Millard Filmore with Trident: (A Lifestyle)

Millard Fillmore with Trident

(A Lifestyle)

A novel

  by

Curtis Martin

Millard Fillmore with Trident

(A Lifestyle)

A novel

  by

Curtis Martin

Millard Fillmore with Trident

(a Lifestyle)

A Novel By

Curtis Martin

Curtis Martin © 2018

Chapter I

I hate my life.

Roy Arnold said under his breath for the third time so far this a.m. He was heading east into the germinating light of day - a slice of yellow orange atop a rolling hill.  As he drove to his job at the Rushmore Distributing Company, he counted things. He counted, as most mornings, the thirteen Oak trees, twenty-one Elm trees, and 96 guardrail post that the galvanized aluminum ribbon hung on where the State Highway Department decided the most dangerous places were along their two-lane snaky strip of asphalt. Hardly any cars out to count.  Four stop signs and the one traffic light, that he’ll come to nearer town. The forty-six-year-old counted things at work: the beer bottles and kegs coming in and the number of beer bottles and kegs going out. Roy was the warehouse manager.  One dead deer. Two groundhogs. Oh, sad, Rover won’t be coming home in the morning.  Roy conjured up an image of Rex running out to the yellow bus when his Kids got home from school. That was a long time ago. A few life’s ago.

Counting things was good for Roy. It kept him from dwelling on the past, present, and future. The numerology of his life. Roy turned up the radio when the oldie country station played a tune from his past. It was a song about too hot to fish, too hot for golf, but too cold at home. In 1990, when he was getting ready to graduate from high school, he had been too young and inexperienced to fully appreciate the song’s meaning. He surely understood it now.  Three kids, twenty-four to twelve, two ex-wives, Jenny’s mom, and one girlfriend back at the trailer sleeping off the alcohol, coke, and another fight about the alcohol and coke. At least he had the quiet and solace of his Ford 250 pickup truck. Super Duty. Its massive steel frame, leather seats, surround sound stereo system kept the road noise out and his dreamy solitude inside. Miss another payment and he won’t even have the silver 4X4 to take him to and from work and from home to the slop joints at night with Shelia. Twenty-two years old, Sheila wore white mascara and had long ironed straight blond hair she repainted once a week in the bathroom sink. Roy rested his plastic bottle of Mountain Dew atop his projecting beer belly. He cocked the rearview mirror towards himself to see if he got all the toothpaste off his lips before running out the door this morning. His last drink of Dew had a peppermint tinge to it.

I hate my life.

Roy said again looking at what had become a flinty- fiery young brat that graduated high school and joined the Army to see the world and fuck women all over it.  He wished he could still get a boner like he could back then. Stiff and ready with the slightest breeze of poontang.  After his first month in Texas, he got a girl pregnant and had learned growing up in a small town through Easter Church services and his dad’s belt, to do the right thing. He married seventeen-year-old Tilda Rodriquez.  Roy ignored the thin prickly sparse brown hair over his pate, the flabby jowls that were starting to droop towards the jawline, wishing he didn’t have to spend so much money on boner medication. Tilda had been flabby, soft, brown, and not as near pretty as Shelia, but they would fuck while he drank a coffee cup behind her. She would take his penis and stuff it inside her while in the Walmart parking lot or after a vigorous sermon at church. Shelia fumbled with his fleshy member after a half hour once the boner medicine took hold. Roy figured she did it mostly out of obligation for the alcohol and drugs and to get around town in his truck with the modified exhaust. He never heard Shelia come close to screaming like Tilda did in her native Mexican tongue.

Ariba! Rapido, Rapido

As opposed to Sheila saying, You want a towel? He didn’t mind, watching her skinny silhouette slip naked through the shadows created by the TV set on the dresser.  He had never known a girl who wore size two jeans. The augmented breasts, size 34 C, he had bought last Christmas looked even larger cast against the wall. Then heard the urine filling the bowl.

Their son, Steve, still lived in Texas with Tilda; doing his second stint of rehab after a year in jail for mugging an old lady in the same Walmart parking lot he and Tilda used to fuck in; might have conceived him in.  Once, when Steve was sixteen, the black haired, almond colored skin, and blue-eyed drug-using youth had come to live in Ohio with him - to get away from all the bad influences leading him astray in El Paso. Soon, Steve had found bad elements in Ohio and fled back to Texas with a warrant for his arrest. Kara, 18, and Jenny, 12, lived in the county with their mothers and stepfathers and holidays were a nightmare.  When Jenny was three, she used to sit on his lap and together they would count with the Count on Sesame Street and Grover, one cookie, two cookies, three…It was the last thing he had done with her while his bags stood at the door. Hell, it was getting so it was a crime to have sex with a woman anymore. He pushed the rearview mirror back in place.

Cool, May morning air filled the cabin of the 53,000-dollar truck. Roy needed the air and the sound of waking chicks to make wider awake and closer to his roots of his hometown. He was lucky, one of the ones that got away for at least awhile. Divorce, loneliness, and a sense of not belonging to a place had brought him home. A Gulf War Vet he was feted on military holidays and was Past President of the local VFW. A piece of shrapnel from a British mortar had gotten him a Purple Heart and his second wife, Becky. She loved sitting on the back seat of a convertible with him for the Memorial Day parade down the main street of Lexburg. Court Street. Kara was graduating High School in a week. One less child support payment.

An opaque, silvery light was taking over the road and the rural pastures and woods he was passing. The headlights on the twisting road ahead were ebbing away. BEC lit up his phone lying in a cup holder on the center console, his second and last official wife. He had met the auburn haired piled high on her head bartender on his route when he was a beer truck driver. She worked, and still does, at a bar outside of town, ‘The Silver Star’. It was a match made in beer heaven; for a while anyway. Roy instinctively closed his eyes and tightened his jaw. He would tell her later he must have been in a low spot when she called. It was always a handy excuse for missing a call in this part of the State. Even at home, high on a hill, service was at best spotty; having to move in and out of the trailer, walking around, Can you hear me now? Now? Becky had been on him lately about helping to pay for Kara’s education at the local technical college. She wanted to be a nurse. But it was rare she called this early for anything.

Yep?

Roy, it’s Bec.

There was a tremble in her voice. What’s up? Roy saw where he was on the road to work. I might lose ya. I’m headed to work. She would know that.

It’s Kara. She didn’t come home las’ night.

Roy could hear her puffing a cigarette while talking, biting a thumbnail as she always did when she was nervous. K. Not the first time. Since Kara had turned twelve, or was it thirteen, long after he had left the picture at home, she had cut a path through life like she was thirty rather than a teenager. Once, at fifteen, she had taken off to North Carolina with a drummer in a heavy metal band. To make everyone back home feel assured about her safety she had sent them a picture of herself wearing a weary, black Goth outfit with laced boots up to the middle of her thighs, showing her new tongue stud. Two weeks later she was home.

I know, but she ain’t the same way anymore. Becky stood in the kitchen in a sleeveless Harley Davidson shirt faded from black to gray, and underwear; thinking, if you spent more time in her life you would know the transformation his daughter had made over the last year; from demon child to a young woman with a plan for her future.

Roy thought about the new boyfriend he had met. Some kid from a big city up North, not around there. A Piker who was having sex with his little girl. Is she still with that guy? They’re probably out doing something stupid like seniors do just before Graduation.

Yeah, they got plans together. Becky said it in a Captain Obvious sort of way. Anymore she and I talk about everything. If she was planning on being out all night, she would have told me.

Roy missed most of what Becky had said, when the road dipped down into a steep, but short gulley. He did get, ‘told me’. What do you want me to do?

Becky swallowed a gulp of anger. Why couldn’t Roy, Kara’s real father be more like Randy, a man, a real man. Help find her. There was a catch in her voice, welling from her motherly instinct that something was wrong. Randy’s out looking for her now.

The man who put a new last name to his ex-wife, a biker-dude who worked the second shift at the Tobia Sparkplug factory in town. When the lanky, half bald biker wasn’t wearing the uniform of the road, leather and silver chains, he was wearing the white Tobia uniform with its blue piping and coordinated ball cap. On their first meeting Randy had asked him why he didn’t have a Harley. Roy told him ever since he was nine years old shiny, loud things didn’t impress him much. And the tassels hanging down from the handlebars reminded him of the tricycle he had as a kid. He and Randy just never had much reason to be around each other.

I just can’t not show up to work! Roy was already dangling on the edge at work. His performance lately was less than perfect. Late nights with Shelia, burning his sick days as soon as he had one, and the creditors calling him at work was making management nervous. And when you say management you meant the Rushmore family who could fire him with the flick of a pen. He reported to the youngest Rushmore boy, Kevin, who made a hundred thousand a year because he came out of the right womb.

Becky still saw Randy taking off in the darkness on his Harley. Fine then. I really didn’t expect anything else. Just thought for once you might care about your daughter!

I hate my life!

Chapter II

Donny Akerman and Kara Arnold sat in the bucket seats of the rust pocked green Camaro at 3-9 Rezzy. The acre size man made pool of water was their spot; where they consummated their love that was nearly a year old. They sat still damp from their evening swim. Kara’s shoulder length light brown hair hung down in wet strands. A skim of water was beneath her on the black Naugahyde Donny’s clothes were pasted to his boney body and deep concern furrowed his brow and his lip twitched on the left side. They were both recovering from the chilly swim and joining in the shallow water at the grassy edge before car.

You warm enough? Donny said to his trembling girlfriend.

Getting’ there. Kara rubbed her upper arms with her hands. Thought the water would be a little warmer by now.

I could tell you were cold and still are. He joked about her still nipples pressing against the cotton of her orange Lexburg Tigers T-shirt. Looks like you getting’ ready to bust through your shirt.

Ain’t it funny how could water make a girl’s nipples stick out and a guy’s penis shrink up. She giggled then felt sorta sad. This probably going to be their last swim in 3-9 Rezzy for a while. Hopefully, not forever. Graduation was in a week and for them changes were a coming. On the back seat sat their graduation gowns and mortars they had picked up that morning. "Think we aughta be getting’ back? She sat crossed legged on the seat, turned to face Donny. At five feet two she could easily maneuver around the cramped interior.

In a minute. The days were long now. The night stubborn about coming out till after 8, close to nine. The moonlight coming through the windshield colored Kara in a bluish hue.

Did you want to do it again? That’d get us warm. She sheepishly looked towards the narrow-contoured backseat. Donny had that serious look on his face, he was always so serious, practically all the time. His sharp nose. Angular cheeks and jaw line, the way he was always moving fast; like he was always getting to another place rather than staying where he was. He was that way the first time she met him while working at McDonalds. She had never seen him before. He hadn’t gone to the local Lexburg schools like she and everyone she knew had. Suddenly in July, July 4th, he appeared stopping for lunch and almost every day after that in his smoking, clanging car with the handles of a push mower and a weed eater sticking out from the truck. Always he ordered two Big Macs, large order of fries, and a jumbo Coke with refills. Taking his order, she wondered how he stayed so skinny. He’d be looking up at the menu, hardly looking at her, and smelling of grass and gasoline. An oil stained sleeveless white t-shirt revealed a gang tattoo she had knew was from the city. Not Lexburg. On his fourth visit she had volunteered to mop the floor and ‘accidently’ hit his ratty boot with the stringy mop, hard; mostly out of anger that he hadn’t paid, cute-little-her any attention, even after the way she had unbutton the top button of her uniform and bent exceeding forward while taking his wrinkled money and handing him the receipt.

Not right now. I need ta talk to you bout something important. Donny fidgeted in his seat and coughed into his closed hand.

What’s there to talk about? Everything is settled. You’re going to the Air Force right after Graduation. And I’m starting nursing school in August. Then her heart shrank to a raison. You ain’t breakin’ up with me are ya! She thought she felt the baby kick. Even though she has just discovered her pregnancy the day before.  So far, the news was between her and the EPT test. She wasn’t going to tell Donny. Yet. If he knew, he wouldn’t go on to the Service and would end up working at the Tobia Sparkplug factory alongside his dad. She worried that if she told her mom and real dad they would want her to get an abortion, again, like when she was fifteen. She would never do that again. The baby would be about three now. Kara remembers Roy saying, ‘don’t let kids ruin your life!’.

Donny watched Kara’s face blanch white in the moonlight. No…no. My gosh, baby girl. He pulled himself up by the steering wheel and reached over to the glove compartment. Maybe I should just stay here and get a job at the factory; keep you from chasing and be chased by those college boys. He was half joking, maybe not. He opened the glove compartment and took out a small plastic Walmart bag and shot back to his seat.

Thas’ one thing you don’t have ta worry about. Ain’t a one of those guys I’d want over you. Sides, I’m the one that’s gotta worry. Thinking of her dad and her stepbrother, Steve. Think of all the girl’s your gonna meet once you take off for the Air Force. She seemed to crumble up into a ball against the door.

Donny didn’t want to, but he would take a job at the factory if Kara wanted him to stay close by. He had been so angry when his dad packed up the family at the end of his Junior year of high School and moved them out to the country. He dreaded and was hateful about it and threatened to runaway, having to be with a bunch of hicks who had grown up together and were all interbred with one another. Now, with more clarity, he knows why they left the city – the green twisted image on his right shoulder.

Since January, once he was sure, once he and Kara started talking about a future beyond high school together, he had been saving for this moment. Here. Donny held out the bag. Hell, he didn’t know how you were supposed to do it. Get down on one knee, ask her dad for permission (didn’t seem like he cared that much)? Will you marry me?

The light was thin and pale, but she could see the shape of a small box that was lying in the corner of the beige bag. Kara, with reverence reached out for the dangling token. The bag made a rustling sound as she bought it close to her heart and brought out the ring box into the moonlight. Maybe it produced just a small glint from a small facet on the small diamond, but it lit up Kara’ s face and the interior of the car as if the golden glow of angels ascended from box.

Do you like it? Donny apologetically asked. There were a lot bigger ones in the showcase but the half caret ring took all the money he had.

If it had been too small or too big for her finger a magical transformation would have occurred. The ring fit snuggly, perfectly on her finger on her left hand. Kara held it up for his inspection across the console. I love it.

You still haven’t answered my question. Donny took her hand into his and looked at the way it sparkled.

For an instant, Kara was bewildered; Oh, yes. Yes, I’ll marry you.

Now we better be headed back fore your mom starts to worry. Donny reached to start the car.

Not yet.

Chapter III

The interior of the Harrison County EMS station 5-1 was dimly lit by morning’s light sneaking around the shut blinds and curtains. The local news was on the TV. The single level block building with two garage bays sat next to the firehouse, the next street off the main drag through Lexburg. There were two other EMS stations in the county, one to the North, 5-2, one to the South, 5-3.  For twenty-four hours the station was home for the paramedics and EMTs of Harrison County EMS; two crews of two at the Lexburg station, one crew for the other stations. The Lexburg station was responsible for most of Harrison County’s population, those living in town and those people living in the townships closest to the county seat. In an hour, another crew would take over for their twenty-four shift.

The exhausted crews of the Lexburg station were asleep. The last run had been at 0430 hours. Another drug overdose. The fifth that day. Dana Young