Author's Note: Someone far smarter than I once said: "Every love story is a ghost story, and vice versa."
This is a long, slow piece without a much sex, and what sex there is, isn't very explicit. So, please stop here if that's what you're looking for.
The idea here came to me during a very dark time, and the humor of it was exactly what I needed then. I got out of that bad space and thought I would share this here. I hope you find that this is worth the time it takes you to read it. All sex is very straight forward "vanilla" and all people engaging in sex in the story are represented to be over 18 years of age.
*****
Bobby O'Malley was never going to impress anyone on the first meeting. Or maybe even the second, either.
He was modest in all measures of a man and, in a few of those measures, even modest might've been a stretch. Pale, chalky skin, a slight slouch in his shoulders which made him stand a few inches below the six-foot-even he rose to when Doc Bannion told him to "stand up straight so I can getcher height, Bobby". Mousy brownish hair that was thinning when he was in his early twenties. He couldn't grow much of a beard either. Kind of a big nose. The eyes were the thing, though. Pale blue, with a light hazel ring on the inner edge of the pupil. People who knew him would remember the eyes and then say how they kinda made all the other features a bit more handsome.
Athletically, he was decent. He played baseball as a kid but stopped when pitchers started throwing curveballs. Basketball and football never interested him. Later in life, he was pretty good at horseshoes and could occasionally sink a few consecutive balls in an eight-ball game down at the Frederickton Pub once in a blue moon. But sports weren't Bobby's forte.
Academics passed him by at well. He graduated high school, somewhere near the bottom of the class, but he wasn't dumb. College just wasn't in his stars. The tuition money wasn't there, anyways, so that was something left for the other kids born in better circumstances.
He had a funny tick in his heart - an extra, quiet but infrequent 'lub' added to the 'lub-dub' so the Army wouldn't take him either. After graduation, Bobby just did some odd jobs around town, working in an oil change place before getting on with a crew which was building houses in one of the half dozen developments that had popped up over the previous five years. The developers did most of the training, and Bobby was a young, relatively strong back and was actually pretty reliable. Not the first one chosen for the work team, but he was chosen nonetheless.
His folks were decent people but they were, like Bobby, seemingly on the left-side of the Bell-curve for most of the parts of life where "good things" are measured, somewhere in that "lesser" pile of things. They weren't bad people at all; they loved their son, went to church on Sundays, paid their bills when they could. There just wasn't a lot left over for things beyond the bare minimum.
Overall, Bobby wasn't a loser. He just wasn't one of life's winners.
But Bobby was a saint, and on the day the final trumpet sounds, he will be there, taking humanity's inventory alongside the angels.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
While he worked hard and lived his life, Bobby lived in an area of town called Carleton Estates. Despite the somewhat grand-nature of the name, it was what most folks would call a trailer park. Cheap, throwdown homes with minimal actual real estate space or amenities. The bare minimum for living, with neighbors up close and personal.
For Bobby, it was enough. Most folks living there were like him - good people who were just playing the hand that they'd been dealt. Sure, there were some rough characters that took up quarters occasionally, but they tended to flare up fast and then burn out. The people that stayed - weren't they all just trying to get along?
There was a quiet inertia in those kinds of places that kept people in line. That same inertia tended to keep people in places like that.
The geography of the Estates was such that it bordered on a river. Well, it was more a stream most times, only a few yards across, but when wetter weather came through, it got a bit of a current before it widened a little further past the Estates, where it opened back up and the waters slowed. At this point of widening, the river also deepened more, to about twenty feet or so. Bobby's place was one of those along the small bluff above the river and a little rusted out fence across the back of his lot set the border to the Estates.
Bobby saw it as having his own place and a bit of independence. He worked, saw his friends and generally lived the life of a young man in his twenties. There was play time and there was work time. Time in the Estates was spent in his own little corner, as well as a few of his friends who also lived there after getting out of school; they held similar jobs and lived similar lives. In summer time, there were get-togethers, with small wading pools turned into makeshift coolers. Snacks and music brought out the neighbors and there was a general good time had by most.
Bobby made some money. The thing was, he'd never known a life different than what he'd had. His folks were a touch better off, but not much, and they'd always been careful with money. There had never been luxuries for him when he was growing up, so once Bobby had the basic necessities, he didn't think he was missing anything. Besides buying a few rounds at The Fred, and maybe a nice meal in town and a repair or two on his car, there wasn't much to spend it on, so he did what his folks recommended, he saved. Bobby's dad had taught his son a few things about turning a wrench, so Bobby was pretty handy about keeping things running without a lot of cash.
For a while, this was his world. His friends, his folks and every now and then, a little bit of fun. In the scheme of things, that was the world for him, and that was all right.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The construction crew moved around as new jobs popped up. Soon, they were building in adjacent towns around the county. Bobby stayed with them, doing his job and living his life. There were a few nights out in those other places, with friends like Brett and Coy, friends who also lived in the Estates and also worked on the construction crews that were needed to build the houses for those on the right-hand side of the American Dream.
Brett was two years older than Bobby, and while they were acquaintances in school, they hadn't been all that close during those years. Coy was a year younger and had moved into town after school from the next county over. The three wound up together working for the developers and began a solid friendship. There was teasing and roughhousing, as men that age are prone to engage in, but nothing ever got too serious. There was more than a bit of respect within the group as three young guys just trying to get by in life when all of the breaks in life don't go your way.
One of those nights out, Bobby had driven the carpool to work that day, so he was taking his drinks in iced tea, rather than beer. Bobby was good about that; he never once tried to sneak in a beer or two on the sly. Coy, Brett and anyone else in the carpool that day were his friends, and Bobby was grateful to his friends. He'd never do anything that would endanger or hurt them. He was raised to respect his friends.
