Chapter 7: Kennedy

It was a week later after Megan had broken the news to her parents.

She remembered it vividly. She in her flight suit, aviators tucked into the neck of her open zip. Her uncle off to one side, arms folded watching.

“Mom, Dad. I want to tell you something.”

She looked from her mother’s searching gaze to her father’s calm one. He stood up a little taller, pushing his glasses up his nose. Even her brother, Brad Jr. had put down his phone and looked up.

Megan gazed around at the inner hangar. The military flags draped from the ceiling, flapping gently in the breeze, a reminder of where they were. She spied the aviation work stations as well as the men and women in uniform who were purposefully moving hither and yon about their business.

Lastly, she looked over to Captain Donahue and Lieutenant Commander Coops, who were off to one side with a clip board.

She inhaled and said, “Mom, Dad…I want to become a Navy pilot.”

Like her uncle, they stood and stared for several second.

Her mother put her hand to her mouth, tears of joy beginning to form in her eyes. Her father wrapped a hand around his wife, hugging her and beamed at his daughter. Her brother unnecessarily jumped up and down, whooping making several of the staff in the vicinity turn to look at the commotion.

Her parent’s gaze turned from Megan to Topher, who threw up his hands. “Hey folks, don’t look at me. I didn’t put the bug into her head. She came up with that one all on her own.”

The family all gathered around and hugged her, whispering heaps of praise at her decision. Captain Donahue came over, intrigued.

"What’s for celebrating, folks?”

“My daughter here has just told us she wants to enlist and serve her country as a fighter pilot.” Said Brad Sr. smiling proudly.

“Well, that is certainly a great reason to celebrate.” He said, looking at Megan and nodding curtly.

He walked over to her, and she broke away from her family’s embrace.

“Young lady, if you have any of the grit your father and uncle have, you will have absolutely no problem whatsoever making it into the program. It is hard, oh yes. But from what I was watching on the monitors during your flight, I’d say you have inherited the family flying genes and most certainly have what it takes.” He reached out and offered a hand which she shook.

“Well, I’ll leave you all to the celebrating and Megan, if you need anything along the way, you ask your father or uncle here to drop me a line and I will see what I can do.” He nodded to her and turned to salute. Her father and uncle returned the gesture, and he marched off across the hangar and out of sight.


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A week later, Megan was in her family home helping her mother get ready for the bar-b-que party they were having in her honor. In part, for graduation from college, but also in part for her enlistment.

Megan had gone to her local recruiting station and filled out the requisite requirements. As she had chosen to attend college, she didn’t have to apply to the Naval Academy which was also a four-year degree. Either way, the next steps were to receive a physical to ensure she met all the necessary requirements and then if all went well, she would be moving to Newport, Rhode Island to attend Office Training Command, a 13-week program that, if successful would result in her becoming enlisted as a commissioned officer in the US Navy.

“Hey honey?” Called her mother from the kitchen, “can you take the truck and head over to Pete Matchel’s place? He has some tables that he’s letting us borrow for tonight.”

Megan had just been moving furniture from inside to outside, as well as helped her father clear brush in the back yard so they could set up the meat smoker and have an area to lounge around a bonfire. “Yeah, sure thing mom. Where are the keys?”

“Sorry honey, you’ll have to look. I think your brother had them earlier.”

Megan pulled up her jeans and flapped her shirt a few times to cool herself. It was late morning, but the day was already warming up. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and noted it was smudged with dirt. She looked over in a hallway mirror, under which was a small table where spare keys usually sat in a large shallow bowl. The truck key wasn’t there.

Glancing at herself in the mirror, she saw a pretty, though ragamuffin face staring back. Her cheekbones, though smudged with dirt looked a little more hollow. She noticed that her shoulders didn’t look nearly as full as they had done during the high point of her volleyball season. She lifted up her shirt with one hand and quarter-turned her body. Yes, the tight core was still there.

Satisfied, she lowered her shirt and marched up the stairs to her brother’s room which was furthest down the hall and nearest the bathroom. She noted the door was closed and she chose to knock.

Once, twice.

She leaned forward and heard muffled explosions and grunts and strains coming from within.

She smiled and pounded harder with her fist, calling out, “Bradley!”

“Come in whoever it is. Doors’ open!”

She opened the door and surveyed the room. It was most certainly a boy’s room with brick-a-bac lining the shelves and floors. Clothing was strewn all around the room and a football lay on the top of an unmade bed.

She glanced at her brother, who was sitting cross-legged like he did when he was a kid, except this was all 6’5’’ of him. He was wearing a headset and mashing the controls of an online computer game. Apparently, he was losing, which is where the straining and grunting was coming from.

“Hey, muscles. Where are the truck keys?” She said, one hand on her hip, the other outstretched.”

“The what?” He said, pausing the game and removing one side of his headphones.

“Keys. Dad’s truck keys. You had them earlier.”

“Oh,” he said, cottoning on.

He stood up, making the little room look even smaller as he fished around his jeans’ pockets.

“Here ya go.” He said, flinging them perfectly into her open palm. Megan caught them and closed the door. Her brother was already back into his game.

Megan walked down the stairs and called out to her mother, who gave Pete Matchel’s address. Megan punched it into her phone app and grabbed her purse. While it was loading, she decided to slam back a few glasses of water, noting the dryness on her lips.

Her feet crunched on the gravel driveway as she reached the truck, a battered old Ford F-150. It ran better than it looked, she knew. For her father was a dab hand at all things machinery and what he couldn’t fix, Uncle Topher could.

The truck started up at once and Megan pulled away. About a mile down the road, the fuel gauge lit up, signaling ‘low fuel’.

“Figures,” she muttered. She doubled back down a side street to head to the nearest gas station and filled up. She surveyed the small sleepy town that had been her home since birth. People always said that when you get older and move away, that when you come back, things looked a little different. A little smaller, somehow.

Megan reminisced as she headed away from the gas station, the truck purring smoothly. She hit a red light and took the opportunity to turn on the radio. Brad Jr. had apparently had it set on some local rap station, which she immediately changed back to local new hits.

She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel as the light changed green and she pulled away. Glancing at her GPS on her phone, she was about 15 minutes away.

As she passed well-trodden streets, she noted that some houses had their driveways redone. Or houses now had additions. Some houses look like they got torn down and rebuilt by their new owners.

Even some of the local mom and pop shops were now different. Some had new signs, some went out of business. Some were bought out and were now represented by new realtor offices of generic fast-food chains.

The GPS pinged on her phone, and she took the side road that led to her final destination. She pulled up to the place and recognized Pete’s jeep. She got out and walked up to the front porch and saw a stack of 6 very long and large wooden tables that you might see at a church bake sale, leaning against the side of the house.

Not wanting to just take them and go, she decided to pop in and say hello to one of her uncle’s oldest and dearest friends. Not only that, but the water she’d had earlier, had gone through her and she needed a pee.
She knocked and she heard the gentle lilt of his voice from somewhere in the kitchen.

“S’open!” He called out.

“Hiya Pete.” She said, side-stepping two pairs of shoes near the door.

“Megan! How are you? Congratulations. Double congratulations!” He gave her a hug and smelled of baked goods.

“Thanks Pete. And what are you making in the kitchen? I didn’t know you could bake?”

Pete smiled, “I don’t. But I just started dating a girl who talks all the time about these things called scans. Or scarns? Funny little cookie triangle things.”

Megan laughed, “I think you mean scones.”

“Yeah, that’s them.” He said, scratching his head.

“They’ll be done in a minute if you’d like to try one.” He said.

She looked dubiously at him. “Is this your first batch?”

“Yep.”

“Would you eat one?”

“Nope.”

“Then I think I will pass on this one,” she said, making them both laugh.

They talked a little more about Pete’s new girlfriend and what was new in town, when nature called.

“Hey, Pete. Mind if I use your bathroom?”

“Sure, kiddo. Except don’t use the one on the first floor. Plugged. You know how it is. Upstairs on the second left is the spare. Flushes like a champ. Don’t’ worry about your boots. Place needs a vacuuming anyway before my Becky comes over later.”

She nodded with a smile and walked up the stairs. The floorboards creaked a little as she ascended them. The layout of the upstairs was similar to her own home, and she quickly found the bathroom door. It stuck a little which Megan chalked up the rising temperatures they had been experiencing all week and gave the door a nudge with her shoulder.

“Hold on, wa—!” Came a voice from the other side. But too late.

Megan gasped and backed out of the room, hand over her eyes. Her lower back smarted as she bumped into the railing. “Wha—sorry!” she called back.

Even though she glimpsed him for only a second, she had seen everything.

A man, similar to her own age had his pants about his ankles and was masturbating. He had reddish brown hair and was well muscled. He was slouched forward over the toilet bowl, mid stroke. The tip of his very large penis glistened while a clear-white fluid shot out, plunking loudly into the water below.

He might have been embarrassed but Megan was mortified.

Still one hand over her eyes, she bumped down the hallway, but the commotion roused Pete from down below.

“Hey, everything okay up there? Megan?”

“Y-yeah, I’m fine. I just…”

But the voice from the bathroom called after her. “Hey Miss, I’m so sorry!”

Pete was at the bottom of the stairs, hands on hips looking a little out of place with an apron on and a spatula in one hand. He observed Megan, one hand over her eyes and her foot on the first step heading down, and his nephew now coming into view, one hand reaching after her, while apparently buttoning up his pants, a large bulge prominent at their center.

“Well, I see you’ve met Kennedy.” He said, trying to hold back mingled anger and laughter.

“I’m decent, Miss.” He said from behind Megan, who paused at the top of the stairs.

She couldn’t help but look from his waist up to his eyes and face. A look of embarrassment clearly etched across his face.

“I was looking for the bathroom, the door was stuck…” she began. She said breathily, her heart was hammering in her chest.

“Did she catch you jackin’? You idiot. That’s what locks are for. Dolt.” Pete called from the base of the stairs.

Megan felt her face redden, as that is exactly what she had seen. Their eyes met and they both looked away again.

He reached out apparently to touch her arm reassuringly that he meant no harm, but as he did so, thought better of it as she glared at the hand he was about to use.

“Uh, right. No good. Yea--.”

He ruffled up his hair and made a few more apologies and gave Megan space as she came down the stairs. Pete’s nephew, Kennedy sat the top.

“Hey, sorry about that. Mighty rude of him.” Pete said apologetically, waiving his spatula in the air.

“It’s partly my fault. Should have knocked or something. I didn’t know…” said Megan, now noting that the second pair of shoes, a pair of trendy trainers, near the front door looked like they didn’t match Pete’s footwear style.

“Well, you’ve just met my nephew Kennedy.” They both looked up at the stairs. He had his knees pinned together and waived sheepishly from the top.

“You’d better hope this young lady doesn’t go tellin’ her Pa and brother. Big as linebackers and they’d rip of your dick and make you eat it. Pardon the language, of course.” He added, elbowing Megan.

She laughed at the gest as well as the look of shock and horror on Kennedy’s face.
“Don’t worry. I just would make a ritual of locking doors from now on.” She said.

He gulped and nodded.

“Well, now that we’re all friends again, why don’t you WASH YOUR HANDS and come down and help this lady load some tables. I’ve got to check on those scarns!” He said the last few words quickly as the smell of burnt baking was making its way down the hall.

Megan put her hands behind her back and waited, twisting on one foot while Kennedy went to the bathroom and cleansed himself.

“Safe to go up there? I need to use the bathroom.” She said, looking now into his deep honey brown eyes.

“Ah, yeah.” He said, reaching up to run his hand through his mop of longish hair.

They passed each other in the hallway and Megan went up the stairs. She chose to hover over the toilet just in case and in a few minutes was ready to help load the tables.

Kennedy was already outside. He was going out of his way to be extra helpful by already lowering the tailgate of her truck and the first table was already inside.

“So, you’re Pete’s nephew?” she asked. As they moved the second table. It was big and bulky, and Megan wondered how he had managed the first all by himself.

“Yes, his sister Peggy is my mother.”

“I remember Peggy. She’s a nice lady.” Said Megan.

Kennedy nodded and they loaded the second and third tables.

“My uncle Pete tells me you’re headed to Officer Training Command in Newport, Rhode Island in a few weeks?”

“Yeah.”

“To become a fighter pilot?”

“That’s right, yes. Like my uncle and father.”

They loaded the final few tables and banded the tailgate with rope and cord to keep the tables from sliding.

“Thanks Kennedy.” Megan said, feeling a little winded as they finished the job. “I would have had trouble lifting them all myself.”

“Nah, you look plenty capable to me. No offense.” He said, as he eyed her up and down.

“None taken.” She said.

“Well, thank you and will I be seeing you with Pete at the party later tonight?” she asked, heading to the front of the truck.

He squinted, running his hand through his longer hair.

“Hey, if you were going to come, but now have reservations because of that—” she pointed to the house and the upstairs floor, “consider it all water under the bridge.”

She stuck out her hand and waited.

He looked at his palm as if inspecting for germs before reaching out. His grasp was firm and dry and reassured. There was hidden strength there. It was a good handshake.

“There, all friends again.” She said.

Megan opened the door and stepped inside while Kennedy helped her close the door.

“Be seeing you,” she said as she started up the truck.

She pulled away and watched Kennedy raise a hand in farewell as the front door of the porch opened. Bursting out of it was an irate Pete with his hand outstretched, holding a pan of clearly blackened and smoking scones. “Mother Trucker! Burnt another batch!”

Megan laughed hard, slapping the steering wheel as she watched him hurl the pan as hard and far as he could, tiny little black dots cartwheeling across the lawn.

‘What a morning. What a morning.’ She said to herself, still smiling.

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