Jimmie didn't think he would see Uncle Wade sitting out front in his old pickup. He loved Jimmie like his son rather than his nephew but Jimmie thought what he did would've disappointed him so much that he would've just left him there to think about how dumb he was rather than post his bail.
Jimmie had faced plenty of foes and got into full fledged combat with some mean, tough motherfuckers, but he still found himself literally shaking in his boots at the thought of sitting in the same truck with Uncle Wade after walking out of jail and him being the one to bail him out.
"Well? Come on, gunslinger!" Uncle Wade yelled out the window. Scared shitless, Jimmie heads to the truck and gets in.
After settling in to the warm truck that smelled of jean jackets and brand new leather boots, Jimmie calmed down.
"So what you doin' out here shootin' people with ole bootlegged, make-em-dancers?"
"I was trying to get my car back." Jimmie answered.
"Got stolen, did it?"
"Yeah. Good thing I had a tracking device on it or else I would've never found it."
"Looks like it wasn't so good that you were able to find it after all." Uncle Wade chuckled at the irony. "Ain't you supposed to be piloting jets and shit overseas?"
All the time he had to think of what to say to this inevitable question of why he was no longer in the air force, he still wasn't prepared to explain it. He felt a sour taste in his mouth at the thought of telling Uncle Wade, the only man in his life that was proud of his service and military achievements, that he was dishonorably discharged. But he had to say it. He'd feel more ashamed if he lied.
"I was discharged…dishonorably." Jimmie says honestly.
"What? Why's that?"
"Because I wouldn't lay bombs on thousands of innocent civilians."
"Damn, what the hell were they thinkin?" Uncle Wades response was way more watered down than he thought, but he really didn't know what kind of response he was expecting. "That's jacked up, nephew."
"They stripped me of my medals, too. Took everything."
"Goddamn! Took the medals from ya, too? That's fucked up. Sorry to hear that nephew, but without the forest fire there ain't room for a new forest, you understand?"
"Yeah, I do." Jimmie wasn't lying when he said he understood that. "I just hope the new forest got plenty of trees with lots of green leaves, uncle."
"There you go. But what you gonna do now? What's your plan?"
"I don't know. I have no idea." Jimmie never had a civilian job, and with that kind of discharge it wasn't going to be easy grabbing one.
"Tell ya what, for gettin you outta there, you're gonna come work for me as a driver. You're gonna roll until that seven hundred thousand is back in my pocket, ya hear me?" Uncle Wade wagged his finger as he spoke.
"Alright, no problem."
"You're gonna need to get your CDL, too. After that I'll train ya myself, then you can start rollin."
"Sounds good."
"And hey, don't fuck this up. I don't want to see my truck and company name on the fuckin' news— some cowboy shootin at fuckers, or I'll send you right back to the can!"
"That won't happen, Uncle Wade. I guarantee it."
It didn't take long for Jimmie to earn his Class A CDL then get started with training at Wade and Sons Trucking. He was happy with this new opportunity. It wasn't flying overseas in a Mach 7 jet, and it wasn't too exciting, but he was still serving his country and that made him proud of the work. Ten hour shifts were easy and he found he enjoyed the time to reflect and think. He tried not to think about the past, and instead pondered future projects that would put his engineering skills back into play. He was thinking of a new design for a new Musty Dang and a new— Oh shit! He forgot all about his motorcycle! It was still sitting in that alley, invisible and cold. Cold and scared. An entire week and a half had passed. He wondered what would happen if an ordinary someone stumbled across an object that they couldn't see but could touch like it was actually there. Ah, what the heck, maybe they'll be too hopped up on drugs to think anything of it. If they told anyone about it, who the heck would believe them? They're on drugs, probably.
But he was going to rebuild his Musty Dang from scratch— and retrieve his motorcycle as soon as he could because he put a lot of money into that Yeehaw as well— and a few other vehicles to build came to mind. Vehicles of the flying and anti-gravity mode…
It was going to be alright, and he definitely wasn't going to fuck up this second chance.
But damn, he was kinda itchin' for some of that sparkly stuff…