“Carly, are you in here?” Sammy walks into the garage Carly was renting.

“I’m over here.” Carly’s feet were sticking out from under a black Ford F150.

Sammy walks over to the pick-up truck and saw Carly’s small feet sticking out from under the truck. He kneels beside her small feet.

“What are you doing under there?”

“Fixing a broken brake line. Give me a second.” Carly tightens the nut holding the line to the brake caliper.

Once it was tightened, she slides out from under the truck. She notices Sammy kneeling next to where she was. She looks up at him “so, what brings you up here today?”

“What’s on your schedule for tomorrow?” Sammy looks down at Carly’s face.

He noticed she had her head wrapped. He wonders what she did to her head.

“Nothing, this is my last job for a while.” Carly was glad this was the last job she had today. Her head was hurting her.

“Good, there’s a government auction tomorrow and they have two SS3 Dune Buggy frames for sale. I know you have been looking for them.”

“Yeah, I know a person who is looking for them. I’m looking for an old 1970 Dune Buggy as well.” Carly wanted one for herself.

“What do you want with a dune buggy?” Sammy was curious why Carly wanted one.

“Because they are cool when you paint them right and you can go to the beach to have some fun with them.” Carly saw one that she liked, but
the guy wanted too much money for it.

“Well, we might be able to find one at the auction.” Sammy figures they might have one.

“Okay, what time do you want to leave tomorrow and where are we going?” Carly reaches for her water bottle and takes a sip of water.

“I’ll pick you up at your place at six. By the way, what did you do to your head?”

“I forgot to secure the drive shaft when I disconnected the U-joint knuckle and it fell on my forehead and broke the skin. Now I have a gash.”
Carly felt stupid from that accident.”

“What am I going to do with you. I’m surprised it didn’t knock you out.” Sammy knew Carly was sort of accident-prone and she did a lot of work by herself.

“I know it was a stupid move on my side. So, where is the auction taking place?” Carly looks up at Sammy. He was the one person she trusted a lot. They were like brother and sister.

“West Columbia. If we leave here at six. We should get there by eight and the auction starts at ten. That will give us two hours to look around and see if there is anything else, we might want to buy.” Sammy had a few items in mind that he wanted to buy.

Carly sits up and takes another sip from her water bottle. She’ll be happy when the aspirins she took for her headache kicked in.

“So, what do you have left to do on this truck?”

“I need to bleed the brakes. If you want to help, I can get it done faster.”

“I’ll help.” Sammy stands up and gets in the truck.

Carly moves to the furthest brake caliber. She puts her wrench on the bleeder valve “alright, pump it five times.”
Sammy pumps the pedal and holds it.

“Alright, its pump.”

Carly loosens the bleeder valve and watches as the fluid comes out. She closes the bleeder valve “alright, pump it again.”

The next fifteen minutes, Sammy and Carly bleed the brake line and checks for leaks. Once she was done, she lowers the truck back down and moves her mechanics creeper out of the way.

“Back the truck out and take it around the block for a test drive and tell me what you think of the brakes.” As Carly fills the master brake
cylinder and closes the hood.

“Alright.” Sammy carefully bakes the pick-up truck out of the garage.

Carly watches as Sammy backs the pick-up truck out of the garage. When he is completely out, and he drives off. She starts gathering her tools and put them away, after wiping them clean. She cleans up her mess and gets ready to close the garage up.

Sammy heads back to the garage. The brakes were working fine. When he gets back to the garage, he pulls the truck inside it, so Carly could lock it up.

Carly pulls the garage door down behind the truck and locks it. She turns around and writes up the repair ticket for it.

“Roll the window up and lock the door, Sammy.”

“Okay.” Sammy rolls the window up and locks the door when he gets out.

“Here.” As he tosses the keys to her.

“Thanks.” Carly catches them and attaches them to the repair order.

“When is your customer coming to pick the truck up?”

“On Friday, when he gets paid. I told him, I would float the bill and let him have the truck back before then.”

“And he didn’t want to do that?” Sammy looked puzzled.

“Nope. He said he’ll pick the truck up on Friday, after work.” Carly grabs her car keys and walks out of the garage.

“Come on, I’ll treat you to dinner.”

“Thanks.” Carly walks over to Sammy’s car and gets in.

Sammy takes them to their favorite mom and pop restaurant. They head towards their favorite booth and sit down. Sammy digs around in his pocket for some quarters. The booth had one of those old fashion mini jukeboxes.

Sammy drops the quarters in. Between him and Carly, they select several of their favorite songs.

“Sammy, Carly what brings you guys in here tonight?” Latesha had spotted her favorite customers sitting in their favorite booth.

“Good food, not the frozen tv dishes I’ve been eating.” Carly could cook, but it was cheaper for her to just buy frozen dinners to eat.

“Well, you have come to the right place. So, what would you tonight?” Latesha knew Sammy and Carly had their favorites.

“I’ll have the pot roast tonight, Latesha with a sweet tea, please.” Carly closes her menu.

“And I’ll have the chili burger, with steak fries and a large coke.” Sammy closes his menu and hands it to Latesha.

“Okay, I’ll be back with your drinks.” Latesha takes the menu’s and heads back towards the kitchen.

She comes back a few minutes later with their drinks. After Latesha sets them down in front of Carly and Sammy. She walks away to take care of some other customers.

Carly takes a sip of her iced tea and listens to the song she selected. She looks at Sammy and wonders how things were going for him.

“How’s the business going for you?”

“It’s a little slow, but otherwise things are going alright.” Sammy knew he needed to do something to increase business.

After a while, Latesha returns with their meals.

“Here you go, Sammy.” As she sets his plate down in front of him.

“Thanks.”

“And here is yours, Carly.” Latesha sets Carly’s plate down.

“Thanks, Latesha.” Carly looks at her food.

It was better than the frozen dinners and oodles of noodles she normally fixes for herself. She and Sammy eat and make small talk. They listen to the music playing from the mini jukebox. After their main dish. Sammy orders a warm apple pie with vanilla ice cream on top of them.

Carly just smiles, because she knew apple pie was Sammy’s weakness. She preferred pecan pie, with whipped cream on it. After she finishes eating her pie, she leans back against the booth wall.

Latesha brings over the check for the meal. Carly goes to pull her wallet out.

“I got it, Carly.” Sammy picks the checkup and looks at the amount.

He pulls twenty-five dollars out and places it on the table.

“Come on, I’ll take you back to your truck.”

“Alright.”

Carly follows Sammy out to his car and gets in. He drives her back to the garage to pick up her small truck. When they arrive, Sammy pulls up next to Carly’s truck “don’t forget, six tomorrow morning.”

“I won’t forget and thanks for dinner.” Carly gets out of Sammy’s car and walks around to the driver's side door of her truck.

She opens it and starts the engine. She slides her cellphone into the wireless charger and selects some music to listen to, while she drives home. Carly follows Sammy out of the parking lot, but instead of turning right as he does. She turns left and away from the garage.

It takes Carly fifteen minutes to pull into her driveway and park. She covers up a yawn when she gets out of her small truck. She heads into the house after she grabs her mail. She notices that there was a letter in her mail from her landlord. She opens and hopes it’s not bad news.

As Carly walks into the house, she reads the letter. It was bad news, but not for her. The person she was renting from had died and according to the letter, he left her the house she was currently living in. She stops mid-way in the house and couldn’t believe it. She looks at the
letterhead and notices it was from Wolfhart, Harris, and Jackal. She continues to read the letter. According to the information in the letter, she needs to come down to the law firm to accept the deed to the house. She’s to call them and set-up an appointment to let them know when she would become.

Carly felt sorry that Mr. Larson had died. He was a good guy and a great landlord. She folds the letter up and put it on her work desk in the living room. At least now all she needs to do is pay the property tax on the house, instead of rent each month.

She walks into her bedroom and strips out of her work clothes. Since her breasts weren’t very big, she doesn’t bother to wear a bra much. She grabs her overnight bag out of the closet and starts putting fresh clothes in it. She didn’t know if she and Sammy were going to be staying overnight or not.

Once her overnight bag is done, she heads into the bathroom. Carly drops a few bath beads into the tub and starts filling it with hot water. She shimmies out of her panties and steps into the tub.

The water felt so nice to her sore body. Even though the repairs were simple today. She still felt sore. Carly leans back against the tub and closes her eyes. She breathes in the floral scent the bath beads were made of. The scent smelled of roses and other flowers.

She wishes she could get rid of her birth defect. She hated it so much. When she feels herself falling asleep in the tub, she gets out and dries off. She flips the drain plug, so the water in the tub would drain.

Carly picks her cellphone up and set the alarm for five in the morning. That way she could drink her coffee and be ready to leave. She slips her newest nightshirt on and crawls into bed. Before long, she is in la, la, land.

0500hrs.
At 0500hrs. Hot for Teachers start blaring from Carly’s cellphone.

She reaches out from under her covers and hit the snooze button. She pulls her hand back under the blanket and goes back to sleep. Carly didn’t want to get up or out of bed. Nine minutes later, Hot for Teachers starts playing again.

Carly tosses the blanket aside and reaches for her cellphone. She rubs her eyes to clear the sleep away, as she gets out of bed and heads towards the bathroom. She washes her face and brushes her hair. She takes out her spare bottle of estrogen pills she keeps in the medicine cabinet and takes two of them. She puts those back and grab an estrogen patch and slap it on.

The patches she got from a nursing friend of hers. The doctor she works for was willing to prescribe for people for a price. There were only certain drugs he would do it for.

Carly heads back into her bedroom and gets dress. She puts on a short denim coverall bid. She grabs a black t-shirt that had horses running on it. Underneath the horses it read, Mustang, feel the power. She doesn’t bother with a bra, as she slips her t-shirt on.

After Carly is dressed, she heads towards the kitchen and fixes a thermos of coffee. She grabs a few muffins she bought the other day on her way home. Her overnight bag was at the front door.

She sits down in the kitchen and checks the weather channel. According to the weatherman, the next few days are supposed to be clear and sunny, high’s up in the ’90s and the lows in the 65’s. She grabs one of her small coolers and fills it up with ice and several bottles of water.

Carly glances towards her wall clock and notices it was five minutes till six. She picks up the cooler and heads towards her front door. She cuts the lights off and walks out of the house.

Just as Carly steps out of the house, she spots Sammy pulling up in his cargo van. She waves at him, as he pulls up next to the curb. She carries the cooler, thermos of coffee, and her overnight bag over to the van. She opens the side door and put all her stuff inside. She notices Sammy had brought his overnight bag as well.

“Great minds think alike.” Carly looks towards Sammy.

“I thought we could take a little vacation, while we are in West Columbia.” Sammy covers up a yawn.

“I brought coffee, just the way you like it.” Carly hands the thermos to Sammy.

“Thanks.” Sammy accepts it and pours some into his covered coffee cup.

Carly shuts the side door and gets in on the passenger side and secures herself. She buckles herself in before Sammy would move.

“Okay, I’m buckled in.”

Sammy puts the van into gear and starts heading towards the highway. He had some music playing, which was the same style that Carly liked.

“So, how big is this auction?” Carly turns to look at Sammy.

“Fairly big. It’s a government auction both military and city government.” Sammy visited the website.

“Cool. That means we stand a chance on buying things cheaply. Oh, by the way. I just received a letter from Wolfhart, Harris, and Jackal.”

“Who are they?” Sammy never heard the name before.

“They are Mr. Larson’s law firm and according to the letter I received. He left me the house I was renting from him.” Carly liked the house she was living in. She had been thinking about doing a rent to own with Mr. Larson.

“That was nice of him. Didn’t you want to buy it from him?”

“Yes, I like it.” Carly has fallen in love with the house.

“What day do you have to be at their office?”

“I’m to call them and let them know when I am available.” Carly knew she had some jobs coming up by the end of the week. She had three tune-ups on Saturday and an oil change on Sunday.

“Well, when you do call them. Let me know, and I’ll go with you.” Sammy glances towards Carly.

“Thanks.”

0800hrs. Surplus Property Office:
“Well, we're here.” Sammy pulls into the parking lot and park.

“Good, I need to pee and stretch my legs.” Carly unbuckles her seat belt and grabs a legal pad to take with her.

They head towards the building and have to put down a three-hundred-dollar deposit. Which they will get back if they don’t buy anything.

“I’m heading towards the lady’s bathroom.” Carly spotted it when she walked in.

“I’ll meet you outside.” Sammy was going to look around, while Carly potty.

“Okay.” Carly heads towards women’s bathroom.

She still gets nervous every time she walks into a bathroom. She knows some women peek between the partition cracks to see if real women are in the stall and not transgender ones. She unbuttons her coveralls and let them slide and bunch at her knees. Her panties are next as she sits on the toilet seat.

She relaxes enough to start peeing. It shouldn’t bother as much as it does. She knows some women can be kind of picky or get upset when they find out there’s not a genetic girl in the bathroom. Once she is done with her business, she gets redress and washes her hands, after flushing the toilet.

Carly smiles as an older woman comes walking in, as she is heading out. She keeps grinning at the thought of fooling the other woman. She heads outside and looks around for Sammy.

She spots him looking at a total of six generators that were going to be auctioned off. She walks over to him “too bad we can’t start them up to see if they work.”

“I know, but if they don’t. I could always fix them and get them to work.” Carly was thinking about bidding on them.

She writes their auction number down.

“If I do manage to buy one, will you fix it for me?” Sammy looks at Carly.

“You know I would. You’re like a brother to me.”

Carly and Sammy walk around looking at everything that is for sale. She spots the military dune buggies that were for sale and a couple of tow trucks as well. One had a blown motor in it. Carly figures she could rebuild the motor or go down to the junkyard and grab a good secondhand motor.

The next two hours Carly and Sammy walk around looking at everything for sale. A decent crowd was forming as they waited for the auction to start.

“Well, it looks like we might end up spending a little more money.” Carly watched as a couple of burly looking guys, eyed the buggy’s she
wanted to buy.

Sammy spotted the same guys Carly did eyeing the buggy’s she had her heart on buying. He knew how badly she wanted those buggies.

“Don’t worry Carly, I got your back.” Sammy knew how to help Carly get what she wanted.

At ten o’clock the auction starts. A bunch of small things go first and then the generators that Carly and Sammy both wanted. They managed to buy three of the six generators. The things that come up are some four-wheelers and two bobcat mini bulldozers. Sammy manages to snag two four-wheelers and one of the bobcats.

Carly knew why Sammy wanted the bobcats. He had a lawn business as she had. There were a few other small items, the two of them bought. Most of it was office furniture and such. When the dune buggies came up, Carly tries to get the first few good ones. Ones, she wouldn’t have to put so much work into.

Those went to the guys that had been eyeing them. Sammy tried to help her, but they just kept increasing the bids. It came down to the last three buggies. The guys weren’t that interested in them, but they did increase the bids. When it reached, six hundred dollars, they weren’t interested. She ended up buying all three of them for a total of eighteen hundred dollars.

She buys the slingback tow truck for five hundred dollars. There wasn’t anything else they were interested in buying.

“So, who should we call to come and pick up our purchases?” Carly had a list of truckers she could call.

“I was thinking about Larry. He still owes us a big favor.” Sammy figures Larry’s flatbed trailer could hold everything they bought.

“We better tell him to bring help. They won’t help him load up.” Carly had read the agreement of the auction. They had three days to remove their purchases.

Sammy pulls his cellphone out and calls Larry. After a few seconds, Larry’s voice comes over the cellphone “you got Larry. What you got for me, Sammy?”

“I need for you to come to West Columbia, SC, and pick up some purchases me and Carly made.”

“What today?” Larry had nothing on his plate, but he still didn’t feel like driving that far.

“Yes, today. However, if you can’t do it. You’ll need to do it by tomorrow afternoon, and you’ll need some help to load what we bought.”

“Alright, I’ll be there tomorrow morning to pick everything up.”

“Alright, we’ll meet you here with all the paperwork you’ll need.” Sammy ends the call.

He looks towards Carly “Let’s go and get the van and load the office furniture you bought.”

“I only bought it, because I know some people who wanted that style of furniture.” Carly had a list of people who have been looking for that style.

They go and get the van and drive it to the back. They show the guard on duty the purchase receipts for everything. Sammy parks the van nearby and open the back doors to load everything.

Between him and Carly, they managed to get everything into the van with some room leftover. Once everything was loaded, they drive out of the auction area.

“Let’s go and get some lunch.” Carly was feeling a little hungry.

“Sounds good to me.” Sammy looks for a nice fast food joint or a dinner to stop at.

As they drive down the road, he spots an old fashion drive-in. Right across the street on the other side was a used car lot. Sammy pulls into a parking spot and cuts the engine off.

“Welcome to Doc’s Drive-In, how can I help you?”

“Yes, I would like your chiliburger, large fries, and a large vanilla shake. What do you want, Carly?” Sammy turns to face her.

“Order me their number six with onion rings and a large strawberry shake.” Carly turns around to look out the passenger side window.

She spots the car lot across from them and sitting way back in the corner, looked to be the style of dune buggy she was looking for. She
unfastens her seat belt “Sammy, I’m going to run across the street to check something out. I’ll be back.”

“Alright, don’t take to long.” He watches as Carly runs across the parking lot of the drive-in restaurant and cross the street.

As she gets closer, she spots the type of dune buggy she was looking for, but it was going to need a lot of work done to it. The buggy looked like someone had started working on it and gave up.

“We got better-looking cars, upfront ma’am.” George had seen a young woman with long brown hair girl, wearing a pair of short denim coveralls come running over to the dune buggy.

“I’m not interested in them; I’m interested in this dune buggy.” Carly was looking at it.

“You don’t want that thing. It will take too much work to get it running and painted.” George knew how much work it was going to require getting it into shape.

“So, it doesn’t run? Is that what you are saying?” Carly turns around to face the salesman.

“It runs, but it has a miss to it and it backfires.” George has started it up several times, it always backfired on him.

“How much are you asking for it?” Carly figures she could get the miss out of it and stop the backfiring.

“Twenty-two hundred dollars.”

Carly examines the dune buggy and goes over every inch of it. She finds so much wrong with it, that even if she got the motor running right, there was no driver seat and most of the suspension needed to be replaced.

“Twelve hundred, no more.” Carly faces George. She had her serious face on.

“I can’t do it for twelve hundred. How about two thousand?” George was watching the young woman trying to see what she was thinking.

“Fifteen hundred and that’s my final offer.” Carly wasn’t going any higher.

George thinks about it. He only had eight hundred tied up into it. At least he’ll get a good profit from it.

“Fifteen hundred it is then. Let’s go inside and do the paperwork.” Carly heads inside to pay him and fill the paperwork out.

By the time she gets back across the street to the drive-in “you know, if you had stayed a little bit longer over there. I was going to come over there to see what you were doing.”

Sammy had been concerned about Carly. He knew she normally didn’t leave her food unattended.

“Sorry.” Carly grabs her hot dog and takes a bite of it.

“So, what did you buy?” Sammy spotted a large envelope in her hands.

“I found the dune buggy I was looking for. It’s going to need a lot of work, but it will look awesome after I get done with it.” Carly takes another
bite from her hot dog.

“Am I going to have to rent a tow dolly?” Sammy steals one of Carly’s onion rings.

“Yep, but I’ll pay for it.”

The rest of the afternoon, they go to a U-Haul and rent a tow dolly. Afterward, they head back to the used car lot and hook the dune buggy up. Sammy looks at the thing “you have a lot of work ahead of you.”

“I know.”

They get a hotel room for the night, after hooking the dune buggy up to Sammy’s trailer hitch. They get up early the next day to meet up with Larson. After they give him the paperwork, he was going to need to get their purchases. They head home.

Sammy drops the dune buggy off at Carly’s place. He looks at her “you have a lot of work to do to make this thing drivable.”

“I know. Are you going to be busy next week?” Carly was thinking about going to the law office.

“I don’t have a lot lined up. Why do you ask?” Sammy was curious.

“I was thinking about going to the law office next week.”

“Okay, I’ll come with you.” Sammy figures it was the least he could do for her.

“Thanks.”

“Any time.” Sammy gets back into the van and drives off.

Carly heads into the house as she covers up a yawn. She’ll start work on the dune buggy tomorrow. She tosses her overnight bag in the laundry room.

The next few weeks Carly works on the Dune Buggy and the SS3 dune buggies as well. The visit to Wolfhart, Harris, and Jackal went well.
They gave her the deed to the house, and it was recorded at the city hall as well. So, now she was responsible for the city taxes and any maintenance that needs to be done.

She managed to get the original engine in the dune buggy she bought, purring like a kitten. As for the tow truck, she rebuilt the engine in it and now she had a tow truck. For her to use it for business, she has to take a course and get a CDL license.

As for the generators, she and a mechanic she knew by the name of Josie had to rebuild two of them. Once they were done with them, they ran without any problems. The third one, they converted over to natural gas.

She had to tear down the other two SS3 buggies. The frame was bent on one and the other one had cracks developing on several joints. It was a good thing; she knew how to weld. She had a buyer for two of them.

She was going to keep the third one, for herself. By the time she is completely done with repairing everything. Her bank account was looking a little thin. She used the money she set aside to get her operation to repair the items she bought.

Before she goes to bed for the night, she takes one more look at the Dune Buggy and a smile appears on her face.