Flyover Country Ch. 01

A couple of weeks after the day I exposed all the bullshit, I called Faye's Dad, who was still furious with his daughter—and me too, for all the "grandstanding," as he put it. Eventually, I was able to settle him down and discuss what was best for Faye and me, as individuals.

He understood my decision not to even try to recover the marriage, even if Faye was willing. It followed that Faye and I needed to put the house up for sale as quickly as possible. I could have kept up the mortgage payments by eating bologna sandwiches every day for lunch and living like a monk, but I wasn't willing to do that.

I'd quit my job and hunt rattlesnakes down in the Big Bend country before I would pay for a house I never wanted in the first place. Faye, as a very junior real estate agent, had only a pitifully small salary and a commission on any property she sold, except she never really got to sell anything. All the commissions went to more senior employees. After "The Day," she didn't even have that tiny income, so she couldn't afford the house either.

It wasn't hard to convince Faye's dad we needed to get the house on the market as soon as possible because, as soon as my resources ran out and I quit making mortgage payments, the house would quickly go into foreclosure. That would damage both our credit ratings, and would affect each of us for many, many years to come.

That applied to Faye's fancy Lexus, also. I told her father I flatly would not make the payments (and she could not) so it needed to be sold, and quickly. We didn't have a dime in equity in the house, and we were underwater with the Lexus, but biting the bullet now would pay dividends years from now when our marriage was only a fading nightmare.

* * *

Faye's father agreed with me, and he apparently convinced Faye. I think he convinced my soon-to-be ex wife that if she balked at any of this, I wasn't even going to try to fix our finances. I would simply drop everything, cash out my 401k, load up my Range Rover and depart for somewhere unknown, leaving her to deal with the fallout.

As it was, we were able to sell the house fairly quickly. I had to pay some of the realtor's expenses I wouldn't normally have had to, but it wasn't too bad. I traded Faye's Lexus in on a six-year old Ford, paid cash to make up the deficit and gave the title to Faye, free and clear. That way she'd have some transportation. Insurance and upkeep expenses were all on her, though. I felt doing that was about all that could be expected of me.

When it was all over, I had what remained of my 401k and my share of what tiny amounts we'd had in our checking account and savings. Best of all, I had no big debt hanging over my head.

Mission accomplished!

* * *

We got one of those Do-It-Yourself divorces, since neither of us could actually afford a lawyer. I filed the paperwork, and did my level best to divide things equally in the property settlement area. I was moderately surprised Faye quickly agreed to what I'd proposed, considering how unreasonable she'd been the day I confronted her. Clearly, someone (probably her dad) made it clear to her there wasn't any benefit in arguing over the almost nonexistent marital property. Fortunately, we hadn't gotten around to having children, so child custody and support never became an issue.

Spousal maintenance wasn't in the picture, either. We simply hadn't been married for the minimum length of time to qualify. The DIY divorce only cost a couple hundred dollars and, as an added advantage, there was a very short waiting period.

So ... four months, one week, and a few days after I caught Mr. and Mrs. Asswipe having sex with my wife, the divorce was final. I packed up all my feelings and memories from the destroyed marriage, locked them up behind a door in my mind labeled "Faye—Do Not Open," and got on with the next phase of my life.

* * *

Christmas that year, not too long after I got the final decree in the mail, wasn't really that bad. I spent it with Mom and Dad. It was quiet, but very good for the soul. We exchanged gifts, had an enormous turkey dinner and, that evening, we went visiting friends and a few distant relatives.

A week into the new year, I quit my job with Reese Donnellson. It was a good job, I was very well treated there, and respected too. Mr. Donnellson thought I was accepting a position with another firm and he offered me what amounted to an executive level salary if I'd stay, but I had to decline. I assured him I wasn't the target of some corporate head hunter. I'd simply lost my zest for the business of business and I wanted to go in a different direction. He understood, reluctantly, and sponsored a terrific going away party for me. He said if I ever changed my mind to give him a call before I went anywhere else.

By Valentine's Day, I was unemployed, uncertain of my future, and (very curiously) quite happy with myself and life in general.

* * *

I sat at Mom's kitchen table, watching my Dad carve a ferocious looking mountain lion from a bread-loaf sized chunk of wood while Mom cooked dinner. Dad was a master at wood carving, and Mom could have been a chef if she'd been so inclined, and if she'd had some formal education in the art. Both of them were very precious to me.

Dad wasn't my real father. He was, biologically, my Uncle Thom, my father's younger brother. My Mom was his wife, Lea. They'd taken me in after my parents were killed in a highway accident when I was nine years old.

Thom and Lea had been childless when they took me in, and I was still their only child. One of them couldn't produce children. They never tried to find out whether Thom's swimmers couldn't do the deed or if it was something in Lea's plumbing, they simply didn't want to know. Their thinking was that the knowing might carry a tinge of blame associated with it, and they would not have that malignancy festering in their relationship. They loved each other too much to waste time on such things.

They were as kind and caring to me as they could possibly be. Through their love, they helped me get over the loss of my parents. It wasn't easy, nor especially quick, but eventually, I healed.

Dad—Uncle Thom—already had a reputation as a tough, hard-bitten sheriff when I came to live with them. He'd done a lot to rid his county of outlaw bikers and drug dealers who tried to establish meth labs in the hills, while dealing with all the other transgressions humans commit against their neighbors. He'd been sheriff for a little more than twenty-one years when he retired.

The first time I ever saw a tear in one of his eyes was the day he took me to school in his county-provided patrol vehicle. I proudly introduced him to everyone I saw on the campus as my Dad, and I meant it.

Aunt Lea chaperoned a dance once—I was a sophomore in high school—and I made a point of letting everyone know I was asking my Mom to dance with me before I even THOUGHT of asking any of the girls. All the girls and teachers thought that was so sweet. I just thought it was the right thing to do to show everyone how I felt about my Mom.

The evening I asked them if they would adopt me as their son, all they could do was hold each other and bawl—and that made me start crying right along with them. We were very close, and I never thought of them as anything except Mom and Dad any more.

* * *

"What we figure we're doing is just giving you your inheritance right now," Dad said, "...'stead a' you waitin' for us to kick the bucket way on down the line, ya know? You'll get it now while you're still young and can do something with it."

What he was talking about was transferring the title to the ranch over to me. He and Mom had decided at the ripe old age of fifty-three and fifty-one, respectively, they wanted to buy a big RV and go on a perpetual tour of the whole country. They'd already bought it, along with a miniature Jeep-looking thing to haul behind it for local transportation wherever they parked the RV. They had a plan to hit Glacier National Park first, and then go to the Grand Canyon, and—well, they had a whole series of places they wanted to go.

"But, Dad," I replied quietly. "It's too much! Yeah, I know y'all want to travel and all, but you need some place to call home—some place, when you get tired of roaming around all the time, where you can go to relax and decompress..."

"Yep, we know that, son. That's why we bought that house in the north part a' the city. It'll be there whenever we feel the need and, this is just between us three, your Mom and I ... well, we really don't want this place no more.

"We didn't want to farm, or raise cattle and horses, in the first place. We just fell into it when we decided I was going to retire from the county. This was just some place to come to when I put down my badge, and somehow, we never quite managed to leave. Now's our chance, see what I mean?

"Ohhhhh, I seeeeeeee...!" I remarked, pretending to be offended. "You don't want it anymore, so I get the hand-me-down ranch thingy and now I get stuck here, is that the way it is?"

"Nope!" Dad answered calmly. "The land here is just flat worn out and no good for farming at all ... and most of the springs have dried up, so running cattle or horses ain't happenin' neither. But them oil companies keep snoopin' around, explorin' an' stuff. Couple a' them have already made an offer ... an' they'll come back to do it again. This time, you can get your best price from 'em and sell the danged place."

I thought about it. Way back when, the property started out as one single section of land, 640 acres, plus another 300-odd acres not too far away. Grandpa, my Dad's father, bought the section from a widow when he moved here and he snapped up the other patch of ground after a particularly good season.

My dad didn't like farming—it was why he'd turned to law enforcement in the first place—and he still didn't want to work from dawn to dusk on the land. He'd been selling off the property whenever he had an opportunity and we only had about 500 acres left of the original one-mile square section. The separate 300 acres went to a farmer whose land bordered those acres.

"Okay, Dad, I'll do it," I told him. "But it really is too much! How 'bout if I take it, get everything all sold off and then we split the profits three ways—you, me, and Mom. Whatcha think?"

"How about we make it an 80-20 split and you send us emails twice a week and call us every Sunday?" my Mom interjected in a no-nonsense tone. She walked from the stove over to where I sat in the kitchen chair, looking at me reprovingly. I had the chair tipped up on its rear two legs while I leaned back against the wall. She wrapped her arms around my head and kissed my forehead. "We love you, son," she murmured, "please let us do this."

I glanced at Dad. He'd returned to his carving and wasn't paying me any attention; he didn't even bother answering my question. He didn't need to. The negotiations were now in Mom's hands, and Dad knew darn well I couldn't tell Mom "no" about anything.

I tried to stand up to her a little.

"How about a 50-50 split ... I send you text messages and email all the time, and phone you on Sundays, all legal holidays, and birthdays, too?" I offered.

"Deal!" Mom countered instantly. "Now put that DANGED chair down on all four legs and go get cleaned up for supper," she ordered. She glanced at my dad. "Thom..."

Dad had already picked up his carving tools and was on his way out of the kitchen en route to the garage where he stored his gear and projects. I had to hustle to get washed up and get back to help Mom set the table.

* * *

That's how it happened, in early April of the year after I caught Faye fucking around, I stood on the front porch of Mom and Dad's old home and watched them drive their new home slowly up the gravel road toward the state highway three miles away. The forty-something foot long beast had every convenience known to man enclosed in its beautifully designed interior, including a full shower and a queen-sized bed. They were hauling a tiny Korean-made thing behind them so they could park the thing and tour local scenic sights, towns, or whatever they decided they wanted to do that day.

When they topped the rise a mile away and drove down the other side out of sight, I sighed and went back in my house, though it sure didn't seem like a home any longer. From the outside, it seemed to be a typical, worn out farmhouse like many built circa 1930. With his background in law enforcement, Dad had decided to not make the home he set up for his wife and son an attractive target for bad guys of all descriptions.

Inside, the house had everything. The living room was dominated by a 70-plus inch 4K TV, and Dad had installed the finest home theater sound system money could buy. The furniture was big, overstuffed, and comfortable. The rest of the house was furnished in the same manner.

On the backside of the house, Dad had built a big wooden deck with a grill and smoker combo built of native stone, because he and Mom barbequed a lot. We had a really nice pool measuring twenty feet by thirty-five feet, deep enough at one end for diving and big enough so Mom could do laps whenever she wanted. Mom had been on the swim team when she was in high school and still loved to swim for exercise.

* * *

A few days after they left, I finished with the task of inventorying everything in the house, all the farm equipment and the livestock. I had fourteen horses, a small herd of twenty-three buffalo, and forty-seven longhorn cattle (at one time, for whatever reason, Grandpa had had visions of putting together a nature park). In addition, there was the contents of both barns on the property. I started selling off everything I could except for house furnishings.

First to go was a big John Deere tractor I parked out by the gate on the state highway. I got a pretty darn good price for it, too. Fact is, it was a good deal for me, and for the farmer who bought it.

I decided I'd see if I couldn't sell everything else the same way. It worked. The traffic along that road consisted of people who farmed or ranched for a living and if they weren't in the market, they knew someone who was. The farm and ranching equipment was being sold off at a brisk pace.

In May—it was on a Friday—I got a call on the house's land line. I thought it was Mom at first, since it was her turn to call.

"Howdy!" I drawled. "How y'all doin'?"

"Good afternoon. Is this Mr. Singletary?"

It wasn't Mom, and further, I didn't like the patronizing tone of voice the young woman was using. It sounded like she was doing me a favor by allowing me to talk to her. I used a device my Dad had used in his official duties as a Sheriff. He would often use an exaggerated Texas accent and pretend to be an undereducated, not-too-intelligent hillbilly, when questioning particularly tough suspects. They never caught on until Dad had given them enough rope to hang themselves. After getting all the information he needed for the state's attorney, he would slam them down hard and take them to jail. Some of them never did figure out what had happened.

"Yessum," I answered in a slow drawl. "It shore 'nuff is ... this here's Matt Singletary, his own self..."

"Please hold for Mr. Wingate!"

The line went silent and I hung up. About three minutes later, the phone rang again.

"Mr. Singletary?" the same woman inquired. There was a little irritation in her voice.

"Yep! I surely am," I replied, "...you still holdin' on to that feller, Winslate?" I asked, feigning curiosity.

"I ... no, Mr. Singletary ... I meant for you to hold on ... not..."

"Oh, nah, I are jest as sorry as I kin be, but I kain't do that! I only hold on to wemmin folk. I just don't think it's fittin' fer a man to be a' catchin' holt a' another feller, dontcha know."

There was a silence punctuated with the sound of an incredulous breath being inhaled, then sighed out by the young woman.

"Ahhh ... no sir, what I meant was ... what I meant to ask you was if you could wait just a minute so I could get Mr. Winsl ... Mr. Wingate ... on the phone line shortly. Would you mind doing that?"

"Oh, you bet. Yes ma'am, I kin surely do thet. How fir do ye got to go to git 'im?" I asked interestedly.

"He'll be with you shortly," she responded avoiding my question. I couldn't tell if she was about to giggle or whether she was biting her lips to keep from screaming at me. Whatever, she sounded a whole lot more human and down to earth now.

It was actually somewhat longer than "shortly." I was willing to bet she went over the major parts of our preliminary conversation with this Mr. Wingate so he'd know what he was dealing with.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Singletary ... I'm George Wingate with the firm of Christopher, Stamp, and Pressley, how are you this afternoon, sir?"

"I'm doin' mighty fine ... mighty fine indeed," I told him, "an' how're Christy, Bump, an' Elvis a' doin'?" I asked. I thought I heard a muffled feminine chuckle on the line, but maybe not.

"Ahhh ... er ... we are all doing very well, thank you for asking, Thom ... may I call you Thom?"

"Well, sir ... I reckon you can, iffen ya jist wanta," I replied. "But mah real name's Matt, so I don't know why ya'd wanta call me Thom. Well ... it's actually Matthew ... that there's my given name ... but folks call me Matt ... my friends do, anyhow..."

"Ahhhh ... okay," Mr. Wingate said. "Can I please speak to Thom ... please..."

"No," I answered firmly. There was an expectant pause.

"May I ask why not?" Wingate asked. I could tell he was a tad irritated.

"He ain't here!" I replied. There was another of those silences.

Before this Mr. Wingate could say anything more, I decided I'd milked the short answer thing about as far as I could. More to the point, I was getting a little bored with it.

"Mah Daddy gave me the whole danged ranch—signed it right over to me, he did—and then he took off on a goldurned trip to God knows where. It were him and my Ma both. Ya want me ta' give 'em a message when I hear from 'em?"

"Well ... no ... it sounds like you may just be the man we need to speak to. Your Pa transferred the title to you, did he?"

I hadn't said "Pa" at any time, so I knew I was getting into his head. He was trying to get back at me, trying to disrespect me without me realizing what he was doing. I grinned.

"Yessir, he shore 'nuff did," I told the pretentious Mr. Wingate.

"Yes, well, Matt," he continued, "a crew from Sun Cloud Petroleum was near your property a few days ago and they noticed you are in the process of selling a number of your farm implements and we were wondering if—"

"Awwww...," I interrupted. "I'm jist as sorry as I kin be, but the John Deere is done sold to that nice Mr. Jenkins down ta Whisper Lake ... an' so is the hay baler, an' the diskin' thingamajigger, and thet big durn plow thing ... but there's a bunch a' other things I could sell ya if yore of a mind to buy..."

"No!" Wingate cut in, rather sharply. He paused. "Matt, we were wondering if we could set up an appointment with you to discuss the sale of your ranch there. That is what you're doing, right?

"We represent Sun Cloud and I assure you we would be willing to give you a very competitive figure for the land you own. May we offer you a first-class, round-trip ticket to Oklahoma City from wherever you local terminal is and we can discuss this in depth...?"

"Why would I wanta go ta Oklahomy City?" I asked in a puzzled voice.

"I ... ah ... well, that's where Sun Cloud and our firm are located, Mr. Singletary..."

"Ahhhhh, wheweeeeeeee!" I chortled. "Ya really had me goin' there," I told him. "But ... I cain't be a' flyin' on none a' them airy planes ... nossireeee ... I git the motion sickness real bad whenever I do thet," I explained. "Say ... whyn't yew and whosomever ya wants ta bring ... y'all jist drop by the house hyar whenever you've a mind ta, huh...?"