Chapter 3: Dell Fisher, Part 2

It took Dell a few years to trust women again like he did his gloves and a good, ice cold Coors Light.Miriam was a regular at his usual bar hangout and it took about a year for her to move in.Not being able to legally re-marry since Lucy vanished with her beau, Miriam and Dell had their own unofficial wedding ceremony with a few friends in their new home and considered themselves as good as married.Miriam figured that if two men could consider themselves married without being official from the state, then why couldn't they?There was no way Dell was going to live at the Farm of Adultery, as he called it, so he sold the farm and bought a small home on the outskirts of town near Johnson's Bridge.

He loved Miriam but after being cheated on by his first wife, there was always a bit of doubt left inside him.Most people found Dell off-putting and a tad grumpy but he knew it was because he mainly kept to himself.Again, Dell adjusted himself in the front seat of the car as he thought about the people he and Miriam called friends and neighbors.He didn't have many friends, mainly drinking buddies that lined the bar with rows of half-drunken Coors Lites, stale pretzels in old wooden bowls and the sound of a football game on the TV above the shelf of Jack Daniels, Jim Beam and Wild Turkey.It was a good bar; dark and everyone minded their own business.You came in for a drink and a game and left conversation at the door.At home, Miriam did enough talking for the both of them.

In the beginning, Dell thought he had found another good companion in Miriam like he had in Lucy but shortly after moving in and getting unlawfully hitched, he learned just how chatty she was.She talked in the morning as she made his eggs and scrapple, she talked over lunch while making tuna fish, she talked while doing laundry and the talking continued through dinner until she fell asleep beside him in bed.She would engage him for opinions about her friends, about what she read in the latest edition of Women's Circle or about something she learned from a show on the TV.He would simply grunt and agree.Dell quickly learned if he had an opinion that differed from hers, the conversation would just drag on longer and longer.

Dell tilted his head from shoulder to shoulder to stretch out his neck.He looked in the mirror again and still no cars were coming in either direction.

He wondered if she had always been so talkative.Had he never noticed when they met in the bar?Had talking been a two-way street for them or was it always just her gabbing on and on and him just waiting for what usually happened at the end of the date, a relief from the day's tension.Dell wasn't the most passionate of lovers.He knew that.To him, the act of sex was much like riding his old tractor through the field of soy at his old farm- the tractor took a long time to get started and heated up but once it got going, Dell couldn't wait to plow through the work and get to the cold Coors Lite waiting for him back in the cooler at the barn.It was all just work to him, whether he had on his overalls and dependable leather gloves in the field or when he had to drop trough and satisfy the urges of wife and himself after a late night of TV news.He was happy that he at least got to keep his socks on during it all.He thought there was nothing worse than rubbing against Miriam's legs when she skipped a day or two shaving them.The stubble reminded him of those prickly wild raspberry bushes near his cabin.He ripped those bushes out of the ground as soon as he inherited the cabin from his father.He knew he may not have been the ideal husband, but at least he was faithful and to him, that is all that mattered.

The gas gauge read half a tank and he was driving at a steady 55mph.The sun rose higher into the clear sky, flickering between the trees like a never-ending camera flash.Dell adjusted the driver-side visor and slid it over the side window to block out the light.He turned his head for another peak at Miriam, still out.

He began to think about all the work he had to do once he got back home.This Thanksgiving, he was not going to eat turkey like every other schmoe in the country.He was saving a nice big piece of that buck in the freezer for a special occasion and today was surely it.The loin was his favorite part and later he would be enjoying it at a peaceful holiday dinner with yams, canned peas, a Coors Lite, and the apple pie Miriam bought yesterday from the grocery store.

Dell glanced back in the rear-view mirror for a moment and expected to see nothing.Instead, he was startled at the sight of a car racing up the highway behind him.He squinted to get a better look and, as the car got closer, the square glob came into focus.He could clearly see the outline of police lights on the road.It was a local sheriff's car.Dell looked back at Miriam.She was still flat against the backseat.He turned his head and focused on the road, maintaining a nice pace of 55mph.The sheriff's car raced up behind him quickly, then moved into the empty oncoming lane of traffic and sped by him.It disappeared ahead of him just as quickly as it had appeared behind him.Dell exhaled and flexed his fingers again against the steering wheel.Good gloves, he thought.