Small Town Odyssey Chapter 3
WARNING: If it is illegal for you to be reading these stories or you find them disgusting or immoral, please refrain from reading further. Must be 18+ to read! Any characters, places, or people depicted in this story is entirely in the fantasy and imagination of the writer and are in no way meant to portray anyone in real life. Any people, places, or actions depicted in this story that reflect real life events or situations is entirely by accident or coincidence.
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Chapter Three
We went ahead and packed up everything before we left and stopped by the office to turn in the keys. We planned to go through Cades Cove and then take our time on the way home. I pulled into the Pilot at the first stoplight in Pigeon Forge so we could fill up and while we were there, Gentry went in and got us biscuits and coffee at the connected Bojangles. The sun was just starting to lighten the sky; it hadn't really risen yet. Going down Wear Valley Rd. I saw that my favorite place to buy fudge, Moonshine Ridge, had closed. That was sad, I always loved that place and spent quite a few dollars there over the years. When we got to Cades Cove the gate was already open and traffic was thick as usual. Between the entrance and the Cable Mill store all we saw was a few deer and turkeys; I guess it was the wrong time of the year for bears. We stopped at the store, and I bought us the new Fall coffee mugs and a calendar for next year. On the backside we stopped at the Lawson place and walked around for a few minutes, then headed out. Going through Townsend out toward Maryville I was feeling a little down as I always did when I had to leave the Smokies. We drove all the way to the Athens rest area before stopping to let the coffee back out.
Gentry took over driving for a while and it was quiet in the truck as we made our way back toward Chattanooga. He seemed to be lost in thought, so I turned on the radio and found a station playing classic rock. As we were coming into Cleveland REO Speedwagon started singing:
I can't fight this feeling any longer
And yet I'm still afraid to let it flow
What started out as friendship has grown stronger
I only wish I had the strength to let it show...
Gentry reached over and turned off the radio, claiming he was having trouble concentrating on the road. I just kinda snorted at his excuse. He gave me a patented Gentry Collins evil look and I decided to just let it go. When we got to Chattanooga, we decided we'd go out around Little River Canyon before heading home, we stopped and got me a Mountain Dew and him an IBC root beer and changed drivers. Back on the road, I turned the radio back on and found another oldies station. Prince's Purple Rain album had always been a favorite of mine and I could feel Gentry tense when I sang along with the song The Beautiful Ones; a rarity to hear played on the radio anymore.
I may not know where I'm going, babe
I said, I may not know what I need
One thing, one thing's for certain baby
I know what I want, yeah
And if it please you baby
Please you, baby
I'm begging down on my knees
I want you...
I couldn't finish, it brings tears to my eyes every time; Prince loaded it with so much emotion. He huffed and pulled his cap down over his eyes, leaned against the window and pretended to be asleep. When the song went off, he looked over at me from under the brim of the cap and said "that's a stupid song. Prince was stupid." Them's fighting words to me.
"A stupid song" I repeated, "have you ever seen Purple Rain movie?"
"No, stupid Prince movie" he mumbled.
"You're going to watch it when we get home" I declared.
He started searching the radio and found a country station playing bro country. He sang along with the Florida Georgia Line song back to me:
won't you ride with me, ride with me?
See where this thing goes
If it's meant to be, it'll be, it'll be
Baby, if it's meant to be
I was both amused and pissed off at the same time, and somehow, I managed to miss the turn off for the canyon and when he pointed it out, I admit I was a little petty and refused to turn around. I drove on toward the house. The rest of the ride home was quiet; we were both in some kind of mood. When I pulled into our lot the mood deepened. I pulled up behind the carport and saw the tailgate on my truck had been spraypainted with the word `fag' and something had been jammed in the tailpipe. Gentry pulled it out -- a rubber chicken. I guess that was supposed to be some kind of cock-in-the-tailpipe joke. I saw Billy standing by the door to their trailer and called out to him.
"Daddy said I ain't supposed to talk to y'all no more" he said, then closed the door and went inside. I felt sick to my stomach.
"What the actual fuck is happening?" Gentry said to nobody in particular. I felt like I was in shock, I shrugged and went to open the door and my key wouldn't go in. I turned my phone's flashlight on; the keyhole was blocked with something. It looked like somebody had squirted glue into it. The door on the other side of the trailer was okay. I helped Gentry get our stuff unpacked and into the house. As sick as I was feeling, Gentry looked to be that much pissed off. We didn't sleep well that night. Every time Gentry heard a noise, he would grab his pistol and stand outside in case whoever it was came back.
"It had to be that fucking Jeff" Gentry said, "You heard what Billy said."
"He could have told Billy that because of the graffiti" I said.
"If that was so, wouldn't they be trying to help us instead of telling the kids to stay away?" he said.
"I guess you got a point, but we haven't been anything but nice to those people. Why would he do that?" I asked.
"I don't know, but I'm about to drain my savings and get the house livable as soon as possible" Gentry said, "we're getting the fuck away from people."
The man at the body shop said he could get the paint off, but the solvent might take off some of the truck's paint; if so, he'd have to repaint it. He kept giving me weird looks; I guess he was wondering if I was a fag. I just told him to see what he could do and call me. Gentry was back at work today too, so I didn't have a ride. I walked down the side of the highway trying to get to work at least close to `on time'. Nothing like walking a mile down a busy highway to let you know how out of shape you are. I unlocked the door, went inside and sat down to catch my breath. My shoulders heaved a little and I had a small breakdown. I sat there holding my face in my hands and crying for a while, my mind was spinning trying to figure it out. I've always minded my business and tried to be good to everybody I come across. Why would somebody want to do hateful shit like this to me. Gentry may be onto something -- after all, the only person we talked to about being gay was Billy. He could have run his mouth to somebody else. I didn't think he'd say anything to his old man though, he seemed afraid of being kicked out of the house -- who knows?
I was straightening up and getting the last sniffles out when Ms. Edna parked and came up tentatively pulling the door to make sure I was open. I'd forgotten to flip the signs to `Open' when I came in. I jumped up and flipped the signs and went out to unlock the walkthrough gate. Ms. Edna had brought a plate of breakfast with her, bless her heart. I wasn't really hungry, but I picked at it some anyway; I hate to waste food.
"What's the matter, Win? Where's your truck?" she asked as she plopped into the customer chair.
"It...uh...got vandalized while I was out of town this weekend. Had to put it in the shop" I told her, keeping it vague.
"Who would want to mess with you, Win? You're just a big teddy bear" she said. I just shook my head. She could tell I really didn't feel like talking and she didn't stay long. I thanked her for the breakfast and watched her drive away. My phone bell when off -- a text from Gentry:
You make it to work okay?
Yeah
What did they say about the truck?
Don't know yet, he's supposed to call me
Let me know. If it needs to be in the shop, I'll come pick you up
Okay, thanks
Got to get back to work, LY
I got busy with whatever I could find to do. I didn't get much traffic, I guessed because my truck wasn't outside everybody may have thought I was still closed. I pulled the golf cart out and parked it up by the front door. I had a couple of people come in and make payments before lunch. I was still waiting for the guy at the body shop to call back, so I decided to skip trying to get lunch, I just finished off the rest of Edna's cold breakfast. The rest of my "lunch" I spent checking locks and making sure the property was okay. Finally, about 1:30 the body shop called, and Jim said they would have to repaint the tailgate -- he'd need a couple of days and $600. He told me if I didn't mind driving it without the tailgate, I could come pick the truck up. I could have slapped myself that I didn't think about just taking the tailgate off earlier. I texted Gentry and he said he would run me up to the get the truck when he got off.
When he got there, I just put up a `Be right back' sign. I couldn't take any more time off right now, so we just ran up and picked the truck up and came straight back. I still had about two hours to sit here. I made a few collections calls and swept up, then sat and browsed the internet for a while. Around 5:00 I started getting everything ready to close. Billy came riding up on his bike and went around behind the office. I got up and went to the back door.
"I didn't want nobody to catch me up here" he said, slightly out of breath.
"I thought you weren't supposed to talk to us anymore" I said, a little on the hostile side.
"Daddy got mad when I came home bruised up" he lifted his shirt and showed me the fading bruises around his stomach and rib cage. "Me and Jeremy got jumped after school. Some guys saw us looking at each other in the bathroom...well, not just looking..."
"What happened?" I asked.
"The principal pulled them off us, but they kept calling us queers and stuff. The principal called our parents and since mama was at work, they got daddy. The principal took him in the office and told him everything that happened" Billy said.
"So, he got mad and messed up my truck?" I said angrily.
"No, Win. That wasn't daddy" he said, "I think it might be those teenagers. I think they seen me hanging around with you."
"Why did your daddy tell you not to talk to us?" I asked.
"He saw what they painted on your truck and started pinning me down about it, so I told him about you and Gentry" he said looking down at his shoes. "Daddy said I needed to stay away from y'all because y'all were putting bad ideas in my head. I tried to tell him I already had my ideas, but he wouldn't listen, he was so mad."
"I'd ask you if you want a ride home, but I guess I better not this time, apparently there's too many eyes around here" I said. I went back inside and closed the register down and got ready to leave. I saw him slip past the office and back out to the highway heading home. I turned out the lights, locked up, and started home myself.
Despite my mood, I was a little hungry from skipping lunch. When I got home, I opened a can of corned beef hash and dumped about half of it into the skillet to brown and poured myself a small glass of Monkey Shoulder with water for a chaser. I took it into the living room and ate in my recliner with just the one light on in the dark trailer. My eyes fell on the aluminum little league baseball bat leaned up against my side table. That would be Gentry was trying to make sure I had a weapon in case something else happened. I put my dish in the sink and refilled the scotch before sitting back down to do what I do when I'm feeling down: watch cartoons. I pulled up some old Looney Toons in the YouTube app on the television and kind of zoned out and fell asleep in the chair.
The noise was what woke me. It sounded like somebody rolling the bid plastic garbage can around. My eyes shot to the clock. It was already after 10pm. Who would be putting garbage out this late? Feeling a little weirded out, I picked up the baseball bat and walked toward the door and peeked through the peephole. Two people were behind my truck, and they had started a fire in the garbage can and pushed right up next to the back of my truck. The idea seemed to be to catch the gas tank on fire and make it explode. I ran outside barefoot and, in my sweatpants, and a tee shirt into the cold. I wasn't even thinking when I grabbed the blazing hunk of plastic to pull it away from my truck. The plastic had already started melting and my hands were sticking into the mess. That wasn't going to work, I looked around and found a rake and used it to push the can out into the gravel drive away from the trailer. I dropped the rake and stood there with my hands burning like crazy. A few minutes later Gentry drove up, coming in from work. He pulled me into the house and looked at my hands which were both covered in plastic with blisters all around the edges. He helped me get dressed and we went to the emergency room. It took a long time for the doctor to get all the plastic off; many places it had burned into the skin. He put some kind of cream on my hands and wrapped them and gave me something for the pain. I was to come back tomorrow so he could change the bandages and make sure there was nothing looking like infection. I felt like I was watching it all on TV or something. None of it was feeling real. Gentry took me home and got me to bed. I laid there looking at the ceiling for a long time, at some point the pain pill kicked in and I fell asleep.
Gentry helped me up in the morning, it's kind of hard when you don't have use of your hands. He held my peter so I could pee. Due to the pain, there was no signs of stirring from Little Win this morning. We called the sheriff's office, and a deputy came and filed a report. Since it was so dark and I couldn't see who it was, he wasn't giving us much hope in finding anybody. He said he would drive back through a few extra times this evening. Gentry dialed the phone for me, and I talked to Waste Management and told them a version of what happened so they could bring us a new can, at our expense, of course. He went out to try and get up the huge chunk of plastic that used to be our garbage can. I saw Billy and the other kids come out to go to the bus stop.
"What happened?" he asked Gentry.
"Your friends tried to set Win's truck on fire last night" Gentry told him.
"They're not my friends" Billy said sadly and walked with the other kids out to the bus stop.
The plastic was warm enough that Gentry rolled it into a tube; he was smart enough to have on work gloves. He leaned it up against the tongue of the trailer until we got the new can. Billy's daddy Jeff came out to go to work and saw Gentry with the big piece of plastic.
"What's that?" he asked.
Gentry told him what happened, and I showed him my bandaged hands.
"Could you tell who it was?" he asked.
"No. Would you really care?" Gentry spat at him.
"Look, I live here too. If somebody caused a truck to blow up, I think that would affect us" he said, "besides, you guys aren't bad neighbors other than...you know. If anything else happens, come get me. I got a 12-gauge ready for `em." He got into the truck and took off.
"Speaking of anything else happening, what are you gonna do when I go to work?" Gentry asked me. I hadn't really thought about it. I had called in and let the area manager know what happened early this morning so I was home for the day, but Gen would be leaving for work about 2:30. We were about to head in the house when Linda came out to leave for work. We went through the whole story again and she said she would send Billy over to help me once Gentry left. I was grateful to not have to navigate the house with no hands and let her know that.
My appointment with the doctor was at 11:00. He unwrapped my hands and cleaned them. They looked like two slabs of raw beef. He gently turned them and found a couple more pieces of the plastic he'd missed before and pulled it out with his tweezer-looking tool. After applying medicine and re-wrapping he sent me home to come back in two days.
Gentry left for work at 2:30 and I was kind of nervous but true to her word as soon as the kids got home Linda sent Billy over to sit with me. I helped him with his homework, and we watched some TV until I really had to pee. I asked him if he was okay helping me, because there was no way I could do it with my hands wrapped up. He shrugged and followed me to the bathroom. He was just standing there as if he was waiting for me.
"You'll have to do it" I said, holding up my hands.
"Oh, yeah. Duhhh" he said, reaching for my zipper. He was having a little trouble with it, and all the jiggling was making Win Jr. get a little excited. When he finally fished it out, I was probably about half hard.
"Hey, we're the same size down there" he said.
"Well, mine's about average" I told him, "Yours'll probably get bigger as you grow." That seemed to please him.
"Why does it have that skin over the head?" he asked me, rubbing his thumb across my foreskin.
"My folks didn't have it cut off" I explained, "everybody has one when you're born, but some people cut it off."
"Why?" he wanted to know.
"I don't know. Different reasons. Your daddy is probably cut. If he is, that's probably why you are" I said. He shrugged and went back to work.
I had him pull the foreskin back, it was a novelty for him. It took some adjusting but he got the aim right and I let loose and pissed what felt like a gallon. He was very conscientious and shook it a couple of time before he tucked it back in place and zipped me up. I noticed he seemed to have a little bit of a tent in his jeans.
Around 9:00 I finally broke down and took a pain pill; my hands felt like they were on fire. The doctor said it was good that I still had feeling but right now it didn't seem all that great. Billy helped me get into my lounging clothes and we sat on the couch. He turned on the television and put on some Ancient Aliens and as I usually do when it's on, I fell asleep. I was dreaming that Gentry and me were in bed and he was slowly jacking me off. Damn it felt so real. I was getting close, and I forced myself to wake up to avoid a mess. That's when I found out that Billy had my dick out and was slowly pulling the skin on and off the head.
"What are you doing?" I said, maybe a little too harshly.
"I'm sorry" he said, "I just wanted to see how it works."
"You should always ask first; you can get in a lot of trouble just fiddlin' with somebody's junk" I said.
"I'm sorry" he said again. Hell, I couldn't be mad at him.
"It's okay, but you were about to make a mess" I said with a smile.
"How?" then "Ohhhh, sorry again" he said and tucked it away. Of course, after it settled down, I had to pee again. So, we went through that whole thing again. We were just getting settled back down when Gentry came in. Billy said his goodbyes and went on home.
I got a call early the next morning from my area manager, he said he was sending a part-timer over to help while I was off work. He had told the girl to call my number if she had any questions. I hated strange people working in my store, but I guess it had to be done. Later in the morning, I went with Gentry to the bank. He took out a loan so he could pay some laborers to help him finish the house at least to the point it was habitable. He called around and found some guys and they were starting this afternoon.
We drove over just before lunch time, and I watched Gentry stringing wiring all over the place. I don't know how he kept up with what was what. I went out on the back porch and used my thumb tips to push the waistband of my sweatpants down so I could pee without help for once. What turned out to be a problem was getting them pulled back up. I called Gentry and he walked out and started laughing at me with my dick flopping around in the air. He came over to me and shook it for me and then, instead of putting it back up, he knelt and took it into his mouth. I didn't realize how horny I was from no relief the last few days. I thought about Billy rubbing it and handling it and then about Gentry's mouth and how he was taking the head into his throat and I'm sorry to say I only lasted a few minutes before giving him a midday snack.
We heard the sound of the trucks coming as the crew showed up. Gentry quickly got me all tucked away and went to the front to meet up with them. He showed them what he wanted done and then went back to his wiring. Gentry had to leave for work at 2:00; he arranged for Steve, one of the guys he knew to take charge and then he dropped me off at the trailer before going on to work. A little later Billy showed up for his shift. He made us a sandwich which I tried to eat with my mitt and thumb tips. By the time I was done my hands were burning like they were on fire again. It wasn't long till I had to take a pain pill.
"Don't be molesting me if I doze off, okay?" I told Billy. He just grinned.
I actually did okay until around 9pm or so, then I started trying to drift off. Billy started asking me questions to keep me from falling asleep on him, I guess.
"What do you and Gentry do with each other?" he asked.
"What do you mean?" I said sleepily.
"You know...like...when you...you know..." he was dancing around more than Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
"You mean sexually?" I said it for him before he had an aneurism.
"Yeah, that" he answered, "like do y'all do butt stuff or just in the mouth or what?"
"Not that it's any of your business, but we do all kinds of stuff" I said.
"Me and Jeremy just kind of felt of each other...well, I did put my mouth on his" he said, turning red.
"Did you like it?" I asked.
"I thought I was gonna shoot when I did it. I was shakin' all over" he said.
"You really like him, don't you?" I asked.
"Yeah, I do. He ain't big down there like me and you" he confided, "but his is perfectly straight and it smells good."
"Does he like you the same way?" I inquired.
"I think he was gonna lick mine, but those guys walked in, and we got scared and left real fast" he said.
"Not that you want any advice, but make sure he likes you too before you start doing stuff for him. Nothing sucks like you doing stuff for another guy and getting nothing in return. Some guys will just use you like a toy" I told him, thinking about one of the first guys I did anything with. Davy was an older cousin who talked me into trying stuff. I ended up giving him blowjobs for a year and he would never even touch me in return. I finally told him either he do stuff for me or we were done. He found a girlfriend not long after that and I moved on in search of a guy who'd treat me right. Billy got kind of quiet, I guess he was thinking about what I told him.
I almost jumped out of my skin when I heard the sound of metal crunching. We got up and ran out to see what was going on. Billy's bike, or what was left of it, was laying in the main drive of the trailer park where it had been run over by somebody. We both looked over when we heard the tires screeching on the pavement. It looked like a Jeep Cherokee, some dark color; this time of day it was too dark to tell for sure. We walked out and looked at the bike, it was toast. Billy started crying.
"Why did I have to be like this. Everybody hates faggots" he said.
"Well, I don't hate you and I hope you don't hate me" I told him. He moved toward me, and I put my arm around him. I looked up and saw that Linda and the kids had come out to see what the commotion was all about. I walked over and told her what we saw. We were still outside talking when Gentry drove up and we had to go through the whole story again. He was more pissed than I'd ever seen him. He jumped back in his truck. I asked where he was going. He just said "hunting." We went into Linda's and called the sheriff's office and told them about the Jeep and I let them know that Gentry was looking for it. I went back to our trailer and waited to hear something. Anything.
I woke up when the phone rang. I'm not even sure how I ever got to sleep; must have just dropped off due to exhaustion. It was one of those recorded messages from the county jail "Will you accept a call from an inmate of XXX county jail?" I accepted.
"Hey, Win. I'll tell you the story later. Can you get up $500 to bail me out?" Gentry asked.
"Of course. But I'll have to see if Linda'll give me a ride up there. See you when I can. I love you." I told him.
"Sorry to put you through all this. Love you too" he said.
It was a little after 7am. I was still dressed from last night. I walked over to Jeff and Linda's and kicked on the door as my hands were really coming to life today. Linda came to the door.
"Did you hear from somebody?" she asked.
"Yeah. Is there any way you could take me to the county jail?" I asked.
"What happened?" she asked.
"Not sure yet, but I got to get $500 to pay a bond to get Gentry out" I said.
"We'll help you. He was partly going because of Billy" she said.
"Thanks" is all I could say.
I borrowed Billy for a few minutes before school so I could use the bathroom, I was about to explode. He also helped me get some Advil for the pain in my hands; I didn't want to take the serious stuff and be sleepy all day. Afterward, Linda drove me to the credit union, and I pulled out $500, then we went on up to the jail. She had to go to work, but I figured we could get Gentry's truck out of the impound after I got him out of jail. The whole process took nearly three hours, but by lunch time we were on the road.
"So, what happened?" I asked him.
"I found them two little bastards about two miles from the trailer park, some part of Billy's bike gave them a flat tire. They thought I was stopping to help them, I guess. I parked in front of their car. When I started back to where they were standing by the tire, I saw one of the handlebar grips lodged in their grill. Something in my brain just flipped a switch, Win. I went after them. One of them tried to hit me with the lug wrench and I grabbed it out of his hand and bashed a couple of windows in before I threw it out in the cow pasture. The other one sucker punched me from behind and gave me this knot (pointing to the big bump on the back of his head). I threw his little punk ass into the barbed wire fence and went after the other one who was running down the road. I popped him in the face till he quit hollering and went back after the other one. That's when the deputy showed up. I was so hopped up I couldn't quit chasing that fucker, well, at least until the deputy hit me with the taser. He put me in the police car, and he waited with the thugs until the second car showed up to get `em" he said.
"Damn!" I said, "We already told the sheriff's department what was going on."
"Yeah, good thing too. If they hadn't come, I might have killed one of those assholes" he said. "By the way, they still had the spray paint and a gas can in there. But what's scary is they had a tarp and a shovel too. So, no telling what they were thinking about doing."
"Stop by the grocery store" I said, "I promised Linda we'd let her know what happened."
Linda was about to take her lunch, so we all went up to Hardee's and got some food while Gentry relayed the story one more time.
"I hate to say it, but I almost wish the cops hadn't showed up" she said. "Thanks for looking out for Billy."
"Billy is a special kid, Linda, but I was also thinkin' about my fiancé" he told her, then looked at me and winked.
"What will they do with them kids?" she asked.
"Don't know. The Jeep had a Mississippi tag on it. I don't know if they moved here or if they stole the car. I guess it'll all come out in court" he said.
We finished up our burgers and Linda went back to work. We went on home. I had another appointment for the doctor in the morning and Gentry was going to have to go in and see if he still had a job after not showing up last night. He tried to lay down for a few hours and rest before he had to go in. I didn't want to disturb him, so I crashed on the couch in front of the TV for a while.
He got up with just enough time to make it to work. About 45 minutes later Billy knocked and came in. I went through the story for him.
"Bad ass!" he said. I just smiled, that's my fiancé -- the bad ass.
He helped me take care of business, and I took a pain pill even though the pain was getting less. We cuddled up on the couch and he started pestering me again wanting to look at how my foreskin worked again, or so he said. It had a little smell to it since I hadn't been able to get in the shower since the blowjob from Gentry. Instead of grossing out, he seemed to be drawn to it. He kept smelling his hand.
"Okay, young man, that's enough" I said. Just in time too, as there was knocking on the door. Billy went up and answered it; it was his dad, Jeff. Linda had filled him in on what happened. His whole demeaner had changed. He said he appreciated Gentry taking up for Billy and wanted to let us know if we needed anything, to just come knock. It was almost time for Gentry to come in, so I told Billy he could go on back with his dad.
"I'm on probation" Gentry said, "if I miss work again, I'm gone."
"Well, at least they didn't fire you" I told him.
"They did, but I did a whole lot of fast talking and got them to give me another chance" he said.
"How are you going to keep your court date?" I asked.
"Whenever it is, I'll have to work a double that week to make up for the time missed" he said. "If I end up in jail, I'll be looking for another job."
"You better walk the straight and narrow, fiancé" I said. He nodded.
"You about ready to go to bed?" he asked.
He helped me with my bedtime pee, and we got naked and into bed. I'd like to tell you we had crazy wild sex but since Gentry just worked a full shift on less than three hours of sleep and add to that the begging for his job he had to do, he was exhausted. All the excitement had me that way too; I couldn't stay up if I wanted to. He went dead to sleep and slept like rocks.
Lambodara 1/11/23
I'm almost as tired as Winslow and Gentry, so I bid you all, goodnight.