Date: Wed, 02 May 2001 18:19:05 From: Ganymede Subject: Sixty Nine Chapter Five '69' by Ganymede WARNING: This story contains a graphic description of sexual acts between a man and a MINOR boy. I do not condone child abuse, how- ever boy-love as described in this story is an entirely different matter. If the subject of man/boy sex offends you, if this material is illegal in your place of residence, or if you are under the legal age for such material, do not read further! You have been warned! Read at your own risk! Any similarity to individuals, living or dead, is entirely accidental. The story is copyrighted under the pseudonym, Ganymede. A copy has been placed in the Nifty archives for your enjoyment. Feel free to post it to appropriate newsgroups or send it to your friends. The story cannot be used to derive monetary gain. It cannot be placed in archives that require payment for access, or printed and distributed in any form that requires payment. THE NIFTY ARCHIVE: The Nifty Archive needs your support. If you enjoy reading this story, please remember that it is available only because of the Nifty Archive. Instructions are provided on the Nifty home page for how to provide support. FINAL WARNING: If you are under the age of 18, if this material is illegal in your place of residence, or if man-boy relationships aren't your thing, then exit now and save yourself from a life of sin! '69' by Ganymede Chapter 5 That I managed to get Ty back to where he lived was a stroke of luck. What saved us was as much a matter of luck as any driving skill on my part, although afterwards Ty was quick to claim the contrary. No, according to him it was 100 percent driving skill, while I put it down to good old-fashioned luck. My good fortune had run out years ago when I moved from weekend episodes on local tracks in North Carolina and Tennessee to full time racing with my grandfather's money and a dream of winning at Nascar. What I finally came to realize that night was that with Ty beside me, my luck appeared to have been restored. Now, I have to say right off that my mind wasn't completely on the driving when the accident happened. You might say I was distracted by what I was doing to Ty. It started almost as soon we were out of the motel parking lot. I accelerated up to 40 m.p.h. and put the car in fourth gear. With Bobbie's re-worked cams, the engine never ran smoothly until it reached about 2,000 r.p.m. My right hand moved cautiously from the knob on the gear stick to the slightly larger but equally smooth knob of Ty's kneecap. Casually, my hand inched up his leg, feeling the long thin tendons underneath. My fingers stroked gently, marvelling at the silky smooth skin. I was fascinated about how soft his leg was while very gradually moving higher, higher until my fingertips brushed the frayed hem of his shorts. There was firm muscle in abundance. His slender leg was entirely bone, muscle and sinew. He could be a fast runner when he needed to move quickly. "Ya mind?" I asked as if it was the most natural thing in the world to be feeling a boy's leg up while I drove him back to his home. I glanced sideways. Ty smirked and slowly shook his head. His leg moved a few inches to the side, so I did not have to reach quite so far. "It feels okay," he ventured. He hesitated. "Ya like boys, don't ya Terry?" he added under his breath. I tried to decide what to say. I could lie and tell that I'd rather be getting laid by one of the pit babes, or I could come right out with the truth and tell him that I thought he was the sexiest person I had ever met. He was! "Some," I answered. I waited for him to say something. He didn't. "Some more than others," I added vaguely. "Like me?" His voice crackled. He was as nervous as I was, perhaps more so. "Yer cool, Ace," I admitted. "Ah know what ya need. Ya need ta get yerself some pussy, Terry," Ty chortled. "Yeah, one day I will," I said listlessly. I continued to stroke his thigh, slipping my fingers under the hem of his shorts and into a warmer zone. Ty trembled slightly. He looked at my hand and for a disturbing moment I thought he was going to move my hand away. Then he smirked. "What's so funny?" "You!" Ty giggled. "Ya never even had it in a pussy, have ya Terry?" "None of yer business. Have you?" I retorted. He nodded boldly. "Sure! I've done it with a girl lotsa times, only it was a coupla years ago." The way he said it did not sound like he was lying. I still laughed. "Okay, now ya tell me what's so funny?" he rebounded gleefully. "Yer kiddin' me, Ace! A coupla years ago yer dick wouldn't 'a been two inches." I took my left hand off the steering wheel for a moment and held my thumb and first finger about two inches apart. "Just 'bout big enough to rub a clit," I joked. "But it ain't goin' inside far enough inside to do anythin' she's gonna like." "Huh?" Ty asked. I chuckled. "Ya wanna tell me 'bout how ya got this up a girl, Ace?" I asked teasingly. I lifted my right hand up and lowered it down over the little lump in his shorts. I squeezed gently, pushing my fingers into the spongy bulge, rubbing my thumb over where I thought his penis was located. He shrugged, pretending to be disinterested. However, his thighs lifted up slightly. At the same time, his legs moved a few inches further apart. He was as interested as I was, perhaps more. "Her brother and me messed 'round some in tha woods behind where we lived," he said. "We both done it to her." "How old was she?" "I guess she was 'bout five. She was a coupla years younger than me." I had a mental picture of Ty as a younger boy, aged seven or eight, and a little five-year-old girl. It was not difficult to imagine what happened. Sex play among children that age is probably more common than most parents are prepared to admit. There were some parts of the country where a lot of girls have lost their virginity before they start kindergarten. Incest was a fact of life. "How old was her brother?" I asked curiously. Ty did not answer for a while. He licked his lips, visibly thoughtful, in all likelihood remembering what happened in the woods. I continued to fondle his penis and testicles, aware that he was becoming aroused. I could feel his penis expanding and getting harder under my fingers. "Older 'n me," he answered. "Like twelve or so. He could shoot." We were nearly through the intersection when I saw an oncoming truck begin to change lanes. At the last minute, the Ryder rental truck swerved back to avoid hitting a car on its right side. The truck bounced against the low curb that separated the traffic from the grass covered median strip. For the simple reason that the driver had been speeding up to get through the intersection before the lights changed to red, he was unable to keep the vehicle under control. It mounted the curb, sliced through two small trees, sheared off a light post and slewed across the oncoming traffic. I was the oncoming traffic. With the truck broadside, it completely blocked all of the lanes. There was literally nowhere to go. I did what any race car driver would do. I spun the steering wheel to the right and yanked the hand brake on as hard as possible. The Trans Am spun instantly, completely a full 180 degrees before it stopped, its trunk only inches away from going under the side of the truck. If that was all there was, it would have been a miracle. However, Ty and I stared straight ahead at a vehicle bearing down on us. It was a beat pickup truck, the kind of vehicle that Mexican fruit pickers drive. It was approaching as if nothing was out of the ordinary, despite the fact that my headlights were directly ahead of it and a truck completely blocked the road. A moment later, the driver woke up and stomped on the brakes, locking both of its front wheels in a screeching skid. It came straight towards us in slow motion. If there had been any driving skill on my part involved to that point, it was supplanted by pure luck. Instead of engaging reverse gear, which is second nature to a race car driver on a spin out, I rammed the gear stick into first gear. "Oh Jesus!" Ty shouted. Instinctively, I reached across, grabbing at Ty's shoulder to drag him down. It did not take a brain surgeoun to figure out that when the pickup hit us, it was going to force the Pontiac under the truck. At the same time, I floored the accelerator and Bobbie's re-worked engine screamed, releasing all 400 horses in a frantic effort to get out of the way of the impending collision. The car literally jumped over the curb, tearing out clumps of grass before rejoining the traffic in the opposite direction to the one we had been originally going in. The limited slip differential kept both wheels spinning, leaving dual black tread marks until I stomped on the brakes. We stopped on a dime and a cloud of white, stinking smoke slowly rose up over the trunk. It had all happened in a matter of a few seconds. The pickup stopped in a similar cloud of smoke, its front tires about where my rear tires had been only a second or two earlier. The lighter rear end had drifted to the side so that the pickup and truck were nearly parallel. I stopped the car in the middle of the intersection and leaped out. I ran to the other side of the car, opened the door and dragged Ty out. I made sure he was safely out of the way before I ran to see what had happened. By then, the driver of the truck and the pickup were standing, staring, mouths wide open, pointing at where the Pontiac had been, and where it should have been, eight feet under the truck. The nose of the pickup was about an inch from the metal edge of the Ryder truck. Its tailgate had fallen down and was blocking the truck driver's door. "What in the hell?" the truck driver said. He stared at me. "Man, how in the hell did you do that?" I shrugged. There was nothing that I could say. It was the closest I had ever been to a collision off the track. We were all thinking the same thing. A miracle? Ty waved from the side of the road and then pointed as a police car turned through the intersection and stopped with its hazard lights flashing eerily. I wanted to get away from them, to find the time to think about what might have happened. I had a persistent mental picture of Ty being decapitated by a Ryder truck. It felt like I was going to throw up. It took about ten minutes before the policeman allowed us to leave the scene. Since there was no damage to my car, and I could not 'remember' anything that preceded the truck crossing over the median, there was no point in keeping me any longer. I got away without being required to take a breath test, that despite the obvious suspicion when the policeman was close enough to smell my breath. I collected Ty from the median strip and we headed off to the Pontiac to continue on our way. "Wow! Yer awesome!" Ty proclaimed effusively. "That was some wheelie ya popped too, Terry." "Huh?" I was gripping the wheel and I forced myself to relax. "Whatcha did back there! It was way above awesome!" I shrugged. My heart was still beating quickly. My throat was parched. I needed another beer. I replayed what had happened in my mind. Sure, there was some driving skill involved, but it was more than that. I remembered flinging my arm out in front of Ty, trying to grab him, pulling him down between the seats. There was luck involved, an awful lot of luck, luck that overrode instinct when I put the car into first gear instead of reverse, luck that floored the accelerator and pointed the car across the median and in the opposite direction to the way the pickup was going to slide. "It wasn't skill." "Yeah, it was." Ty rubbed his shoulder absently. "It was some god-damn great drivin' that saved us." I shrugged. "I reckon yer my little good luck charm." Ty grinned, still massaging his shoulder. "Did I hurt ya, Ace?" "Na, I'm okay." "I didn't want ya goin' under tha truck. Ya might 'a gotten that pretty blond head of yers all bruised," I joked feebly. Ty smiled, brushing his hand back through his close-cropped hair. He looked different to the boy who I had first noticed at the Subway. I loved him with his short hair and rat's tail. It suited him. He was a free spirit. He was also very good looking, the kind of good-looking that made a man like me want to look at him again and again. He might not think of himself as being homosexually inclined, but he should have been. His good looks were wasted otherwise. "Why didn't ya git yer own head down, Terry?" I shrugged. "Guess I'm too ugly to worry 'bout gettin' my face creamed, Ace. Besides, I figured maybe a plastic surgeon could'a fixed me up so I look better." He laughed. "Ya ain't ugly. Not by a long shot. Yer cool, Terry! You gotta turn right at tha next intersection," he added. We sat in silence for the next two miles. I watched the buildings becoming increasingly run down. A lot of the shops had boards over the front windows or permanently installed chain mesh or metal bars. From what I oberved it was apparent that the blacks had a tenuous relationship with the Cubans. White faces were clearly a minority in this neighborhood. After crossing rusted, trash-covered railroad tracks, I turned left through what may once have been a quite attractive entry but was now an unkempt tangle of plants and weeds. A peeling sign proclaimed "Happy Valley Trailer Village'. Ty lived in a trailer park. "Ah can walk from 'ere," Ty said nervously. I glanced at him, bringing the car to a halt. The engine quickly returned to its gurgling, deep-throated gurgle. Over the years, I have seen a lot of trailer parks, but none of them struck me as being so dilapidated, so utterly unpleasant that the possibility of anyone living there was enough to sicken me. The park was not only close to, but directly down wind of a sewage treatment plant. "It's not a problem, Ace," I said firmly. He glared at me. "This is far enough, okay!" "Not when I'm bringin' ya home. It's dark, and this ain't the best neighborhood. I want to see ya home safe!" "Fuckin' safer out here than where I live," he said under his breath. "Where to, Ace?" I said tiredly. He directed me to take the road to the left. The road was pot holed like something you might see in one of the worst parts of Detroit. Eventually, even the black-top stopped and we bumped down a sandy track towards the last few trailers that were within a stone throw of the sewage ponds. The smell was terrible. Ty shrank down in his seat, his expression dismal as I carefully negotiated the last few hundred feet between a half-dozen abandoned and rusted-out cars. The trailer was smaller than most, but it had been expanded by a couple of clumsily built roofs on the southern side. I glanced at Ty. He made no effort to get out of the car. I expected he wanted to spend a few minutes saying goodbye. I knew I wanted him to stay there for as long as possible. After a while, he sighed. "What's up?" I asked quietly. "She's still up." His voice sounded pitiful, empty, emotionless. I had a feeling that his life was so miserable in this god-forsaken dump, that he was beginning to think that he would be better off dead. "Do ya want me ta take ya in, Ty?" I suggested. "I could explain why yer late 'n all?" He shrugged. "She don't care! I know she don't want me 'round." "If you were my son, I'd sure want yer 'round," I said. Ty turned and gave me a shy curious look. "I ain't her son. I ain't nuthin' to nobody!" "Yer special to me," I said honestly. "Yeah, right." His nostrils flared as he took a deep slow breath. He shook his head. he opened the car door and got out. Walking slowly, scuffing his feet in the sandy dust. I could hear him crying, sobbing from the depths of his thin chest. I swallowed, sat silent and still in the leather bucket seat, fuming with a growing sense of guilt and frustration. Why did I have this feeling of impending doom if I left Ty alone? What was happening to me? A few minutes passed until the crying stopped. "Ty?" I called as I climbed out. I left the motor running and the headlights on. He turned and walked back slowly. I placed my hand on his shoulder. There was a lot that I wanted to say to him, but whatever I might have said was meaningless when I thought about it. What could I say that would have meaning for him? 'Hey, stick it out, Ace.' 'Work hard in school and you'll become rich one day.' 'Life isn't all that bad.' Those things did not have meaning for me so why should I expect them to have meaning for him. I closed my door with a loud slam. "Ya know, Ace, I don't even know yer name," I said. "`ceptin' Ty, that is." "It's Tyler Kincaid." He wiped his cheek and pointed to a collection of twisted roofing that had been nailed into a rough shelter. "That's my kart over there," he announced proudly. "Ya wanna see it, Terry?" I followed him over. The light from the headlights was enough to see that the shelter was secured by fencing wire to the side of a tree, providing the lateral stability that two-by-four inch nailed together lumber could not. He dragged away a green tarpaulin. Underneath was a go-kart, or rather the chassis of one. There was no engine, at least not where it was supposed to be. The engine was in pieces, disassembled and lying on several oil- spotted wooden orange-packing crates. "It's an Olimpic," Ty explained. "That's the best fuckin' chassis there is, Terry," he added haughtily. "I got it fer free. I seen 'em on the web at more 'n fourteen hundred. Check out the tubin', Terry. It's chromoly, one and a quarter. Ya can set it up just like a race car. 's got 'justable camber, 'n ride, 'n everythin'," he added proudly. "I got the body stashed under the trailer till I'm ready fer it ta go back on. It got cracked up pretty bad in a wreck, but I reckon I can fix it with some fiberglass. It's got everythin'. Soon as I get it put back together ah am ready to race." "Ain't got an engine," I chuckled. "Ya noticed," Ty laughed. "I got it cause some dumb asshole seized the engine. Kept runnin' it after he wrecked. That's a Briggs Raptor III over there on the bench, only it's been done over by Stinger. It's got the full thing, blue printed, with a head job that's better 'n your car I bet." "Only yers don't run," I teased. "You really gonna race it?" "Once I get it fixd," Ty smiled. "I need new everythin'. Bearin's, crank, piston, everythin'. It'd be cheaper to buy a new one only I ain't got a thousand bucks." "That much?" "That's just to start. The Raptor's only a coupla hundred. The rest goes in gettin' the performance up ta scratch." "You need ta get a job," I quipped. "Hell, I need a job, the way I'm goin'." Ty grinned. "I'll give ya a blow job if ya buy me a new engine," he offered teasingly. "No way! It'd be nice, but it sure ain't worth that much," I joked. He laughed. "Well, I ain't doin' nuthin' in the butt, that's fer sure. It ain't worth bein' turned into a fag, not fer some go- kart engine." I glanced back at the trailer. It would be a long while before he had the engine running again. He deserved to grow up in better circumstances. He deserved to have his go-kart fixed and racing. he had the look of a winner. He even looked more like a winner than eleven-year-old Gordon Jeffries when he won the quarter- midget national championship for the second time. "Come on, Tyler Kincaid," I said dejectedly. "Let's take ya on in." I stopped by the car to turn off the engine. Together, we went up to the front door. I knocked a couple of times before there was any sign of life inside. "Who's there?" It was a woman's voice, raspy, bad-tempered. I heard loud footsteps clumping across the floor. Ty shrank back until he was nearly behind me. The front door opened, but before I had a chance to see inside, an overweight, dyed-blond woman filled the opening. She appeared to be middle aged, although lifestyle and liquor had taken a greater toll than years alone. She leered at me through the torn fly-screen door. "What do ya want?" "Sorry to bother you, Mam," I began self-consciously. "I, er,... I met up Ty today. I thought I'd better bring him home." "Yeah?" She glared at me, saw Ty standing behind me, and then turned away, no longer interested in furthering the conversation. Cautiously, I pulled the no-longer-insect-proof door open and waited a moment before I followed her inside. Something, an inner sense, told me that I needed to follow her, to stay as long as possible, that Ty was depending upon me. There was a pile of empty beer cans on the kitchen counter, stacked into a pyramid, four wide at the base. One can was missing from the top. I glanced at the woman, barely believing that all nine cans could be hers. Yet, even as I watched she picked up the tenth can from the low table in front of the television set. She drank, emptying the can in one mouthful. She lifted an eyebrow, daring me to comment. "Where did ya find him?" she demanded arrogantly. "At Daytona," I answered. "Earlier today," I added. Over my shoulder, I saw Ty standing next to the door. His jaws were clenched. He looked like he was ready to run. "Little bastard! I was wonderin' where he fuckin' got off to." She burped loudly. She tossed the can at Ty, rather than to him. He managed to catch it in one hand. He deftly placed it on top of the pyramid without thinking about it. I had a feeling that I was participating in an almost surreal yet well-rehearsed play. "He found his way into the pits at the race track," I added. "Could have fuckin' guessed that's where he'd be." She snorted and ambled back into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and pulled out one of the two remaining cans of beer. Ty stepped back, pushing open the screen door behind him. The woman sneered at him, almost challenging him to go away and leave her alone in her drunkenness. "Ya brung him all the way back 'ere?" she demanded. "What for?" "No reason, except I didn't think it was safe for him to be hitch-hiking." She laughed. "Don't you worry about 'im. He's been hitchin' up to the track for a coupla of years now. And if he gets in with the wrong man, he knows how ta take care of himself." I stared at her, remembering what had happened in the motel bedroom. She was probably right, although the very idea of Ty doing that with another man made my stomach turn. She ripped back the metal pop-top and drank heavily. Ten cans of beer! Even the night when my mother died, I hadn't drunk that much. Six was my limit. After that, I spend more time peeing and less time drinking. I glanced back at Ty. He cowered, not inside the door, but not outside either. He was frightened. There had been no signs of abuse on his body, at least none that I had seen, but there were other ways of abusing a child besides inflicting physical injuries. "Um,... Mrs. Kincaid?..." "It's Tompkins now! Ever since I married that worthless sonnabitch," She snapped. She dropped down into a threadbare couch, obvious to a film of dirt and tiny pieces of potato chips. "What?" "Can we talk fer a minute 'bout yer son?" "He ain't mine. He's my daughter's. She had him when she was fourteen and too fuckin' dumb to know who its father was, though it weren't too hard to figure out when she dropped her brat with me and took off with him. She ain't been back here in ten years. I hear she took up with some truck driver over in L'siana and she got herself three more now." "Terry, can ya just go, please," Ty said plaintively from behind me. "Ty, just a minute, okay," I said patiently. There was no way I was going to leave Tyler Kincaid in that place. The only problem was how to avoid what seemed to be an insurmountable obstacle; this woman who was apparently his grandmother! "Mrs. Tompkins," I began again. "You probably don't recognize me, but I drive for a Nascar team." "Which one?" "We don't have a sponsor yet," I admitted. "What fuckin' number then?" "Sixty-nine," I answered with a straight face. The woman laughed, spitting beer over the couch. "Yeah, I seen it on TV. Yer that Atkins guy?" I nodded. "That's me." "Sixty-fuckin'-nine huh? Yeah, that sounds about right for Ty. Just like him, suckin' up to some driver." "Pardon?" "Nuthin'! So you have a fuckin' race car. Big fuckin' thrill. So what?" "Well, today, we came in third." "He set a new lap record, too," Ty interjected from his position by the door. "Yeah, I saw some of it. I'm so fuckin' thrilled for ya," she said arrogantly. "I'd offer ya champagne, if I had some. And there ain't no beer left." "That's okay," I said patiently. "Git to tha point, Mister Atkins." I could not believe what I was about to say. "The point is, Ty brought us luck. A lot of luck. We haven't been doin' so good the last few months. He's kind of a good luck charm." "Ty? Lucky? Git real!" "Well, we think he did a lot to help today," I said boldly. "The team wants him along for the rest of the summer." "Yer jokin'." "Nope. We got a coupla weeks up in Asheville to do some work on the car, but then we're back on tha road. I'd like it if he could come along." She smirked knowingly. She turned to Ty, her eyes narrowed with suspicion. "You put him up to this?" "No!" "Liar! Whatcha done with him? God-damn faggot!" "I ain't. Nuthin' happened like that, I swear. I didn't do nuthin' with him," Ty said heatedly. His grandmother glared at him. He was lying and we all knew it. "He ain't takin' ya 'cross the country for nuthin', boy. It ain't hard to figure out what he wants." Ty shrugged and boldly stared her down. "I'll be helpin' the team out 'n all, Mamaw," he said nervously. "It ain't like that." "A tiger don't change its stripes neither." She turned back to glare at me. "Ya know what yer gettin' into with him?" "He's a bit on the wild side but I'm sure he's basically a good kid," I answered. She laughed. "Yeah, but good at what? That's the question, ain't it, Mister Atkins? Yer takin' him for the whole summer, right? Yer buyin' him food and whatever else he needs?" "Yes," I said quickly. "I'll get him back before school starts." "Don't matter! Keep him as long as yer want. I just want him outta my hair. Anyway, he skips school more often than he goes." "I do so go," Ty said adamantly. He glared at her. "I missed a coupla times, that's all." "Shut up! Yer a god-damn little liar!" "It doesn't matter. Get your stuff, Ty," I said loudly. I waited until Ty was out of the room. I hated to think what his room was like, or even if he had a room of his own. "I need to get somethin' in writin' I expect," I said. "Like what?" "Somethin' about how he's goin' with me with yer permission." She shrugged. "You write it, Mister Atkins! There's paper over there someplace," she said with an angry gesture of her ample hand towards the kitchen counter. I searched among the litter on the counter top for a minute before I found a food-stained writing pad. I lifted back nearly half of the pad before I found a page that was clean enough to write on. I sighed, hoping that I was not making a mistake. 'I,...' I stopped writing. "What's yer full name?" I asked. "Tina Tompkins." 'Tina Tompkins,....' I wrote. 'Hereby' was a good legal word. What I needed was a lawyer, but I had an aversion to lawyers. 'hereby gives permissun for her,...' "Ty's yer grandson, right?" I asked. She nodded curtly. "Yer his legal guardian too?" "I got guardianship. There's somethin' in writin' 'round here some place. I told yer I ain't seen my daughter fer near ten years now. I had to get it done so's I could get him into school. Most people 'round here think the little bastard's mine." I started writing again. '.... grandson, Tyler Kincaid, to go with Terry Atkins for the summer....' I hesitated to write more. What did a letter like this one need to say anyway? I added lines for our names and addresses and phone numbers. I signed and then filled in my name and the address of the workshop in Asheville. "Here," I said. I carried it over and handed it to her. "Don't say much, does it?" she said sarcastically. She ignored then pen I was trying to give her. She handed it back. "What else then? Like what should I add?" I asked. "Ya gonna take care of him. Whatever happens. I'm givin' ya guardianship. Write that down." I started writing again, squeezing the few lines between what I had already written and my name. 'I hereby give gardianship to Terry Atkins. He will take care of Tyler whatever happens.' I handed the completed agreement back to her for approval. She signed and dated it, and then scrawled her address beneath it. "I ain't no lawyer, but I know enough to know it probably ain't no good if it ain't witnessed," she said sullenly. "Anyone around here who could witness it?" I suggested hopefully. She shrugged. She staggered up from her couch-potato position and lurched across the room and out the door. I followed outside, across the dirt and garbage to the nearest trailer, and up to the door. She hammered impatiently on the closed door. After a minute, a grey haired man came out. A young girl about eight years old poked her sand-colored head out from behind her. The man pushed her back. "Yeah?" he said sleepily. He yawned. "What is it, Tina?" "I need ya ta sign somethin' for me." "Who's this?" "Some guy Ty picked up. He goin' with him fer the summer. I need ya ta witness the paper sayin' he's got my permission." "Huh? But ya said Lou and yer was leavin' next week?" "It don't matter what I said. Just sign somewhere on the bottom and write 'witness'. "I need fer ya ta understand somethin'," she said as we walked back to her trailer. "What?" "'bout that boy. He's outta my hands now," she said vaguely. "He's yer problem from now on. Ya better keep a close eye on him. He's a wild one, like the dumb bitch who brought him into the world." "What's that s'posed to mean?" "Whatever. I happen to know fer a fact what he likes. His mother got off with anything with a cock and I bet he ain't no different." "He's just a kid," I said protectively. "Tha hell he is. Why don't ya ask him how he got that damned go kart?" "How did he get it?" I asked. She shrugged. "It ain't none of my concern what he done ta get it. You just ask him `bout how he got it." "Maybe it is a concern of mine. I intend to take care of him," I answered. I tried to hold back my distaste. "Ya better get him outta here then," she laughed. "This ain't no place to raise kids. They're either pregnant or getting stoned stupid." I stopped before we climbed the three rickety stairs at the front of the trailer. It was difficult enough to think of Ty growing up with the constant stench of sewage, but surrounded by this mess, and living with this woman? I guessed one became used to the smell after a while, like the smell of oil and gasoline. Then, I remembered the great pride that Ty had demonstrated when he showed me his go-kart. I had an idea building in the back of my mind. I could not do much to help him, but I could do a few things. "Tha kart of his. Ya got a problem if he takes it with him?" I asked blandly. "It's his god-damn fuckin' mess. I'm tired `a havin' it `round junkin' up the place, but it ain't gonna fit in yer trunk," she guffawed. "He'd like to take it with him, I reckon." At that instant, the screen door opened and Ty came down the stairs with his arms full. Mostly, he carried clothes, but on the top of the pile was a big cream-colored teddy bear. It was dressed in a bedraggled woollen sweater with a red bandana tied around its neck. "Take what?" Ty asked immediately. There was certainly nothing wrong with his hearing. "Yer kart." I watched his eyes light up. It was enough to give me a warm feeling inside. "I'll have the guys drop by with the truck and pick it up tomorrow," I said. "Terry, thanks. That's so awesome," Ty gushed. "I was gonna ask you, but I was kinda 'fraid yer'd say no way." "'s okay. Who's this?" I asked playfully as I squeezed the bear's little black nose. "I know I'm taking you fer the summer, and yer go-kart too, but I didn't plan on takin' no bears." "This here's Theodore Bearington, Terry, but I call him 'Bandit'. He's ma buddy," Ty grinned. "I won him at a flea market raffle a coupla years ago. I don't go no where without the Bandit." I laughed. "Okay put yer stuff on the back seat and get in the car. Bandit can ride up front with you." Ty grinned happily. "Hey, if ya keep callin' me 'Ace', and I already got Bandit, ah guess I get ta call ya 'Smokey', 'cause 'a that big smokin' wheelie you laid earlier." I laughed. "Terry'll do just fine, Ace. But if ya gotta call me Smokey, just don't be doin' it 'round Bobbie and the other guys."