SODIUM:2 Apocalypse Read Free

her and asked if there was anything I could help her with that day. She said I looked rather young for a salesman so I decided that maybe she should be educated on the latest feature set of the convertible.
    I began naming off fictitious features while waving my arms around like I knew what I was talking about. We sat in the car, turned on the radio and pushed various buttons and twisted knobs. I managed 2 minutes with my charade before a real salesman made his way over and busted me.
    Renee was actually amused and giggling as I made my way out of the car, of course the whole time apologizing profusely to the salesman. I had just enough time to give her a wink before returning to the parts counter waiting room to once again wait on Delmar.
    To my surprise, a few minutes later, Renee made her way in, swishing from side to side as she walked and then sitting down beside me with a big grin on her face. We talked for almost an hour when her father came in with the keys to that very same convertible. A chance encounter in the showroom that morning had started us on a journey of fun which would eventually lead us down the path to marriage.

Chapter 3

    That summer Renee drove me everywhere in that convertible and spent countless Dollars on clothes and expensive dinners for us. Our favorite spot was her father’s country club where one of my former classmates worked in the kitchen; he would sneak me out the occasional mixed drink. Back then the booze was easily had as most people turned a blind eye to underage drinking. Unless you were involved in a fight or an accident the lawmen usually had better things to do than to deal with teenage drunks.
    Renee never touched the booze and as my designated driver I was free to get plastered if so desired. I would often have her cruise through my old neighborhood hangouts so I could flaunt my new found luck and wealth. I was so wrapped up in myself that I sometimes ignored old friends from school when they tried to just come up to the car to say hi.
    After my high school knee injury I had become somewhat angry at the world. Somewhere along the way I had developed a giant ego and had become very self-centered. Renee made it all too easy of course by just being who she was, a young, beautiful, intelligent rich girl that Daddy couldn’t say no too. I was the bad boy she was trying to tame on the one hand and trying to piss off her snooty mother with on the other. Either way she was enjoying it and so was I.
    Her father Frank had never had issue with me and in fact was a very likable guy. Her mother Eunice, on the other hand, was a blue hair socialite that was only concerned with other people's impressions of her status. A junior grade factory line apprentice was not her idea of a proper prospect for her daughter, so she initially disapproved of the relationship.
    No doubt I had caused many hours of bickering at the ladies club that first year. But with Renee’s help, I did dress up quite handsomely. And with a little snobbery mentoring from Eunice I had managed to pass myself off as a well to do up and comer at many a function.
    Renee loved spending the money on me and I was all too willing a recipient of it. After three months of paychecks at the factory I finally went out and bought my first car. Even though I had everything I wanted with Renee, there was still a spot of pride left in me that needed a car of its own. It was a black sixty-nine Camaro. It needed a paint job and the exhaust was loud, but it ran good... and it was mine.
    It only took a couple trips to pick up Renee in it before Frank loaned me his Ferrari to drive. I was sure it was at the urging of Eunice who didn’t want the neighbors seeing my junker pulling in the drive, but I wasn’t about to complain. So, the Camaro stayed parked at my parent’s house and a few months later I gave it to my ratty little brother for his sixteenth birthday.
    With Renee’s help I moved out of my parent’s home and into a fairly plush