Thread: Billy and The Kid

Billy and the Kid.

Chapter 1

It had been 3 years ago almost to the day when William Baker turned in his paperwork for his retirement after 42 years on the job as a machinist in a union shop. It had been a hard career, filled with overtime, missed opportunities and lost moments, but he was finally shed of having to be somewhere 6 days a week. The 2600 square foot house that his wife, Ann, dearly loved and the shop or man cave as he like to call it along with the 12 acres of land were all paid for. His two children, Robert and Susan were all grown up, married with children of their own and doing well for themselves. Susan was a real estate agent 7 states away in Virginia and had 2 little girls that were the light of any room they graced. Robert was closer at only 4 states away and was an Engineer with the state highway department in Colorado. Robert’s only son, Jacob was a 4 sport athlete in the 10th grade, but could hold his own in any math competition you could dream up. Even though he only got to see them on the big holidays these days, he couldn’t hold it against them for going out and leading their own lives. But when they came to town, everything stopped, vacation was taken, schedules were cleared and for those few, precious days, the world revolved around his children and grandchildren.

But William was standing at the cusp of the part of his life he’d been looking forward to for the last 20 years. He’d always enjoyed fishing, Crappie especially, and was a fair hand at it. But life and a job saw to it that he never got to do much of it. Ann was adamant about making sure that changed after his retirement. For the last few years leading up to his retirement, she saw to it that he was given generous leeway with the household budget to buy whatever he thought he might need and even some things he thought he might use occasionally. It was his birthday two years ago when she planted the seed in his mind, gently, like she had done for the 41 years they had been married, about getting rid of that old boat and getting a new one. William resisted at first, like always, about spending money on himself, but again, like always, he began to see that Ann was right.

The only boat he’d ever really fished from was a jon boat. His current one was a 14’ Grumman made in 1981 and the little 9.9 horse motor still ran well, but sure was cantankerous every year when it was time to take it out of storage. Even worse, and the part he hated to admit, was that he wasn’t getting any younger, and a bigger, wider boat would be much safer. And besides, with a big outboard, he could finally fish those big lakes and be able to go anywhere he wanted. Yes, Ann was right. It was time to get a new one. Of course, that progression of thought took William almost all of those 2 years, which is why Ann started in on him so early.

3 months before he turned in the retirement papers, William ordered the boat of his dreams.

It was that boat that Billy noticed first.

It was only the second week of summer and already Billy had run out of things to do. He’d done all that the little neighborhood could offer an 11 year old and some of it twice already. He was sitting on his front steps when he heard that Power Stroke Diesel make the turn onto his street and rev back up pulling the little hill coming his way. Billy thought that was surely the biggest bass boat he’d ever seen. When it made it’s up the street, it stopped just in front of his house and Billy perked up wondering what was about to happen. Then all of a sudden, it began to back up and the man skillfully backed it into the drive next door and it disappeared into the garage. He was so focused on the boat, he hadn’t even noticed the 2 moving vans stop in front of the house or the car that followed into the driveway behind the Ford.

For the next 2 days, there were all kinds of comings and goings with movers unloading the truck and an older couple directing their movements. The old man was grumpily barking orders and the old lady was busy trying to make sure nothing got broken. Billy watched all of the happenings intently, sometimes from the steps and sometimes from the window. His mother had already grown tired of the questions and how was she supposed to know anything about the neighbors anyway? After all, she’d only seen them once when she’d run home to make dinner between her 2 jobs and she wasn’t interested in spending the few moments she had meeting new neighbors when she had a house to clean and a son to care for.

Billy had made up his mind there had to be some way to get over there and get a closer look at that boat without getting in the way. He’d just have to think on it.



Wannabe...

Okay, nice intro. Is this an original work?