Page 78 of The Fed Sex Man

Tyson

During the timeI’d lived with Shawn, I felt like an outsider, a nuisance, and a burden. Although I was sure the feelings I harbored were at least partially due to my delicate state of mind, I experienced them as if they were accurate and true.

At the end of my senior year, I legally inherited my father’s home and his belongings. I then began spending time in my childhood home, but soon found out I was uncomfortable living there. For the following year I continued to stay with Shawn, feeling awkward in my home without my father being present.

Strangely, I felt welcomed in Jo’s parents’ home the instant I walked inside.

I glanced around the dinner table, making note of each person in attendance. I pierced the last morsel of steak, dragged it through the remaining potatoes, and lifted the fork to my mouth.

“Ma’am, the food was second to none,” I said.

“Thank you,” Jackie said. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

She was roughly sixty-five years old by my calculations, but she looked – and acted – many years younger. She was tall and thin, like Jo, and had shoulder-length snow-colored hair that she wore straight. I imagined the frosty-white strands were darker in her youth, like her daughter’s.

Her floral pattern dress with embroidered pockets sewn onto the front indicated an age that her appearance otherwise kept hidden.

“Best damned steak in Texas,” John said. “No one fries a steak that can compare.”

“My father cooked a darned good chicken-fried steak. His wasn’t better than this. It was just different. I’d call them equal.”

He mopped his plate clean with half a dinner roll and raised it to his mouth. “Sounds like he was a fine cook.”

I chewed the last bite, and then responded. “He was.”

“Well, Jackie can rustle up a thing or two that are worth eatin’. He poked the gravy-soaked roll into his mouth. “Make Sundays a regular engagement, and you can judge for yourself.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, dear,” Jackie said.

He swallowed. “It wasn’t full.”

“It was close enough.”

He shifted his eyes from her to me. “Could have fit two of those rolls in there, but she’d have complained that I was eatin’ too much bread. She’s got me on a diet.”

“I don’t have you on anything,” she snapped. “You, my dear, said you wanted to lose ten pounds.”

John gestured toward the kitchen with his eyes. “Might be lookin’ to lose more than that after we eat that peach cobbler she baked.”

“You made cobbler?” Jo asked, her tone filled with excitement.

“I sure did. I’ll whip some fresh cream to serve with it.” Jackie looked at me with apologetic eyes. “We’ll have to use store-bought ice cream. The handle’s been broken on the ice cream maker for years. John refuses to replace it.”

I wiped my hands on my napkin. “I like to think I can fix anything. I can have a look at it if you’d like. Homemade ice cream sounds pretty good.”

“That thing’s is a hundred years old. It belonged to John’s parents,” Jackie explained. “We need to get a new one.”

“We’re not getting a new one,” John bellowed. “I’ll take that SOB to the city and get someone to fix it.”

I wondered, in considering the tale of John’s past, if he had the same sentimental attachments to the ice cream maker that I had to my car.

John’s story was unique. In his day, he was as good of a quarterback as had ever existed. At the end of his senior year, his father fell ill, suffering from occasional high spikes in his blood pressure.

Although every college in the nation wanted him to play football for them, he opted to forfeit his college education – and a possible career in professional sports – to tend to his family’s farm while his father recovered. He vowed to return to the sport as soon as his father was in better health.

His father died soon thereafter. John never returned to the sport. According to Texas football folklore, his mother lived for another decade, dying on the tenth anniversary of her late husband’s death.

If one chose to believe Texas legend, she died of a broken heart.