My Redacted Life: Chapter 22 (Cont._3)

Next day was Saturday and Brenda was gone. I went to the office to unload the material I had developed on my trip. I spent the morning arranging the material into stacks, then into files, and then into priorities. I would attend them seriously starting Monday morning. It appeared they were working on some new projects, including a small subdivision I’ll call “Wellington Village.”

With nothing left to do, I went to the apartment and rested. I picked guitar some, but my heart wasn’t into it. I read most of The Devils of Loudun by Aldous Huxley. I had seen the film adaptation starring Oliver Reed, which I found unsettling. For some reason, I bought the book and found it even more unsettling. It fed a growing animosity toward organized religion. Toward late afternoon, I decided to doze for a bit on the couch.

I was having a bad dream involving the scene of the priest being burned alive from the book and film when I heard a long scratch made along my living room window. I rushed to the door and stepped outside just in time to see Brenda stop at the top of the stairs, turn and look at me with her now familiar “What the hell are you looking at?” stare. She was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved work shirt. A pair of dirty sneakers covered her feet, and she wore a John Deere baseball cap. Her long hair streamed from the back in a pony tail.

Making sure that I was looking at her face and no place else, she said, “You got any beer?”

“Yes.”

“Save me one.” She turned and went to her apartment.

I was surprised, some 30 minutes later, when the door opened and she walked in. No knock. Nothing. She just walked in. I dropped my book and stared.

She had performed a magical transition. Her hair was still pulled into a tight ponytail. She wore fresh jeans so tight that you could have seen the impression of a tattoo on their surface. She had changed to clean sneakers, and a dark knit shirt with a Mickey Mouse logo over one breast. That’s all. Just the shirt. Nothing, it appeared, underneath. I stared. She glared. I raised my eyes, and said something stupid like, “Come in.” She walked toward me, carrying a package of cigarettes and a lighter in one hand.

“Gimme a beer,” she said. “I’ve got a case of ‘tractor-butt’ and I need some relief,” she said.

I rose and went toward the refrigerator. “You’ve got what?” I said, miraculously resisting the temptation to look for myself.

“Tractor-butt,” she said. “Ain’t you never had tractor-butt?”

“Uh, not that I know of.”

“It’s when you’ve driven a tractor all day.” She took a beer and made a motion-question toward the couch.

“Yes, have a seat,” I said. “And tell me all about a tractor-butt. I’m terribly interested.”  

She moved slowly, like Joan Crawford about to deliver the most important line in a movie. She placed the beer on an end table, lit a cigarette, took a drag, turned her head, exhaled, and looked at me, all in slow motion. “In the old days,” she said, “tractor seats were jus big metal things with holes in them for a bit of ventilation. Daddy would come in from plowing all day and there would be red circles on his pants where the mosquitoes had bitten him through the holes in the tractor seat.” She took in a big gulp of beer and smiled. “I’d say, ‘look Daddy, you have tractor-butt.’”

And a mind reader as well.

Somehow, in those jeans, she managed to cross one leg over the other in a move so sexy that I feared it might blow out a light bulb. I couldn’t think of anything to say. I just sipped my own beer.

“These days,” she said. The seats are plastic, but they will wear your little ‘hiney’ out when you’ve ridden on them all day.” She pointed her beer at me. “And don’t you dare look.”

God, but I was beginning to love that woman.