Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2018 23:52:25 +0200 From: boris chen Subject: Camping in Kentucky, chap 1 Camping in Kentucky (updated 2018) Primary story characters: James Zimmer- narrator. Caucasian male, 31 years old, 5'10" tall, 160lbs, medium build, blue eyes, light brown hair, `Geeky and bookish,' holds Master's degree in organic chemistry. Lee Charters- Caucasian male, 24yo, 6' 1" tall, 185 lbs, curly dark brown hair, black eyes. High school graduate, Raised by his uncle after his parents were killed in a motorcycle accident when he was six months old. Lee is an outdoorsman. Deborah- Distant cousin to Lee Charters, 30's. Married with female child. Overweight. (Deborah's grandfather is a cousin to Lee's Grandfather). David Charters- is an elderly-frail Caucasian man with end-stage COPD. Career smoker, retired railroad employee. David Charters is the brother of Lee Charters' deceased father. 8th grade education. Cal Kline- lifelong friend of Lee Charters. 24 yrs, 5'10", brown hair & eyes, 140lbs. Fireman in Claryville. Graduated same school and year as Lee. Earl Dog- AKC registered Irish Wolfhound, long grey fur, walks with a spring in his step. Obedience school graduate. Doesn't bark much. Likes watching cartoons on TV and is very protective of his pack members. 160lbs. (appears in part-2 only) You may contact the author by email: bchen writeme com Camping in Kentucky. By Boris B. Chen. Copyright October, 2018. All Rights Reserved. Chapter One. Mixed signals. I spent an hour on the phone with one of our suppliers yesterday. By the time I got off the phone I really needed to step away from my desk, drink some water and stretch my legs a bit. There were several soda and snack machines near the loading dock warehouse so I walked over there to see what the selection looked like. All I wanted was some really cold water to drink. When I got to the vending area I saw a good friend of mine (Luke) in front of the snack machines. I swiped my badge and watched the machine move it's mechanical deck to the highest level and dump my drink down the chute and into my waiting hands. We talked about the weekend we just spent on his boat. A great time was had by all but we didn't catch many game fish. While we visited, a rather tall young man walked over so we got out of his way. My friend Luke asked, "You know this guy?" I shook my head no, Luke did the introductions. 'James meet Lee, Lee meet James, shake hands, blah blah blah.' My friend said Lee was a life-long outdoorsman. Luke pulled out his cell and showed me pictures he took of Lee (shirtless) with the four largest fish he caught. Lee said he spent the weekend on Luke's boat three weeks ago, in the same place on the Ohio River. "Holy crap, look at the size of that carp!" I said when he got to the second picture. "Can you forward me that one?" I asked them. Lee smiled while he dropped coins into the machine. Luke started to work buttons on his cell. The sound of a pager alarm interrupted our conversation. We both checked, it was his and not mine this time. My friend excused himself and walked away down the hallway. The young man and I talked about how the Asian carp had ruined game fish stocks on the Ohio River. We also talked about how to fillet Asian carp, he said thousands of people in south east Asia cook and eat them every single day but you gotta do it the right way. I said I should look for instructions on Youtube, but I had always been told they were too full of bones. Lee said that you need to fillet them alive, remove the dark red meat, cut around the bones, and get the meat on ice right away. The process he described produced a few delicious cutlets from each fish, but most of the animal went in the trash. While he explained the procedure I noticed he had a rather pronounced accent and asked if he was from Kentucky. "Claryville, born and raised. Graduated high school down there and moved up here when jobs got tight down home." Lee paused to take a drink of his water then asked me if I tent camp too. "Yes, but it's been a while. I need to find someone to go with." "I got a place down home, I invite everyone that works here to come down with their gear, bag a deer and drink some beer." "Huh!, is this your land?" "It will be some day. My uncle owns it now, he's got COPD real bad. He just barely makes it to the bathroom now." "You lived with him?" "He raised me. My parents got killed when I was a baby, he was the only family. I've been with him ever since. Now I help take care of him." "Sorry to hear about your parents. It looks like you were raised well?" "Meh. I'm okay. What kind of rifle you hunt with?" "I have my father's 30-06 bolt action he purchased at a hardware store in 1941, it's accurate as hell, but it needs to be cleaned and sights checked real bad." "My place has a shootin' range and room fer 'bout six tents. Like I say'd, you're welcome to grab your stuff and come on down. Luke camped there too, just ask 'im." "What do you hunt with?" I asked but he was busy gulping down some water. Lee had on worn jeans and a faded red t-shirt with a big Marlboro logo on the front. After he finished he said, "I got a Vanguard .308 bolt action with a ten power scope." "How big is your uncle's property?" "We got 700 acres, about a square mile. In the valley we got a big space for tents, there's a fifty meter rifle range, a nice creek for water, it's good for deer and small game fish, you could ride a four wheeler back there too. Like I said, grab yer gear and come on down! The valley's got 'bout everthin' y'need and the price is right." I glanced at the clock, I'd been gone from my desk for fifteen minutes. "Well, I love to camp and shoot, but I got a bunch of questions about your place. Let's talk some more about it, okay? Your name is Lee, right?" "Yep, Lee Charters. I'll look fer ya again." "I usually take lunch at 11:30 on one of the picnic tables outside the factory." "Yep, me too. I'll see y'all out there." I turned away from the vending area but before I left I told him again, "Nice to meet you Lee," and walked back to my desk in the lab. Later that day I ran into my fishing buddy again on the factory floor. He warned me that Lee's valley is primitive, "...he doesn't even have an outhouse down there. The closest phone and flush toilet is almost six miles. Sometimes when he invites people to camp at his place he forgets to mention that little detail. I'll tell you the rest outside work sometime. As Luke walked away he shouted to me that there's no cell service down there either." ---- The very next day I was alone at a picnic table outside the factory and was surprised to see that tall young man walk over, all full of smiles, with a gas station delicacy in hand. My brain recalled his name was Lee. "Set a spell." I gestured at the other side of the picnic table. "Hi James, how's work?" Lee asked. "Busy, you?" I answered as I finished my home made sandwich and started to eat my celery stalks. "We're busy, got six more fourteen-foot tires that leave on rail cars. Gotta get them loaded and tied down by tomorrow or we work Saturday. You know them rail cars? No two of 'em have the same mounts. Each tie-down is custom." We spent some time eating then I asked him, "So does this place of yours have a name?" "Not really. But everyone I know calls it Lee's Valley 'cause I built most of it when I was a kid, but it's my uncle's land. It'll probably be mine when he passes." "How are you two related?" "Uncle David and my father were brothers." "Well, I guess that all turned out okay?" "Sort of. Uncle never liked kids. I spent a lot of time with the neighbors." He paused to take another bite then added, "I think Uncle was allergic to diapers until after I was house broke." He chuckled at his comment. "So where is this place of yours?" Lee reached over for my paper lunch bag, pulled a pen from his shirt collar and wrote his uncle's street address on the outside. He told me to type it into Google Maps. Then he added that there isn't much to see except miles and miles of trees with a road going down the middle. I changed the subject a little, "So what else you into aside from outdoors stuff? You do online combat games and virtual reality stuff like that?" I asked without eye contact to see if he would say personal things. "Not a damn thing. I don't even got internet at home, just on my phone. I'd rather be outside doing stuff, that's why I hate livin' up here, but there ain't no jobs down home. What I need is to be rich some day and start my own business." "I feel the same way!" I said with the last bite of my sandwich in my mouth. "What kind of business would you open if you could?" I asked him. "Probably a small cafe. One of the neighbor ladies that helped raise me was a cook, I learned a lot from her before I could even reach the spigot on the sink." I chuckled at the visual image of him at age 6 on a stool by the kitchen counter learning to dice veggies like a professional. A few minutes later our breaks were over and we both left for our respective departments. ---- I ran into my friend Luke at a gas station after work, he had leaned back against his truck while his tank slowly filled. I stepped closer after I got my pump started. "You may eventually notice that young Mister Charters never talks about girls. I thought you should know that before you decide to pitch a tent down there." Just then his pump clicked off, he hung up the nozzle, then he stopped and yelled back at me, "You get that picture I sent you?" I shouted back, "Yes, thanks! See ya," and then he drove off. After my side of the pump stopped I put the nozzle back and drove home too. I wondered to myself if I ever discussed girls at work. From my experience when guys get together and talk about guy stuff the subject of girls usually doesn't come up unless somebody in the group is engaged, newly married, or has a new baby at home. When I got home I forwarded the picture Luke sent me to my home email account so I could look at it on the big computer screen. ---- For the next couple weeks Lee appeared at the picnic tables for lunch every day at the same time as me. I acted surprised each time he joined me. Lee reminded me daily that I was welcome to use his place. Today he added a new bit of information that was important to me. He said his uncle spent six months of every year in Florida. He told me about fun stuff he did with friends at his camp site. His stories gave me the chance to listen closely. I also noticed that the topics of sex and girls never got mentioned. On Wednesday he handed me a slip of paper with his name and cell number so we could text. I asked about the roads, if I could drive my Volvo down there. "Not a good idea, cars should never go back there. Your catalytic converter would set the weeds on fire. You need extra ground clearance to drive back there. Look at my truck, it's a safe height most of the time but not always." Over time I started to feel more comfortable around Lee. And over time I also talked to other guys at work that had camped in Lee's valley. They all said the same stuff; Lee was a great guy, reliable, honest, very laid back, and his campsite is primitive, but if you don't mind that they by all means go there and have a blast. One person suggested I should take a pistol along, just in case. The gay signals I thought Lee sent me could easily have been misinterpreted in my (sex starved) brain, from something innocent into something sexual. As a closeted gay man in the middle of the Bible Belt I was well aware there were obvious risks camping in the hills far from 911 service especially if I innocently acted gay and it triggered Lee into a rage. ---- The next time I spoke to Lee was right after work when we had an unplanned chat in the employee parking lot, the subject came up again about his uncle. Lee said his uncle had to be on his oxygen concentrator all the time for his COPD. He explained that his uncle was mostly confined to a recliner inside the house now and had a home health nurse visit him every six hours. While we talked by his truck, Lee took out a road map of Kentucky and pointed to a small hand drawn box and said their land was about one square mile in size. Lee explained it was a three hour drive from Dayton. He said it was that last mile of the trip where you needed wide tires and lots of ground clearance, especially after heavy rains. He said there is a muffler shop in town where they can mount a plate under the catalytic converter to help prevent grass fires, but my car sits too low even for that. Lee told me you hiked-in on a trail, up a hill and down the other side into the valley. The campsite was on the other side of the hill from where you park. Using his hands he described how the land was terraced like a rice farm in the hills of Viet Nam. Lee said there was a spot big enough for six big tents with a large stone fire pit, three benches, and ten footstools. There was also a fifty meter target range, and a creek for water. Lee showed me pictures of the place on his cell. I saw the shooting position, the target stands, some of the trails, the fire pit, the fishing pond, some terrace walls, and a group of five tents with a bunch of guys in cammo gear with their rifles on display. He had lots more pictures in his cell, the place looked very rustic and alluring to my brain. Lee told me the valley was usually dry and had almost no mosquitoes or ticks. He said they get deer, fox, coyote, and bobcat all over that area. He described the five acre pond with small blue gill and perch. Finally, he fully explained the toilet situation. Lee told me his uncle had a six foot long piece of eighteen inch sewer pipe. They dug a pit and dumped some large rocks down the hole then stood the sewer pipe on the rocks and filled around it with more rocks and dirt. He said he got a toilet seat and fixed it so it won't slide off the pipe. They also made a round plywood cover with a handle to keep bugs out. Lee said he planted bushes around it for some privacy but the rule is if someone is on the pipe everyone else turns away. He added that the gentleman's rule and the pipe have worked fine for over ten years. Lee also said that with the bushes he planted, even if you stood by the fire pit and stared at someone on the pipe you can't really see too much, even in winter when the leaves are gone. He described the way the pipe worked was like a mini outhouse, without the house. Lee also added that when it was hot outside the pipe smelled like an outhouse too. As he talked I saw excitement in his eyes that told me this story wasn't a lie. My entire gut feeling about that place had switched from 'caution,' to 'proceed.' "Sounds great, I'd like to check it out. Sounds like we're into the same stuff." I spoke softly so people nearby couldn't hear. We agreed on a weekend four weeks away, on Friday November 6th. We'd clock-out a few hours early and meet at Lee's place then take his 4x4 truck down there. He said weather in early November down there was usually nice during the day, but I should always bring a poncho and some warm clothes anyway. ---- As the days went by I pulled my gear out of storage and set it all up in my basement. I had a three man tent, sleeping bags, air mats, and lots of food prep stuff. The best I could recall my last camping trip was about eight years ago. I threw away about ten things that looked bad and ordered new stuff. Rifle maintenance was next. My Winchester 30-06 is very accurate and repeatable. More than once I put bullets through the same hole without a scope. ---- Over the weeks we still had lunch together but not as often after I agreed to go camping with him for two nights. I had to fight with my brain about adding Lee to my sexual daydreams when I jerked off. I had no clue what he looked like under his shorts. Based on how he appeared at work it was nearly impossible to tell because he showed almost no flesh. The tiny slice of chest I could see at the top of his t-shirt collar looked pale and hairless. The photo Luke sent me of Lee on the boat was too poor to see much other than some chest hairs and larger than normal tits. My gaydar scans beneath his clothes told me he did not look good, but I'm often wrong. The clothes he wore were too baggy to get a good feel for his shape or size. His hands were huge and usually dirty (which is normal when you work in a tire factory). So far, Lee was a big question mark and his signals confused my brain. Like the signals I heard last week at lunch when we he told me about a fish he caught in the pond. He holds up his hands to show me this fish was about eight or nine inches long, then winked at me. And the time he ate a raw carrot at lunch and seemed to play with it between his lips more then he took bites off the end. If that carrot had been a boy it would have spunked in his mouth a couple times before he took the last bite. Last week he did the exact same show at lunch with some celery stalks. And I know I can't judge men by the size of his hands. There's lots of big guys with big thick hands that aren't well endowed. ---- On the day before our 2-night trip I met Lee for lunch at the picnic tables behind the factory. Lee said the Claryville forecast was for sunshine, high around 77, lows about 49. He handed me directions to his mobile home, we agreed on a time then shook hands and parted for different departments in the tire factory. Now that I know him a little better let me describe Lee to you. Lee is 100% hillbilly Millennial, he told me he's 24 years old. He looks about six-foot tall or more, curly dark brown hair and blackish eyes. My guess is he weighs about 190 pounds (86kg). He's got patchy thin facial hair and looks like he never exercised once in his life. He may only need to shave two or three times a week. His teeth are in great shape or they're dentures. Lee's body is oddly shaped based on how he looks in work clothes. His body above the waist is rounded everywhere. He has love handles on his sides and his chest muscles are shaped exactly the same. Lee said he worked in the shipping section of the plant which meant he probably earned about forty five thousand a year. But he could easily make over sixty thousand if he volunteered for all the overtime he could get. He told me he chain-mounts tires on flat rail cars and trucks, there's a lot of responsibility in that job. If he improperly mounted our fourteen foot tall tires to a rail car it could easily kill people. If they busted lose and rolled into a neighborhood like a mobile home park they'd roll right through several houses before they stopped. Tires that heavy could easily crush anyone or anything in their path. After I Googled his address in Kentucky on the satellite maps I saw the entire area was mostly trees. And I checked the directions he gave me to his place and saw it's a large mobile home park on the west side of Dayton right near I-75 where it crosses over US-35. At home that night I packed all my gear in a duffle bag and put it in my car. I left the cooler out on the garage floor to remind me to stop and get ice and some sandwiches at the Circle-K on the way to his place. Almost everything I thought about was this camp site and what could happen.