LOVED (20 page)

Teddy rocked his stool onto all four legs, and leaned forward. He rested his forearms onto the table. He rubbed his beard and appeared to go deep into thought. He looked at Bunny and glanced back in my direction. I raised my hands into the air to encourage him to speak.

“What, Crash?
Say it
. What’s on your mind?” I asked.

“Well, I was
thinkin’. Like a fried Oreo cookie. Or them bananas at the state fair. The ones dipped in chocolate and nuts and shit. And them mountain oysters. You know, fried cows nuts. Who decides to cook up this shit? I wonder about these things sometimes. Actually I wonder about them a lot. You think the food and drug administration has a team of fellas that just sit in a lab and cook shit? Maybe another team of tasters? They hand ‘em a fried banana dipped in fish batter or something. And the guy says,
Oh fuck. Goddamn. That tastes like shit. Dip that fucker in chocolate.
So the cooker, you know the brains behind the operation…he says,
Oh shit, my bad. Okay
. Comes back in half an hour. Hands the fella a banana dipped in chocolate. Then the guy says,
Add some crushed peanuts, and we got us a deal.
You think that’s how they do it?” he looked at Easter and then back at me.

“Are you fuckin serious?” I asked.

Bunny was laughing semi-hysterically.

“I ain’t fuckin’
around. Twenty years ago, you couldn’t go in a restaurant and get fried pickles. Not here, or anywhere for that matter. Now, you can’t swing a dead cat in this town without runnin’ into a joint that sells ‘em. Who in the fuck decided to release ‘em to the public?”  Teddy asked, waving his arms frantically.

A-Train walked to
ward the table with two beers and two glasses of water.

“I miss the joke of the day?”
he asked as he started setting the glasses down in front of us.

“
Crash wants to know who invented fried pickles. He thinks there’s government involvement,” Easter laughed.

“You fucking serious?”
A-Train asked as he placed a beer in front of Teddy.

I nodded.

“Well, tell me Mr. Marine. Who the fuck invents this shit? Fried pickles? Couldn’t get ‘em when we were kids, now everyone sells ‘em,” Teddy said, waving his arms in a circle again.

A-Train started laughing and slapped Easter on the shoulder.

“God damn, Train. My fucking hip, go easy on me,” Easter complained as he arched his back slowly.

“Shit, Bun. Sorry. What do you think people would think if they thought four bikers were sitting here trying to decide who invented fried pickles?” A-Train asked.

The waitress walked out with two plates of pickles.

“Here you fellas go, fried pickles. Anything else I ca
n get you?” the waitress said as she placed the two plates of pickles onto the table.

“Napkins,” Teddy said as he leaned forward and grabbed a handful of pickles.

She reached into her apron and pulled out four sets of silverware wrapped in cloth napkins. She set them on the table.

“Anything else?” she asked.

“Who invented these things?” Easter asked.

She turned and looked at Bunny, placing her hands on her hips.

“
What’s that
, Bunny?” she said, leaning forward and looking at the name on the front of his vest.

“Fried pickles. Who invented them?” he asked.

She turned and looked at each of us, and back toward Bunny.

“Seriously?” she asked.

Bunny nodded.

“I don’t
know. George Washington Carver invented peanut butter. He was a scientist,” she said.

“Yeah, see? I told ya. It ain’t just some random shit we’re
eatin’. Someone’s inventing this, someone
big
,” Teddy said as he grabbed a few more pickles from the plate.

“Well, it isn’t Carver, he’s dead,” she said as
she turned to walk away.

“Big things and little things, fellas.
Life’s full of each. The big things settle themselves, they’re a given. They’re the easy ones. The small things, they’re the fuckin’ toughest. They’re left up for interpretation,” Teddy said as he grabbed another pickle and bit it in two.

He took a drink of beer.

“It’s the small things, the
little fuckers
that matter. We all stay worried about the big things, and we can’t change ‘em. The big ones are the way they are. We need to focus more on the small things to make life worth livin’. The details. Have a pickle fellas,” Teddy said as he stuck his finger in his beer and nodded his head toward the two plates of pickles.

I thought about what he had said.
The big things and the little things. The details are what matters. Teddy was simple, but he had a good point.

A-Train and Easter each grabbed a handful of pickles.

The small things.

Fuck it.

I reached in and grabbed a handful of pickles.

KELLI.
Most people are of the opinion that we are an extension of our parents. One more generation of the thoughts, beliefs, and morale values instilled upon us from the manner that we were raised by them. I believe that. My father was instrumental in the development of the person that I had become.

I am the person that I am today because of how my father raised me. He explained to me how life would be, what I should pay attention to, and
the manner in which I should treat other people. For the most part, he was correct in all respects.

Erik has helped me understa
nd that my sexual choices I have made as an adult were decided long before I consciously made them. My sexual desires, what I like and don’t like - sexually speaking, were decided subconsciously long before I was even ten years old.

My father did a good job of raising me. I have always thought no one could or would love me as much as my father.

Until I met Erik.

Our parents love us because we are their children. It isn’t that they don’t have a choice, but they sure don’t have much of one. They love us unconditionally because we are a product of them, an extension of them, and a
living part of each of them.

When someone
other than our parents loves us - truly loves us - it is a different love.  Not better or more meaningful, but different. Erik’s love for me made me feel as if every day with him was a gift. A gift of the love that I never believed even existed. I still woke up every morning and expected it all to be a dream.

We don’t always immediately realize that there is anything wrong in or with our lives until someone comes along and makes it right. That one person that completes our life - and makes it
all seem right - allows us to see how wrong it was before they came along.

Without that person entering our life, we may live forever with thoughts that everything is perfect. We don’t have anything to compare it to until they come along. Once we’re exposed to them,
and have the knowledge of what it is that they provide us, we can’t ever be satisfied without them.

Because they, and only they, make what is an otherwise dull meaningless life vibrant and full of passion.

Erik said he would ruin me.

He certainly did that.

As a young child, we believe a dandelion is beautiful. Until we see a rose for the first time. Once exposed to the rose, a dandelion no longer is the expression of beauty it once was. The rose ruined it for us. Now, the rose has established beauty in our mind, and is our means of measuring magnificence.

Erik was my rose.

“Well, I must say that meal was specfuckingtacular. Where’d you learn to cook, son?” daddy asked.

“I watched some videos online,” Erik said from the kitchen, laughing.

Daddy leaned back into the couch and relaxed. I sat down across the room from him in the loveseat. Erik carried in a tray with coffee, cream, and sugar.

“Here we
go,” he said as he set it down on the coffee table in front of the couch.

“Well, wherever you learned to cook
, you did a good job - both of you. That was the best Thanksgiving dinner I’ve ever had. I appreciate it. Today, I am grateful for the two of you having each other,” he said as he took a drink from his coffee cup.

“Thank you. Kelli worked as hard as I did,” Erik sa
id as he sat at the other end of the couch from daddy.

“Well, either way, I enjoyed it, thank you,” daddy said, glancing back and forth between Erik and
I.

Erik nodded as he took a sip from his cup.

“Thank you daddy,” I said.

It was exciting to me to have Thanksgiving dinner at our house. It was always something I wondered if I would
ever
do, having my father come to
my
house for a holiday meal. Until I moved in with Erik, I never expected to have a desire to have any form of holiday celebration at my house. Doing so made me both nervous and excited. Now that it was over, it was very rewarding to have done so. I felt, for once in my life, like a true adult.

“Well, I have an announcement, if you want to call it that. It has nothing to do with the
great meal; it’s just something that I decided to do,” Daddy said.

“Okay, what is it?” I said
, excited for what the
announcement
might be.

Erik nodded.

“You paying attention, shit head?” Daddy laughed.

“Yes sir,” Erik chuckled as he crossed his legs and sat back on the couch.

“Well, as you both now know, I sold the dealership. The deal’s done. Under contract, I stay thirty days with the new owner for some formalities, and work two days a week. But, the deal is done, and it’s over. So,” he took a deep breath, sat up on the edge of the couch and exhaled.

“I bought the Harley dealership,” he smiled and looked ba
ck and forth between Erik and I as he spoke.

“Daddy, really?”
I asked, not quite believing he wasn’t going to retire.

“Gene, I thought you were going to retire?” Erik asked.

Daddy smiled and leaned back into the couch. He took a sip from his cup and looked at Erik.

“Son, I bought it for you two. Kelli doesn’t need to run a BMW dealership. That was my dream, not hers. The guy that owned that place was an asshole. I got him down to a manageable price, so I bought it. We should take possession in about three weeks. I don’t want you two to run it, I want to give it to you, as a gift,” he said as he nodded his head toward Erik.

“Daddy? What?” I couldn’t believe what he was saying.

“Well, maybe now you can give this ape a good deal on that bike he wants,” he laughed as he slapped Erik on the shoulder.

“Gene, I don’t even know what to…” Erik didn’t finish before daddy interrupted.

“Son, just keep your gob shut. I don’t need sentiment. I don’t need tears or a thank you. You both knew I intended on giving the BMW dealership to Kelli. My being sick and some soul searching made me change that. So, I’m giving this to you two, and it actually saves me some money. I can put my extra in a trust,” he said as he handed Erik his coffee cup.

“Get me another cup of coffee, son. Make yourself useful,” he said.

Erik took the cup and walked into the kitchen.

“Daddy, are you serious?” I asked.

“Yes, it’s already done, baby. It’s the least I can do. It’ll let you two make your own business. You can hire whoever you want to run it, do service work,
sell bikes, whatever you want. You can develop it, build it, and watch it grow. Just like I did with the BMW dealership,” he said.

Erik walked back into the room with a carafe of coffee and daddy’s coffee cup.

“Sir, I don’t even know what to say, it’s overwhelming to be quite honest,” Erik said as he handed daddy his cup of coffee.

“Well, get over it, I did.”

“Daddy was just saying that it would be our own dealership and we get to decide who works for us and everything, Erik,” I said as I looked up at Erik.

Erik shook his head and looked at daddy as he sat down.

“I’m too excited, I have to pee,” I said as I stood up to go to the bathroom.

This was just too much to
process. I walked to the bathroom overwhelmed. Erik and I owning the only Harley-Davidson dealership in the largest city in Kansas was almost too much to believe. Having Erik own a Harley dealer would be like having a wolf in charge of the chicken coop. I washed my hands and laughed an excited laugh. I looked into the mirror and smiled.

The girl looking back at me made me proud
. She was no longer a girl - she was growing into a woman. I dried my hands and turned back toward the living room. As I walked into the living room, Erik and daddy were sitting right next to each other whispering. When I walked in, they immediately stopped talking.