My first Christmas season at Fort Benning, Georgia wasn’t how I imagined how my first Christmas away from home would play out. Another Christmas season had arrived at Fort Benning, Georgia. However, this time things were a little different. I was an old hand at this Army game, and I had friends here at Fort Benning and in the surrounding community. If you’ve read any of my stories, especially the those about my biker friends, you know exactly what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, it’s never too late to start. Perhaps you should take it all the way back to the beginning where the story started. That way you will get a proper introduction to Chains. I can’t really say that Chains was my girl because she wasn’t. Rather, I was her guy. That was a better way to describe things. Like I said, you really need to go all the way back to the beginning to really understand how that worked. Don’t get me wrong, I was just fine with the way things worked out. Cuz I knew I was only going to be at Fort Benning for a finite amount of time if you catch my drift. I’m pretty sure that Chains and her biker friends understood that, on some unconscious level in the deep subterranean void of their brains. I’m just not sure that the thought ever percolated to their conscious awareness to the point where they could contemplate it and really grasp the concept. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to explain it to them or draw them a picture. I didn’t want to give them any hints if you catch my drift. When the time came to leave, I was just going to quietly sneak off into the night like a thief with all their Christmas cookies. That was my plan. In the meantime, Chains and I and the rest of the biker gang were having a pretty good time. We had some high spots, and we had some low spots, but generally we hit it off. I called my parents about a week before Christmas to ask them how everything was going. The first question out of my mom’s mouth was, “Wright, are you coming home for Christmas?” Now for the big letdown. “No, mom, I’m not,” I replied. “Why not?” I really thought she was going to start crying. But I really didn’t want to deal with my old man. That guy could be a class A jerk on his good days. On his bad days, he was a real sonofabitch. But I couldn’t tell my mom that. So, I just said, “I don’t have any money. I had to buy a new engine for my car. That set me back all of the money that I was going to use for the airfare. So, I don’t have any money to fly home. Plus, I used up most of my leave last summer when I came home. So, I’m just going to save up my leave to come home again next summer. All right?” When I told Chains later about my conversation with my mother, she asked, “I didn’t know there was something wrong with your car?” “There isn’t,” I replied. “I just told her that as an excuse so I wouldn’t have to fly back to North Dakota. I want to stay right here with you and the gang for Christmas.” “Really? Are you sure? You’re not yanking my chain are you?” “Come on baby cakes. You know me better than that. I would never yank your chain. I even got you a present for Christmas already.” “Please, Snooky-Wookums, what did you get me?” “No, no, no. Not until Christmas.” I had even worked out the duty roster situation where I didn’t have any duty between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day. None at all. And the company was on a day on and a day off work schedule. Things were really looking up. I had Christmas Eve off, Christmas Day off, New Year’s Eve off and New Year’s Day off. I told Chains, “I am going to spend all of those days with you and my other normal days off, we can spend with the rest of the biker gang. What do you think?” Chains replied, “I think that sounds great.” Chains and I had a great Christmas celebration together and then we got together with the rest of the biker gang to go out looking at Christmas lights and decorations around Columbus. Really, we were riding around neighborhoods in Columbus to rattle the pipes on the bikes and terrorize the neighborhoods. Generally, it worked out quite well. I mean, after all, who wouldn’t like to see a bunch of bikers dressed in Santa hats blasting through their neighborhood? Apparently, quite a few folks, it turns out. So, in a few neighborhoods, we did have to dodge a few snowballs. At some point somebody even called the cops on us. We couldn’t even go out and look at Christmas lights without having to run from the donut patrol. But I must say that my second Christmas at Fort Benning turned out to be one of the best Christmases I ever had, even if it turned out to be an exercise in futility.
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