Chapter Fifteen - cont'd
A bank of pay phones hung on the wall close to the front swinging glass doors and I turned to face them. Like I would a bank of slot machines, I regarded them, wondering if any one was any more or less likely to...MELT! :-? With a reluctant soft sigh I picked the one in the corner next to the wall. This so I could have SOMEthing to lean on as I stood and took the verbal beating I was now resigned to.
In desperation I decided I would call Jeremy first and see if there was any :help he was willing to provide. I prayed silently that his emotional attachment
to the plane was not completely severed.
I was in luck. It wasn’t. He answered on the second ring and, upon recognizing my voice, broke in excitedly with “Hey! Landed already? Where you at? How you doin’? How’s my old girl treating you?”
And I responded with “Well...Jeremy . You’re NOT going to believe this , but....” And then I gave him the whole story. His initial shock
was apparent enough by his choice of words. I hadn’t heard the man utter so much as a mild oath in the entire time I’d ever talked to him over the last few days. He came out with two “Holy Shit!”s and a “goddam” as he listened.
I ended the tale with “Look Jeremy. I know we got a done deal and all and you don’t...”. Before I could get the word “owe” outta’ my mouth he came back with a “Bullshit son. Don’t worry about that. Where are you AT right now”.
I relayed our progress to this point and he responded. He said there was a particular motel or roadside inn on the south side of Yakima. He asked if I could get there and I allowed as how I figured I could and would head that way after eating a bite. He said he’d leave his place after lunch and drive north to pick me up and would stop to check the plane along the way. After picking me up we’d head down together and figure out what was wrong with the plane. I heaved a HUGE sigh of relief after hanging up.
I had figured him for a decent straight sort of fellow. He was certainly measuring up to that rating so far.
Returning to the booth, again followed by the silent stares
of most of the patrons, I began to relay the contents of the conversation to Selena. She asked if I’d also called Brantley. And I was in the midst of explaining how I figured I might as well wait ‘til this evening when I might have a more complete picture of WHAT to report, when Jackie Gleason walked in the door.
I mean. It wasn’t REALLY Jackie Gleason BUT...if you saw the “Smokey and the Bandit” movie (starring Gleason and Burt Reynolds) I referred to earlier, it looked like another scene from the movie comin’. With a paunch belly that would make a department store Santa proud and mirrored Ray Ban sunglasses resting on a nose that would’ve made Rudolph (the reindeer) proud, the law
had arrived on the scene. I immediately suspected this to be the occupant of one of the two State Trooper vehicles I had seen racing southbound no more than a half hour ago.
The large man stood two steps inside the glass double entry doors and turned his head slowly to the left then back through a right swivel stopping only momentarily on the four truckers. Not for nothing was this guy in law enforcement. He turned around and looking out in the parking lot counted one, two, three...yep. Four “big rigs”. Turning back to the counter he begins to resume his visual sweep of the room. I turn to my double bacon cheeseburger immediately and attack it with vigor putting on what I hope is a convincing show of “being normal” whilst trying to do what almost NO ONE else in the room was doing...IGNORING the man. In my mind I rapidly run through all possible scenarios that I can foresee. I fail to come up with even ONE hope for a positive outcome resulting from a conversation with this man.
I FEEL his gaze stop upon me and settle.
I’m too scrawny to be a trucker. And I’m too WHITE to belong here for any other reason. Like a yard square block of dry eye under the assault of Superman’s heat vision I feel as if I am about to EXPLODE under his stare. My peripheral vision begins to detect his movement as I continue to turn beef into mush in my mouth. I wish I could just keep chewing for the next oh....FIVE MINUTES or so. But having pretty much liquified (except for the “bacon bits”) this mouthful I have no choice but to swallow. I follow quickly with a mouthful of Coke from the oversized red plastic tumbler glass on the table in front of me. He’s getting closer, only two tables away as I start a sentence to Selena.
By mid-sentence he has stopped at the table and now looks down at Selena and I both sitting with overnight bags beside us in the booth. I stop and look up. I see myself, the table and the damned overnight bag in the right lens of his mirrored shades, while the left lens offers a distorted reflection of my darling Selena. The big man hooks his thumbs in his gunbelt as he speaks. “How ya’ll DEWin’ tuh-day boy?”
--delete --
Jeremy and I took Selena to the closest mall and I parted with another substantial chunk of “expense” money and cab fare to get her back to the motel. Jeremy pointed his pickup truck south and we were off to the airplane.