I Feel Lucky by cmsix

Chapter 56

"Jimmy, have any of you had anything to eat?" Mom asked.

"Now that you ask, no. We've been hard at it too, although we can see it's been an exciting day around here," I said.

"Mostly just a little bothersome, but Chucky baby says he's making good progress, finally. The poor landscaper didn't get any warning and they've been out here all day moving sod to give all these trucks a path back to unload behind the house," Mom said.

"I had no idea they'd need this much equipment. How many truck are here?" I asked.

"Chucky said there would be seventy-two today, I didn't have the nerve to ask if there would be more tomorrow. I think most of these brought earth-moving equipment. There are a lot of bulldozers and maintainers driving around out back," she said.

"I saw the practice truck out front, is Jacob back already?" I asked.

"Yes, but they haven't been long. He's asleep; apparently they didn't stay in the motel room last night after all. Sherry said something about getting an early pickup time or some such.

"I think they left for Miami as soon as they unloaded in Jacksonville. Anyway, Sherry drove for a while and let Jacob see what it was like to sleep while the truck was moving.

"She picked up the load and after they were out of Miami, on the way back, she turned it back over to Jacob for the run home," Mom said.

"Did she mention anything about log books?" Bill asked.

"Oh, is that what she was talking about? She told me they had to stop for about an hour so she could teach Jacob how to cheat on his log. I didn't understand what they were doing with any logs, so I ignored that part," Mom said.

I was still confused a little, but Bill laughed a lot about it. I decided that it had something to do with hours of service for the driver, and all that crap I hadn't paid much attention to. Looked like I'd be getting another lesson before long.

"Did you run into trouble, Jimmy? I didn't expect it to take so long for you to get the helicopter," Mom said.

"It didn't, but when we got back we realized that we didn't have any way for Jacky to unload it. Bill took us to Tom Doolin's equipment place and we picked up a track-hoe for Jacky and we had to get a different trailer to haul it. It's too wide for our skateboard," I said, trying to use some of my new truck driver lingo.

"Did you bring it here or take it out to the airport?" Mom asked.

"We were hungry, so we came on home. It's parked out front and the helicopter is still at the airport," I said.

"Well, at least you didn't bobtail by here. You know how I hate that," she said.

"Believe me mother, we'd have taken the helicopter back before we did that," I said.

"Good. I'm glad you remembered."

"I thought we should come here so Jimmy could tell you about his introduction to Pete Johnson," Bill said, grinning like a big fool.

"I'd almost forgotten about Pete, where did you run into him?" Mom asked.

"Apparently Glenda Doolin married him. He was working for Tom and he tried to run us off the lot. I called Tom and explained the problem and he changed Pete's attitude," Bill said.

"It seems like I do remember Glenda dating Pete while they were still in high school. It's a shame she didn't dump him after graduation," Mom said.

I was getting confused by Bill and Mom discussing people I didn't know squat about and I couldn't keep quiet.

"Who is Glenda, besides Tom Doolin's daughter?" I asked.

"Jimmy, I can't believe you don't remember Glenda. She was always so nice to you when we went to the football games. She was a cheerleader at the same school that your sisters just stopped attending.

"Pete Johnson was an All State running back, like someone else we've had a run in with lately. Glenda was his girlfriend and the head cheerleader. I can't believe you don't remember her," Mom said.

The light shined for me then and I could remember Glenda perfectly. She was the first girl I ever remember being impressed with. At nine years old they didn't mean much to me yet.

Glenda was different; she was like a goddess in my memory. Long blonde hair and enormous titties, and her legs were so beautiful. I remembered Glenda all right. I would watch her, hoping she'd do a jump or handstand so I could see her panties.

We'd always sit near where they did their yells and I'd beg to go down by the fence so I could be closer. Glenda always made sure I got one of whatever they threw to the crowd that week. It was usually a peewee football or some other party favor type thing.

Several times, after the game was well in hand, she'd lift me over the fence and call me their mascot. All the other cheerleaders would come by and make a fuss over me, but Glenda always said I was her man and she'd shoo them away. It was a shock to think beautiful Glenda was married to that asshole we'd seen today.

"I had no idea what became of Glenda, I was just a kid then anyway," I said.

"I didn't either. It's strange that we didn't get a wedding invitation," Mom said.

"I think they had a small quiet wedding, after Pete's troubles at Georgia Tech," Bill said.

"That's right. I wonder why she still married him after that scandal?" Mom asked.

"Who knows? I don't think Tom is very happy about it yet," Bill said.

"Happy, he was joking about having him killed," Jacky said, and then blushed for speaking out.

"I wonder..." Mom said, and then changed the subject suspiciously.

"We had another stroke of luck, and for the driveway, of all things," Mom said.

"How could we have luck with the driveway?" I asked, knowing that the topic of Pete Johnson had been retired and would stay that way.

"Chucky baby saw it all formed up, and he said that he could get his men to put in the rebar, pour the concrete, and do the finishing, tomorrow.

"That crew wasn't going to show up until Friday, but he had them come on now to take care of it for us. They can be finished with the driveway by tomorrow and start on the helipad Thursday."

"Wow, things are moving pretty fast," I said.

"I don't like to drag things out and I think Sherilyn made that plain to Chucky baby," Mom said.

Kamakeata brought us all ham sandwiches about then and I quit talking to eat.

Just as we finished, Karita and Joni came downstairs with smiles on their faces. They walked over and both of them gave me a good kissing. I was feeling very friendly myself so I gave their titties some welcoming squeezes while they were close.

"I'm so glad our truck driver has come back to us. We need him to go get the trailer of foam," Karita said, giving Junior a stroke or two while she was close.

I'd forgotten all about the foam, but I wanted it here as badly as any of them did. I didn't know what we were going to do about it though. We were still hooked to the heavy-haul lowboy.

"Bill, can we take the practice truck to get the foam," I asked, when I thought of the answer.

"We could, but it will be easier to bobtail for the trailer of foam. We have to unhook from the lowboy to get the hoe off anyway. We can take the hoe to the airport, drop the lowboy, pick up the foam, and come back. We'll still be back here in time for supper," Bill said.

It was a much better plan than mine had been and we headed out to the truck again. When we got there I noticed for the first time that someone had put a big banner across our bumper. It said Oversized Load and I wondered who'd put it there.

"That's something we forgot," Bill said, when he saw it.

"I didn't forget it, I didn't have any idea we needed it," I said.

"Well I knew, so I guess I'm the one that forgot," Bill said.

I looked around to see if I could figure out who had put it on for us. The trooper couldn't hold it any longer and laughed. He came over and told us that he'd mentioned the absence to Chucky baby, of course he didn't call him that, and Chucky'd had one of the other drives do it.

Now that I was paying attention I saw that most of the trucks around here had them. In fact most of the trucks had lowboy trailers like ours; some were even bigger than ours. I guessed that they'd all brought equipment.

Nothing that we did on our errand was hard; it just took time to get it taken care of. We dropped the lowboy, bobtailed to the trailer yard and picked up the load of foam, and then went back home.

Provisions had been made to get us close to the house when we got there, since our stable of cars had been moved to the houses on either side of us. The ones we'd bought lately.

Someone was going to have to back the trailer into the driveway though. Bill wanted me to try it but I refused. I didn't mind learning to back up, in fact I want to. I wasn't about to do it with seventy or so truck drives standing around watching.

Jacky and I got out and I let Bill have the fun, but he wasn't much fun. He took a look in the mirrors, pulled up a little to put the trailer at the angle he wanted it, and then backed it exactly where it needed to be with seemingly no trouble.

Mom had joined us and we all watched as Bill opened the doors. I didn't have any idea the trailer would be so full. The foam was in big rolls that looked similar to rolls of carpet padding, except a lot bigger.

"My goodness, I didn't realize there would be so much of it," Mom said.

Karita was out here by now and she explained that she went ahead and bought a whole truckload, in case we needed to do it somewhere else too. That made sense, because if Mom liked it I was sure that her regular bed would disappear pretty quickly.

"How are we going to unload it?" I asked.

"Would you like a little suggestion?" Bill asked.

"Yes, we would," Mom said.

"All these drivers standing around would probably help for twenty or thirty bucks each. They aren't doing anything now but standing around bullshittin' and Chuck told me they had to stay here because they only haul equipment for him. They always wait around near the job," Bill said.

"That would be fine Bill, but the only cash we have is in hundreds. Tell them we'll pay them a hundred each and let everyone of them help if they want to," Mom said.

"We only need about forty rolls here so far, I think we should put the rest of it in one of the other houses temporarily," Karita said.

We all agreed that was an excellent plan and Bill went over to talk to a few of the drivers. They scattered to talk to the other drivers when he left them but soon they were all gathered around the back of the trailer.

Soon enough they were leaving with one roll each and Karita was off telling them where to put down their burden. The forty rolls were off the truck in no time and it looked like there were still about two hundred left.

Bill closed the doors after the first forty rolls were off and he moved the truck to the curb in front of Tiffany's former home. He couldn't get into the driveway there because that's where half of the cars from around our house had ended up.

The small army of truck drivers didn't seem to care at all. They were there and opening the doors again before Bill had the brakes released and the first three had already left with a roll before he got out.

Gail went over to show them where to store their rolls and the trailer was empty in less than a half hour. Carolyn had gone to the study with mom and she came back out with cash to pay the drivers.

When Bill and Mom had returned Mom had a question.

"Where are all those men going to eat if they have to stay here?"

"I think there are a few Suburbans around that they use to go to cafes for meals. There are two busses that take the equipment operators and other workers to motels at night. The drivers sleep in their trucks though. I think the busses take them to the motel for showers during the day while the others are working," Bill said.

"Tell the truck drivers not to worry about going off to eat, unless they don't like Bar-B-Que, I'll call and get some sent out. They can shower in Tiffany's and Jennifer's houses too if they'd like. In fact they can make themselves at home in them while they're here," Mom said.

"I'll tell them, but we might have to call the cops again to get them to leave when this job is over. And aren't you worried about them damaging something?" Bill asked.

"I guess we shouldn't tell them, but we're going to tear those two houses down later anyway, and I know Tiffany and Jennifer have already taken out everything they want to keep.

The only things left in either of the houses belong to either Tom Dalrymple or Greg Jackson. I doubt that there's anyone here who gives a damn what happens to the houses or the contents, except for that foam we just unloaded," Mom said.

I wondered what Mom was up to. She was always nice to everyone that acted like even half a human, but she didn't take in stray cats. She went into the house and I followed her, in fact I kept following as she entered the study.

"Something is on my mommy's mind, isn't it?" I asked, after shutting us in.

"Something surely is. I have a feeling that every one of these men is under that control, truck drivers and all. I intend to find out and if they are, they'll be under our control when they leave," Mom said.

She was probably right. I hadn't even thought about it but after she had her say I was sure. I went back out front, grabbed the closest one I could find and asked him to come inside to talk, leading him into the study with me.

Mom spit out the keyphrase and he went under right away. I knew Mom had anticipated what I was doing when Sherilyn walked out of the little closet.

Sherilyn grilled him a little but she didn't get much. He was a truck driver and this construction thing was his full time job. Our job was the biggest rush they'd ever had, since Chuck had told them they had to be through and gone by Sunday, but they often did this kind of thing and had put in helipads and airstrips all over the country.

The driver didn't know any of the why's about it, it was just his job. He wasn't curious about anything either. No doubt that was one of his instructions.

Sherilyn did some reprogramming on him. He would still respond to the old keyphrase but he knew that he was ours now. He wasn't about to reveal it though. She instructed him to call in if he came across any information he thought we should know.

In other words he still wasn't curious for the benefit of the others but he was keeping his eyes open to report to us. It seemed to be getting very complicated around here to me, especially since I knew that Mom intended to get hold of everyone on the job.

I decided that this wasn't something I couldn't do much about. I left it to Mom and Sherilyn and went out to the kitchen to see if there was something I could influence, like food. Suppertime was approaching.

My heart was wounded when I got to the kitchen. There were women in it working, but they seemed to be in the process of putting things away and abandoning their efforts.

Kamakeata was there to give me the news but it wasn't as bad as I'd feared.

"Sharon cancelled the cooking for tonight, she called someone and ordered all the Bar-B-Que in the world. It will start arriving in a few minutes.

"They're going to bring some in here and will be serving at the tables out on the patio. They're also setting up more tables over in Tiffany's back yard, for all those men outside," she said.

"I'm glad you stayed around to give me the details. I get nervous when I don't know where my next meal is going to be," I said.

"Jimmy, with all the women you have now it isn't going to be possible for you to miss a meal, trust me," she said.

"I know, but that doesn't mean I don't like to be reminded occasionally."

She laughed at me and then went on about her business. I wandered around wondering if I should be doing something. Every now and then Jeff or George would come through, carrying a piece of computer equipment or some of the odd wiring. I guess Mom did have a serious talk with them.

On one trip I decided to follow Jeff when he came by with a large box. I thought I saw a picture of a flat panel display on it. He went upstairs toward Jason's new bedroom.

Jeff went into the first bedroom on that wing, one of the ones I'd had to take the mattress out of the other night. When I walked in behind him I was amazed. The bed's frame and all the other furniture had been removed.

There was a really nice desk with a good executive type chair behind it. It also had small access holes in the top for cables and such, and there were already two boxes almost the same size as the one Jeff had brought sitting on the desk. I hesitated to speak to Jeff, thinking Mom might have let him in a sour mood, but finally I did.

"Hi, Jeff, what's in the boxes?" I asked.

"These three are the monitors, I've already got the computer down here in a compartment this desk has for it. The desk is made to look like an executive's but it's designed to be easy for computer installation," he said.

"Is it going to have three monitors?" I asked, since that's what it looked like with three boxes.

"Yes, and no. It goes together like one big monitor and they all work together. For instance, the Windows Desktop will be spread across all three of them." he said.

"How can that work?"

"It works great. The mouse cursor moves across the boundaries like they were all one space, you just have a lot more room. If you need a lot of windows open you can drag them anywhere on any of the panels that you want to," he said.

"That sounds good, but will it really work right?"

"It better, there are three video cards for each machine and they're made to work together like that. If you were going to be playing action games that have a lot of graphics you'd only use the center one for the game, but otherwise, most things will do fine on any of them," he said, and he sounded convinced.

I said goodbye and left. I guess Mom must have been correct about them dragging their feet. From the way he talked about the stuff I could tell he hadn't just got it today. I wondered how she'd made him get moving.

When I got back downstairs there were men from some place Mom had called bringing food into the house. Some of the new women that hung around the kitchen a lot now were setting it down and opening the big containers and putting food in big dishes.

I could tell that they were getting ready to start serving, and some of them were already headed outside. I got in the traffic stream and headed that way with them. I wondered where we'd all be eating on the first day it rained during suppertime.

I stood around for a minute trying to decide whether to sit down or try to get a plate and fill it myself. Tolishanea came out with my plate about then and asked me where I was going to sit. I sat in the nearest chair.

"Thanks for fixing my plate," I said as she set it down.

"You're welcome, but we did it for self defense. We were afraid if we didn't get some food in front of you that you'd try to do it yourself and end up taking it all," she said.

"I'm not that bad am I?"

"No, but you're a lot of fun to tease," she said, laughed at me, and left.

The Bar-B-Que was good and I wasn't the only one eating for long. The tables started filling up quickly. It turned out to be fun and was really kind of like a picnic. Too bad we had all these strangers around, I hadn't had a good game of chase in days.

I was nearly through with my first plate and thinking about looking for more food when I heard helicopters. Looking back toward the other side of the pool, I saw both of them headed our way. They set down when they reached their spot and after the blades stopped four women got out.

Jerrilyn and Gigi had been flying, of course, with Kathleen and Kathy riding. I made the sacrifice of leaving my place near food and went out to greet them.

I came to Jerrilyn and Kathleen first and Jerrilyn was giving me yet a different kind of look. That woman could put a lot of different expressions on her face.

"There's my man," Kathleen said.

"Mine too," Kathy said, as they both came up to hug and kiss me.

"I'm going to start calling him superman if many more start bragging on him," Jerrilyn said.

"That's enough of that, Jerrilyn," Gigi said, "people are going to think you're jealous if you don't keep a civil tongue in your mouth."

I just pulled Kathy and Kathleen closer and tried to concentrate on them after that. I could see that Gigi had cut closer to the bone than Jerrilyn had expected by the way Jerrilyn blushed. This was one little jibe contest I didn't want in on.

"She doesn't have to be jealous, there's more than plenty of Jimmy to go around and none of us mind sharing," Kathleen said, and Kathy was nodding as she did.

That must have been more than Jerrilyn could take. She blushed even darker and headed for the house. Gigi didn't leave though.

"You meant that, didn't you?" she asked Kathleen.

"Sure, anyone can tell that Jimmy is just too good to hoard. Girl, you won't believe how he can make you feel," Kathy said.

"I'll say, I've been head over heels in love since we joined the taxiway club," Kathleen said.

"What is the taxiway club?" Gigi asked.

Kathleen explained the scene from the private jet to them then. I tried not to blush but I know I was anyway.

Gigi gave me one of those Jerrilyn like I can't believe it looks and then she left too. I put an arm around Kathy and the other around Kathleen and escorted them up to the table for supper. I felt duty bound to eat with them.

After supper I went upstairs to see how things were going while most everyone else was gathered around getting in each other's way near the kitchen.

My new bed looked finished as far as the building part was concerned, what there was of it. I was pretty sure that Karita had been in a hurry for the foam for nothing though.

Behind the head of the bed, where most of them would have a headboard or the like, mine had cabinets. God only knows what they intended to keep in them but there they were.

There were also cabinet doors all around the outside of the bed's base. I checked and there were spaces behind the doors. They didn't open up the complete interior for storage but had the depth of normal cabinets.

Looking at the top, where the foam would lay, I saw that the plywood didn't seem to be nailed down. It had obviously been cut and put into place carefully but it wasn't secured.

Curiosity got the best of me and I raised one. This let me know about the braces underneath. The space was mostly open except for a checkerboard type crisscross of braces standing up to keep the plywood from sagging.

It made sense then, because even if the foam didn't weigh much, the bodies that were going to sleep on it weren't so light. Especially with the numbers we'd be having.

All the bed and its cabinetwork was unfinished though and I knew that there'd be staining and finishing going on for at least two or three days. We wouldn't be sleeping here for a while yet.

I took a look in the bathroom and there had been things going on in there as well. There was a large something built where I knew the giant hot tub was going to be. It didn't favor much and just looked like some type of short temporary walls.

There was also something stretched out in the floor in front of the vanity cabinets. It looked like some kind of framework for something and it stretched out as far as the cabinets did.

It came to me then. Karita has said that the hot tub would be coming in barrels. I was looking at the frames that would hold the moulds, or at least that's what I thought I was looking at. I didn't see any part of it that looked like fun so I left and headed downstairs.

I could hear showers going on as soon as I was back in the hall. What the hell, I walked into the next bedroom I came to, entered the bathroom, shucked my clothes and joined the crowd.

There were three naked women showering together and Laura was the only one who's name I could remember. I stepped in and told them I was there to help them wash.

They all giggled and before I knew it I was the one getting soapy. I didn't let on that I didn't remember their names but by tickling and washing and keeping my ears open I learned that the brunet with the biggest titties in here was Ruth and the tiny blonde with titties bigger than you'd expect on a girl that small was Melissa.

We had a blast, especially me. Laura lingered as we dried off and she and I ended up last to leave.

"Laura, why don't you see if you can't get Ruth and Melissa to migrate near me tonight after things settle down. I think I could be a big help getting you all back to sleep after any disturbance that comes up," I said, kissing her and slipping my hand up to play under the T-shirt she'd put on to wear to bed.

"I'll try, but why don't you come on to bed now? We're going to, even though it's early. We were planning to sleep a few hours now to make sure we were well rested in case we could cause the disturbance," Laura said, giving the bare Junior and squeeze of her own.

Silly me, I'd taken a shower without finding anything to sleep in first. Oh well, maybe I'd just sleep in Laura, or Ruth, or Melissa, or anyone that was close enough.