"So, you think that God is a civil engineer, Jake? Really?"
"Not what I said, Sophie." Bemused, I tried again. "It was just the joke I was telling you-- I was saying the contractor told the engineers that." The magic gummy bear may have been a bad idea for this girl, I thought.
The 10 mg THC infusion added to the sugary animal shapes up in Colorado must be made for those of thicker blood than these flatlanders. Aspenites became nice and mellow whereas several down here had acted out a bit strangely.
Two of Cal's brothers had taken three each during the ballgame and disappeared soon after. Without a word. That was three days ago and we had heard nothing from them since...hope they were OK.
"Well, tell me again, then. I didn't get it, boii," Sophie drew me back to reality. She glanced my way from behind the wheel and threw me an easy smile. The trademark effervescent smile of the Georgia Broadhearst family. I'd recognize it anywhere and saw my better half's face etched all over those perfect pearly whites as they flashed my direction. "OK, then. But keep an eye on the road, Soph," I told her, as we flew down the old farm-to-market road. She was a good driver but got easily distracted by animals, I had noticed. We were passing a herd of red angus on her side and they drew her attention more than the road sign on my side warning us of a curve and another announcing Opelika, Alabama, eight more miles. Puffy clouds pocked the sky as we enjoyed the comfortable harmony between the two of us, out on a day trip together.
"Two engineers and a government contractor went into a bar," I tried it over again. "All three had agreed that God must be an engineer, but they disagreed on what kind he could be. The Electrical Engineer claimed that the electrical genius put into the development of the human body ---why, just look at the intricacy of the nerves and spinal cord and heart and the amazingly complex brain--- made it a given that he had to be an EE Himself; the Mechanical Engineer countered that, no, with the amazing make-up of the muscles and tendons, bones and joints and ligaments, He had to have been an ME to design that."
"Their government contractor buddy came back from the bar with three beers and overheard them. He then insisted, well, no, God HAD to be a civil engineer to design the human body. The other two looked at him like he was crazy and asked why he would think that?"
"Well, he said, anyone could figure that out...who else but a civil engineer would plan a recreational area right through the middle a waste disposal unit?" I grinned inwardly as I remembered Cal's best friend first tell us the joke at the top of Ajax Mountain last Christmas morning. The first run of the morning-- nothing but fresh powder below us. A good day, I reminisced.
Soph looked stymied. "I still don't get it, Boii, break it down for a country girl." Hoo-Boy, I thought. It was a gay joke, after all, and we were in a deep red southern state. "OK," I said. "Think like a gay man, Sister Souljah. Three gay professionals. Talking about the complexity of the human anatomy over a beer. The cynical government contractor, who spends his days trying to fix the goof-ups by the engineers and construction companies he deals with overhears his engineer buddies talking and immediately links anatomy and how gay men have backdoor sex...recreational area...through a waste disposal unit...get it? "
"Eeeeewww," the pretty woman with richly red-spiked hair gags and puffs out her cheeks. "How gross is that? That is not funny, Jake."
"What, do you mean to tell me your boyfriends have never taken the Hershey Highway, Sophie?" I laughed, because I knew of her sexual proclivities and her history with men was quite splotchy. This was the woman who swore she wouldn't get pregnant--"fo' sho' that"-- until after getting her degree and buying her own house, away from her brothers. But, she was very nearly as hormone-driven as any of the boys in the family. Can you say, 'hyper-drive'?
Something did not compute, here. But far be it for me to pass judgment, so I just changed the subject as she refused comment about the Hershey Highway-- I knew she got the reference, though.
{It was just last Saturday morning that I had come into the kitchen while Boy was reciting what he had learned at school the day before. Sophie and Vivian were intent on the pancake batter but were listening to the precocious boy at the same time. "Milk, milk, lemonade, 'round the corner, fudge is made." sing-songing the words while he pointed first to each boob, then to his crotch and then a round-house curve of his arm, finger pointing to his rear-end.
Not awaiting their response he raced off to the other room , leaving the two girls to wince and Viv to point her finger down her throat. But they got it...hence, the Hershey Highway.}
"There is the cut-off coming up, Soph," I said, as we approached the sign for the Auburn University turn-off. We had happily planned this day trip for a week, so we might get away and enjoy a somewhat culturally-oriented day alone together. No brotherly or spousal interference.
Cal, my lover for eight years and new husband , Sophie's older brother and mentor, had concurred with our plan while the other brothers, aunts, uncles, and family 'graciously' backed away from including themselves...go figure, we thought, snickering.
*
Our trip day had begun rather tumultuously earlier this morning. I was just returning from my morning run, still before dawn, waxed and winded by the heavy humidity down here so close to sea-level when I heard Goldie, the next door neighbor's big boxer ramp up into a fit of barking over in the Brown's garden area behind their house.
Next, I heard old Farmer Brown kick up a cussin' rampage that would have done a nickel-whore-in-church proud. Hearing a familiar bleating sound, I pretty quickly figured what might be occurring so went to jump the split-rail fence separating the two farms.
Coming up behind the elderly farmer, I see Goldie in the setting moonlight backing down the Blackhearst family's pet goat, Aloysius (say: Al-o-Wish-us...). There were asparagus tips hanging out of the Nubian goat's cheeks and even though he was in a defensive posture of head down, front legs spread and ears hard back on his head, horns bristling, he was still munching those tender shoots. Both dog and farmer were having none of it, brandishing teeth and shotgun at the outlaw ungulate.
Aloysius suddenly saw the situation as a losing venture and whirled, leaping the small fence surrounding the backyard garden , lickety-splitting into the burgeoning cornfield behind and towards the pine woods beyond.
Goldie was off like a rocket after the thief and I managed to get my hand up on Mr. Brown's shoulder as he was leveling the shotgun for a a birdshot barrage at the miscreant, forgetting the fact of friendly fire for the boxer.
Pulling back in surprise at my touch the old man swung the gun around on to my belly, calloused black finger close to the trigger. He charged up his epithetical bombardment again, this time at me.
"You nigger-lovin' rascal, what you doin' puttin' that varmint on my Elsie's 'gus patch?" Trying to settle the old fellow proved difficult as he needlessly explained, in detail, how it took three long years to get a good crop of asparagus, and "this damned devil of a goat was damn well gonna pay with his damnable hide this time. If ya'll wasn't gonna keep the damn critter on a damn leash than me and the little missus was just gonna be eatin' us some goddamn goatmeat pretty quick, here."
The barking dog's fading sounds let me know that the two animals were out on a chase like to last awhile but at the same time, out of birdshot range. So I soothed the cantankerous old coot as best I could to get that double-barrel pointed away from my belly-button.
He did settle down after a minute, at least to a decibel range softer than a rock concert and I began helping straighten up the cherished asparagus plants when the 'little missus' stepped out the back door.
"A good morning to you, young Dr. Jake", she greeted me. Her ever-present smile won everyone over, without exception, and even her curmudgeonly husband quieted down in her presence. My profuse apologies elicited manual and vocal brush-offs of my concern from the tiny titan of a woman, saying that she had so much asparagus picked and pickled by this time of the season that the couple could exist on the delicacy quite awhile, now, thank-you-very-much. Besides, she said, that goat was a whippersnapper-- she loved her that big old goat.
After making sure all was under control, she warned me against catching cold, which confused me, and extracted a promise to stop by for a coffee-chat soon. Maybe after I was able to dress, she added, which answered my confusion, considering my running outfit.
Then she warned her husband to mind his manners in front of me-- and his tongue, too, if he knew what was good for him. She had apparently overheard what he had called me a bit ago.
No problem on the name-calling, I mused. Old people had very few filters by their age. In their eyes, they had 'graduated' from the societal mores system, feeling no compunction to guard their thoughts as they once had done.
I had watched my own elderly father accost a departing restaurant customer, boring in on the man's size 50 waist, expressing hope that the man had left us some... food, I had supposed... as we entered to sit down to our own dinner. Ahem. Would I be the same upon reaching that point in life?
Mr. Brown and my father notwithstanding, the ladies of age tended more to matronly lenience/acceptance than older men and I hoped for my female hormones to pick up the pace in my elder years, as is common for older gentlemen... just not at the expense of my masculinity or testosterone levels, mind you. That was too precious a commodity to do without. Especially in light of my other half.
Cal had about the highest level of libido I had ever experienced and it never ceased to amaze me at his wherewithal to pop a hard-on under almost any circumstance and in any venue. Desired or not...
One of the many things that endeared us to each other eight years into our relationship happened to be that we always tested our sexual limits, and then some. Hell, the man had grabbed me not an hour ago as I tried to sneak from bed to go for my run, insisting on his early morning blowjob before departing.