“You gonna say something, flyboy?”
Yes, yes I’m going to say something. I expect my powers of speech to return very shortly. Come on! Say something!
“A flood, huh?” Whoa, look at me go! I’m talking! “Anything I can do to help?”
“Did you drive a backhoe here today?”
“Uh… no…” Jesus Christ. She’s messing with me and I still ain’t got shit going!
“So then you aren’t exactly my knight in shining armor, are you.”
“My armor is a little rusty, I’ll admit.”
“Yeah, I can tell.”
“You’re the only one here? Must be something I can do, the hotel guy isn’t coming back until sunset.” I took off my Ray Ban Aviators so I could get a better look at this woman.
“Yeah it’s just me. Fucking Spackler… “ I raised my eyebrows… “got the Locke stuck in the mud and then broke his ankle. So yeah it’s only me… what? Don’t they swear in the Navy anymore?”
“No ma’am we certainly do not. They busted me down to Private once for saying ‘darn it’.”
“They don’t have Privates in the Navy.”
I looked down at my crotch, looked back at her, then leaned forward, “I beg to differ. We most certainly do have privates.”
She cocked her head a little. “Alright then, Captain, is it?”
“Almost. Lieutenant.”
“Full looey?”
“Well, JG. Junior Grade.”
“So you’re like a trainee, then. A non-swearing, overly salacious Naval trainee. And… oh great, you’re married, too. Just what I needed.”
I felt the weight of my wedding ring pulling on my arm. I had forgotten I was married there for about four minutes. I had better snap out of this.
“So… what’s the plan for getting the Locke?” That’s a big-ass walk-behind power mower, about eight feet of chopping blades. A golf course depends on these.
“I’ve got an old Ford tractor here but it won’t start. It cranks but… well I don’t know what.”
“Is it a 9N? My grandpa had one of those.” She showed me the old dog. They were pretty straightforward and dependable. I checked a few things; starter worked, spark worked, gasoline… didn’t work.
“You got some tape?” She found me some duct tape. I undid the fuel filter, just pulled it out, and taped the fuel line together.
The tractor started right up, with a few drops of gas dripping from the line.
“That will be okay for today. You need to get a new filter, though.”
She stuck out her hand. “I hereby promote you from trainee to Captain!”
I shook her hand firmly and was rewarded with an even firmer grip in return. We both held on a little too long.
“Well thanks, Admiral. My name is John, by the way.”
“Maggie. Malucci.”
“Ah yes, your flaming red hair gave away your Italian heritage. It’s nice to meet you.” We let go of our handshake.
She picked up a shovel and tossed it to me. “Let’s go over to Six. We gotta dig.”
She grabbed another shovel and some rope and we headed to the sixth hole, her on the single-seat tractor and me walking.
The drive wheels on the Locke were mired in the muck, as were the roller wheels which supported the rest of the mower.
“Pretty muddy, shit.” Again, I was being real smooth with the lines. Maggie punched me in the arm.
“I thought you didn’t swear.”
“Shit isn’t swearing. Shit is just shit. I’m not exactly dressed for this.” I had two pairs of shoes and two pairs of pants, and I was already wearing half of this right now. I took off my shoes and socks, then rolled up my pants to about my knees.
“Don’t you look handsome! Start digging.”
After about a half hour we had quite a bit cleared, then I slipped in some sick clay-mud and landed in a push-up-like position, somehow saving my pants. I gingerly stood up.
“That’s like regular Georgia clay right there. I hate that shit.”
“Language,” was all she said.
I really didn’t want to mess up my clothes. I wasn’t staying at the Hilton where they had on site laundry. Shit.
I walked over to the creek and rinsed off my hands and feet, then skirted the mud as I walked back to Maggie.
“You got another set of coveralls back there?”
“This is the other set. And you can’t have them. Even though it is fucking hot.”
Yeah I forgot to mention that St Louis was at least two degrees cooler than Georgia. It was only 99 here. Maggie unzipped her coveralls halfway down so she could free her arms. Obviously bra-less, her nipples poked through her sweat stained T-shirt.
“Well I guess there’s nothin’ for it.” And I carefully slipped my pants off and folded them. I set them on the tractor seat, followed by my casual shirt and white T-shirt. “Let’s dig.”
We sweated in the lowering sun, the temp barely dropping. Maggie barely got dirty, but I was glad I took off my good clothes as they would’ve been ruined. Finally, we got to where we thought we were good and tied the rope from the tractor back to the mower.
“I’ll start the mower, and give you a head nod when I’m ready. Go slow and steady. Something goes wrong. Just stop and we will dig more.”
I got behind the Locke and fired it up, letting it run for about a minute to make sure it was good to go. Finally, I looked up and gave Maggie the nod. I let out the clutch the same time as she did in her tractor, but I had a little too much gas on.
The drive wheels on the Locke spun, covering me head to toe in black and red mud. The tractor pulled the Locke forward and it was now out of the deep mud and running by itself. I scrambled to catch it and managed to get it in neutral when I slipped again, and again. Maggie pulled the mower a good hundred yards onto firm ground before shutting the tractor and the mower down.
I lounged there in some mud, resting comfortably under a shady oak. Maggie trotted back to me, laughing and cackling and evening guffawing a few times. I have never seen anyone have such a laughing fit as that one.
“You got sprayed… then you fell backwards… then you fell forwards hahaha!”
“Yeah, it’s funny to you. You didn’t sprain your ankle!”
“Oh no! Really?” She burst out laughing again. “I’m sorry. You’re like all three stooges at once!” She chuckled more and began to bend over me to check my ankle.
“Do you think you can stand Whoa!”
I pulled her hand just a little and she slipped and fell completely in the mud right next to me. She burst out laughing again until I scooped some mud and painted her cheeks with it.
“Oh no you don’t, Lieutenant! You’re not going to get away with that!”
I was already covered, caked in mud. I laughed, “What are you gonna do? Throw mud at me?”
She scooped up mud in each hand and came at me, a wild and crazy look in her eye. She tried to smear it in my eyes but she had forgotten I was a Naval Officer and had hundreds of hours of jiu-jitsu training in case we had to fight the Japanese again. Well, not really. But I did wrestle in high school.
I easily caught her hands and pulled them over our heads, rolling her into her back, my body pinning her to the mud.
“Give?”
“Never!” I found I could hold both her wrists over her head with my right hand, thereby freeing my left. And with that hand I finger painted her entire face with mud as she squirmed and fought me.
“Stop fighting! Who’s your buddy? Huh? Who’s your pal?”
She burst out laughing and finally relented. “Truce?” she offered.
“Hmmm. A negotiated settlement, eh? What’s your offer?”