I awoke at six, as usual, but not in a bed or room I recognized. It took a second to get my head straight remembering I was at Steve's house. It was only about six in the morning but I heard some activity outside the room. It sounded like someone was in the kitchen. After washing my face, brushing my teeth, and dressing, I walked out and found Glenda messing around in the kitchen. She said, "Have a cup of coffee in here. The big pot on the patio isn't done yet. We forgot to set the timer last night. Are you hungry?"
Smiling, I said, "Glenda, I'm always hungry, but I have to watch what I eat now that I'm older and not as active. I am going to have to go over to my trailer and get my pills. You know how that is with us older guys."
Glenda said, "Martin has to take a lot of pills too. He's given us a couple of scares with his heart, so he takes several. You have a pacemaker right?"
"Yes Ma'am, it's one of those dual kinds that monitors high and low pressure and jolts me into slowing down or going faster. So far, it hasn't been active except when I first got it."
"That's good, Mark. How long has it been since your heart attack?"
"It's been eight years now, Glenda. I got my pacemaker about four years ago."
Glenda smiled, "Well, you look good, Mark. You're like Martin, you just keep on tickin'."
People had come into the patio and were having coffee while watching the morning news on the big television. A news item caught my attention. It said that Judy had been released on her own recognizance until a sentencing hearing. I guess she had pled guilty, or something like that. That was good, she could get together whatever she needed to if she was going to be put into jail. I guess I could take a bird but no cats. In the years we had been together, I had cleaned litter boxes daily. Now I had no more cat litter to worry about and no furniture torn to shreds where they sharpened their claws.
Martin came over and had some coffee. While he was sitting next to me in the kitchen, Glenda said, "Take Mark over to his place so he can get his morning pills. Since he's feeling pretty good, he should bring his cart back so he can get around if he wants to."
Martin waved me out and as we walked to his cart, he said, "If you don't do what she asks real quick, you'll never hear the end of it until you just give up and do it. Learned a long time ago to just do what she wants done."
As we rode over to my trailer, Martin kept thanking me for fixing up his car. I said, "It was my pleasure, Martin. That's what friends are for."
He nodded and smiled as he pulled up to the trailer. I went inside, swallowed my pills, and grabbed the shed key to pull the truck cart out. After locking everything up, I was getting ready to go back to Steve's when Shirley and Betty came around the front of the trailer together. Betty said, "Take us with you. We'll go visit on the patio with you this morning, okay?"
They both said "Morning, Martin," but both got into my truck cart. Martin drove on ahead as I drove slowly over to the patio. As I entered the patio with the two ladies, Juanita asked me, "What's the matter, Mark, were we not enough women for you over here?"
Blushing, I answered, "Well, I wanted to bring a couple of my own, a couple of single babes to liven up my day."
While we were having coffee and eating a breakfast sandwich, Ruth asked me to see her later so I could fill out some forms. She said since I was going to work for S&S doing various things, I was eligible for their medical insurance. I told Ruth, "I have VA benefits and I'm still covered under my ex-wife's insurance she has with the post office. There's no sense in you guys paying for insurance when I don't need it."
Ruth said, "Fill out the papers anyway. When you lose your wife's insurance, you can pick ours up. Besides, you might want to get the life insurance that goes with the package. A guy your age can't get life insurance cheap."
"Thanks, Ruth, I'll fill out the forms in a bit."
Betty said, "You know, you received all that publicity that Samantha got for you. You might be able to go into county politics if you want. It would be good to have you as a commissioner, someone that could look out for this area out here."
"I'll think about it, Betty," I said, thinking politics and me were not compatible. "But I have to tell you, it will probably be just thinking about it."
Shirley offered, "You know those guys get paid for their position. I don't know how much it is, but anything is a lot for a guy in your shoes."
"That's a little different then, Shirley, I'll look into it."
Betty wouldn't quit, "You know what, if you would run for commissioner out here, I'll bet we could get a lot of people to help talk you up with other voters. You've made a lot of friends and a lot of people really know you now for saving that judge."
"I'll think about it, Betty."
"Think hard about it, Mark, you can help a lot of people if you could get that job," Betty said.
Shirley said, "You know, you should have a lady on your arm when you meet people at a fundraiser or party for you. I'll be glad to dress up and be on your arm."
"I want to do that too, Shirley, don't hog the man," Betty said, acting offended.
Glenda and Alice had come over to sit with us. Glenda said, "You know that is a great idea. We do need someone to bring up a few things that need attention out here. We pay a ton of taxes, or at least the park does, and Steve and Sue do with their businesses. We might as well have someone that can get some of our money spent out here."
I said, "You know I don't know anything about county government. My attitude has always been the farther away I can get from government, the better."
Alice said, "How hard can it be? You have to go to council meetings all the time and listen to people bitch about potholes. When you have to vote on something, just learn everything about what you're voting on and vote what is right."
Tiny and Phil had been listening and pulled chairs up to our table. Tiny said, "You might be surprised what those guys get paid. Seems to me they just turned down a raise because of tax revenues being down. But they make around a hundred grand a year on the council. I'll bet we could put together a campaign real quick and get you voted in, just on your notoriety on TV these last few nights."
I held up my hands and said, "Hey folks, my head's still spinning from getting kicked out of my own house and getting a divorce. What's it going to look like for a guy in the process of getting a divorce running for public office?"
Phil said, "You'll get all of the male sympathy vote. Every guy out there will see the injustice of it all and vote for you just to prove you were taken advantage of."
Shirley said, "I didn't think of it that way. We ladies will have to cool it so you don't get a reputation for being a chaser. We can just tell everyone how you have taken care of us and not mention that you've taken care of us after dark."
Glenda said, "Shirley, you're sounding more and more like Emma, saying she's slept with almost every man over sixty out here. I swear we have some of the nastiest old ladies out here."
Betty commented, "There's just not enough nasty old men to go around. Every new man that moves in out here is big news to us ladies."
Glenda said, "We're getting off the point. Mark, will you run for county council or not?"
Tiny offered, "Let me get my laptop and we'll look up the commissioners and see what all they do. I'll bet they are busy for that kind of money."
Tiny had some kind of doohickey that he connected to his laptop that displayed his screen on the big TV. He Googled the Hillsborough County Commissioners. Their page showed the seven commissioners. He then showed a map of the seven districts. Actually, four of the commissioners had dedicated districts while the other three were "at large" commissioners and worked for the county as a whole.
The next page was a PDF file of all the activities of the commissioners. The actual commission only met two days a month, but every one of the commissioners had a dozen other assignments like the airport committee, the military liaison committee, etc. etc.
I wanted to see what the commissioner from our district brought to the table, and what his background was.
The man wasn't that old, actually, none of the commissioners were that old. Our district was the largest as it used to be the least populated, but over the years the area had built up extensively. Our man had a business degree from the University of Florida and had been successful in business before becoming interested in politics.
I said, "I've seen enough, the man probably has to eat, sleep, and live politics and other people using up his time. I'm not that guy, I'm not willing to put in a twelve hour day everyday then go to a cocktail party to butt kiss. I'm really trying to retire or at least slow down. That's not for me."
Glenda said, "I never realized those guys had so much to do. I can't believe they work that hard. They're always at big dinners and parties. We see it in the newspaper all the time."
"You know," I began in defense, "I would be willing to head a group to get something done out here when we need it, but I don't want to have to do that every day. Let me heal up and get back in shape, then we'll talk about what needs to be done out here."
Thankfully, that topic was trashed. Tiny even winked at me as he shutdown his laptop and put the TV back on the regular morning news channel. Most of the folks heading to work had left. Dennis came over to me and said, "When you get to where you think you can help, I have a couple of projects in the lab that I could use an assistant to check on results at each stage of testing. If I have another pair of hands, I could get this done a lot faster."
I answered him, "I'm going to the doc next door so he can check me out. If he says it's okay, I'll come over and help out. I may get tired too quick to be of much help."
"Any help would be appreciated, Mark. I just don't want to pull a guy in to disappoint him when I have to send him back right away."
Just before nine, Juanita said, "Give me a ride over to the doctor's office. I'll go with you in case I have to drive us back."
The trailer park had installed a cart path next to the highway all the way to the shopping plaza. It sure made it easier to get around if you used a cart instead of a car. It was a lot faster since you didn't have to go through the contortions of doors and locking everything. With a cart, you just took your key and got out.
The doctor gave me a very thorough physical and had me get an x-ray of the area that had been fixed. The nurse took some blood, and after looking at the x-rays, the doc said, "Looks to me like you're healing very fast, looks good. Take it easy, but you can probably be on your own if you want and you can move around, just no lifting or straining of any kind. If you want to go for a walk, do so slowly and not very far. Come back to see me next Monday."
I was grinning on the way back to the park as I was free to do something of value like help Dennis in the R&D center. I dropped off Juanita and told her where I was headed. She told me to take it easy and she would see me for lunch.
Dennis wasn't kidding when he said I could help. He was sitting at a bench with a microscope and several other instruments. When he looked up he said, "Does this mean I can get some help?"
"I'll do as much as I can, Dennis. Show me what you need done and I'll begin."
"These parts are the disassembled experimental motor we've been trying out for our carts, the police scooters, and the bigger motor for Steve airplane adventure. We've run these motors for seven hundred and thirty hours, equivalent to running the motor for two hours a day, every day, for a year. The motor is stopped every half-hour, sits for five minutes, and is then restarted. You can see that this experiment has been running for over thirty days. Once the experimental time was complete, we tore the engines down to check on the amount of wear. We have two different oiling systems and we need to compare to see which is better. What you have to do is inspect each component under the scope to check the amount of wear. Use that computer to write up the wear description of each part. Look back at a couple of pieces that I did to get an idea. The biggest issue is to spot any unusual wear characteristics."
I had to give it to these guys. They were thorough about getting test results. This was just to compare two different oiling systems. I wonder how many tests they had to run at the same time to keep good answers to potential problems of the new engines.
In minutes, I was lost in diagnosing each part. The computer was set up with the part name, number, and a picture. All I had to do was analyze the part, write up what I found, and go on to the next.
Before I knew it, Dennis said, "Hey, it's lunch time. Let's take a break and get some lunch. You're almost done with the first motor. You might be able to get both done today. Abe wants to get this smaller motor into some carts as he says they are more fuel efficient and considerably more powerful."
Lunch was the usual soup and sandwich. Mercy made me go into the room I had slept in so she could check to see if I had been pulling on my stitches. Even though I assured her I had been good, she checked anyway. She said I could go back to work with Dennis, but to not overdo it and that I should come back for a nap if I got too tired.
Dennis and I went back to the lab where he was working on setting up a couple more engines for more testing. He had a set of engines in a test room that was full of dust, another with salt-water mist, and still another with blowing sand. They were really tormenting the test engines to see whether they would hold up.
I was able to finish both engines by three in the afternoon. I was getting tired, but made sure that there was nothing else I could do for Dennis before I left to go back to the patio.
Glenda said, "Put on your swimsuit and go up to the pool. Get some sun for a half-hour or so. Betty and Shirley are up there, they will take care of you."
I took a bottle of water with me and went up to the pool. Betty, Shirley, and the infamous Emma, were on loungers gossiping. I told them I had been directed by Glenda to get a half-hour of sun and that my two neighbors would watch out for me. Emma butted in and said, "Why don't you have me watch out for you. I'm sure you would rest better on my couch than out here in the sun."
Just smiling, I said to Emma, "These two ladies are just fine, Emma. Thanks for the offer though."
Shirley spread lotion on me and whispered in my ear, "You did that so good, Betty and I may give you a treat."
I just smiled.
After just dozing off for a minute, a voice I recognized woke me, "Why don't you have that phone where a person can call you?"
It was Sarah Perkins. "I have all kinds of news for you and I couldn't tell you. I had to come look for you and find you luxuriating at a pool surrounded by a bunch of guardian women."
With a chuckle, I sat up, "Just napping a little, Sarah. The doc let me go back to work a little. I just put in about five good hours in the lab."
"Can we go back to that patio so we can have some privacy? I need to talk to you about a few things," Sara asked.
I answered, "Sure, I'll meet you back there. I have the golf cart to ride in."
Shirley and Betty asked, "Can you give us a ride home on the way?"
"Sure, ladies, come along so I don't keep Ms. Perkins waiting. Her time is valuable."
I got them back to their trailers and went to the patio where Sarah was being served some iced tea. We sat over at a little table by the bar, where Sarah began, "Your wife's attorney is a little more willing to negotiate if you don't personally press charges. I told him what I thought was fair and he disagreed, so I said he needed to get her a criminal attorney. Before I left, he said he would talk to Judy about the deal I offered."
Sarah took a drink of tea then said, "This is what I think is fair. You tell me what you think. You'll have to forgive me because I still look out for the female in the divorce, but I think I want what is possible, and I think it's fair. First, you should receive sixty percent of what the business brought when you sold it. She was part owner and she did do some things for the business over the last twenty plus years. Second, you get half of the bank accounts as of the day you two separated. Third, you get half the value of the house and fourth, she has to maintain you on her health insurance. What do you think about that?"
"I don't need her health insurance. If I want private insurance, S&S has offered it to me if I keep working for them. Giving her half the house and half the bank accounts is okay, I guess, but forty percent of the business kind of grates on me. I guess it depends on how you look at it. I had the business going at its highest revenues before we got together. When we married, I cut back on the time I devoted to it in order to give me more time at home with her and then with her and my daughter. I suppose her forty percent is okay, it just seems like I gave a hundred percent of my business effort for so long, only to end up with sixty percent of the reward."
Sarah said, "So you feel like you should be rewarded for working hard?"
"I do. I feel like the reward for devoting so much of yourself to a business, is in what you receive for it when you pass it on. I suppose divorce changes all of that, regardless of whose fault it is. Okay, I'll go along with that. What is it going to take to get this behind me? Oh, I have an idea, how about having her pay you for your services out of the forty percent? I think that is fair."
Sarah frowned, and thought about it while she sipped her iced tea. "You know, Mark, that probably is fair. I was thinking that since I was getting you your money back, I could charge you some good bucks for the representation. You are right in that your reward for working hard and supporting your family is the proceeds of the business. I'll make that part of the settlement. We're going to have to agree not to file charges against her and not to testify during her sentencing hearing."
With a nod, I said, "I don't want her to go to jail. I don't want her to lose her job. I'm not vindictive. Let her be. She can get the house appraised and give me half its value from the business proceeds. There should be enough for you, me, and some extra for her to do what she wants to with the house. I think this whole thing is more than fair."
Sarah wrote on her pad and said, "You are probably too fair, Mark. I'm still a lady's attorney. Taking your case was because you were being shit on. I've had to turn down several men who have called me to take their case but I've also been called by a couple of very wealthy ladies that will pay good money to get into their future ex's pockets. The publicity from your case has been priceless."
Sarah continued, "I will tell the Federal judge that you will not be requesting a harsh penalty and would appreciate leniency. This way he can schedule a faster hearing. She'll probably get some kind of probation or house arrest, with her only outside access being for work, grocery shopping, and normal errands. I didn't ask you, but do you want a restraining order for her? You know, to keep her from calling or harassing you, to keep her from coming to see you?"
"Can it be had after the fact, if she becomes a nuisance?"
"Sure," Sarah said, "it will be the same even a year down the road."
"Let's let it go for now and let's see what happens. What do you want me to do?"
"Nothing, Mark, just heal and relax. I'll get her attorney to get this in front of a family court as soon as we can. It should be a rubber stamp. If it isn't, we'll do the whole court thing."
Sarah left while I was sitting back, enjoying the iced tea. Kathy came to sit with me. She asked, "Is everything alright? Your attorney left in a good mood, so that usually means she's happy with the outcome and is going to be paid. Is that about right?"
"On the money stuff, yes, Kathy. It looks like everything is going to work out."
Kathy asked, "If you do get money, are you going to move out of our park?"
"Why would I do that? I've made more friends here in a week than I made in my neighborhood in the last ten years. Everyone is so friendly and helpful that I would be nuts to leave here. The rent is cheap and I have a fun place to work part time. No, Kathy, I'm going to be around for a while."
She patted me on the hands and was going to get up. I asked her, "Do you know where those papers are that Ruth wanted me to fill out? I should probably do that while I have a chance and am thinking about it."
"She left them inside. I'll get them for you. I'm glad you're going to stay around. You make a nice addition to our community."
After filling out the forms, I gathered the clothes I had brought and those that had been brought back from the hotel and went home. Wow, the little trailer was already home in my mind. I put away all my clean clothes after separating the dirty ones, thinking I might make a trip up to the laundry building later.
Prissy knocked at the door, "Mark, Mark Robins, it's Prissy."
I went to the door and let her in. She said, "I've come for your clothes. I'm sure you have some dirty ones. I saw you the other day with one of those orange jumpsuits on. That's good that you have one of the S&S uniforms to work in. If you'll give me your dirty clothes, I'll get them washed up. I took the dirty towels and washcloths while those men were staying here. They put everything back like it should be. I saw Betty cleaning up where the men had messed up the house."
"Thank you, Prissy, I wish you wouldn't try to do everything for me. I'm capable of taking care of myself."
"I know, Mark," Prissy said, "I'm just proud to be able to do something for you." With that she left and went back across the street. The lady was so sweet.
The evening meal was pleasant, filled with the usual chatter and playfulness of the group. I was slowly learning all of the names of the couples and the children. It was difficult to know who the parents of each of the kids were, as they were blended together in age groups, and all of the kids were held and hugged by all of the parents.
When it was time to go to bed, I was happy to be in my own place, in my own bed. For the few seconds I remained awake, I was thinking of how fortunate I was to live in a place such as this.
Mornings are always exciting to me. I suppose as I've grown older, I'm grateful for every new day.
I didn't go for a walk yet this morning. I thought I might try to walk a little tomorrow. This morning, as I was going to the patio in my cart, Caroline waved me down. She asked, "Can I ride and eat with you this morning, Mark? I need the company of the group up there. Sometimes the mass confusion of all the families gives me a boost. I need a little of that this morning."
As we ate, I could see the morose attitude Caroline had exhibited before breakfast was rapidly disappearing. By the time I took her home before beginning my day, Caroline was her happy exuberant self again.
I dug out my little spiral notebook and began to make a list of work that needed to done. Let's see, Samantha had said she had trouble with her car, but I had not been to the shop to check on warranty vehicles. After listing those two items, I thought I would have to be careful about how I did things, but I'm sure I could do most everything.
After driving over to the cart plant, I checked in the warranty section and there were five carts parked there. All the write-ups were dumb stuff, except one that had a bad vibration. I was able to test drive the cart and found it had a trailing arm on the rear axle that was totally off the body and brace making the cart jump along on crooked wheels. I had to get one of the younger men on clean up duty to help me as the cart was too heavy for me to lift. It took over an hour to fix the problem, and once again, it was a bad bolt and nut that had been the problem. Just to be on the safe side, I changed all of the nut and bolt sets on both sides of the cart. That should help and make the cart a lot safer.
It was lunch time, so I drove over to the patio where I found Samantha enjoying her lunch. I told her that after lunch she should bring her car over to my trailer.
When she brought it over to show me her problems, I found she needed a clutch and that was more than I could do by myself. She also had second gear popping out of gear when she accelerated hard. The engine ran rough and sounded like the timing belt had shifted a cog.
"Samantha, when was the last time you had the timing belt changed?"
She said, "I don't think I've ever done that. No one told me that it was part of regular maintenance."
"Tell you what, some of the work will have to be done over in the truck shop where I can use their lift," I said, explaining to her what had to be done. "First things first, though. I'll change the timing belt first and that should help the engine. You need a clutch, the tranny second gear synchro probably has to be replaced, and while we're at it, a new rear main seal. I'll get some help over there to do the heavy stuff."
Samantha said in a defensive manner, "I know it's in bad shape, but I haven't had the money to fix it. I did get a little money from the stories about you and that will catch me up on the rent. I'm lucky to have Mickey for a roommate who lets me slide. I'm going to have to do more flying for the charter company. The problem is that I'm always afraid I'm going to miss a story if I'm not here."
That reminded me, I needed my Bronco. I called Sarah to see if she knew where it was. She said she would call me back.
Sarah called back a half-hour later and said, "Your Bronco was stolen from the shop where the bureau was searching it. Apparently, all the doors of the shop had been left open and your car had the keys in it. It's been found but it was in saltwater overnight. The car is ruined."
"Oh shit, Sarah, I can't afford another car. I think I had collision and theft on it, but this is different. Will the insurance company pay if the car was being held by the law?"
Sarah said, "Well, somebody has to pay. You sure shouldn't have to suffer because they were searching it. I'll bet they didn't even have a search warrant. You were good to those guys the whole time so they can get you a car or go out and find another car like the one you had. I'll call down there and find out what they are going to do."
This was screwed up. Now I was without a car. At least I had the little cart to run around the park in.
It took me the rest of the day to change the timing belt on Samantha's car. That was a bear of a job. I did get the tune up and servicing done and had to replace the plug wires. At least now the engine ran good. I decided to take the car over to the truck shop and get it up on the lift to start on the tranny and clutch. They had stands that I could put up under the tranny to drop everything from the flywheel back to work on it.
Before I called it a day, I had the transmission and clutch out of the car and the clutch and transmission separated. I should be able to do everything without lifting too much. At least I was going to be working in a well lit shop.
I picked up a couple more pair of coveralls before going home. It took me a while to get my hands, as well as my hair, cleaned. A cap was going to be a necessary part of my uniform so I would have to look for one.
At supper, I just drank iced tea as I was afraid that the booze would keep me from healing fast enough. I was busy so I needed to be healed, fast.
Chuck and Jan came to supper at the patio. Chuck came with six ladies, and Jan came with a guy named Don. When supper was over the two of them cornered me and Jan said, "We have to get you a replacement vehicle, but your old Bronco wasn't worth that much. It's going to be difficult to find one that had been taken care of like that."
Chuck offered, "The manager of our garage and motor vehicle service is hot for an old Harley, would you be willing to use yours as a trade?"
I asked, "A trade for what?"
Chuck offered, "I'll take you down to look at a car in the morning and let you decide. It's a special vehicle and is really nice. I'm sure you'd like it."
I told Chuck and Jan, "I'll look at it, but I wanted to use my old bike to trade for a newer one that I could ride more often."
"I understand that," Chuck said. "I ride and know how important it is to get out and get some wind in your face."
Jan asked, "Come down and look at the car in the morning. If you like it, we'll work something out."
Chuck said, "I'll come by about seven thirty. That ought to be early enough to beat most of the traffic."
Tonight, Maria had her three little ones with her, visiting with everyone on the patio. I played with the three kids on the floor for most of the evening. Maria made me promise that I would come on Saturday for a special supper.
At home, I checked my e-mail, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. I was tired as I had done more than I would have normally done.
Sleep came fast.
Primary editing by Pepere
Proofing by Sagacious