What About Bob?

When I first met Bob, he happened to mention he had been in "the war". I didn't know why that came up and I was going from point 'A' to be point 'B' and didn't have time to hear his story but, I recall wondering if maybe he had been in Korea with my dad. He seemed have been a bit young for WWII, which dad had also served in.

It turned out that Bob was referring to Viet Nam. Dad missed that one.

I think Bob missed it too. I came to find out Bob had truth issues. Though he kinda fit the time table for 'Nam, his tale of getting drafted at 25, with three dependents, was a bit shaky. Deferment's of the time would have precluded a man that age with three kids, from the draft. He further claimed that his ex-wife was sleeping with the judge who finagled his draft status. Had he said he enlisted, I might have been fine with that. Bob was a liar, just not a very thorough one.

I think Bob was in his mid-fifties when I first worked with him. He wasn't a bad guy to hang out with but his work habits were kinda frustrating. He didn't really have much of a background in painting. Despite having claimed to have painted airplanes for General Dynamics (or did he serve under General Dynamics in 'Nam?) he was as lost with a spray gun as he was with a brush. Lazy too. He wasn't in good health and I really didn't expect him to work himself to death because it often looked like he could easily do that. A lot of the guys were hard on him, pretty much from his first day. I guess I grade on a curve in life, adjusting for this and that and I didn't see any reason to be cruel to the old guy. Kids can be cruel at any age though. Bob had come in at a good rate of pay- the same as me- and he wasn't earning his way like I or the others were. Yeah, he made too much but, that was beyond my pay grade....to do anything about.

Soon enough, Bob grew on the crew and became sort of a pet. He took teasing very well. He didn't mind Charlie constantly calling him an old motherfucker or anybody laughing at his countrified butchering of English. One day he described a helicopter "hoovering" above, it's rotors "river beating" with "vibAration". He seemed to relish his role as comic relief even though he was the butt of many, many jokes. One day at break, an electrician was loudly railing about gays, in the group next to us. Charlie D stepped up and said, "Phil, knock it off!" Phil looked puzzled. Charlie D swept his hand down to where Bob was gnawing on a piece of chicken and declared, "Bob's gay!"

Both crews were literally rolling on the floor, laughing our asses off! I guess you had to be there...

Bob wasn't gay. Well, not that anybody knew.... He took such teasing well. Being old and with all of three teeth in his mouth, better we pick on him about gayness than Big Brian who was a closet case but could beat all of us up. Bob fancied himself a ladies man of many conquests. He also fancied me as his rival for the ladie's affections even though I was married at the time and not at all in the habit of cheating on my wife. He boasted that at the bar he hung out at that he was messing around with the barmaid and that she intended to reward him with a threesome that would include her lovely co-worker. And, it would be filmed.

Harvey Haircut (not his real name) and I decided to drop in the bar after work one day to see how fat the girls were. There was a chubby gal working the bar and we asked her if she knew 'Bob'. She asked what he looked like. "Mid-fifties, crew-cut, three teeth..." Harvey said. "That's every guy in here," she replied. We decided to hang out when she told us the German gal was coming on shift soon.

Bob had VERY good taste in women. Elke was a babe! She was quite stunned when we asked if Bob was dating Carrie.

"No....no....NO!" she kept repeating as if horrible images were racing through her mind.

Elke was a sweetheart. I don't recall how much of Bob's fantasy we related to her but, it might have been too much. When Carrie came on duty, it was clear she was disgusted with what Elke had told her and wanted nothing more in the way of information from Harvey and I. Clearly, she was not dating Bob, who was old enough to be her father. We apologized to Elke. We hadn't meant to upset anyone and she understood that. But, she wondered, if we worked with Bob, were we $40 an hour helicopter mechanics too?

WHAT THE-!

We were in our whites. We were painters, not high-dollar helicopter mechanics. Bob would come in dressed in his whites as well and I guess his story was that painting was a part-time job for him. Well, he approached it part-time....

So, no menage a threesome and no video of that was going to happen. You couldn't even call it a jerk-off fantasy of Bob's because he straightfacedly claimed to have NEVER masturbated in his life. And despite being a very dedicated beer drinker, neither had he EVER suffered a hangover nor even a headache. No dick and no brains, I told him.  We hadn't meant to but, we had blown the doors off of Bob's little bar of fantasies. He quit hanging out there after that. Harvey Haircut, who was about the same age as Bob, didn't feel sorry for him. I did. We all reach an age where you can't do all the things you used to do. How sad that someone's memories were lies and current one's at that?

Ol' Bob wasn't a bad guy. Who knew what had been real about his life? I haven't seen him in ten years. Last I knew he went back to Texas where he claimed to be from (Mississippi actually, if you're scoring at home) and intended to finish out his days fishing, which was his favorite thing to do. A friend to the end, I promised to pay a visit to his grave one day, have a beer with him and then piss on his grave. He was okay with that, smiling his near toothless grin. That's Bob! I miss the ol' motherfucker.