Dump Trucks and Romance Novels

I was outside a country house hooking up several lengths of water hose to a well pump. The pump gurgled, ran for a short time then cut off. Across the road a dump truck was parked close to an old gray barn. In the adjacent field, heavy machinery used for digging fill dirt sat idle. A small herd of cows and horses grazed in another fenced area. One of the teenagers at the ranch style house fiberglassed a racing scoop on the hood of a gold Dodge Charger.

I lassoed one end of the water hose on my arm, and I re-entered the house through the front double doors. I walked down a short hallway stocked with walnut-stained gun racks against both walls. The gun racks housed double-barreled shotguns and automatic rifles behind clear glass.

“Can you get the mattress firm as you can?” Beatrice, the middle-aged woman asked. “My husband, Hal, works fifty, sometimes sixty hours a week hauling dirt. When he gets in from driving the dump truck his back hurts.”

“No problem.”

She was dressed in a green blouse, dark-blue slacks, and on her nose rested glasses with light-blue rims.

​”I’m glad we got one with a bookcase headboard. I have more room to put my books,” she said, motioning to three full-length bookshelves built into the walls of their bedroom.

​The shelves were filled with pastel-colored paperbacks. Romance novels.

“I read two or three a day. I start reading in the checkout line. I’ve been reading a few years now. I guess I’ve read a few thousand,” she said.

She knocked off another twenty or thirty pages while the bed filled with water.

​I heard a slight rustling at the side door near the carport. I thought it washer son coming in, but she knew the distinctive sound.

“My husband’s home for lunch.”

​She walked out through the hallway.

​”Hal, I’m back here,” she called. “Come see if this waterbed is firm enough for your back.”

​Hal limped in slowly and stiffly. His complexion was dark and veined with wrinkles. He had on a blue work shirt, green work pants, and heavy leather boots covered with dirt stains. He fell onto the waterbed mattress.

“Careful, Hal. Is it okay for him to fall on it like that?” Beatrice asked.

“Watch out for keys and rings,” I said. “No guns, knives, or arrows in bed. Just romance novels.”

​”Try the vibrator, Hal.”

“Vibrator?” he asked.

​Hal looked at his wife strangely like she had been reading too many romance novels.

“I had him put the control on your side. He put the heater control on my side,” she said.

Hal turned over in the bed and flicked on the vibrator. He grabbed his back in this awkward position. Then he lay flat. The vibrator hummed.

“How’s that?” she asked.

“Think I’ll fall asleep. I wish I could go to sleep, but I got a few more loads to haul. B.W.’s working us hard,” he said. “He’s trying to finish a big road job, and it’s breaking my back.”

“You want your sandwich, Hal?”

He nodded. We went to the kitchen. Hal propped himself up in an easy chair next to the kitchen. He looked off in another direction and munched on his sandwich. One eye fluttered, as if it wanted to shut. Beatrice handed me the C.O.D.

Hal had dozed off momentarily.

“Hal!” ​

“Yeah,” Hal said. “I gotta get going again too. They need more dirt.”

Beatrice picked up a pink pastel book with a colorful bookmark sticking over the top like a drink stirrer at a tiki bar. The book rested on top of a small stack.

“I’ve got two more books to read today,” she said, burrowing her nose intoThe Queen of Cashmere described as a sexy romp in the wool on the front cover.

I returned the delivery van to Dave and Margo’s house.

“Wilbur, you’re here just in time to see my slides of Italy and Greece,” Margo greeted me.

​She motioned for me to come in.

“The trip, everything. I can write it off. I brought back museum brochures and receipts. I can even write off the cost of the slides,” she said. “Thank God for our write-offs. The interior decorating business, the upholstery business…”

​Some of her businesses I hadn’t even heard of. She must have seen the bewilderment on my face.

​”Wilbur, they’re not really businesses. It just looks like it on paper. They all lose money so we don’t pay income tax. We get money back every year. It’s smart business,” she said.

​I followed Margo into the living room. Other family members lounged on couches and the floor.

“We’re having a family reunion. Everybody. Everybody,” she shouted above the conversations. “Honey, turn off the stereo. I can’t stand that jazz.”

Dave grumbled but got up.

“I prefer classical music,” Margo insisted.

​Dave turned and walked toward the stereo.

​“Wilbur, do you want a beer, a Tom Collins, or some marijuana?” Margo offered.

“A joint,” I said.

She led the way to the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator and pulled a small Tupperware container from inside the freezer. She pried the lid off. Itwas full of frozen joints.

“Penelope told me about keeping them in the freezer. The stuff stays fresh in there,” she said.

​We returned to the living room after I took a few hits off the menthol cool joint. Dave’s father, the Ancient One, sat off to the side, preoccupied with a stack of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. His manuscript on the history of the world in heroic couplets was nearby.

Margo did the introductions.

​”This is our son, Cranston, and his wife, Heather. He used to be a hippie and a bird counter for the Audubon society, but now he’s a pilot in the Air Force.”

​Cranston nodded at me. I barely recognized him from the picture at the store. Then she pointed to my mentor, Abdul.

​”You remember Abdul and our daughter, Gloria. And this is Abdul’s cousin, Salim, who was also married to Gloria,” she said.

​”Mister, how are you?” Abdul said.

​”Salim is married to Luz. She’s an illegal from Colombia.”

​Then she pointed in another direction.

​”And this is Abdul’s youngest sister, Rana,” Margo said.

She giggled as Margo talked, her eyes sparkling at me, then turned away quickly.

​”No hanky-panky, mister, until after the marriage,” Abdul said sternly.

​”Marriage? I don’t know.”

​I sat there mum as the Sphinx and stared at Margo’s slides of crumbling, ancient ruins, and I wondered if Beatrice had ever read anything like this in one of her romance novels?