Emend by EclipseChapter 2
- 3 years ago
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November 22, 1979
Benny walked into his parent’s house without knocking. After all, this was his family home and he had been invited for dinner. It was his first visit in nine months. He had begged off on other invitations using the excuse of school or working on houses. There just weren’t too many excuses one could use to escape Thanksgiving. He did manage to surprise the whole family by being early. Not everyone was happy to see him.
Upon entering the house, Lana screamed at him, “You didn’t knock! You don’t live here, anymore. You have to knock before you come in.”
Benny ignored her, with the consequence that it really got her going. Her screams got louder.
“Lana! Shut up,” her father bellowed from the kitchen.
“He didn’t knock!”
“He doesn’t need to knock.”
“He doesn’t live here anymore. He has to knock.”
“He’s still a member of this family. He doesn’t have to knock.”
Lana glared at Benny and said, “You have to knock.”
By this time, most people would probably want to pound Lana six feet under with a pile driver, but Benny really didn’t care. It was like listening to mindless chatter, one just doesn’t pay any attention to it. That was what really fueled her fury - he just didn’t care what she thought.
His mother and father came out from the kitchen. His father had been snacking on the celery sticks prepared to go with dinner.
“Where’s Cathy?”
“She’s not coming,” Benny answered.
His mother looked over at the extra place at the time. She had just assumed that Cathy would be coming with him.
“Oh. Is there a problem between you two?”
“There’s no problem,” Benny answered not understanding the direction in which the questions were headed.
“So why isn’t she here with you?”
“She’s having Thanksgiving with Sandra.”
Wanting to get a dig in, Lana said, “She got smart and dumped him.”
His mother, concerned that Benny might have been dumped by her, asked, “You don’t think it is odd that a woman doesn’t spend Thanksgiving with her fiancee?”
“She’s not my fiancee.”
“She’s not?”
“No. We’re just friends.”
“You dated forever.”
“Yes, but it was nothing serious,” Benny replied. “It was convenient for both of us.”
Three pairs of eyes stared at him wondering what he meant by it was convenient for both of them. That was not a normal way to describe a dating relationship. His father assumed that they went together on double dates because Tim was dating Sandra and Cathy was her best friend. His mother was just puzzled by it.
“I knew it! You’re a queer!” Lana shouted.
“Get your sick mind out of the gutter.”
“You’re a queer!”
“If you ever say that to me again or about me to anyone else, I will make you pay,” Benny said in that calm deliberate manner which suggested he was very serious.
As if daring him, she asked, “What will you do?”
Wishing that he had access to a photoshop program, Benny said, “I’ll go into the dark room at school and use the equipment there create a picture of you having sex with a woman. It will be a very explicit picture and there will be no doubt that it is you in the photograph and that you’re having sex with another woman. I’ll send it to a couple of people at school.”
Lana’s eyes bulged out.
“Can you really do that?” his father asked.
“Yes. It would take some time, but the photographic techniques are rather simple. Find a picture of a person that’s similar to the person you’re going to add into the image, block out the original face, and use a double exposure to put the alternate face on it. Use a filter to soften the image so that no hard lines show up. Print it and you’re done. It’s how they do special effects in Hollywood. It can be quite convincing, particularly if people want to believe it.
“You’ve seen in movies where someone does a kind of transformation over a couple frames of the movie. Person turns from a regular person to some kind of monster. It’s just simple photographic manipulation. The hardest part is getting the base image right.
“I’d go to the adult store and buy some lesbian pornography. I’m sure that out of a couple of magazines, I’d find a picture of someone who’s body looked close enough to Lana to be effective. To be honest, I don’t think it would take too long to find an image that would work.”
“You can’t do that,” his mother said horrified.
“I can and I would,” Benny said. He looked at Lana and said, “I’m tired of you talking crap about me. It ends, now.”
She swallowed.
“Do you have anything further that you want to say about my sexual orientation?”
“No,” Lana answered.
Extremely worried that she was going to have a suicidal daughter on her hands, his mother said, “Benny, please don’t do that to your sister. You have no idea what it would do to her.”
“I know exactly what it will do to her. It will destroy her. It’s her choice. I’ve made a promise, and I’ll keep it. She says that to me again, or says that about me, I will deliver. Everyone will believe she’s a lesbian, and there will be what looks like photographic proof to back that up.”
His father said, “Benny. Don’t.”
“Dad. She’s stepped over the line. I’ve now delivered a warning. It’s up to her to decide what happens next.”
“Benny, you can’t do that.”
Benny looked at his parents and then Lana. He pursed his lips. He turned and walked to the wall with family pictures. He removed a recent picture of Lana from the wall and headed towards the door. Everyone watched him trying to grasp was happening.
“Benny!” his father shouted. “Don’t go!”
“Sorry, Dad. It’s been better this time around, but Lana is a bitch. She always has been, and she always will be.”
Benny waved the frame with the photograph around. He turned and walked out leaving behind a family that was absolutely stunned by his actions.
Tim and Lily entered her parent’s house ... without knocking. Everyone was happy to see her. Everyone meant quite a crowd. It was a large family gathering. Sandra’s parents were there. They were expecting Cathy and Sandra to arrive at any minute.
Lily had been living on her own for almost three months with only a couple of visits over that time. Her mother and father wanted to hear about her adventures in school. She was more than happy to tell them. Tim stood back and watched.
After the initial flurry of conversation, her father asked, “What can I get for you two to drink?”
“I don’t know,” Lily answered a little puzzled by the question.
“Beer, wine, scotch...”
Rather uncertain how she should answer, Lily meekly replied, “I’ll take some wine?”
“One wine for the lady. How about for you, Tim?”
“Iced tea.”
His answer seemed to surprise everyone. There weren’t too many young folks around who would turn down a beer or a glass of wine, particularly around other adults. Extending the offer by a parent was a -kind of acknowledgment that the child was an adult.
“Iced tea? Really?”
“If it’s not a bother. Water is just as good.”
“It’s no bother,” her father said. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like a beer?”
“Benny and I don’t drink. It’s not because we have a problem with it. It’s just, we’ve never really wanted it.”
“I didn’t know that,” Lily’s father said.
“It’s true. We’re just not drinkers of alcoholic beverages.”
Lily’s father went off to the kitchen and returned with a glass of wine for Lily and a glass of iced tea for Tim.
Tim raised his glass and said, “Happy Thanksgiving.”
Everyone else raised their glass and replied.
“So, Tim. Now that you’ve fixed up all of the houses, what have you been doing with your time?”
“Believe it or not, I haven’t been doing much of anything. I can’t really afford to do much at the current time. Everything we’ve got to spare has been put into the silver market.”
Sandra’s father said, “I didn’t believe you when you told me it was going to take off, so I didn’t invest right away. I finally bought in at thirteen, after watching it for three months. It’s sitting at sixteen, now. I’m thinking of selling it. That’s better than a twenty percent return.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. We’re not selling until it hits forty,” Tim said.
Both Mr. Millers were speechless. The idea that the price silver could hit $40 an ounce sounded outrageous. A couple years before then, when the highest silver got was a little over $4 an ounce people would have laughed at you for even suggesting it would go up to $10. When it reached $6, people didn’t think it would ever go any higher than that. No one would laugh now. The question anyone following the market was asking was how high would it go. Tim had just planted a flag in the ground.
Like everyone else Tim trusted, they were all collecting silver coins as fast as they could. It was amazing just how many silver coins from before 1964 were in circulation. A dime or a quarter was just change. Enough change added up to a dollar. Very few people thought about coins in terms of their silver content, at least not enough to remove silver coins from circulation. The price of silver hadn’t really captured the imagination of the public so folks hording silver coins hadn’t become common. Even by 2024, sixty years after they were last minted, there were still a few silver coins in circulation.
The topic of conversation soon shifted from silver back to college, particularly when Cathy and Sandra arrived. They were sophomores, now. There was a bit of wisdom of having ‘been there and done that’ getting passed to Lily. Some of the advice, such as don’t put off writing papers until the last minute, was likely to be ignored, just as they had ignored that kind of advice during their first semester in college. Tim, not being in college, sat off to the side listening to the discussion.
Finally, the call to come to table was sent out from the kitchen. It was soon followed by traffic to and from the kitchen to deliver food. The family took seats at the table in a chaotic manner as everyone tried to figure out some kind of seating order. All that anyone agreed on was that the two Mr. Millers belonged at opposite ends of the table.
The turkey that Lily’s mother carried out of the kitchen was huge. Tim estimated that it had to have weighed over 20 pounds. Once all of the food was on the table and everyone was seated, the dishes started making the rounds. It wasn’t long before each plate was overloaded with food. There was a slight pause while Lily’s father said grace. It was Thanksgiving and tradition demanding thanking God for the plenty that came to them.
Tim listened to the prayer thinking about the world that he had left when he died. Thanksgiving had stopped being about thanking God. He really wasn’t sure who or what people were thanking for the good fortune that came their way. More often than talk about appreciating what they had, the conversation was about Black Friday sales. It seemed to him that even Black Friday had changed from being a day of actual low prices to a day of pretend low prices.
They hadn’t been eating for more than five minutes when the telephone rang. Irritated at the interruption, Mrs. Miller went to answer it. She came back a minute later to tell Tim that the call was for him. This was odd enough to attract attention. Everyone watched him when he returned to the table with expression of curiosity.
October 27, 1973 It was nearing noon on a Saturday morning and Benny was walking eastbound towards the intersection at which he would turn right to head southwards towards home. He was returning from school after having just finished taking the PSAT. Although he knew that what was going to happen in a few minutes would be important, he was more worried about his score on the test. It hadn’t been that difficult, but it had been a real struggle concentrating enough to get each section finished...
November 11, 1973 After backing the van out of the garage, Benny turned the key off and listened to the engine die. He was afraid that it might diesel or backfire. Outside of a bad muffler and exhaust pipe, the van was running like a Swiss watch. Even his father had been impressed on hearing the van running. “All we need is a muffler.” “Skip agreed to fix it. All we have to do is get it there,” Tim said continuing a conversation that had begun well before Benny had started the van. Tim had...
January 14, 1974 Mrs. Parnell watched the two boys who were hard at work. She was having second thoughts, wondering if she had made a good decision to hire them to clean the office building she owned. They were so young, but they had come across very professionally in selling the idea of contracting their cleaning service. Their professionalism aside, she had been more tempted by the chance to get the cleaning of the common area off her shoulders. The price they had quoted her was...
May 24, 1974 Tim and Benny had been cleaning the two office buildings for five months less eleven days. They had been paid $2,400 so far with another $600 coming in a few days. They had over $800 of that money sitting in the war fund. They had spent some money on paying for insurance, gasoline, cleaning supplies, and a second vacuum cleaner. They had used $600 of that money to buy a 1962 F-150 pickup truck and to completely rebuild it. For most days, the truck remained parked in front of...
August 8, 1974 It was a Thursday and the weather was reasonable. It had started out at 70 degrees at 8:00 when they started mowing lawns and hit 81 when they finished shortly before noon. The weatherman said it would reach 90 in the afternoon, but they’d be done with all of their outdoor activities by then. The worst they would suffer was to drive around in the van which lacked an air conditioner. They had just finished showering and changing out of their yard work clothes. They ate a quick...
September 3, 1974 With the start of a new school year, Tim and Benny were now driving different vehicles to school. Tim was driving the truck and Benny was driving the van. Sometimes they traded off vehicles for situations when one had a need that was better supported by the other vehicle. With school starting, they couldn’t mow lawns first thing in the morning. Getting out at 3:30, they could only get three lawns mowed before 5:00 when they needed to start cleaning the first office. With...
November 24, 1974 It was Sunday afternoon. The day outside was in the high 40s, the sky was clear and the wind was blowing at a nearly constant 20 mph. Taking into account the wind chill, it felt like the mid-30s, it was a good day to stay inside. Tim and Benny were taking it easy at Benny’s house. Now that the weather had turned decidedly colder, they were done with mowing lawns and painting curbs. Their work week now consisted of cleaning office buildings. The good news for them was that...
December 13, 1974 Sandra Miller and Cathy Peterson glared at Tim when he sat down at the lunch table across from them. He had just walked over and sat down without any kind of invitation. Cathy said, “Go away.” “No. I have a proposition for the two of you.” “We’re not interested.” “Yes, you are.” “Are you stupid or something?” “No. In a couple of weeks we will be entering the Christmas holidays. That’s normally a reason to celebrate, particularly since we’ll be out of school for almost...
May 10, 1975 The day was perfect for painting curbs. The temperature the previous night had never gotten below 54 degrees. It was overcast, but there was no rain predicted for the day. The temperature climbed into the seventies around three in the afternoon. It was the first Saturday of the year where they could paint curbs. Sure, there were a lot of days in the middle of the week where they could have painted, but they only worked the curb painting business on Saturdays when homeowners were...
May 24, 1975 Trust is an interesting thing. If you have it, it’s easy to lose. If you don’t have it, it’s nearly impossible to gain. Some people just can’t trust others no matter what. Others shouldn’t be trusted no matter how nicely they smile. When Suzie was five, she broke the cookie jar. Still holding the cookie in her hand, she solemnly swore that she was nowhere near the cookie jar when it mysteriously fell off the counter. Sam tossed a ball through the window when he was seven. He...
May 27, 1975 There was a bit of a chill in the air that morning. The four young people were all wearing jackets to keep warm. The mayor was going along organizing the participants in the parade. They had the fire department with their fire truck, the EMT squad with their new ambulance, and the police department riding front and back. Sandwiched in there were the scouts, cub and boy scouts and brownie and girl scouts. The high school band was there despite the fact that school had ended the...
June 18, 1975 Gladys Parker was born in 1903. At 72, her eyesight was failing, her hands trembled, and she wasn’t as spry as she had once been. She lived alone, but it was getting harder to maintain her independence. Her children had taken away her driver’s license because her eyesight wasn’t good enough. Even she had to admit that she didn’t feel comfortable behind the wheel of a car and had known it was time to stop driving. Her children were pressuring her to sell the house and move into...
August 18, 1975 June, July, and the first half of August had passed with glacial slowness. The weekdays were filled with work, starting early in the morning and lasting until late at night. Yet the money kept growing, slowly but surely. They now had five crews with each crew mowing lawns at four lawns a day and five days a week. Their profit on a lawn was three dollars so they were bringing in $300 a week net. The season would last about 20 weeks and bring in $6,000 in profit. Most of their...
August 22, 1975 During the summer, Fridays were usually the worst day of the week for Tim and Benny, particularly on Fridays before a Saturday which the weatherman had said would be nice. Fridays were already a little stressful because it came at the end of the week after everyone had been working. Then the morning was spent mowing lawns in the heat. After they finished the lawn, it was payday for the mowing crews and paying people actually took a lot of time. The afternoons were spent going...
August 25, 1975 Benny sat up in his bed and then turned so that his legs hung off the side. It was Monday and it was going to be a very busy day. It was the kind of day that was the most difficult for him. He was going to have to be around a lot of people, and they were going to ask questions. He could handle any question they could put to him, but they weren’t going to give him time to think about the most accurate answer. He was always ill at ease in those situations. He pulled off his...
September 5, 1975 It was 9:30 at night and they had just finished cleaning the office buildings. They’d had to let their regular crews leave at their normal time, which had dumped all of the work on the backs of Benny, Tim, Cathy, Sandra, and Terry. They were tired and hungry. They were at a chain restaurant waiting for an overworked waitress to show up and take their orders. Benny and Tim had to admit defeat. There were too many lawns to mow and not enough time or people to mow them. They...
September 14, 1975 “Where’s Benny?” “He’s around,” Tim answered. Cathy was genuinely concerned about Benny. She wondered if his absence had anything to do with the sudden sale of the lawn mowing company. She was convinced that Tim and Benny had a fight, and that Benny had left. “You keep saying that.” “He wanted alone time. I’m giving it to him,” Tim said. “I need to know what happened to him.” Tim replied, “You and Sandra wanted alone time, I gave it to you. Benny wanted alone time, I...
November 16, 1975 Sean McCray stood in the middle of the living room surveying the chaos of the place. He was 62 years old and hoping to retire. His parents had passed away four years ago with nothing in their estate except for this old house. He and his sister had inherited the place, but that wasn’t saying much. His father had never updated anything in the house since he bought it. The house was a white elephant. No one wanted to buy it as it currently stood, and it would cost more money...
November 28, 1975 “I’m going to have to fail your wiring.” “You are?” Tim did not sound at all upset. “Yes.” “Why?” “I’ve never seen such a bad job. It looks like a bumbling amateur did the work.” Because the laws had changed in 1974, the older simple two prong receptacle was no longer allowed to be installed in houses. New outlets were required to use the three prong grounded receptacle. While they had not been required to upgrade the outlets, the old wire motivated them to upgrade...
February 9, 1976 “I had a deal with Principal Haley.” Principal Atkinson said, “Mr. Haley isn’t here anymore. I’m his replacement, and I’m in charge now. You don’t have a deal with me.” “I had a deal with the institution of the school. Principal Haley was its representative. You can’t change a deal between the institution and me.” “Now I represent the institution, and the deal is null and void.” “Why can’t we keep things as they were?” “Benny, I find your absences from classes to be...
February 14, 1976 Valentine’s Day is the one day of the year in which couples in love are expected to demonstrate their attraction in some romantic manner. For many, the demonstration should be in a public forum where others can see the expression of romantic love, at least as much demonstration of it which can be performed in public. Flowers, chocolates, and dinner out are classics only because so many lovers choose to do it that way. Or course, that inflates the price of it all. Earnest...
June 1, 1976 The school year was over, the temperature was comfortable, the wind wasn’t blowing hard, and it was dry. This was the first day that they could begin scraping the exterior of the lead house. Until then, the weekends had been too cold to work outside, or too windy for scraping, or both. Since they could only work on the weekends during the school year, they knew it would have taken more than a month to remove the lead paint. Now that school was over and the weather was nice, they...
June 23, 1976 Some car models have an appeal that is universal. From the first day they were rolled off the assembly line, to the day the last one remains in existence, there are some cars that are special. One of those cars was the Chevrolet Standard Phaeton. As soon as Tim saw it, he fell in love with it. It was in sad shape, but Tim had to have it. “I have no idea how we’re going to get it out of here,” Benny said in disgust. There was a tree growing through the engine compartment. It...
July 21, 1976 Sean McCray sat at the table next to Tim. He was still feeling a little stung by the dressing down he had gotten from Benny and tended to keep his distance from him. Yet, he had to admit that the kids had delivered more than what they had contracted to pay him and his sister. After paying the commission to the real estate company, he was personally getting $6,911 out of the sale. This was more than he had expected after learning about the real condition of the house. The...
August 17, 1976 It was nearing noon and the temperature had just hit 91. Benny had been walking around the property since 10:00 and he was nearly dead from the heat. He headed back towards the house, wanting to cool off in the air conditioning. He spotted another plant and stopped to hit it with a couple blasts of weed killer, known as Agent White, which the State Police had provided him. He continued on his way to the house. Reaching the back door, he put down the canister next to the door...
September 16, 1976 Cathy stared at the check for $6,893.33, unable to believe that she was actually holding that much money. The house had sold for $44,000 and that was her share of the sale. Sandra had a check for the same amount. Neither one could believe it. They each had another check for $163.23 which was what was left in the account which had held the money to fix up the house. Benny said, “You’re going to get hit with capital gains, but it shouldn’t be that bad. You’ll need to...
November 14, 1976 Cathy placed the plate with the pot roast on the table with pride. It was a crock pot recipe with celery, potatoes, carrots, and onions cooked with it. Mrs. Parker had given her the recipe and watched her prepare it. The dish looked great and she hoped that it would taste great as well. She took a seat at the table next to Benny and across from Sandra. Mrs. Parker was seated at the head of the table with Benny and Tim to her sides. It was a simple gathering of friends for...
November 17, 1976 Tim and Benny assisted Sandra and Cathy in removing their heavy winter coats. The two young ladies sought out Gladys’ family having been invited to sit with the family. The young men carried the coats to the coat rack that was off to the side of the entryway into the funeral parlor. They hung the ladies’ coats and then removed their own. It was a little awkward since they were wearing their winter coats over their suit coats. The temperature outside was a chilly 36 degrees...
December 31, 1976 The temperature outside was bitterly cold. At 4:00 in the afternoon, it had hit a high of 23 degrees. With the gas heater, the temperature in the outbuilding where they were sitting was in the low 50s. They were looking at the 1935 Chevrolet Standard Phaeton admiring the paint job they had just spent $900 on. That was a huge amount of money to spend on a paint job at the time, but it was worth every penny. Benny said, “Mohair seat covers.” “I thought they made sweaters...
July 20, 1977 Benny graduated and, as a result of his parent’s demand, he walked the stage and received a roll of paper that was supposed to represent the diploma. Tim told him that he had walked the first time through, but he didn’t remember it. It was highly unlikely he would remember this time, either. He had spent the walk mostly staring off into space thinking about things. After the ceremony, he went to the office and picked up the actual diploma. With the high school diploma, and his...
July 22 1977 After one day of taking Darvon, Tim swore he’d never take another one. It wasn’t because it made him nauseous or ill. It was just that the light headed detached feeling it produced reminded him of each time they increased his pain killers while he was dying of cancer. For a day or two, he’d feel the drugs, but then the pain would return, and remind him again that he was dying. That was a memory that he’d rather not recall. At the moment, he was carefully painting the trim...
August 17, 1977 It was at 11:14 on this surprisingly cool Tuesday morning when Benny finally received the certificate of occupancy for the house, and he was legally free to move into it. He looked at the slip of paper and put it on the kitchen counter. With a wad of bills in his pocket that was large enough to choke a horse, he and Cathy got into the van and headed to the largest department store in the area: Wal-Mart. Sandra and Tim followed in the truck with Sandra driving. They parked the...
October 19, 1977 The university’s semester was half over and Benny had mid-terms this week. He wasn’t exactly stressed out by them. His math class was a snap. He did have some concerns about the English class, which was taught by a woman who was in love with poetry; and the history class, which was taught by a ‘memorize the event and date’ type of professor. His chemistry class was something new for him, and was requiring him to work at learning new material. He was also taking a government...
November 24, 1977 An odd kind of emotion appears in parents of young men and women who are about to venture out on their own. It is most pronounced during holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. There’s this sense that the family is starting to fragment with a child leaving the nest. As a result, there is a tendency to demand all of the children appear at home during the holidays. Sandra’s parents were coming to the realization that their daughter was already testing her wings in...
February 8, 1978 Snow is a rarity in Oklahoma City. It doesn’t take much snow on the ground to bring ‘the world’ to a halt. It’s a result of not having salt trucks, or snow removal equipment. Unfortunately, it’s seldom just snow, alone. It’s often preceded by drizzle, rain, or sleet. If the ground is cold enough for the snow to stick, it’s cold enough for water to freeze. The result is ice covered by snow. The primary hazard of that kind of weather isn’t trip and fall accidents - although...
April 22, 1978 The prom is a special occasion, particularly for seniors. It’s the last hurrah of high school. This makes it the social event to cap off the entire education experience which — as everyone knows, or should know — is more social than intellectual. It is a big deal and no one wants to show up without a date. Those without a date are more likely going to stay home rather than suffer the social embarrassment of showing up alone. Young men worry and fret if the young woman they ask...
April 25, 1978 Reading the newspaper, Robert Kane sat behind the desk at the pawn shop in his high tech wheel chair. This one, the latest of many, had a motor that pushed it along and a little knob that he could use to steer it. He had lots of things that allowed him to overcome any difficulties posed by his lost legs. It wasn’t that he was lazy, but it did allow him to move around while holding things in his hands. He heard the jangle of the cowbells above the door and lowered the paper to...
June 2, 1978 The weather was nice, but a little cold. It had in been in high 40s and low 50s all night. The wind was blowing, but not too hard. Sunset was around 7:00. Tim and Benny could grab eight hours of work on Tim’s house easily, even making allowance for the fact that they had to clean the office buildings. They could do the same Thursday. Friday afternoon would be spent putting out envelopes for curb painting and Saturday would be spent painting curbs. They would get a full day of...
August 6, 1978 Tim and Benny were sitting in their office chatting. It was one of those few occasions when it was just the two of them. They had felt a need to sit back and assess what was happening. There was a tendency for everyone to gather at Benny’s house to discuss business, but Benny objected to that. It was his home, his refuge, and he didn’t really want business intruding into it. Tim understood. Tim said, “It appears that I’m now a general contractor.” “Don’t you need a license?”...
August 19. 1978 Sandra finally chose to buy a very plain set of furniture for the living room. She managed to find a middle ground between ‘middle aged stodgy,’ furniture and the trendy fashion furniture which was favored by people her age. She avoided the ugly browns, oranges, and greens that seemed to dominate the furniture world, and ended up with a cream colored living room set with matching end tables and a coffee table. She had picked up a cheap dining table from Target. Her father,...
September 2, 1978 Tim woke up and scrubbed the sleep from his eyes. The birds were making such a racket, that sleep was impossible. He glanced over to the other side of the tent, and noticed the empty sleeping bag. Benny was up already. Tim poked his head out of the tent. Outside the tent was a remarkable tableau. Benny was sitting on the bench of the picnic table, appreciating the view of the lake. Three does were standing within twenty feet of him. One was eating some grass at the edge of...
November 11, 1978 This year things were very different for Benny. In the past, he would have worked at the office building every evening from 5:00 until 7:30. It was as regular as clockwork, and brought the four of them together every workday. The four would often eat dinner together after work, but without exception Benny ate dinner with Tim. Since they had sold the business, Benny didn’t have that hanging over his head. Sandra and Cathy were still working there, but were now answering to...
December 2, 1978 For early December, the weather wasn’t that cold. At 10:00 am, it was in the sixties although the wind was blowing at 20 mph with gusts up to 26 mph. The wind made it a lousy day to move. It seemed like anything bulky tried to take off on its own during the short trip from the van to the house. This was a major moving day for three of the four members of the group. Having made the decision to rent out her house, Cathy was moving into Sandra’s place. Tim, having finished his...
January 9, 1979 It was a Tuesday and college was out for Christmas break for another week. This meant that Sandra, Cathy, and Benny were available all day. Tim and Benny had decided that it would be a good time for a business meeting. Everyone was getting antsy about the price of silver. It was oscillating around $6.00 and everyone, with the exception of Benny and Tim, was hoping that marked the beginning of the take off in silver. It was a dollar increase over the past year. Tim and Benny...
January 16, 1979 It was cold that day, but not horribly so for January. It was a Tuesday and Tim was inside the house with his crew working on drywall. It seemed to Tim that his life was settling into a rut. First he’d tear out the walls, fix the wiring, put up new walls, tape them, paint them, and then put on the fixtures. Once all of that was done, the carpet layer would come in and install the flooring. Then it would be on to the next interior. It wasn’t that simple. There was also the...
April 13, 1979 Ted Brooks peered over his half rim glasses to examine Tim and Benny. They had opened their books for him so that he could prepare their tax forms. Their records were first rate and he enjoyed working with them, although the quality of their books was due more to Cathy’s efforts than either of the two young men. It was hard to believe that two guys so young were worth so much. He had watched them slowly grow the net worth of their businesses. He looked over the page that...
June 10, 1979 Happy to be ready to leave, Benny slammed the trunk of his car shut. He had finished packing for his trip to the Chickasaw National Recreation Area where he was going to camp for the next seven days. He had been planning to start this trip back on June 1, but the weather forecast had predicted rain for the next day. He figured he’d put it off for a day or two until the weather cleared. It was a fortunate decision since the weather had been terrible since then and he would have...
June 16, 1979 Tim drove into the park and had to drive around the campground to find the spot where Benny was holed up. He drove around for thirty minutes before he noticed the tent tucked up out of the way. He parked his jeep and walked over to the tent. Benny was lying there, staring up at the sky. A golden eagle was circling above. Benny was watching the magnificent bird. Tim sat down, lay back, and looked up at the sky. The golden eagle was gone. A turkey neck buzzard had taken up in...
August 10, 1979 At 11:00 in the morning, the temperature was already 82 degrees but it felt like 92 and the forecast suggested that temperatures would be reaching the high 90s by the late afternoon. Tim was seated on the step before the front door, waiting for their university guest, Dr. Frank Hennequin, to arrive. The visiting professor was an historian specializing in studies of the French support of the American Revolutionary War. Tim wasn’t sure what to expect, but the professor was...
September 3, 1979 It was Labor Day weekend and, with the exception of Benny, the usual suspects were planning to participate in the annual Labor Day parade. Tim had missed last year since he had met up with Benny who was camping. This year Benny had taken off for lands to the south, for a change. He was heading towards Texas rather than the eastern end of Oklahoma. He didn’t have much experience traveling south like that, except to visit Tim once, in his first life, when Tim lived south of...
January 16, 1980 On Thanksgiving day the price of silver had been a respectable $16.19 and everyone in the business of investing was talking about the scarcity of silver. Your average person on the street was becoming aware that something quite unusual was happening in the silver market. The CBS, NBC, and ABC were now talking about the price of silver during the evening news. On Christmas, the price of silver was $24.60. If Thanksgiving dinners had quiet conversations about the price of...
February 22, 1980 The dust was starting to settle as far as silver was concerned. Silver had hit its peak at $49.45 an ounce on January 18, then started dropping precipitously. After thirty days, the price had dropped to $30 an ounce and was still falling although it wasn’t plummeting. People who had waited to sell their silver were upset they hadn’t sold it earlier. People who had bought silver at the high were cursing the drop. Today, Tim, Benny, Sandra, and Cathy were meeting to assess...
April 1, 1980 Tim and Lily drove up the road. Tim knew that he had gone too far when he saw the steel bridge. There was almost no traffic on the road, so he did a U-turn right there on the highway. Coming back they found the dirt driveway to Benny’s property. Tim slowed down and turned onto it. There was a cattle guard across the drive so he didn’t have to deal with a gate. The cattle guard was new. The posts of the barbed wire fence were wood tree limbs cut to size. The barbed wire was...
June 22, 1980 The male half of the wedding party was gathered in the back of the church. Tim was the groom. Benny was the best man. Robert was the groomsman. It wasn’t a very talkative group. Tim was thirsty, but afraid of drinking much of anything lest he needed to go the toilet in the middle of the ceremony. Benny was lost in his thoughts about his new house. It was finished, but the second one for the help wasn’t. Robert was just watching the two of them amused by it all. It was amazing...
September 11, 2001 The landscape around the house had changed significantly over the past 21 years. It was a lawn worthy of a golf course, front and rear. The lawn ended at a gravel path that led down to the river. To one side of the house was an orchard with apples, field pears, peaches, and pecans. There was also a little garden that was still producing vegetables, including tomatoes, bell peppers, beans, squash, and corn (despite the best efforts of the raccoons). Over 21 years, Benny...
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Copyright© "I want you to go and help Mrs Smallwood, she needs some things done that a man can only do, and since Samuel died she is lost. You are on a month's holiday so you can spare her some time. I like that old woman and I don't like seeing her struggle." These were the instructions I was given by my 33-year old wife the first day of my holiday. I didn't know Mrs Smallwood that well, I used to speak to the old man Samuel and he was always helpful. "Right I will go over right...