"Can I ask what the hell someone like you wants with someone like me?"
She just smiled at me and reached out a hand to lay over mine. Her touch was soft and warm and I had to admit, very nice. It was enough to make me remember what I was doing there. I pulled my had back quickly because that was the last thing I wanted. But she answered.
"I was sitting at the bar when you came in. I could tell you were hurting about something but I just watched for awhile. I saw you knocking back those doubles and you seemed to be a man on a mission. A mission to get drunk and forget. Am I right?"
"Well, when you're right, you're right!"
That's what I told her, but I didn't go into any detail. I just told her that I was trying to forget some bad things that happened to me and this seemed the easiest way to do it. She nodded like she actually knew what the hell I was talking about. Like someone that looked like her would have any idea. Hah!
"Would you like to tell me your story? I'm just in town for tonight and then tomorrow it's back to business and then home. I've nothing I need to be doing and nowhere to go tonight anyway. I'd love to hear about you and I think maybe it might help if you told someone what's going on with you. I'll just listen and not judge. And, I'll pay for the privilege."
"What do you mean, you'll pay? Pay for what? Are you trying to buy my services or something?"
"I meant that I'll buy the drinks if you tell the tale. And, no I don't want to buy your services, even though you look like you would be quite good in the sack. That would just confuse my already confused life."
Well that got me. Good in the sack? Well, that was a crock since that was one of the reasons I was sitting here trying to get drunk. At least, I thought it was since I apparently couldn't satisfy my wife. And anyway, I did want to talk about it and I didn't have a whole lot of money so if she was buying, I could talk. I finally agreed and told her to order me a double and to also have Hank, the barkeep, bring a pot of coffee. I was about to sober up, but not until I had one more for the tale.
I introduced myself to the nice lady and told her my name was Jimmy Overton. Not Jim or James, just Jimmy. That's what everyone called me. She told me her name was Tiffany Eeams. Not Miss or Mrs., just Tiffany. And yes, I tried to see if she had on a ring but I didn't see one. Good enough. I took the double and downed it in one shot. I grimaced, took the pot of coffee and poured a cup. A sip was enough to get the pucker out of my mouth and let me begin. This is the story I told her.
My Story
As I said, my name is Jimmy Overton. I was born and raised in the Ohio Valley around a small town called Richmond. My dad was a coal miner and worked in the strip mines around the area. That's what they had then, open strip mines. They weren't pretty, but they also didn't cave in and trap people. But that's another story.
When I was just about , twelve my mom got really sick and I stayed home from school and tried to help her when dad was working. In order to help with the medicines and the treatments she needed, dad was working fifty and sixty hours a week with overtime, as much to earn the extra money but more so to avoid having to watch mom sicken further. It brought in a lot of money but none of the medicines the docs prescribed seemed to help much. Mom stayed very sick for the next two years and she finally died when I was fourteen.
I was broken up about it but my dad was almost destroyed by it. He went back to work after the funeral but he didn't slow down much. He worked a lot of double and triple shifts and he was driving himself into an early grave. I tried to talk to him but he just told me to mind my own business. I did for a while but then it got to me. I had to get away from there and from him. When I turned sixteen, I left. I just left pop a note telling him I was leaving, packed a bag with whatever I had at the time and I put it in the pickup that dad kept around just for hauling stuff. I drove off and never looked back.
One thing I should say about that time. I dropped out of school when I left. I was only in the ninth grade then anyway. I was held back a couple of times but not because of any problems with mom's sickness or dad's working. I was just not very smart. As a matter of fact, my IQ was just barely hanging onto the bottom half of average. I wasn't stupid, but I was ignorant about a lot of things. English and math and chemistry and history were a few of them. School wasn't going to do it for me and if I stayed, I would just get further behind. I chucked it and never went back.
I drove for the next two days and finally ended up in Kentucky. Just outside Louisville. I decided that this was as good a place as any and found the local park where I could leave my truck and began to look for a job. I was going to tell people that I was eighteen and that I wanted a full time job. That wasn't hard since I was already 6'4" and weighed a good 255 pounds. I played some football in high school but I couldn't keep my grades up enough to stay on the team. Anyway, I found a job at a local dairy farm and worked as a farm hand. It was good, hard work and I actually enjoyed it. I was strong even then and did my job well and I was rewarded by a raise and I was given more responsible things to do. I stayed there at that farm for the next three years. I found a small apartment to live in and I saved a good deal of money. I was able to replace that pickup with a better one and I settled down as a respectable citizen.
It had to be the fall of the third year when I got the bug to make a move. I was almost twenty and I was full grown and able. I didn't know what I wanted to do but I knew that I didn't really know shit so I decided that I would join the army. I could probably get me a GED and maybe learn a trade that I could use to make a decent living when I got out. My mind made up, I enlisted and ten weeks later, I was an army corporal and on my way to Germany. I was finally going to see some of the world outside. I couldn't wait. Little did I know.
Well, you probably don't know much about the army but it's true what they say. If you don't know what you're doing, they'll probably make you an officer. Well, believe it or not, the army decided to give me a trade. They assigned me to Intelligence school. No shit! Intelligence! Me, who didn't even graduate from high school and who thought army intelligence was something that got good honest soldiers in trouble and often dead. Well, to make a long story short, they did, and I did it like everything else I did, I did it as well as I could. Damned if it wasn't more than enough! It was mostly electronics and computers and other shit like that but it seems I had an aptitude for it. At least that's what they told me my testing showed. Who am I to question testing? By the time my enlistment was up, I decided I really liked this Intelligence stuff and I re enlisted as a sergeant. I know that doesn't sound like Intelligence to a lot of people but it was what I wanted to do.
Eight years later, I mustered out of the Army Intelligence Corp as a Master Supply Sergeant. I had moved into the supply area and I had learned about all types of electronic stuff used by the spooks and spies. It didn't require a lot of thinking but I did know my shit when it came to the tools of the trade. Anyway, I was a free man and I had a trade. Damned if mom wouldn't be proud of me if she had lived. She was the only person ever told me I was worth something. I always said I would prove her right.
I moved back to Kentucky and settled in. I needed a job but not one in an office. That may surprise you but it's true. Even with my experience, all I wanted was a grunt job. I found one in a local paper mill as a laborer and I took it because I wanted a job that would let me go to work but not have to think too hard. I needed that right then and that was all I wanted. I signed up to work the night shift, leaving my days free. I felt good and I was in top physical shape so I began to save my money so that I could do what I wanted. I didn't yet know what that was.
Time passed and I was settling in pretty well. It was about that time that I got a call from some lawyer telling me that pop had died and I was his only living relative. Seems he left me a nice piece of change after all the bills were paid. More than I ever would have thought he could have. Well, it went into the bank.
I was now an old man of thirty-five and I had a nice nest egg for myself. I owned a small house just inside the city limits free and clear, I had a nice car and I had all the food I wanted to eat. Life was good. Since I was single, I went out some evenings to a local bar and grill that I liked. It was noisy on the weekends and a lot of the guys I worked with came there so it was like a local hangout. I was sitting with a couple of my shift guys when three women walked in. I immediately locked on to this one girl in the middle. She was about my age; very tall for a woman; very pretty with long black hair and even longer legs and she was a knockout. I couldn't take my eyes off of her. I asked one of my buds who she was and he just snickered.
