Never the Same #77 Just Kirk’s Style

Kirk had a few girlfriend along the way, but he thought Sarah Elizabeth fitted his style jut fine.

                                        

Cue: “She’s just my Style” https://youtu.be/aoL6DBhzksM?si=iFsPHEJmWrEC3o7X

 

            As mentioned during Kirk’s last two weeks at the plant, the autumn weather warmed up. As the archaically so-called Indian Summer continued with nice, unseasonable temperatures that pleased everyone, Kirk rode his motorcycle to work that week because he could after it had been so cold already that autumn. As the infamous Friday rolled by, Kirk had a brilliant idea that stemmed from his realization that his motorcycle ridin’ days would soon be over, long gone for the winter. He broached his splendid scheme with Sarah Elizabeth by asking her if she wanted to go on a long ride that evening. Of course, she would. Kirk had thought of Bonnie often and his good times back in the college town, so he proposed going to Wellsville. Kirk thought that it would be nice to see Bonnie, not that he really believed he would see her if he went back there. The only possibility was the fact that Bonnie had worked as a waitress in a local restaurant and maybe, just maybe…but that was a couple years ago already. Not that he told Sarah that part of his thinking about the ride.                

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            In review, Kirk, despite his shyness and inexperience with girls earlier in his teens, he managed to have somewhat real relationships with a couple girls. The few girls he seen on a regular basis and established a reasonable rapport with he ended up spending a significant time with them. I guess thinking how he knew them more than casual contacts, he figured he might as well devote some meaningful romantic time and endeavor to engage personally with them. This meant more long-term commitments often going steady because he felt that he should be loyal to his girl and her to him. Additionally, he wasn’t the type of guy who was comfortable with blind dates, which he thought usually ended up as one-time dates or one-night stands which wasn’t what Kirk desired either.

             A quick look here at Kirk’s past romantic interests that first began with Babe for halves of two school years long with a summer in between though it couldn’t really be classified as a romantic relationship being more of  platonic friendship, then there followed Dee who Kirk believed was the love of his life and subsequently would become his one and final life partner, but she only lasted for half a school year and a summer before her wandering eyes got the best of her, then there was older, very fun Bonnie K. who he grew very close to during his college year before he broke it off to go home, and Farrah whom he dated on two separate extended occasions. Then, to bring us up to date in the current storyline was Sarah Elizabeth who remained rather undemanding of Kirk, who remained just happy enough to hang out with Kirk if and when he was in the mood.

            Kirk and Sarah E. had similar backgrounds and characters, more or less. Small town residents in generally the same region and growing up with animals, Kirk had some exposure to cows during his childhood on the dairy farm and Sarah had her horse. She was all about horses and English horse riding. To quote Tom Petty, “she loves horses and her boyfriend too.” Speaking of rock stars, Sarah had a “thing” for Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin, but she also enjoyed a lot of the Progressive Rock bands that Kirk enjoyed. Talented in a creative and artistic sense, she had a focus on art in school though her teachers apparently didn’t see it so there arose a bit a friction there forcing Sarah to attend summer school for a do-over semester on her chosen subject of art. Doesn’t it seem young geniuses are so often misunderstood by their peers and masters? She painted the gopher on the back of Kirk’s stock car with his approval on a day when he really didn’t care. With a comely overbite and chubby cheeks Sarah’s brother often called her by various rodential monikers. Kirk would never go near of even thinking of calling her by one of those names.  She also produced a real-like scale replica model of Kirk’s first year silver stock car as a gift for Christmas. 

            Both of them experienced lonely childhoods with parents and siblings that didn’t pay much attention to them while being subjugated and subsequently becoming introverted. Case in point: Sarah’s brother got a Corvette from their parents while Sarah got a junker barge. Favoritism anyone? Kirk voiced amazement by her car because he had never seen a car that had bumpers rusted all the way through. Even her grandfather voiced disgust in Sarah’ parents letting her drive that unsafe car on the road. Kirk didn’t want to step into or get involved with the family controversy. Anyway, the couple got on pretty well riding in the loud, extremely fast Firebird which Sarah loved, the slow pink van, and of course when the weather provided, Kirk’s motorcycle. We’ll soon get back to the evening ride.

            Sarah didn’t mind getting her hands greasy while working on cars with Kirk and was forever helpful in finding and delivering the required wrenches when Kirk had slid under the various cars he worked on. She helped him with touching up the stock car with a paint brush after he had too close encounters on the race tracks namely removing the evidence that rubbing is racing out there in the coliseum of speed. On the other hand, after they had some time apart, and he broke it off with Farrah, she was more than ecstatic when he asked her to attend a concert with a band they both enjoyed. She accompanied him looking very agreeable and sensual reminding him what he had missed out on during their break.

            Covered in an earlier episode, on a warm summer day, Kirk and Sarah decided to go on a long ride on the motorcycle. After a lunch break, Kirk had the bright idea to ride without a shirt on. Not an exceptional male specimen who liked to show his body off, he had never gone shirtless before. After cruising for a while, Kirk suddenly slammed on the bike’s brakes, swerved off the road, and jumped off the bike acting like a madman. Well, maybe uncharacteristically under some kind of duress. Sarah sat there flabbergasted. “What’s wrong?!” She shouted to Kirk who frantically brushed at his abdomen. “Bee stung me!” He shouted back. After he calmed down, nurse Sarah, who practiced veterinarian science on her animals all the time, managed to remove the stinger from a growing red spot on Kirk’s belly. To say the least, he never, ever rode without a shirt again.

            Another time not so exhilarating the couple rode to the Home Depot when Kirk had another bright idea he’d buy a partial sheet of Plexiglas for his stock car’s windshield. Home Depot didn’t sit just around the corner from Kirk’s garage, in fact, it was a pretty good distance away. Accordingly, they rode the back roads at a slower speed with Sarah holding onto the Plexiglas with death grips while fighting the wind currents as they went. Miracle the Plexiglas just didn’t just snap in half or go winging off into space or worse yet, force them into a crash. 

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            Back to the ride of this episode. After dinner, the sun still sat above the horizon, and the couple took off on the smallish RD350 motorcycle. They were both dressed warm enough upon departure with light sweatshirts, but of course the trip was two hours long. Buzzing along the highway after the sun set, Kirk felt good following his headlight’s glow down the winding road with Sarah’s arms wrapped around his waist, her warm body pulled up tightly against his back. Undoubtedly, Kirk thought the situation couldn’t be sweeter. As the trip continued on, the temperatures dropped drastically. It seemed to Kirk that it had gotten colder that night than other recent nights, but he pressed on with his hands gripping the handlebars hard with white knuckles or maybe because his hands were so cold. His legs trembled and he wondered if Sarah could feel them do so.  Decelerating into a village not far from their destination, bright reflective eyes jumped out into the road just beyond the effective range of the headlight. Kirk’s cold hand on the brake applied just a little too soft pressure with inefficiency. Apparently, Sarah had been watching around Kirk and when the cat’s eyes glowed, she dug her fingers into his ribs. Reacting beyond realizing his hand had stiffened, Kirk’s foot seemed okay and stepped on the rear brake, hard. With a short screech the bike fishtailed side to side, but luckily, they had already slowed from highway speed and Kirk quickly let off the brake while the cat had disappeared off the side of the road. Never even got close, but you know, an instantaneous human reaction to an animal on the road with unknown destinations makes a bike rider expect the worse.

            Speaking of reactions, Kirk, in his solo high-speed runs on his motorcycle found an interesting and startling glitch.  During the night on unlit rural roads, when he really needed the headlight, it would suddenly burn out while going down the road at speed: eighty plus! Talk about an adrenaline rush, huh? It didn’t happen often but when it did it was enough to make the rider’s blood run cold. A quick correction didn’t occur to him right away the first time it happened, so he slowed way down without any maneuvers by judging his position on the road using whatever ambient light existed whether moon light or house lights along the road. He figured out as he slowed down that he only needed to flick on the alternate headlight beam to light his way down the road.   

            Anyway, continuing the trip, the couple finally made it to Wellsville and went to the restaurant while Kirk still shivered from the cold. Apparently, Sarah didn’t get as cold riding behind Kirk who tried to wear a brave face and not say anything about being downright cold, but she knew and pressed up against him in a booth. Of course, Bonnie wasn’t there, and he didn’t ask if she still worked there which would have pissed off Sarah big time. Watching the evening patrons come and go, they sat around drinking plenty of hot coffee with warmed up sweet rolls. Meanwhile, he dreaded the return trip.

            After a good hour’s sojourn, Kirk shrugged and pulled his sweatshirt’s zipper up tight. Sarah who had seemingly waited patiently for a sign of departure did the same. Back on the street where they had parked the smallish burgundy motorcycle, Kirk thought it felt warmer outside, but he assumed it was because he had fully warmed up inside and besides, they were in the middle of town. He kicked the bike alive, got on, and looked to help Sarah aboard. He swung up the kickstand and they were off. Kirk wanted to push beyond the speed limit, but he thought that would only lower the windchill so he decided on a easy, casual ride home to stay warmer watching just in case of road-crossing cats. One thing he hadn’t factored into the cold ride was the fact that the wind, as light as it was, was now on their backs. Even though it took them longer to travel the same route, Kirk thought the return trip transpired more comfortably and now later, the evening traffic remained lighter if non-existent to make it a nicer ride indeed.  

            Sarah Elizabeth fit Kirk’s taste, lifestyle and character just fine. She was undemanding of him differing from some girls who might be very demanding on their boyfriends; she was not a pushy type for him to do things she wanted or to do things her way. So even though they became a couple of sorts, Sarah didn’t change Kirk in any significant way so he remained pretty much the same old young Kirk.