Mending Broken Flowers

"I already took care of the mortgage; I knew you wouldn't be back in time," Carmen said quietly as she entered his den.

"Thanks; I'll shoot you a Bill Pay for it," Gabriel said, not looking up.

"I um, I need to talk t you," Carmen said, taking a seat across from him.

He poured himself another drink and motioned with the bottle. She shook her head no, hesitated, then nodded her head yes.

He reached behind him, picked up a glass and poured a few fingers of the amber liquid into the glass.

"I um, look, Sly's been talking and, well, you know, I mean, he is Joey's dad and..." Carmen said after taking a cautious sip of her drink.

"So when's the wedding?" Gabriel asked.

"September. September twenty ninth," Carmen said, unable to meet his eyes.

"Hey, Carmen?" he asked and she looked up, and then looked back down again.

"Hey, you said it best. I love you. But, I'm not IN love with you," Gabriel said and leaned back in his chair.

"Uh huh," Carmen said and drained her glass.

"So, I'm getting an invitation to the wedding, right?" Gabriel said.

"Yeah," Carmen nodded.

"Okay, what else you need to talk to me about?" Gabriel asked.

"That's it," Carmen murmured.

"Okay," Gabriel smiled and she got to her feet.

"Uh, hey, Carmen?" Gabriel called out.

"Yeah?" she asked.

"Uh, hey, now that you all engaged and shit, think you could like, um maybe wear some drawers around me and stuff?" Gabriel asked.

In answer, Carmen flipped the hem of her long tee shirt up, exposing her bare rear end to him, and then walked out of the den.

----

Gabriel drove to the warehouse in his little Beetle.

He gave the loading slips to the dispatcher and picked up his next order. He smiled tightly; he was due to leave the following afternoon.

"Damn, huh?" he asked the dispatcher.

"What? Everyone else wants off for Fourth of July; you the only one don't have no brats crawling around needing to go to the beach and shit," the dispatcher growled.

"Uh huh," Gabriel agreed and walked out of the warehouse.

"And you the only one owns his own rig," the dispatcher continued.

Gabriel had started off renting from the distributor and saw, while the money was good, it wasn't as good as it could be.

He sat down, looked at rigs for sale, looked at insurance rates, average maintenance and incidentals and saw that it would definitely be to his advantage to own his own rig and not rent.

The widow of a recently deceased trucker was looking to sell his 1996 Peterbilt and was surprised when Gabriel didn't try to wheedle her down.

"No, ma'am," he agreed as he looked around the truck. "That's a fair price and the log here shows it's been maintained on a regular schedule. Looks like he took good care of it."

"You bet he did; next to me, this was his pride and joy," the woman agreed.

"You can take that down to your bank; I'll take it up when it clears, okay?" Gabriel said.

"This your address on the check?" the widow asked.

"Yes ma'am; where I stay in between runs," Gabriel agreed.

"Then take it; the check bounces, I know where to find you," the woman said and handed over the keys.

"It won't bounce," Gabriel said and climbed up into the cab.

----

Sylvester Washington was at the house when Gabriel returned from the warehouse. Gabriel fought down his irritation; he did not like the brash, arrogant, pretentious man. He was exceedingly polite to the man for the sake of Carmen and especially for Joey.

"Uh, hey, hey, my man, need to holler at you," Sly said, putting down the can of beer.

"Or we could try talking," Gabriel suggested and entered his den.

Gabriel looked at the clock on the living room wall; it was just after twelve noon, but he was willing to bet that wasn't Sly's first can of beer. He wasn't a prude, or a teetotaler, but he did think that twelve o'clock was a bit early to be drinking a beer, and knowing Sly, it was Gabriel's beer he was drinking.

"Uh, hey, Carmen said she um, she done told you about our upcoming nuptials," Sly said.

"Yes, congratulations," Gabriel said insincerely.

"Yeah, yeah, thanks," Sly preened.

"So, um, what you need to talk with me about?" Gabriel asked.

"Well, um, you know, it ain't right, she's MY fiancée, but you living here, you know, in her house?" Sly said, flexing his large biceps.

"Oh?" Gabriel said, smiling.

"Uh yeah, so um, maybe you could you know, find yourself some other place to be staying, feel me?" Sly said slight tone of menace in his voice.

"Hey, Carmen, come see," Gabriel called out.

"Yeah?" Carmen asked, sticking her head in the doorway.

"Um, Sylvester here seems to think that I need to move out," Gabriel said.

"God damn it, Sly, I told you!" Carmen spat. "Huh? What'd I tell you?"

"Said this was his place, but like I'm telling your boy, that ain't right you just letting him just come on in," Sly said, continuing to flex his biceps.

"Sly, I told you, this is his place," Carmen said, stamping her foot in irritation.

"Look, I'm all about you respecting how long y'all been friends and shit," Sly said. "But, time he..."

"No, Sly, this is his place; he owns the house, you dumb ass; he's been letting me and Joey live her, rent free. But I guess you done fucked that all up, running your big ignorant mouth like you the man, like you in charge here," Carmen yelled, then stormed out of the room.

"So, um, still think I need to move out?" Gabriel asked, smirking at the now chastened man.

Sly stared hatefully at the white man, and then left the den in search of Carmen.

Gabriel sighed, then went into the laundry room and began sorting his clothes.

"I'll do that," Carmen said quietly.

"Sure your fiancé won't mind you doing my drawers?" Gabriel asked, smiling.

"Ex-fiancé," Carmen spat. "He don't listen to me now, what's it going to be like when he's got a ring on my finger, huh?"

"Leaving tomorrow; San Diego, then Portland, then back here," Gabriel said as she dumped several of his blue jeans into the large capacity washing machine.

"Okay," Carmen said quietly and put his white tee-shirts and boxers into a pile, then his long sleeve shirts and the rest of his blue jeans into a second pile.

"Need anything before I'm gone?" he asked.

"Nope; we're good," Carmen said.

"Thanks for letting me stay in your place," Gabriel teased.

"God damn it, I told that stupid ass mother fucker..." Carmen yelled, slamming her fist on the washing machine.

"Hey, hey," Gabriel soothed, hugging her to him, her butt pressed against his crotch. "This IS your house, this IS your place. Me? I'm just a frequent guest, you know?"

"What time you leaving tomorrow?" Carmen asked quietly, relishing his powerful arms around her.

"About nine, I guess," he shrugged.

"Be careful," she pleaded.

"You too," he said, kissing the top of her head.

----

Carmen watched Gabriel cut the grass, and then edge the driveway and the sidewalk.

As he always did, he checked Joey's swing set for any loose nuts, made sure it was secure.

He must have sensed her eyes on him and looked up at the back patio sliding glass doors and smiled.

"What kind of name is Florez for a blonde haired, blue eyed white boy?" she asked, coming outside, holding out a can of beer for him.

"Uh huh, and what kind of name is Florez for a sexy half Mexican, half Vietnamese, half African-American?" he answered and took the can of beer gratefully.

He flopped down into a deck chair and she sat down in another chair.

"Where's Joey?" he asked.

"With the ass hole," Carmen answered. "His family's having some kind of bar-be-queue. Said he'd bring him back in the morning."

"Oh," Gabriel said.

"Yeah, hope he brings him back before you're gone; you know, Joey gets upset if the truck's gone and he doesn't get to tell you good-bye," Carmen said.

"Uh huh, and he doesn't get to remind me to bring him back a car," Gabriel smiled.

----

Gabriel stopped at Lefty's in New Mexico and groaned; Isabelle was on duty.

"Oh, well, maybe she's found someone else," Gabriel shuddered as the red headed woman peered out the window at the large tractor and trailer ground to a halt.

No such luck; Isabelle was over at his table in a flash, giving him a passionate kiss before he could even sit down."

I um, I'll be off in about forty five minutes," she suggested.

He looked up at the bone thin red head and nodded agreement. She squealed and gave him another kiss before dropping the menu on the table and scurrying over to another table

Isabelle brought both water and coffee to his table, and then took his order.

"Chili's real good tonight," she suggested and he thought for a minute, and then nodded in agreement.

She kept the water and the coffee filled up, and then smiled when her replacement came in.

"All right then," Gabriel said and followed the woman around to the back of Lefty's.

"Oh God, I've been rubbing myself raw since last time," Isabelle squealed as she unlocked the small cubicle.

"How you want it?" Gabriel asked, unzipping his jeans.

"Wait, wait, let me get out of my dress first," Isabelle groaned, her excitement growing.

"Okay," she hissed, kneeling in front of him. "Let'er rip."

Gabriel forced his bladder to relax and began to urinate on the woman. She clamped her eyes shut and opened her mouth to catch some of the acrid stream.

"Oh fuck!" she screamed as she orgasmed.

"Here, here, get my ass," she groaned and turned around, sticking her ass up at him.

He continued to spray her thin body with a constant stream of his urine and she continued to flail her own pussy.

"Isabelle, you are one nasty ass broad," he said as she sucked his cock clean of any remaining piss.

"Uh huh," she moaned, and then rolled a condom onto his now expanding cock.

She got onto her hands and knees again and shuddered as he slid his condom covered cock into her drooling pussy.

When he had come, she turned on the shower and they cleaned each other.

"Um, why you into that?" Gabriel asked as she again sucked him to erection, and then continued to suck him until he sprayed his seed onto her face and flat chest.

"When I was in high school, this football player pretended he liked me; he got me into the locker room, and then got me naked. But instead of fucking me, he just pissed all over me," Isabel said when she finished rinsing his semen from her face. "What can I say? I'd never been so humiliated, and so fucking turned on in my life."

"Thank God he didn't shit on you," Gabriel muttered.

"No; had a girlfriend was real into that. Don't do much for me," Isabelle said as she pulled her dress back on.

----

In San Diego, he had to be careful; many Latin women would try to get into the truck. Some were just straight suck and fuck kind of girls. Some, however, were out to rob an unsuspecting trucker. And some, he found out one night, weren't even girls.

The straight suck and fuck girls were among some of the best pussy he'd ever had, and the one transvestite had been one of the best cock suckers he'd ever had. Carmen had actually spit up her beer, she laughed so hard when Gabriel told her about that incident.

"Hey, Rose!" Gabriel whistled and a short, fat woman strutted over to the truck and hoisted herself up.

"How much for once in that ass of yours?" Gabriel asked when she opened the door.

"My...feefty," Rose said.

"Get in; I'm going to drop the trailer, then we can get busy," Gabriel agreed.

"Nah, nah, I see the feefty first," Rose said.

"Uh huh," Gabriel smiled.

The one and only time he'd fallen of that, the girl had jumped out the first time he stopped the truck.

He wheeled the truck over to the yard, dropped the trailer off, and then pulled the tractor over to the fence.

"Now I see feefty?" Rose asked, already getting into the rear compartment.

"Uh huh," Gabriel said pulling the fifty from his wallet.

She grunted, cried, and cursed in Spanish as Gabriel savagely pounded her bowels.

"You hungry?" he asked as she gingerly waddled over to the small commode in the rear compartment.

"I hungry?" she asked him, baffled.

"Yeah, you know, eat? I know you speak English," Gabriel said and returned to the front of the truck.

"Uh, yeah, I hungry," Rose agreed and pulled her too tight jeans back on.

He drove them to the Mexican Bazaar and ordered in Spanish. Rose ordered the same thing, but also ordered a pitcher of sweet red wine.

He helped her back into the truck, took her to the rear of the truck, and fucked her fat, jiggling ass again, and then paid her another fifty dollars.

----

Gabriel did not pick up any pussy in Portland; the one and only time he had done that, he had caught a severe case of crab lice.

What he did do was a little soul searching while he waited for the first trailer to be swapped out for another trailer that was headed for Lafayette, Louisiana.

Why was he fucking skanks and slags, some of the most damaged women in the United States? Isabelle, with her filthy urine fetish, wasn't even in the top ten of the depraved women he'd run into while on the road. Rose certainly wasn't the only prostitute he'd had.

In nearly each and every case, he'd fuck them, and then feel absolutely empty afterward.

Even at home, he and Carmen rarely engaged in sex, even though they flirted with each other. She said it best, "I love you. But I'm not IN love with you."

He'd only been in love once, with a psychotic five foot tall munchkin whose jealousy flared so hotly he'd gotten severely burned.

He didn't take out the tattered old photograph, her graduation photo. He didn't need to; he knew it by heart. Lily, in cap and gown, Iris, Daisy, Forest, Hunter, Angelique, Rose and Violet flanking her.

He smiled sadly when the foreman slapped the side of the truck. Lafayette was just forty miles from Bender.

Then the smile faded; he knew, as many times as he'd been in Lafayette, he wouldn't be stopping in Bender.

She'd been pregnant that last time he'd seen her, running out of his mother's house. They'd always used condoms, each and every time they made love, they used condoms.

Then one night, she announces she's going out to get her some dick because she believes he's screwing around on her. Next time he turns around, she's pregnant.

"Nope, don't think I need to deal with someone else's fucking rug rat," Gabriel muttered out loud.

In Lafayette, he picked up a shipment for Little Rock and smiled. He wouldn't even have to go east on I-10, wouldn't even have to see the DeGarde/Bender exit.

"Thank you, God," he said and pulled out of the lot.

----

"Sorry," Carmen smiled tightly at the fat man. "I mean, yeah, he lives here, but he ain't here; he's out on the road right now."

"Any idea when he's back?" Reynold Reynolds asked, wiping his sweaty face with his sodden handkerchief.

"Nope; he had a long one; San Diego, then Portland, then..." Carmen shrugged.

"San Diego? In California?" Reynold asked.

"Uh, yeah, I don't know of any other San Diego," Carmen sneered at the man.

"Uh huh, thanks," the man said and waddled to his beat up Cadillac sedan.

She couldn't help but smirk when the car let out an audible groan when he got in.

The dispatcher was a little more helpful, letting Reynold know that Gabriel had a delivery in Little Rock, but had to wait at least eight hours after he reached Little Rock before he could drive again, due to Federal Transportation regulations.

"Yeah, give me the good old days, you know? Fuck, you could stay awake from here to Seattle? Then do it, you know? And get a hell of a nice bonus for getting it there in double time, am I right? But now? These God damned politicians, ain't ever seen the inside of a fucking rig want to tell everybody how we got to drive, am I right?" the dispatcher talked Reynolds's ear off.

"So he'll be here...?" Reynold asked.

"Fuck, one, two, somewhere in there; Gabriel? He's one of the best, even if he's a little young be doing this, hell the boy ain't even thirty yet, you know? And smart? Boy got himself a big ass diploma from right here, Louisiana Tech?" the dispatcher bragged.

Reynold waddled back to the car and turned the air conditioning up to full blast before driving to find a motel room for the night.

The dispatcher put a note on the clipboard for the night time dispatcher, letting him know of Reynolds's visit.

What the dispatcher didn't tell Reynold was that he meant one, two o'clock in the morning. Had he meant one, two o'clock in the afternoon, he would have said one, two o'clock in the afternoon.

Gabriel waited for the mysterious visitor until three o'clock, then shrugged and told the night dispatcher he was going home.

Carmen smiled as she heard Gabriel open Joey's door, then heard it close again in a moment. She knew he'd put Joey's expected matchbox car on Joey's dresser. The boy would find it in the morning and would then go into Gabriel's room and wake him up to tell him thank you.

----

"Hmm, wonder what he wants," Gabriel said as he ate the lunch Carmen set out for him.

"Don't know, he really didn't say," Carmen said.

"I mean, he even stopped off at the warehouse," Gabriel mused aloud.

"I didn't ell him nothing about which warehouse you work for," Carmen quickly defended.

"Carmen, it would have been all right if you had; I'm not hiding from anyone," Gabriel smiled and sopped up the last of the gravy with a biscuit.

"Okay, how many does that make?" Gabriel asked as Joey came into the kitchen, clutching his newest Matchbox car.

"Um, three," Joey declared.

"Boy, you better go back and count them again; there's more than three," Gabriel smiled.

----

Reynold Reynolds gritted his teeth in frustration as the dispatcher explained that Gabriel had already been to the warehouse and had even picked up his next docket.

"Well, when's he leaving for that?" the man wheezed, almost overwhelmed by the heat and humidity of Ruston in July.

"'Bout a week, let's see, uh, yeah, on the sixteenth," the dispatcher said, looking at the computer screen. "Hmm, this one's going to Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pretty drive, especially in the fall."

"Good, good, ain't missed him yet," Rynold muttered as he waddled to his car.

"Boy, might want to cut back on them Oreo double stuffed, much as you wheezing and wobbling," the dispatcher muttered.

"Shit, you got room to talk, huh?" another trucker laughed, patting the dispatcher's beach ball belly.

----

Gabriel politely invited the man in, led him into the den, poured them both a few fingers of Crown Royal and waited.

Finally, Reynold finished mopping his face and groaning.

"Damn, it always so damned hot up here?" Reynold asked.

"No, winter gets downright cold," Gabriel smiled. "Mr. Reynolds, you didn't come out here to talk about the weather, did you? We could have done that over the telephone."

"You're a hard man to find, you know that, Mr. Florez?" Reynold said, fixing Gabriel with a beady eyed stare.

"Really? Wasn't trying to be," Gabriel smiled.

"Usually, them's the hardest to find," Reynold said.

"Your um, your momma hired me find you after her first stroke," Reynold said when he saw that there would be no offer of more Crown Royal.

"And?" Gabriel asked.

"Um, then she had her another stroke; she's bedridden and begging to see you," the fat man said.

The way Gabriel was just staring at him made new beads of sweat pop out all over Reynold's face.

"And um, she um, she didn't know how to get in touch with you, I mean, you ain't listed and..." Reynold stammered.

Gabriel's cold, hard, unblinking stare was unnerving.

"Okay, Mr. Reynolds; you've earned your paycheck. You found me, you told me, thanks for stopping by," Gabriel finally said, standing up.

----