Chapter 38
It was like old times as I peddled down the road trying to stay out of the way of the cars and trying to keep my messenger bag from strangling me. That thing was heavy too between all the legal paperwork and the few items I bought at Dollar General. I knew how to get back to the Big House and the Bayou Cabins were just around the corner from there. Breaux Bridge was definitely different from living in Bradenton where everything was a bus ride apart.
The military vehicles were gone from the parking lot so I knew Auntie would have the house to herself. I debated running my messenger bag into my room, but I didn’t want to run to the risk of keeping Sarge waiting if it was some help he needed. I was a little worried for him. He was way too happy at breakfast after how sore he was coming in at 2 am. I was thinking he’d taken a pain pill.
Two more minutes and I was rolling into the check in area for the Cabins. I spotted his green swamp monster truck and pedaled straight over when I saw him limping to get something out of the back of his pick up.
“Sarge!”
He looked up and the aggravated look on his face lightened up. It lightened further when I said, “I’m sorry if I’m late. It took the full hour for the lawyer to fry my brains. Need help with something?”
He gave me a second look then asked, “What are you wearing?”
“Clothes.”
He grunted and waited me out.
“Fine. Stuff that I found going through Uncle Henley’s boxes. They’re clean and …”
“Whoa girl, I … I wasn’t criticizing. Just it makes you look … different.”
This time I grunted. “Well I couldn’t exactly go to a meeting in the clothes I’ve been wearing day in and day out for months. Bad enough I had to wear my Scout pants and hiking boots.”
“Your hair looks better.”
I chuckled. “You have to be the only guy on the planet that would notice that I cut the frizzy fried ends off. Watcha doing?”
“Replacing an outlet and installing a GFCI. Have you eaten yet?”
I didn’t want to spend money and I guess it showed on my face. “I’ll grab …”
“Relax Ava. Auntie sent me off with enough turkey sandwiches to feed us both. Help me get cleaned up here and we’ll go over to the park … where you’re gonna be singing tomorrow.”
“ARGH!!!”
Sarge starts laughing and then grimaces.
“See what you get?” I told him.
“It’s worth it to see that face you made.”
I followed him into #12 and try and not say anything about how … er … antique-y looking the place is. He snickers again at my expression and says, “Sure do don’t it. But it was famous and people used to pay good money to stay here. And … it’s nice most of the year. Only time it gets miserable is during the hottest part of the summer when the bugs get really bad. It was so well-known that famous people used to come to stay. ‘Course you probably wouldn’t know them.”
“Like who?” I ask as I start picking up the box and Styrofoam the AC came in.
“Hank Williams Jr. – met him when I was a boy matter of fact. Merle Haggard. TV star guy named Mike Rowe.”
“Bocephus!”
“Oh ho … we got us a country girl?”
“Maybe,” I said with a grin.
We finished and as I looked up I saw someone start to roll off with my bike. I took off like a shot out of the cabin and just managed to grab the guy by the back of his pants before he could get going good. “Hey!”
He swung a fist at me, but I expected it and still had a mallet in my hand that had been going to the toolbox. I got him on the side of his knee. I heard a pop and the guy fell over with my bike and then got up and ran-limped away. “Don’t take what doesn’t belong to you you tweeking jerk!”
It all happened so quickly that Sarge was just showing up as I was picking up my bike and checking it over for damage. “Ava!”
“I’m fine,” I growled.
Another voice said, “Wowee. You’s a hellcat girl.”
“Mr. Julius?! You know that jerk?” He was covered from the knees down in grass clippings so I didn’t have to ask how he just happened to be around.
“Seen him hanging out at the Food-n-Fun.”
Sarge interjected, “Okay, that’s enough. Julius, don’t give her any ideas. Ava, is the bike damaged?”
I got on it and tried to ride in a circle. Tried being the operative word. I cursed and then got off to find the chain kinked and the metal starting to tear at one of the links. I threw the mallet down and cursed again. One step forward three or four steps backwards. “I don’t need this dang it!”
“Easy Ava, it looks like it is just the chain.”
“Just the chain?! This is an ebike. The chain for it probably costs around fifty bucks or more! I already have to replace the tire fix stuff that I borrowed. I … ARGH!”
I jumped to feel a hand pat my shoulder. “Know that feeling. We all in the same boat around here. Try and not take it to heart and let it eat ya up.”
I wanted to curse again but something about Mr. Julius and how truly he seemed to understand not just the mad I was feeling, but why I was mad, helped me to pull myself together. I picked up the mallet since I’d been the one to throw it and said, “Fine. I had a run in with a member of Jerks United. That don’t mean I need to let them cause me to lose my religion. I’m Queen of Crapwork. I’ll just have to hunt me up some. Assuming I can find the right kind of chain around here.”
Sarge, seeing that I was calming down said, “Might try a motorcycle dealership. If they don’t have one, they might not a local supplier.”
Mr. Julius told him, “Jobert works at Scooter’s. Might could try calling him. Or have Tib do it; they’ve worked trades before.”
“Good idea,” Sarge said while the grief of “losing” my bike was starting to set in for me. “C’mon Ava. Let’s get the bike in the back of my truck. I’ll chain it down so we can run some errands.”
We were about to take off when I asked Sarge to give me a sec. I ran over to Mr. Julius and said, “Thanks. Not too many people can stop me when my mad gets going. Um … sorry I showed my backside.”
“Aw … don’t start trying to sweet talk me,” he said with a grin. “You still going to have to trim back that willow down at the retention pond.”
I laughed and said, “And here I thought I was gonna get something over on ya.”
He laughed even harder and shooed me off so he could start the lawnmower up once again. I ran back over and climbed in Sarge’s truck. He asked, “Feel better?”
“Depends what you’re asking about. Feel better about the bike getting damaged? No. Feel better about letting the tweeker get away? Heck no. Feel better about all the rigamarole I gotta deal with from Uncle Henley? Uh uh. Feel better about not being rude to an old guy who was just trying to help? Yeah. A little.”
“We’ll pull over in a minute and eat a sammich. Don’t know about you but I work better with something on my stomach.”
“Can’t make things worse, that’s for sure.”
We crossed the bridge that goes over Bayou Teche and then in less than five minutes we were pulling into a Wendy’s drive thru. There was a Walmart right next door and I could see I10 just a little further up the road.
“You want a chocolate Frosty or a vanilla one.”
“Uh … vanilla?” I said hoping that they took scrip.
At the window he said, “Two large Frosties, one chocolate, one vanilla. One large fry and a side salad.”
I kept my mouth shut but I was still wondering. He got the bag o’ food and the two Frosties and then pulled us into the back corner of the Walmart parking lot. After putting it in park and turning the engine off he said, “We can split the fries and since Fabrice helped put the sandwiches together I can tell you that there’s going to be cranberry sauce on them and not much else. We’ll dress the sammiches with the salad.”
I shrugged. “I like cranberry sauce.”
“I do too. Just not in place of the rest of the sandwich fixings. And yep, that girl knows me from last time. She put a couple packs of mayo in the bag.”
“Oh you don’t.”
“Don’t what?” he asked with an innocent look.
“You eat mayo on your fries.”
He barked a laugh. “How did you know that?”
“There was a boy from Jersey in our troop and he ate mayo on his fries. That’s nasty. Or it is plain. Now you mix some ketchup up in it and it isn’t too bad.”
He laughed again, explained he’d picked up the habit during his first tour after Basic, as we split the lunch and I still don’t know why. We’d finished eating and were dividing things up so we could drop it in the regular trash and the mandatory recycle bins and he caught me thinking.
He then surprised me by reading my mind and saying, “No, you’re not walking back. You’d have to go right by the Food-n-Fun and I ain’t having it. I got the rest of the day free. Let’s go see what’s left of the Door Busters and then I’ll drive you where you need to go.”
“You don’t have to do that. I’m used to getting around by …”
“Got two reasons if you’ll hear me out. First is, whether she means to or not Auntie will ask real nice for some help. She’s just that way. She doesn’t mean anything bad by it, just she’s used to having her way and too often her way – nice or not – comes at the expense of someone else’s time.”
“But …”
He continued like I hadn’t tried to speak. “Second reason is … I need … a distraction. I gave in to temptation this morning and … and I know as soon as this damn pill runs out I’m going to feel like I’m hurting twice as bad whether I am or not.” I realized he was no longer looking at me. I realized something else too. He wasn’t fooling, he did need my help or thought he did.
“I’ll take the second reason over the first,” I told him. “So since we are running errands, I need to replace what I borrowed out of the work shed and I need to get a hasp lock too.”
“What’s Auntie wanting locked up now?”
“Not Aunt Orélie. Me. Seems Uncle Henley left a storage locker with some furniture in it. The lawyer thinks I should change the locks. Sooner rather than later.”
He asked where the locker was located and I gave him the address and he said we might as well take care of it before we went back “home” as not. We had to grab a buggie from the lot as we went since it didn’t look like anyone was taking them inside. He used one to … well it looked like he needed a walker, but I didn’t tell him that. I pushed ten of them into the store and left them there.
“Why’d you do that?”
“’Cause I could. Plus it keeps people from giving us dirty looks … like the old people and people with kids. I’m not in the mood to be chewed on, even if it is just by some eyes.”
He snorted a laugh and we were off like salmon trying to swim upstream. Store looked pretty picked over. There were big red boxes all up and down the wider aisles that were empty or getting there, with clerks trying to either put more stuff out or combine boxes so that they could get some more space so there wouldn’t be so many traffic jams. We went to back of the store where the automotive stuff was. He got an education on how educated I was about auto maintenance and repair.
We strolled by the tool area. Sarge told me that once upon a time most of the stuff in there would have been cheap Chinese junk but that after the last bad pandemic things started to change. I could have told him that Dad told me about all of that stuff when I was a little kid but I didn’t want to make him feel bad or useless. I was supposed to be keeping him distracted after all.
“You know what kind of hasp the locker has?”
“No,” I answered. “But it is a kwikset right now, if the keys are correct. I’d prefer a Master Lock with a shrouded shackle.”
“Know what you want do you?”
I grinned and said, “Yeah. I’m that type of girl.” I sighed and saw they had what I wanted but they weren’t cheap. I knew they weren’t from previous experience but since I only needed one I grabbed it.
“Let me get it. You can …”
“No,” I told him sharply. Then sighed. “That was rude. Look Sarge, I got paid I just …” I shrugged. “One step forward, two steps back. The lawyers said that I only got a partial ‘paycheck’ – they were talking about the staple junk mostly – and that they’d make it up later but, kinda made me wonder. Now I’ve got a monthly bill for a storage locker. I’ve got it covered until the end of summer but that only means I gotta keep saving to make sure I can cover it beyond that. I need to replace the stuff I borrowed from the work shed, but the bike also needs a new tire eventually. And that doesn’t even touch the cost of the broken chain. And I have a list of things I need … just ‘cause a girl needs things.” When he didn’t say anything I muttered, “Sorry for the TMI.”
“Huh? Naw Cher. Just realizin’ …”
“Realizing what?”
“Nothin’. Er … the pill is startin’ to wear off. Keep talkin’.”
“You want to sit down?”
“Naw. I sit too soon we’re going to be in trouble. I gotta be able to drive.”
“I can drive. Sorta.”
“Hmph,” he chuckled. “I think that might give me the motivation to keep going. Besides you don’t have a license. Remember?”
“Monsieur je-sais-tout.”
He laughed and we kept walking around the store, avoiding aisle blockages when we could. Not sure exactly how it happened but we started putting stuff in the buggy and soon enough we needed to leave. We split some of it at the self-serve check out but some he wouldn’t let me pay my share for. There was shelf stable cheese, a couple of summer sausages, two bags of pork rinds, and goofy stuff like bacon-flavored hard candy, sweet potato butter, pumpkin butter, blackstrap molasses (made from sugar cane). I got a couple of apple sodas and Shirley Temple sodas as well as some of the things on Ava’s List like the stuff to replace what I borrowed and and girl stuff for back up so I wouldn’t run out at an inconvenient time. I was worried Sarge would say something to embarrass me but instead he said, “Relax. You’re a female. You need stuff. Just don’t go tossing it around like a football and it won’t bother me.”
The one thing that really irritated me was the fact he insisted on getting me a phone. “Stop quacking Caneton. Auntie said the lawyer agreed to foot the bill for the first bundle of minutes since you are on call as needed. I’m getting the phone because I’ve got the credits to do it and because it gives me heartburn to have you running around without some way to get help if you need it. No more noise about it.”
Noise? I’ll give him noise. Danged ol’ do-gooder syndrome is what he’s got where I’m concerned. Gonna break him of that as soon as I can figure out how not to hurt his feelings when I do it.
Since I don’t like owing, I gave it some thought – he said he could smell the smoke and I nearly kicked him - I picked up some stuff my father used to swear by. It used to be called BioFreeze but you can get it generic now so it goes by a lot of different names these days. I picked up some lidocaine patches too. He was out of medical ration coupons so this was me paying him back, or starting to pay him back. I explained the patches go on his back, the BioFreeze on his leg. “Don’t reverse them or you’re going to wind up yodeling Dixie when you pull the hair off your leg.” His little bit of cranky leaned hard in the other direction as he had to hold onto the buggy to keep from laughing and losing his balance.
Since I was using scrip instead of a debit card I had to put my thumb print on the screen. I’d never seen that before but Sarge said it has been common around here for a while. They had a problem with stolen and counterfeit scrip for a while. A manager also had to come over and check my ration book for the cheese and sausage since it was the first time I went into the system. When the woman would have said something, Sarge showed his Military ID and things went smoother. We finally got out of there and it was on to the storage locker.
Happy, happy happy dance! Two chapters! Thank you Kathy.
