Depression by cmsix

Chapter 10

When I opened my eyes the next morning, the first thing I saw was Meka's eyes; she'd been hovering over me, waiting for mine to open. She showed me that she was quite a little trickster next, by shooting out of bed and beating me to the bathroom. She was flushing up a storm in no time flat.

She was really proud of herself when she came out to give me a turn, and she was smiling so wide I had to smile too. I made it to the john without wetting myself, then washed my face and raked my hair into a semblance of order with my fingers.

For breakfast this morning, Ethel outdid herself. We had pancakes, waffles, bacon, sausage, biscuits, toast, and more. I could see who she was cooking for at once. She'd made some smaller pancakes for Meka and they left room for half a waffle on the plate beside them.

Since Meka had already showed us that she liked syrup on her sausage and bacon, Ethel had piled it all on the same plate so it could get a good coating. Wanda helped Meka with the syrup and butter for the pancakes and waffles, and when they were done, Ethel slid two sunny-side-up eggs right on top of the whole thing. Meka smiled her widest and even giggled a little and then tore into it.

Meka could put away the groceries. For a six year old she had an A1 appetite. It was a little funny to me, but when she ate a big breakfast or big dinner it didn't slow her down for a second, but if she packed it in at suppertime, she wanted to go to bed almost right away. I guess it was because she was used to that.

When breakfast was over, Meka didn't seem too interested in going down to see the house right away. She had at first, when she'd thought we'd be riding Joe Bob and Little Missy, but when she found out we had to go in the pickup and see about moving back in, she developed a need to let Doctor Jorge teach her a little more English.

Me and George went down there first, by ourselves in fact. I guess it didn't seem exciting to anyone else. It had been assholes and elbows yesterday to get everything moved out. It probably was a little hard to work up much enthusiasm to go undo everything everyone had just done yesterday. Since it was my house, I was more interested in it than the others.

As soon as we reached the driveway, George and I both knew the others would be sorry they'd passed up this trip. The new driveway was the first tip off. It wasn't iron ore gravel any more. It was a concrete driveway with curb, gutter, storm drains, and the whole works. It looked more like a very wide city street now, and it led around to the carport on the side of the barn.

Except the barn wasn't here now and neither was the carport. There was a barn here, but it wasn't the one that left last night. This one was stone construction, like the house, and it was over three times as large as it had been, not to mention that it was now fully two stories.

Oh, the carport was gone too, and had been replaced by an eight-car garage, with roll up doors no less. It wasn't an afterthought either, it joined the barn in a T, and its roof's peak was the same height as the barn's. It seemed too long, as if we were going to park cars nose to tail, one behind the other. I knew a normal garage was about twenty-five to thirty feet deep, and this one was easily a hundred, but we didn't even try to look inside, since the barn's big front double doors were open, beckoning.

The barn was now a good bit farther from the road, it had to be because the house had grown more than the barn had. It was huge. Though it seemed to have the same general proportions, the actual size was greatly increased. The roof had been changed too. The Spanish tiles were gone and it now had a slate roof, like the new barn and garage.

The barn's front doors were wide open, and the first thing I saw was a handprint on the inside wall by the big central hall's door. It looked like it was glowing and there was no doubt that it was doing so to attract attention.

When I placed my hand over it, the handprint disappeared and in a few seconds I heard what sounded a little like elevator doors opening. I was still facing toward the outer wall and looking out the big front door.

"I'll be dipped in shit," George said, from behind me.

I turned around and I'd have taken a dipping myself. That noise that sounded like elevator doors was made by elevator doors. They were large, like for a freight elevator, and they were open. All the space that had been the other barn's little office, and more, was now elevator.

What the hell, George and I got in. I didn't even have time to wonder about not seeing the doors when we came into the barn.

I didn't feel us moving and wondered if we needed to do something else. All we had to do was wait, and about twenty seconds later the doors opened again. We were on the new second floor. I guess you could call it a loft. It didn't have a ceiling; it was open to the rafters. There wasn't anything in it, just wide-open space.

"Damn, there's room for three or four thousand bales of hay up here, if we were still doing it the old fashioned way," George said.

"Don't say another word about that. I'll walk away from this whole deal if I have to stack hay bales even one day," I said.

"Ya don't care much for the old fashioned hay bailin' then?" George asked, grinning.

"I wouldn't haul hay if I could eat it."

We got back in the elevator and I looked around for some type of button to make it go. We didn't need one, and this time, after the doors shut, I thought I could feel the tiniest sensation of motion.

This trip took longer than the first one, and I wondered what was happening until the doors opened onto the basement. Who ever heard of a basement in a barn?

It was empty, completely empty, but it had probably a sixteen-foot ceiling and if I'd been guessing, I'd have said that it was exactly the size of the new barn and carport together, or maybe even larger. But it was all empty space; empty well lighted space no less. I couldn't see any fixtures; the light just seemed to be coming from the ceiling.

"Damn, this is strange," George said.

"I'll say."

"I wonder what in the hell it's for. I know one thing; you could pack a hell of a lot of something in it. In fact, you could put a hell of a lot of almost anything in it," he said.

We struck out one way and walked around the perimeter of my new giant hole in the ground. It wasn't like a hole though. It was completely finished inside and seemed like it was made of the same material that had covered the ground while the house was gone. The most amazing thing to me was it was clear span. There wasn't a support post down there anywhere. Another set of elevator doors were down at the far end, but they were much wider, probably forty feet or so.

It opened when we came near it and we walked in, to get another shock. The damned elevator was at least a hundred feet end to end, and forty feet from side to side.

"Why is it so big?" I asked, but didn't really expect an answer from George. Just as well because he didn't give me one.

Thirty seconds later the far end opened up and we could see that a driveway led away from it. We walked to the far door and looked outside. It wasn't really a driveway, at least not leading to the door. It was like a big parking lot. There was obviously room enough for a semi-truck and trailer, or three, to park, turn around, or whatever.

The edges of the concrete parking lot were finished with curb and gutter just like along my new road. It also had storm drains in several places. The only break in the curb led to more driveway, going back toward my new road.

"Well, we don't have to wonder what it's all for now. It's a perfect setup for a big truck to come around back, pull into the elevator, and then be lowered to unload," George said.

"That's what it looks like, but I can't figure out what we're supposed to put down in the barn's giant basement," I said.

"I'm sure we'll get the idea when the time comes," George said, and I didn't doubt it.

"George, would you mind riding back down so I can see what it looks like when it's lowered? All of the parking lot part seems to end right here at this door, the pasture is coming right up to the back of the curb out here," I said, pointing to it.

He agreed; we both walked out of the elevator and then he walked back in. It descended, and when it was gone I couldn't tell that it had ever been there. The space was covered in pasture, but I couldn't see even a hint of where the elevator had been, not even in the curb and I know a section of it had gone up when the elevator had.

I was looking right at it a few seconds later when it started back up. I still couldn't believe the curb had fit in so seamlessly, and I saw it separate when it began rising.

When the doors opened again, George stepped back out.

"What did it look like?" he asked.

"While it was in the ground, it looked like pasture on top, and I couldn't tell where any joints were, not even in the curb," I said.

"Let's take a look around on the outside and walk back to the front door," George said.

We did and there wasn't anything that looked out of place, except for the parking lot to nowhere. We'd already seen the outside of the new garage so we walked around the other side. It looked like your everyday, extra large, stonework barn. If there was such a thing.

"If they're planning on you storing something down there, they've made it simple to get truck loads of it here and then unloaded," George said.

"I think I'd better hold off on even thinking about that for now. Let's go see what they've done to the house," I said.

One thing I'd noticed right away was that the house had a back door now. When we were closer, another handprint started glowing. Since I knew the drill I put my hand on it and in seconds the door opened. But it didn't swing open.

It had looked just like the door that had been at the front of the house before it made its unescorted trip, but it wasn't like it at all. After I'd done the handprint deal it slid back into the wall, like a pocket door. When it was fully open you couldn't tell it had ever been there and everything looked like it was just a permanent opening in the stone wall.

I didn't have time to worry about that right now. We stepped into the kitchen and it was now the most modern one I'd ever seen. It wasn't that it was fancy or frilly, or even exceptionally attractive - it was that it had everything - two of everything in fact.

The floor was the most amazing part to me at first. It looked exactly like the other one had, except it was smooth, completely smooth. You could see where the stones had been put down, you could even see where they were joined, but the was no cement between them, and no type of grout. The rocks just fit together now, perfectly, and they were as smooth as everything else that had come around lately.

My little rock cabin was no more. The new living room was bigger than the entire cabin used to be. And there were three bedrooms on each side of a hall that led to an operating room, or at least that's what it looked like to me.

There was an examination/operating type room through a door at the end of the hall. It had what looked like and operating table to me - and medical style cabinets covered almost all the walls. The tip-off was one of those giant movable lights hanging right over the table.

On the other side of the operating room was another hall with two patient room doors on each side. A door in the other end of the hall led to a small office/waiting room, and there was a door in it leading outside. Hell, it was like I was going to open a small hospital.

Frankly I couldn't understand why all this had been added. I was no doctor, and even though I could do first aid, I didn't need a damned operating room for it. I guess it wouldn't hurt anything, and it would beat hell out of cutting out musket balls on the kitchen table.

We turned around and headed back into the house. Checking out the bedrooms this time, we saw they were all large and had individual baths. Two of them were larger than the others and they were directly across the hall from each other.

I supposed that one was mine and one was Meka's. The baths were well equipped, with the two for the larger rooms even more so. Meka and I had a shower, a normal bathtub, and a big four-seater hot tub each.

We knew which room was Meka's when we looked in her bathroom. There was a bidet in it and I couldn't even guess at all the fun she was going to have with that. At least I knew I wouldn't be the one to show her how to use it. In the first place, I wasn't sure about the details myself.

I had an office now, between the living room and my bedroom, and there was a door from the bedroom into the office with another one from the office into the hall. The place for my desk was apparent at once, since there was a floor mounted receptacle there.

Even though we were still talking about solid stone walls, the surface mount conduit was gone. There were switches and plugs where you'd normally expect them, but somehow they were wired inside the stone walls. That had to have been one hell of a trick.

Neither George nor I had said a word since we entered. We just walked around looking at everything, gaping open-mouthed.

"Ya know, John, I think we'd better let Ethel have a look around down here before we get started on anything. Just between you and me, I wouldn't have the first idea about what to do, and I'm bettin' you don't neither," George said.

"Even if I did, what's the point? We're bound to do something wrong; we'd probably end up doing it all wrong, and it would just have to be moved again. Easier to let her do it like she wants to in the first place," I said.

"Do you mind if I talk to her about it and you just kinda hang back, actin' like you feel bad about puttin' the work on her?" he asked.

"As long as you promise me you'll take all the blame if it blows up in our faces," I said, wondering what he had in mind.

We went back up to his house and Ethel was in a grand mood. Doctor George had done some more teaching on Meka and she'd come out and told Ethel how much fun she was having. Of course that made Ethel be having fun too.

George sidled up beside her when he got in the house, and told her that my house had a few changes in it and that we though she should take a look at it before we got started.

"What kind of changes?" Ethel asked.

"Oh, it's a little bigger now and we're not sure you'll want to put things back in the same places. They fixed up the bathroom too and it's got a back door now," he said, sounding oh so casual.

"I might have known you two couldn't do a thing without me. Come on Wanda, and you too Meka. We have to go bail these men out," she said.

Wanda started grinning and even though I'm sure Meka didn't understand what was going on, she grinned too when she saw Wanda and Ethel both do it.

"Well, lets go George, get the Silverado and take us down there," Ethel said, when he and I just stood there.

"I'd better go get Jake to drive ya down there. John and me need to go get one of the trucks so we can take the trailers down for unloadin'," he said, making it sound like nothing was out of the ordinary at all.

"I guess you're right, but I don't want you two foolin' around all day with it," she said.

"We won't Honey. I've already got the keys. They sent 'em out to me, hopin' I'd take the trucks off their hands," he said.

I don't know about George but I was glad to get away. I knew Ethel, Wanda, and even Meka were going to be stupefied when they saw the house and barn now, and I didn't want to be around when they decided that George and I had set them up for the shock.

George drove us to town and went to the bank he was dealing with for the trucks. He didn't bother going inside to tell anyone anything. We just drove to the far side of their parking lot, where the trucks were parked, and got out to look them over.

They both looked nearly normal, even though they were the reddest trucks I could ever remember seeing. Even from a distance you could tell that they were meant to look great. They had aluminum wheels all around and that wasn't common on log trucks. Those wheels cost about four hundred bucks extra, each, and there were ten of them on each tractor.

"I wonder if the damned pole trailers have aluminum wheels too," George said.

"That would just be silly," I said.

"Yeh, well there's nothin' sensible about the trucks, why should the trailers be any different?" he asked.

He handed me a set of keys and they fit the first one I walked up to. I got in the driver's seat and knew at once that the air pressure was down to nothing. The air ride bladder under the seat didn't have any pressure.

But the big Cat fired right up, and though I hadn't paid any attention to the stacks, I knew it had straight pipes as soon as I heard it growling. It did a fast idle for about two minutes and then dropped back to six hundred rpm. I waited for the air pressure to come up.

George parked his fifty-six and got in on the passenger side. He asked why the seat was so low as soon as he sat in it, and I told him.

"There better not be a leak somewhere," he said.

"They probably let one of their kids or one of someone's play around in it. The seats almost never lose air unless you let it out. These are even less likely to," I said.

"Why's that?" George asked.

"Hell, look at 'em. These are high-dollar seats, with high backs, adjustable armrest, and leather upholstery. They probably cost three times what the seats in a normal new log truck cost," I said.

"I hadn't though of that, but it does sit good, even down low like this. How do you raise it up anyway?"

I showed him, and we had enough air to at least adjust the seats by now. In three or four minutes we were up to full pressure. I put it in gear and idled off, changing to second before we'd gone twenty feet. The four ten axles didn't need low gear to get moving on smooth level ground.

That V8 Cat was something else. I rolled the stop sign into the main street, since there was nothing coming either way. When I straightened out after the turn, I nailed it. That's the way I normally drive a big truck, but it made a show for anyone that was watching. It spun the tires and that's not easy to do with a truck this size.

Of course it only spun one, or one position anyway, there were two tires on it though.

"Damn, I don't think I've ever seen a big truck do that," George said.

"I ain't either. I wonder if it'll spin two if I flick the power divider on?"

"Why don't you try it?" George asked.

"Won't mean much anyway, and there's things under us that could break. They probably have it set up so the driveline will twist in two before it breaks a rear end, the power divider, or the transmission, and I don't want to have to walk back to get the other one," I said, and George laughed at me over it.

We were still stalling to keep from getting back before Ethel had settled down a little, so we drove out by Jerry Charlton's welding shop to look at the pole trailers. We didn't need to see them but what the hell; we had time on our hands.

I'll be damned if they didn't have aluminum wheels on them too. They were pretty normal pole trailers besides that. But they did have special poles. They folded, like all log hauling pole trailers did, and of course the unit could slide back to the stop at the end of the pole for longer loads, but these poles telescoped too. The back part of the pole, behind the folding hinge, was cut in half and there was smaller tubing inside the rearmost section. It could be disconnected and stretched out to haul very long logs.

Jerry Charlton came out when he saw us driving up in the truck. We were looking at the trailers and he came over to brag on his work. He was proud of the telescoping rear section and I guess he had a right to be.

"I thought he was crazy when he asked if I could do it, but it turned out better than I expected. It's a hundred and five feet long when it's stretched all the way out," he said.

"Don't that put an awful strain on the pole to be stretched out that way?" George asked.

"Not really. The pole don't never carry no weight. When the logs are on it they're the main structural strength. The pole is just to keep the unit from gettin' cock-eyed and to load it before you dead-head back to the set," he said.

"Well hell, John. Me and you are gonna end up with a education over these trucks," George said.

"I don't guess it'll hurt us. Just don't depend on me hauling many logs for ya," I said.

"Have you come out to get the headache rack and the rear bumper with the wheel mounts put on?" Jerry asked.

"Naw, we're just killin' a little time before we have to go and move a couple of box vans. I didn't even know that there were headache racks and trailer mount bumpers built already," George said.

"Sure are, Bill planned to have 'em hauling logs a week ago, but sometimes a plan just don't come together. The bank told me to let you have it all. Course they haven't paid to have it put on yet," Jerry said.

"Don't worry about that, Jerry. Just call Ethel and tell her how much and she'll send you a check. I wouldn't cheat a workin' man out of a penny," George said.

"I never thought you would, George. Besides, everything that's been done has been paid for. The headache racks, bumper mounts, and all. The only thing that hasn't is mounting it, and it ain't done yet," Jerry said.

"Tell ya what, why don't you make a good guess about what it'll cost and tell Ethel so she can go ahead and pay you for it. Guess high too. If it ends up being more, don't be shy about tellin' me that either," George said.

"That don't seem fair to you, George," he said.

"Well, I think it is, and if we never get to it we can trade it for some other work can't we?" George asked.

"Sure, you know ya can. Got any idea what you might need done?" Jerry asked.

"As a matter of fact, I do. I think I'm gonna need a pipe fence before long. A heavy duty one. Do you still have you're pipeline weldin' truck?" he asked.

"Yep, but I don't do pipeline work no more. It would work out good on a fence though, and I haven't ever made a sure 'nough done right pipe fence. I might like tanglin' with something like that for a change," Jerry said.

"Well, give me a week or so to finish up some other things and then drive out by the house if you get a chance. I'll show ya what I'm thinkin' 'bout," George said.

We decided that we'd fucked around long enough after that and headed back into town to let George get his pickup. I let him lead the way back toward my house but I stayed right behind him. I didn't want to miss seeing what happened.

As we were coming to a red light, I happened to notice the extra trolly valve down by the air seat's control button. I pulled up right behind George and you should have seen him jump when I honked the train horn just as the light turned green. He turned around, laughing like hell, and shot me the finger.

Just out of town he pulled off on the shoulder and got out to talk to me when I parked behind him.

"Did that antique finally give up the ghost?" I asked, pointing to his pickup.

"Naw, don't even think that. I just wanted you to make sure you have enough air to honk that thing when we get to your house, 'specially if Ethel is inside," he said, grinning like a fool.

"I ain't got the nerve to do it before we find out what kind of mood she's in, George, and that's a fact. We'll have to save that little secret for another day," I said.

"Well, you're probably right. No sense gettin' her bloomers twisted up again this quick. She's probably just now gettin' 'em untangled from the shock of the house," he said.

After hooking one of the dry vans the moving company had left, we tried to slip back to the house without getting into any more trouble. We managed to get the trailer back onto the new parking lot and we dropped it without anyone coming outside.

Meka opened the front door when she heard us come back, and she was wide-eyed when she saw the truck. I barely managed to get to the ground before she came running up.

I held my arms open, and taking her cue, she jumped into them when she reached me.

"Daddy! What...