Thing began to just drift along since the brothers couldn't get bail, and since nobody seemed to be pressing for information about Charlie or Robbie's, almost, severed finger. It might have seemed that way, but I knew better.

I debated putting a hundred bucks in a bad assed con's canteen account, to have Robbie just go away. I knew that most of the crap people got into was trying to cover us a minor crime by committing a larger one. It also knew that it would have been pretty stupid, but it was still a real temptation.

Life was truly boring for a couple of weeks. I made a few bucks delivering court papers, but that was boring as well. Without someone else having put the mooch on alert, they just seemed to take the deliveries. Even so I was just marking time till something new happened in my life. Nothing kept my interest long, so I was always on the prowl for new things. It might be that I was going to be one of those guys for whom retirement was a death sentence,

I was having thoughts of eating my gun, when the batteries arrived for my bike. Okay, not eating the gun, but I was pretty damn bored. I took the box battery from china into the kitchen. I brought in the laptop and sat it on the table along with my small tool box. I also found a roll of aluminum foil I had bought the week before. Since I ordered the batteries, I picked up the roll of foil, the roll of duct tape, and some wire in preparation.

I carefully followed the instruction as I began building the battery. It took me into the evening , but in the end I felt pretty comfortable that I had it right. The directions for the build were written by the same old man who wrote the ones to build the motor drive. He was an evil genius in my opinion. He wrote the thing step by step in deceptively easy to understand language. The problem was that it was so easy, I second guessed myself every step of the way. I knew that I wasn't quite finished with the project but I was close. I still had a few more things to do before I could test it, so I put the project away for the evening.

It was about an hour after I closed the tool box that the phone rang. I had just enough time, between the battery and the call, to grill a burger. I was chewing on it when I said. "Hello."

"John, it's Mary Seymore. Since you never call me anymore, I decided to call you. They are showing Rocky Horror Picture show tonight at the Palladium. Why don't you and I go. I'll even pay for your ticket, but you have to buy the popcorn and cokes."

"No fair, that is gonna be a lot more than the ticket to a fifty year old movie."

"Hell, if that were fifty, then I would be seventy and I'm not. Anyway they still role play and do all that other campy stuff. Come on it will be fun, after all it is Friday."

"Well, I'm always looking for a new experience, why not?"

"You mean to tell me you never saw Rocky Horror?"

"Never," I replied honestly.

"Well honey, you are in for an experience for sure. You want to come over here, or meet me at the theater?"

"The Palladium is half way, why don't I just meet you?" We agreed on a time and then hung up.

The Palladium was one of those god awful multiplex things. I had never been to see a movie there, so it was going to be a night filled with new experiences for sure.

The movie was interesting more for the audience, than the crappy story line. Still it was a fun experience. Mary's hand on my thigh was more than I expected, but I didn't push here away. I did gently take her hand and hold it in the dark. My way of saying lets not rush into anything. Hell that's what I thought it meant anyway.

It was almost two A.M. when the movie ended. Mary and I went for coffee at the all night Waffle House in the same shopping complex. There was no way I would take Mary to the Waffle and Egg back in Carthage. Frances and Mary both had that territorial thing going. Every woman I ever met had that. It is why I tried to keep my relationships with women casual.

At the waffle house Mary and I had lots of almost good coffee, while we discussed everything but here office, and my problems with the SBI. I found out about her days in high school as a nerd, and she found out that I was the kid smoking in the boy's room.

Then we talked about her college days and my military days for an equal amount of time. There could not have been two people less suited for one another. The only thing we had in common was about two minutes in the hallway outside a courtroom. I guess a near death experience trumps peer friendships. The conversation was what I had hoped for from the start. Mary seemed to have gotten past her ptsd. We were just two people again who shared a common experience not a savior and the saved. I much preferred the way things were, to the way they had been.

After an hour and no way to delay the inevitable Mary invited herself to see my house. She followed me home and was careful to park on my side of the drive.

"God do you need help with this place. Who decorated it that motorcycle builder on TV. You know the one who says fuck in at least every other sentence."

"No there was no decorator, it's just odds and ends. It was supposed to be very utilitarian and it is."