Introduction: Here's another story everybody can get pissed off about. I hope you enjoy it anyway. Read the whole thing before you get mad. Don't get mad at me if I say anything about any group of people; it's just part of the story. Please leave a comment and vote when you're done.
Here goes!
Its late spring; a husband and his wife are in their kitchen.
I told her, "I want you to have what you want for yourself."
And she told me, "I want the hell out of this marriage."
And that was almost that!
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Let me back this up just a little. My name is Travis Hamilton. I'm thirty-nine years old. I have a full head of light brown hair, no grey yet. I stand a comfortable 6'2". I weigh a svelte 200lbs, and I have green eyes. I like to think of myself as something of a manly man. Now I'm no fighter, but I know the meaning of hard work. I'm honest and loyal, and I've been a good husband, a good father, and a good provider. I mean I'm dependable, reliable, quiet, and I think I'm pretty smart.
My wife, that's Lorna Hamilton nee Dixon, is everything a man could want. She's 5'6", she's a healthy thirty-seven, with blue eyes, and long blond hair. She's a cool 130lbs., and she has a nice rack, I'd say about a 36C. And I mean she's hot and sexy. She's got poise and personality; at least she did, and now she wants a divorce.
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I can't say I didn't see it coming; the confrontation and demand for a divorce I mean. We've been married long enough to make three kids.
Our oldest is Alex; he's already in college. He got a full ride to Rutgers where he hopes to get involved with quantum mechanics. I'll be honest I wasn't sure a place called Rutgers actually existed until he got a scholarship there, and the idea that there's a thing called quantum mechanics still puzzles me. I'd tell everyone how brilliant he is, but truthfully, he doesn't need me, he's got his mom and his own mouth to take care of that. I mean he's my kid, my own flesh and blood, but I can't say he's my favorite person. Everyone knows we're supposed to love our kids, but that doesn't mean we have to especially like them. He's a real momma's boy that one; yes sir momma's boy right down the line; been that way all his life.
Our second is Sarah. She looks like me. Alex looks like his mom; no tits though. Well Sarah's a girl with an attitude. Some people think their shit doesn't stink; well Sarah knows hers doesn't. I don't know where she gets it, actually I do; she's smart like her mom and her big brother, but talk about selfish, narrow minded, and egotistical; that's my Sarah. Sarah finished her senior year and decided to take some time off to 'find herself', whatever that means. She'd just about done it all; homecoming queen, hometown beauty pageant, got all A's like her big brother, and class valedictorian.
Let me add when I say she's done it all I mean she's done it all, or done them all I should say. I think she's done just about all the boys in her graduating class, and quite a few of the younger ones. I recall one day last fall I thought I'd clean out her car. What the hell, I bought the damn thing for her, a nearly new Honda Accord.
By the way I own an auto body shop. We do auto repairs; we'll fix those wrecked front ends, replace those befouled transmissions, realign tires; we'll even clean the damned things out inside.
Back to Sarah. I thought I'd clean out her car, maybe fill her tank, change the oil and put on some new tires. Everyone knows what; all the stuff dad's normally do for their kids. Well I was in her glove compartment making sure she had her insurance and registration cards in place when guess what I found? I found a whole damn bag full of prophylactics. I whole god dam bag of rubbers in my little girl's car! I put them back and went back inside to my then loving wife Lorna and told her.
Lorna looked at me and said, "So what; she's been on the pill since the ninth grade."
Well crap; I didn't know my sweet little angel was the town whore. Worse, she plans on going to the University of Hawaii; she says she wants to get as far away from home as possible, and she wants to learn to surf. Me I can't think of two better reasons to go to college. Can anyone?
I suppose by now everyone's wondering where we live. Well that's easy; we live south of the Mason- Dixon Line, north of the Potomac River, and east of the Chesapeake Bay. I suppose that narrows it down pretty well.
OK, on to our last kid. Our last kid, our younger boy; he's the family flop. He's in the twelfth grade; just about to graduate. He'll be eighteen in a short time. He blew off the SAT thing, and guess what; the little turd doesn't have any ambition, none at all. This has really been pissing my wife and my other kids off; little Cable, he's 6'3" by the way, wants to stay home and help me run the business! Damn; he loves cars as much as I do! The stupid asshole wants to be just like his dad! What a disappointment?
That leaves me, almost anyway. I am obviously not a well-educated man. I mean I'm only smart enough to have my own business, have enough money to set up college funds for all my kids, buy a nice house, pay everybody's expenses, and still remember to keep oil in the house's heating system in the winter. What a dumb shit me huh!
That leaves my ever loving, and now almost leaving wife. Lorna and I met and dated off and on through high school. I'm two years older; like I said I'm thirty-nine and she's thirty-seven. Well I dumped her, or she ditched me after I graduated. I mean its all conjecture. Then in her senior year she found Mr. Right. He was taller than me, stronger than me, smarter than me, and a whole lot prettier than me. He and Lorna hit it off; or actually he got it off and she got knocked up.
Well there she was, three months pregnant on the telephone telling me Mr. Right got the word from his friends that she, sweet adorable little Lorna, was the town piglet. Hell I knew that!
One of Mr. Right's friends told him, "Why marry her; she's just another piece of ass?"
He was so right, but then that's why Lorna the piggy came crying to me. She needed a man, a real man. She needed me. Ok, so I'm a chump. I still loved her. I'd started my business; it was pretty rocky, but I knew I was going to make it. See I knew some things too; I wasn't book smart but I was car smart and I was people smart, except I guess for some women. Anyway I knew cars. I knew auto mechanics! I knew how to repair things, and most important I knew people and people knew me.
I learned early on from my dad; he's dead now rest his soul, that a good man never badmouthed other people. He told me a good man kept his opinions to himself. He said things like trust and respect are everything, if people trust a guy they'll work with him, they'll put up with the little mistakes in order to get the big things.
My early years in business were tough, tough indeed, but people around town trusted me. If I couldn't do a job I told them. If I thought I could, but felt like I needed to make sure I could do it I'd take the car someplace to get a second check. It cost me money, but it earned me respect, and with respect came clients.
So I Married Lorna; turned out she wasn't pregnant after all, or maybe she decided to get rid of it I don't know. I wasn't paying that close of attention back then. Whatever; I ended up married to a girl who'd had high expectations, but suddenly found herself stuck with a 'grease monkey'.
Lorna had been a top student. She'd planned on college, a career, and on marrying some rich guy who'd set her up for life. Then Mr. Right came along, he'd thrown a monkey wrench in her plans, and she ended up with me, dare I say again, 'the grease monkey'.
I guess a smart girl would have divorced me once she found out she wasn't pregnant, or whatever, but Lorna had decided she didn't want to move back home. She said she preferred living with dirty old me than with moving back with her rich parents who'd spoiled her rotten.
Remember I said I loved her. She still wanted college. So we worked it out that she'd get to go to college.
Lorna and I started having kids, but she still wanted to go to college. I had an assistant; an inside 'girl' I guess we'd call her something of a 'Girl Friday'. Her name was, is actually, Cassie. Cassie is a 'mixed blood'; she has a black father and a white mother. They're good people too. Of course, the 'one drop rule' makes her black, but one look at her and anyone could see there's a lot more white in that girl than just her mom. Don't forget we live in the South, and it's still pretty provincial in some ways. Notice I didn't say racist.
I used her to work the cash register, take calls and schedule appointments. She was, is, terrific. I really liked her. Pretty soon she was doing my books. Oh shit, I was crazy about her. I mean she was just who I needed. She was smart, pretty, and just a tiny little girl.
Sure Cassie's a mulatto, but she's terrific, she's the polar opposite of Lorna. Lorna is tall, statuesque, Cassie is tiny. Lorna has the big boobs and the big behind, Cassie is tiny. Lorna is ambitious; Cassie just wants to help out.
Lorna wanted college, and we needed a babysitter. A deal was sort of struck. Lorna started out going to night classes. Cassie stayed at our house and took care of the kids when she wasn't with me at the shop. It took Lorna several years, but she got her BS degree.
A couple things happened on the way to Lorna's undergraduate degree. Of course we had our three kids, but Cassie seemed to have gotten hung up on some guy. No one knew who he was, and Cassie and I have been completely tight lipped about the whole thing. Well Cassie got pregnant. Cassie got pregnant the same time Lorna got pregnant with Cable.
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Now a whole lot of years later, and I've got a wife who wants to leave me; well good. Fuck her! I've got three kids; twenty, nineteen, and almost eighteen, and I've got a single mom, a real sidekick, who's my main non-mechanical helper around the shop and at home, and she's got an almost eighteen year old daughter named Jeannie.
I know by now I've put almost everyone to sleep, but fuck it, it's my story and I want to say something about Jeannie. Jeannie's seventeen, almost eighteen. She goes to the same private school Sarah attends. Our boys have gone to public school, but it's well integrated and Lorna didn't want Sarah at public school with all those black boys. Sarah has been going to a private school, Saint Timothy's, since the first grade.
She started at public school kindergarten. Jeannie's been at Saint Tim's too. Her mom found the money; it's not cheap, and Jeannie's been there right along with Sarah. Sarah and Jeanie have been 'secret' best friends all their lives; we can't forget Jeannie's not really white, and Sarah can't have a black best friend.
