back and watch what she had been praying for for years finally start happening.

We can talk about it more when you come back, it sounds like we both have things on our minds that we want to share. It will be nice to have time to really talk about our future. She pointed to a lunch box sitting on the counter. I brought you some food for the road, I hope you worked up an appetite, she said, grinning mischievously at me. I told her that I was ravenous, and the food sounded good too.

This time I did watch her lovely backside as she walked to the Café, not because I didn't desire to take her again but because I knew that I would be seeing it again very soon. The afternoon was just beginning to cool down some when I headed the Beast toward home. I found that if I opened all the vents and windows, I could keep the inside temperature at a little more tolerable level. My lunch was a still warm bacon cheeseburger, onion rings and a piece of cherry pie that was going to wait for me to get home.

I backed the trailer into an empty slot at the receiving dock, unhooked the Beast and pulled her around to the shop for Oscar to do his worst too. I dropped my paperwork in the slot at the office and carried my stuff to my pickup, and texted Julie to let her know I was home safe. When I pulled in my driveway I saw Doug out at his grill. I decided that there was no time like the present and leaving my stuff in the truck, walked over to see if he and Sally had some time to talk. I waved coming across the yard and I heard him ask Sally to bring out another beer.

He invited me to stay for dinner, which I was tempted to do, but I told him that I was good and just wanted to talk with him and Sally, and we could do it while they ate. I could see that the burgers were getting very well done. Doug finally ended their torture and put them on a plate, and we went inside. Sally kept insisting that I eat with them, and I kept refusing, I don't think I could have choked down one of those hockey puck burgers with all the beer in the county. She finally gave up and they settled down to eat.

I started filling them in on what had been happening the last couple of weeks. I was almost to that point in the story when they both figured out that my tale was leading to the house being put up for sale. They both stopped eating and nervously watched me.

I couldn't let them suffer any longer and asked Doug if he had a dollar. Questionably, he reached in his pocket and pulled out a crumpled bill and handed it to me. I looked at it and commented that one would think that a man buying the house that he had been paying rent to live in for 15 years would at least pay for it with a nice crisp bill. It took a few seconds for them to realize what I had just said.

I shoved the dollar in my pocket and explained to them that unless they disagreed with the price, I would just sell them their house and we could sign the paperwork in the morning. I got a hug from Sally and Doug was sputtering what? How? I had to explain that when I bought the houses and had them sign the lease, Pete had put a clause in the lease that if they lived there for 8 years, instead of a lease, it became a contract for deed the was retroactive to the date of signing. When I had figured the fair value of the house against the rent they had paid, I couldn't just give them the house but thought that one dollar was a fair price.

They agreed to meet at Betty's office in the morning. I shook Doug's hand and got another hug from Sally to seal the deal. I did point out with a big smile, that the house was coming as-is and after the papers were signed, any issues were his to fix.

Julie, with her always impeccable timing, called just as I was walking out the door. We were able to talk for well over an hour before she told me that she had to let me go and get work done. I found it amazing that we could talk that long and that easily over nothing important, just the mundane humdrum of just another normal day. I don't ever remember having that with any other woman I had been with. And, just like that, I suddenly had a gut full of doubts and head full of regrets.

I spent the rest of the night fighting off the nagging feeling that I had made the biggest mistake of my life and had just ruined everything I had worked my whole life to obtain. My fitful dreams were filled with thoughts of ruin and heartbreak and dread. I gave up on sleeping early and tried to call Julie hoping that hearing her voice would chase these thoughts from my head. Unfortunately, I was greeted with a 'I can't talk, I have a plugged drain to deal with. And she hung up. I had to laugh at myself. The Café had claimed its time to interfere with our time together.

All through the morning I wrestled with that foreboding feeling that I was making a mistake, and it was too late to do anything about it. It wasn't selling the house to Doug and Sally, that felt absolutely like the right thing to do. Signing the house over to them went smoothly. Pete had met us at Betty's with all the papers he needed signed, and Betty had hers ready as well. Doug and Sally were ecstatic with the thought of finally owning the place they had called home for so long already. It did make me feel good doing the right thing by them, especially when Sally announced that they had been approved to adopt a baby they had been waiting for over a year.

Pete left to get the papers filed with the county clerk. Doug and Sally left to go spend next month's rent on a new nursery. Betty could sense that something was going on and she gathered the next batch of papers and set them aside. Looking very motherly at me she asked what was wrong. I started with the beginning, but she stopped me and said that she knew about all of that, she wanted to know what had changed from the other day when this brash young man came in her office ready to jump in with both feet into his new future, and now this hesitant, scared boy, rethinking his every move.

I told her about the very pleasant conversation I had with Julie last night and that I remembered thinking that I had never been with someone so easy to talk with and who made me feel like a giddy schoolboy sometimes, and suddenly all these dark and ominous thoughts filled my head, and I hadn't been able to shake them. She asked me about Julie and all the things that I liked about her.

I then went into every detail I remembered about the first time I had seen this sassy, curvy redhead and how my heart leaped every time I got near her. How my feelings for her grew every time I was able to spend even a few moments with her and if you don't give me those papers to sign and get my house sold so I could go and be with her I would find a realtor that would.

Betty was grinning from ear to ear and passed the paperwork over to me. When the last page was signed and notarized, I thanked Betty for reminding me that I was being an idiot. She told me I was welcome and that I should probably go and give that sexy redhead a call and finish getting my head back on straight.

I did just that. Sitting in my truck I called Julie and had a long conversation. I was brutally honest with her about what I had been through with my feelings the last 12 hours, and I admitted that, although it had been years, I did sometimes go to a very dark place. I hoped that, should it ever happen again, that she would be able to find the right words to bring me back. She told me that I knew enough of her story to also know that I wasn't alone in going to dark places. We agreed that as long as we both knew about them, then those dark places would be much harder to find us.

I let her get back to work feeling much lighter than I had this morning. For some strange reason, I felt like I needed to check in on Old751. My butt felt like it was right at home as soon as it was in her seat. She easily purred to a start as soon as I turned the key. Just riding in her to the truck wash lifted my spirits. She and the trailer got a good scrubbing in preparation for the new signage they were getting.

By the time I parked them at the print shop my surety that I was doing the right thing was back. I parked back by the old delivery doors and walked around to the front. I did the final approval on the logos for the cab and trailer and double checked the DOT numbers to the paperwork. They had worked up a computer picture of the decals on the cab and trailer and it only took a little adjusting to make me happy with the placement. I was happy to walk the mile back to George's shop to retrieve my pickup. The way I was getting fed lately was starting to show.

I headed back home to get some research on camper trailers. I needed to have an idea of what I thought I wanted before I went shopping for one. My original idea had expanded since Julie had made the comment that she thought that she would be able to get away once and a while. I would need something that she would be happy with too. I was several hours into comparing features and amenities when my phone ringing brought me back to reality.

Julie asked how I was feeling, and I told her that I was much better. I had talked with Old751 and was assured that she still had a plan in the works. She laughed at the idea that a truck was in charge of our happiness but at the same time glad that she approved. She wondered if I would like to lunch out at the lake again and maybe this time add a little swimming in. I told her that would be great, I had wanted to go back out there anyway, and that I would bring some trunks along to which she asked me why. That was a pretty direct hint I thought and didn't mind the idea at all.

This night, my dreams were not filled with dread and doom of last night but the visions of a shapely naked redhead frolicking in the lake and sunning herself on the dock. I dreamed of watching her lying on the dock, her wet body glistening in the sunshine. I heard the voice of George Costanza screaming, I was in the pool, its shrinkage, only to awaken to something that was far from shrinkage.

I spent the morning doing what I thought looked like the staging of my house. I wasn't a messy person by nature, but everyone has personal clutter sitting around. I just started finding places for some of those things I just never put away. Not being sure if I would be home tonight or sometime tomorrow, I made sure that there was nothing in the fridge that was going to go bad and gathered the trash to take out. I packed my go bag with all the essentials I thought I might need and headed out. Betty was in the front installing a for sale sign in the yard. She asked if it was okay to take some pictures to put online and I told her that I had just spent the morning making it look presentable so she could picture away.

She did comment that I sounded like I had recovered from yesterday and I thanked her again for helping and that yes, I was in a much better place. I started to leave but I recalled something that Betty had said yesterday so I asked her how she knew about me and Julie already. She told me that Charlie was her cousin and whenever he had to bring his truck to George, they would get to spend the day catching up and the topic the other day was me. That made sense to me. I left her to sell my house and headed out to some lunch and whatever else the day decided to bring.

Julie had texted to come to the house when I got to town, so I pulled into the parking lot next to her house. The woman that emerged from the house took my breath away. She was dressed in daisy dukes, a little crop top with a light plaid blouse over top of them. Her auburn hair was in braided pigtails that fit right in with the look she was going for. She bounded over to me and into my arms. I swung her around and planted a very happy kiss on her lips.