Slow to Grow

  Chapter

  The day Jake was starting kindergarten Merrill Kulligan looked in the mirror and sighed. Her stomach was unusually bloated and she was having trouble walking. She didn=t tell anybody, but made herself a doctor=s appointment. She was in tune with her body and didn=t need a doctor to tell her what she already knew.

  The doctors ran some tests and the inevitable came back. Her breast cancer had returned with a vengeance, literally 10 years to the day of her mastectomy. More yin yang for Lloyd.

  It was stage 4, most likely terminal. Lloyd punched the wall and made a hole when he heard the news. It was his worst nightmare growing up. One of his parents dying. He thought about it a lot, and it frightened him. And here it was staring him in the face. One slight good thing in his mental favor was that he had since transferred those fears to Jake. That would be the ultimate nightmare. His mom was 65, and lived a great life, he could try and reconcile that.

  There was no time frame on when the inevitable would occur with her, but the clock was ticking. The diagnosis took a toll on Merrill mentally. Her mother and sister had died in the previous two years and she was still reeling from those deaths. She would never be the same. She took to her bed and deteriorated rapidly over the next 16 months. She stopped going out, she stopped seeing her friends, and she would only see her immediate family. It was devastating for everybody. Nathan waited on her hand and foot without complaint. They had been married 45 years, and one day he took Lloyd aside and told him why he was so devoted.

  ALloyd, many years ago when I was being sworn in to become a judge, the man swearing me in looked at your mother and asked if she loved me and if was proud of me. She looked at him and said she would love me until her dying breath. I am making sure that happens.@

  Lloyd began to cry, and he hoped Becky loved him like that. They had been married 9 years and he felt the way his father did. His parents were great role models, and presented what a great marriage should be. And in the face of it ending, Nathan Kulligan was rising to the occasion.

  In the midst of this, Lloyd reevaluated where his life was heading. They didn=t have much money and his job was fine, but mundane. He always expected greater things out of himself, though his actual effort showed otherwise.

  He was still writing his short stories but had no luck getting them published. He was fascinated with the culture=s love of auto racing. He could not understand how it was so popular, the cars just go in circles. So he put his doubts into writing.

  The Search for Intelligence Life

  In 2005, the United States government commissioned a top-secret report to investigate one of the great social mysteries of our times. A blue ribbon panel of top sociologists and anthropologists were appointed to investigate and delve into the dark recesses of the American psyche. This sub-primal cultural affliction is commonly referred to as The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, or in layman=s terms, NASCAR.

  The report aimed to search for explanations for the dumbfounding and mystifying popularity that this Asport@ holds on pockets of the American general populace, specifically those residing due south of the Mason Dixon line.

  The panel strived to reach a conclusion regarding the strange hold the Asport@ seems to cast over their fans, but the results were inconclusive and there appears to be no antidote to this baffling epidemic. The panel strongly feels that the diminished mental capacity of the subjects at hand contributed mightily to the findings.

  What follows are some of the results and suppositions drawn by the Commission from the report.

  A survey was created and handed out to fans at 13 racing facilities, also known as Aracetracks@ where inexplicably a normal race attracts on average 78,000 individuals. Many of the questions in the survey required numerical answers, such as how many races have you attended and what is your favorite number. 86% of the respondents proceeded to remove their socks so they could use their toes to do the counting. Suffice it to say the average number exceeded 10 and the census takers could not get an accurate count.

  When asked what their education level was, the most common response was, Alevel, like how tall is I?@ The survey was quickly abandoned.

  At this juncture the Commission decided to conduct a spot-check of the pickups splayed throughout the parking lots (*). It was determined that 89% displayed patriotic bumper stickers, all adamantly signifying their rootin-tootin beliefs. A sample includes, ATed Kennedy has killed more people with his car than my gun@ (found on 2,546 pickups on average), AKerry-Fonda 2004@, PETA (People Eating Tasty Animals), plus many variations of Calvin pissing on the words liberal, democrat, or Al Gore. American flags decals were found on 100% of the vehicles, clearly violating the dictums of desecrating the American Flag. Gunracks were found on 88%.