Solar Storm: Homeward Bound

by Vincent Keith

  “Ma’am, it’s a pleasure. That’s a beautiful house.”

  “It is, isn’t it,” she said, looking back over her shoulder. “Come inside, I just tapped a new keg, and Denny is on his way.”

  “Denny is my uncle.”

  “I’m sorry did you say Keg?”

  “Yes, we don’t get many visitors this time of year, mostly during deer and duck season. But we keep a keg tapped for Denny’s club.”

  “Club?” Jack asked, a bit bemused.

  “Yeah, let’s head in and get a beer, and I’ll explain.”

  “Rebecca?” asked Jack.

  “Yeah? - Oh my god, I never told you my name did I?”

  “Other than the O’Neal on your name tag? No.” Jack laughed. “It’s okay. It’s not like we met under the best of circumstances.”

  “Right. Well, aunt Judy calls me Rebecca. Everyone else just calls me Becky. I’ll let you call me Rebecca. I sort of like the way you say it.”

  “All right, Rebecca. Now, about that beer?”

  “Right this way.”

  They’d just made it to the kitchen when Jack heard the rumble of a big V-Twin, assuming it must be Denny’s motorcycle. Judy set a frost-covered tumbler of beer front of Jack. Jack lifted the glass to sniff the aroma, a habit he picked up from Henry, who made his own beer. Jack checked the color, a dark rich reddish brown. He took a long sip and set the glass down.

  “I was wondering if you were going to drink that, or just ogle it,” said a voice from the doorway.

  Jack turned to see a man in his early 50s, muscular, bald but with an amazing mustache, the sides of which extended an inch or two below his chin. Denny O’Neal was an imposing man, looking to be at least six-foot-six-inches and maybe taller given how wide his shoulders were. There was no doubt looking at him he used those muscles every day.

  “Seen a few snobs treat wine that way, but that’s a first for beer.”

  “Denny, be nice,” said Judy.

  “I am nice. That young man obviously appreciates an excellent beer, unlike you heathen women.” Denny smiled and let out a deep rumbling chuckle. “Becky, would you be so kind as to beer me?”

  “Hey,” said Rebecca, rising to grab another pint glass from the freezer. “I like beer fine. I just don’t make it a religion.” She set the pint down on the end of the counter where Denny had stopped to grab Judy in a hug and a rather extended kiss.

  “Get a room, don’t you know I’m still an impressionable youth?” Rebecca rolled her eyes at Jack and smiled. “Welcome to the O’Neal’s.”

  Jack smiled as Denny picked up Rebecca and gave her a hug and a twirl as if she weighed nothing, set her down and planted a quick kiss on the top of her head. Still laughing, Rebecca grabbed his shoulders and jumped up to plant a kiss on his cheek. “Hi, yourself pops. Glad you got my message.”

  Denny turned and held out a hand the size of a baseball glove. “So, you must be Jack.”

  Jack extended his hand, smaller but large enough to not get swallowed whole. “Jack Donovan.” They shook, Denny applying a light pressure rather than the bone-crushing power he was obviously capable of.

  “Jack Donovan… you’re not a photographer by chance?”

  “Huh? Yeah, but—”

  Denny let out that low rumbling laugh again.

  “Well, I’ll be. Jack, I’ve got three of your photographs hanging in my shop.”

  “No way! Oh, let me guess. It was my series on Custom Bikes?”

  “One of them, the other two were taken in Yosemite and Yellowstone. I found them in a gallery up in Jackson.”

  “Don’t tell me…” said Jack as he glanced around the large open kitchen, dining, and living room. “The Yellowstone image is the wolf peeking through the rocks. And the Yosemite image I’d guess is probably the fly fisher with the big rainbow jumping out of the water?”

  “Yes. And no, although I almost bought that one. I decided on that black and white with the snow-covered rocks. You called it Pillow Walk, which struck me as funny and appropriate. They do look like pillows and walking stones on a path. Damn Jack that is some beautiful work. It really is a small world.”

  “Thanks. Sad to say, I’m mostly getting out of the photography business, probably not altogether, but with the economy the way it’s going, I’ve decided I need a new career.”

  “Don’t give it up completely, your nature work is too good, and you don’t get that good unless it’s part of who you are.”

  “Again, thanks. And no, I’ll probably keep shooting the landscape and nature stuff, even though it’s the part that pays the least. You’re right, it’s part of me, and I don’t have any choice in the matter. I tried to give it up a few years back when I realized it cost me more than I was making. I had lasted almost eleven months before I found myself hiking out with a sixty-five-pound pack, thirty pounds of which was camera gear.”

  Judy asked, “Jack if you’re giving up photography, what are you going to do? Do you know yet?”

  “I’ve decided to learn gunsmithing. I’ve always liked working with my hands. Unlike cameras, not everyone in the world has a milling machine and thinks they’re a machinist. As a matter of fact, I’m heading down to Arizona for school now. Well, soon anyway. I’ve got a couple of months, so I’m visiting friends, making images, and enjoying the ride.”

  “Can’t say I saw that coming,” said Denny. “Artists and guns rarely mix in my experience. But you’re on the T-Bird, so I guess it isn’t a complete shocker.”

  Jack chuckled, “I’d say most artists tend to be on the other side of that particular fence, although there are a few nature photographers I know who also hunt. I guess it comes from really getting to understand how nature works. I’ve been hunting since dad took me when I was twelve. I started shooting when I was about seven. That’s my first bike, though. I’ve got less than twenty-five-hundred miles on two wheels, so I’m not sure I’d count that as evidence.”

  “It counts. It’s a good bike, not one of mine, but a good bike.”

  “Twelve seems young. To start hunting I mean,” said Judy.

  “Technically, I suppose I was too young to be legal, but it’s hard to work up much outrage about jackrabbits. Dad had a lot of guns around the house, so that was part of the need to rush. Sometime around five or six, I got curious. By the time I was seven, Dad had decided he either needed to take me out shooting, or wait until he had to whip my butt for putting my hands on one of the guns when the curiosity got too great. I knew what I was going to get when that day came, which went a long way toward keeping my curiosity in check.”

  Jack smiled at the memory.

  “It’s funny, but that’s what got me into photography. Dad said I could go hunting when I could sneak up on a deer, but I had to prove it. So he gave me an old rangefinder camera, and said when I could get a picture of a deer that filled up the entire frame, we’d go hunting.”

  “Pops took me on my first hunt when I was fifteen,” said Rebecca. “I got tired of listening to the boys at school brag all the time. Turned out to be more fun than I expected, but then, we always took our birds into the bird store to get plucked.”

  “Bird store?”

  Judy laughed, “Agnes runs a shop that makes pillows and comforters with either goose down or feathers. The hunters bring in the birds, and she has machines that take off and separate the down and the feathers. She charges them for delivering her raw materials right to her door. I always thought it was pure genius, right up till I had to pluck my first bird by hand. It is genius, but I no longer tease the boys about paying someone to take all their feathers and down. That’s a lot of work I don’t miss at all.”

  “Sounds pretty smart. I’ve never heard of a shop like that near where I live. I guess I should check around since I hate plucking birds. Although, I’m not sure what they’d do with pheasant feathers,” said Jack.

  It was then that he noticed his glass was full again and thought I’d better slow down. If they keep filling my glass I�
��m going to get into trouble.

  “Some of them are perfect for tying flies. That and grouse, and dove,” said Denny.

  “Ah, I figured you were a fly fisher,” said Jack.

  “Someone around here has to do it the right way,” said Denny, eyebrows raised in a pointed look at Judy.

  “Don’t start, or you’ll be spending the night in the dog house,” said Judy, who turned, huffed and walked off to stir something on the stove.

  “Oh man, a fly man and bait fisher under the same roof? Next, it’ll be dogs and cats living together—mass hysteria,” said Jack.

  Denny was taking a sip of beer when it exploded over the counter, the floor, and his shirt. He threw his head back and laughed, then doubled over coughing. Rebecca managed to keep from spitting beer all over Jack, but it was a near thing.

  “So much for the refined nature of fly fishers,” said Judy.

  “Yeah well, I needed a shower before dinner anyway,” said Denny as he grabbed a towel to clean up the mess.

  “Sorry, I guess timing really is everything,” said Jack.

  “Best movie ever,” said Denny. “It’s usually Casey causing the problem and Rebecca’s mess to clean up.”

  “Hey, it’s not my fault your friend Casey is a comedian,” said Rebecca

  “Funny guy?” ask Jack.

  “No, well, yes. He’s a comedian, literally. Casey’s a professional stand-up comic. He usually works Vegas and Reno, when he's not on the road. Oh, and cruise ships,” said Denny. “He does have his moments, so this isn’t the first time I’ve had beer up my nose either. I’m going for a shower. Becky, would you start the BBQ, it should be ready by the time I’m done.”

  “Right. Come on Jack I’ll show you your room, and where you can do your laundry. You did say it was laundry day?”

  “Ah, yeah. I usually sit in my room until it’s dry. I’ve only got two sets of clothes, and one extra shirt. So, I’m generally in a pair of gym shorts and my jacket. I don’t think that would be appropriate under the circumstances.”

  Rebecca looked at Jack imagining him in nothing but a pair of gym shorts and smiled. “I think I can find something of Brian’s that will fit.”

  “Brian?”

  “Brian is Denny’s son. He’s in the Army and currently overseas. He’s about the same size as you. Let me see what I can find.”

  Jack took the time to unpack the bike and sort his gear. While he was waiting, he washed the cook set in the bathroom sink.

  It was a beautiful place and the idea of staying for a few days and looking around seemed like a good idea. He got the feeling that Rebecca might not mind. A quick look at his gun and he decided a cleaning was in order. Mostly it was just dust from a few weeks on the road in an open holster.

  Rebecca gave a quick knock on the door and poked her head around. “You decent?”

  Jack looked up and smiled, “If I weren’t I’d have thought you might notice. Just cleaning and organizing. Any luck?”

  “Right, these are 34 in the waist will they fit?”

  “Yeah, I usually wear a thirty-four or a big thirty-two. I keep trying to get back down to a thirty-two but I never quite make it. They’re always a bit too tight, but the thirty-fours are a bit loose. I find suspenders are useful.”

  “The downside of not having hips,” she said.

  “Hah, I’ve got hips but if I wore a belt that high people would accuse me of stealing jeans from old women. It’s having no ass that’s the real problem.”

  “I like your ass,” said Rebecca, who blushed as soon as she realized she’d said that out loud.

  “That sounds promising.”

  “I…oh hell, look, just get changed, and we’ll toss your stuff in the machine. Dinner is on, and burgers don’t take long.” Well, at least I’m sure he’s interested, she thought. Do I really want to do this? She glanced at Jack one last time. Yes, I think maybe I do.

  15

  FRIENDSHIP AND MORE

  Dinner was simple and excellent. More beer was consumed, and Jack learned a bit more about his hosts. The conversation about how he and Rebecca had met led to discussing how Rebecca had come to be raised by her aunt and uncle. Rebecca’s mom it seemed was not much different from Sarah’s. She tended to pick abusive boyfriends. Rebecca never knew her father, just a string of men who treated her mother like a dishrag. When her mother had done nothing about her boyfriend groping her seven-year-old daughter, Rebecca ran. She managed to make her way by bus from their apartment in Redding California to Aunt Judy’s at Fort Lewis in Washington.

  Jack got a pretty good idea how Denny felt about it from the look on his face and suspected the boyfriend found himself on the wrong end of those massive fists. Judy had gone to a lawyer and filed for custody of her niece. Rebecca’s mom went to rehab for drugs, then jail for child endangerment. The judge gave Judy and Denny full custody and forbade the mother from any contact. In the end, it didn’t matter. When she got out of prison on parole, she OD’d in less than a week.

  Finally, the conversation turned to more pleasant topics and business. It turned out that Judy only opened the B&B for hunters, and she had a regular set of customers who would occasionally bring someone new along. She’d never had to advertise and didn’t want any more business. Judy had her hands full keeping up the garden, and hosting the quilting club, and Denny’s motorcycle club. The ladies of the quilting club ranged in ages from Eleven-year-old Samantha to Mrs. Dollenbeck, who just turned 93. Mrs. Dollenbeck spent her mornings kayaking on a nearby lake, and afternoon’s sharing tips and tricks with the ladies at The Pin Cushion, which she still ran after 50 years.

  Denny’s business had picked up after having two of his bikes appear in some of the custom bike magazines about three years back. He’d always had a reasonable number of sales, but when the articles came out, he ended up with a fourteen-month backlog. Denny had hired two recent graduates of the local high school to work full time. He was still running a few months behind but had decided he wasn’t going to expand any further.

  “There is nothing,” said Judy, “like a job you love doing and not having some jerk telling you how you’re doing it wrong.”

  “Preaching to the choir,” said Jack. “It’s one of the things that motivated me to be a photographer. Most of us are freelance, except staff guys at papers. Even those guys are getting outsourced to every bozo with a camera phone. Journalism is trading quality for ubiquity. It’s all part of the trend to the lowest common denominator.”

  “About the only thing I see getting better is technology. Computers are better. Cars are better. Even bikes are better. Shouldn’t that mean people are getting better too?” asked Rebecca.

  “Some are, the few who want to accomplish something. Most of the kids I work with at the high school think the world owes them something. They come into the shop, mope around, complain, and then get surprised when they don't make it through the first day. I’m not sure what I’m going to do for help when Justin and Dave leave.”

  “Are they going to college?” asked Rebecca.

  “Justin got into the OSU Engineering program,” said Denny. “I’m proud as hell of him. He’s going to be an excellent engineer someday. He got accepted to Stanford but doesn’t have any way to pay for it. There’s not much in the way of scholarships if you’re white, male, and you’re not destitute, connected, or a star athlete.

  “Dave wants to be a welder, but he intends to be the best. He’s heading off to a tech school for deep sea welding. When he’s done, he’ll be able to work anywhere in the world and probably make a hundred and fifty grand a year doing it.”

  “Wow,” said Jack. “Now that would make it worth paying for four years of college. I got talked into a four-year degree in art, which was a huge waste of money. A two-year photography school would have been better. Given how much experience I had by the time I left high school, even that wouldn’t have been worth the cost. What I really needed was a six-month course in accounting, and maybe one in marketi
ng. That four-year degree got me a business loan. A loan that I wouldn’t have needed if I hadn’t wasted four years and seventy thousand dollars on it. Try getting a business loan without a college degree now. From what I hear, it’s almost impossible.”

  “Yeah,” said Denny. “Fortunately, I didn’t have to go to the banks to get started. Judy scrimped and saved for the twenty-eight years I was in the Army. I had no idea she’d saved enough to put Becky through school and start the business. She’s really the one that keeps us going.”

  “Hogwash,” said Judy. “I do books, I paid attention in home economics, and I paid attention in business school. And Becky paid for most of her college by getting a scholarship. Without that, we’d have probably had to wait another few years to open the shop.”

  “What about the B&B?” asked Jack.

  “Oh, well I inherited that from my mom,” said Judy. “Denny was still in the army when Dad died. When kids from his base would muster out, if he liked them enough, he’d send them out here to work maintenance. At least until they could find something better. By the time he went to Iraq, Aaron had taken over as our handyman.”

  “Aaron’s a club guy,” said Denny. “Rides a ’64 Panhead.”

  “Panhead is a type of Harley?” asked Jack.

  Denny laughed. “Sorry, Jack, I don’t spend much time around newbies. It’s actually a Harley-Davidson engine type. Flathead dates from 1929, but it was used up until ’47 on their trikes. It had flat top covers because it didn’t use overhead valves. The Knucklehead came in around ’39, named for the big bolts on the heads. Then the Panhead around ’47, which had the pan shaped covers, followed by the Shovelhead in ’66.

  “Sometime around ’81 the folks at Harley bought the company back from AMF, who’d run it into the ground. They built a fancy new engine around ’84, the Evolution. It really was the biggest change Harley had done on the big twins. The Evo was followed by the twin cam, the Revolution, which was their only water-cooled engine, then another twin cam.

  “Guys use the names to designate which era the bike came from. Panheads, for example, were made from around WWII until ’65. Which is probably more than anyone but a Harley-Davidson fan needs to know.”