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.

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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."