Chapter 30 Mickey
Benji packed my boxes, labeled every single one in calligraphy, kissed me in the doorway Thursday afternoon, and left.
The next morning, I shake Jason’s hand. He doesn’t do speeches, he does handshakes. He extends his hand and I take it. He spent six weeks pushing me past what I thought my body could do and watched it do things neither of us expected.
“You showed up every session,” he says. “That’s not nothing.”
“You told me the physical part wouldn’t be my problem. You were right.”
“I’m usually right. Don’t tell my wife.” He lets go and steps back with his hands in his pockets. “Steve’s expecting your file Monday. Don’t give him a hard time.”
Leah comes in behind him. She hands me a folder — home exercise program, transfer protocols, adaptive equipment vendors.
“Don’t burn water,” she says.
“That was one time.”
“It was twice. I have notes.”
My phone buzzes.
Benji: Plant update. Are they secure? Did you use the towel padding I left? I need photographic evidence of proper packaging. Tex is not a certified plant transporter.
Mickey: George is wrapped and boxed. Frankie is in my lap.
Benji: In what vehicle? Please tell me it’s not Tex’s truck that smells like brisket.
Mickey: Yep. That one.
Benji: George is going to smell like smoked hickory for a WEEK.
Mickey: Yeah, but will I survive? Wish me luck. I’ll text you from the road.
The truck pulls up at noon. I hear it before I see it, the diesel rumble that I’ve been hearing since Tex bought it junior year with money from his first job. The sound of that engine is the sound of home the same way Sheila’s cooler is the taste of home.
Tex comes through the front doors. He’s wearing jeans and a Big Tex’s shirt.
“Are you ready to go?” he says.
“Hell yeah, I’m ready. Let’s go.” I glance up at his face that’s getting splotchy. “Don’t you dare cry, Tex.”
“I’m not crying. I have allergies.”
“You don’t have allergies.”
“I have allergies today.” He clears his throat. “Let’s get you loaded.”
He loads the few things I have into the truck then he picks up George. He looks at Frankie in my lap.
“What’s the deal with the plants?”
“Benji brought them. They have names.”
“I figured,” Tex says.
He turns and walks toward the exit and I wheel behind him. The heat hits me in the parking lot. The sun is brutal and I tilt my face into it one last time because the sun has been the best part of every day here.
Tex pulls the truck up to the front entrance.
He’s driving the truck he uses for bar supply runs, because the cab is high enough that the wheelchair fits in the back seat if you fold it right.
He figured this out three days ago by practicing with a folding chair from the bar, which Stormy filmed and I’ve been forbidden from ever seeing.
“I timed it,” Tex says, getting out and coming around to my side.
“Fourteen seconds to fold the chair and get it in the back seat. I practiced nine times. The first attempt took two minutes and I pinched my finger in the hinge so bad I said words that made Stormy leave the parking lot. By attempt nine I had it down to fourteen seconds. Stormy clocked me. He stood there with his phone timer like a very serious Nascar pit crew chief.”
The transfer from the wheelchair to the truck is the part I’ve been dreading. Leah walked me through it yesterday. Grab the handle above the door. Left hand on the seat. Push up, pivot, lower.
The truck sits higher than anything I’ve transferred to. Tex positions the chair, locks the brakes, and stands close. In the practice session with Leah, it took twelve seconds. In the parking lot with Tex standing behind me trying not to help because I told him not to help, it takes thirty.
I grip the door frame, press up, and swing. It’s ugly. My arms shake. My core fires. Tex’s hands hover six inches from my ribs the entire time. I get my ass on the seat and my legs follow because I swing them with my hands and arrange them the way Leah taught me.
I’m sitting in the passenger seat of Tex’s truck looking out through a windshield instead of a hospital window for the first time in weeks.
The parking lot. The road. The sky, which is wider than any sky I’ve seen through a window.
I didn’t realize how small my world had gotten until this moment.
The room, the hallway, the gym, the patio.
A map with four locations. Now the map is a highway and the highway goes home.
Tex folds the wheelchair. I hear him behind the truck counting under his breath. “One Mississippi, two Mississippi...” The back door opens and closes. He gets behind the wheel.
“Sixteen seconds,” he says. “Two over my personal best. I blame the parking lot surface. Asphalt is slower than the bar floor.”
He adjusts the mirror, slides on his sunglasses and turns to grin at me. “Ready to go home, buddy?”
Tears flood my eyes and I turn toward the window to blink them away. “Hell yes, Tex. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
He reaches into the back seat and pulls out a gallon jug of sweet tea and a paper grocery bag.
“Provisions,” he says. “Sweet tea, obviously. Honey buns, two for each of us, because you need the calories. Beef jerky, the good kind from the gas station that Stormy researched on Yelp. And,” he reaches into the bag and pulls out a folded piece of paper, “the list.”
“What list?”
“The bathroom list.” He unfolds it carefully and hands it to me.
“Stormy spent two days researching every restroom between Jacksonville and Panama City Beach on I-10. He rated them by cleanliness, accessibility, stall width, and something he called ‘grab bar reliability,’ which I never knew was a category until Stormy made it one. He cross-referenced Google reviews. He filtered for recent reviews only because, and I’m quoting him directly, ‘a review from 2019 is not a reliable indicator of current restroom conditions.’”
I stare at the paper. It’s handwritten in Stormy’s precise, small print.
Each rest stop is listed with its mile marker, exit number, and a rating out of five.
There are notes in the margins. The Tallahassee rest stop at mile marker 199 has a note that says “wide stall, bars both sides, reviewer said clean.” The one near Lake City has a note that says “avoid, reviewer reported wet floor and no paper towels, 2 stars.” A gas station in Madison has a star next to it with the note “best option between miles 220 and 260, Pilot station, reviewed March 2025, 4.5 stars, confirmed ADA.”
“I can’t believe he researched rest stop grab bars,” I say, shaking my head.
“He also called two of them. He called a Pilot gas station in Madison, Florida and asked the cashier to measure the width of the accessible stall. The cashier asked why and Stormy said ‘my friend is coming home from the hospital and he needs to know if his wheelchair fits’ and the cashier apparently went in there with a tape measure and called him back twenty minutes later.”
“I can’t believe someone did that for him.”
“People do things for Stormy. He has this way of asking for things that makes you feel like the most important person in the world for being able to help. I don’t know how he does it.
I can’t do it. When I ask for things, people say ‘shut the hell up, Tex.’ When Stormy asks for things, strangers run to the bathroom with a measuring tape. ”
He turns the key and the truck rumbles.
“Alright,” he says. “Four and a half hours. Maybe five if we stop twice. You ready?”
“I’ve been ready for six weeks.”
“Then let’s hit the road. I’ve been saving up stories.
I’ve got approximately four and a half hours of material and I’m not wasting a single minute of this drive on silence.
Silence is for people who don’t have anything to say.
I always have something to say. You know this about me.
You’ve known this about me since seventh grade when I gave that oral report that was supposed to be five minutes and went forty-five and Mrs. Henderson had to physically turn off my microphone. ”
“She didn’t turn it off, she unplugged it.”
“Yes, she did. In front of the whole class. And I kept talking without the microphone because the microphone was never the point. The point was the story and the story wasn’t finished. I was twelve with a lot to say. Some things don’t change.”
Tex pulls out of the parking lot, merges onto I-10, and reaches for his phone on the dash mount.
“I made us a playlist,” he says. “For the drive. I’ve been working on it all week.
It’s a mood list. You know how people make those playlists for a romantic evening?
Candles, wine, Barry White? This is like that, except it’s two grown men in a truck on the interstate and instead of getting laid we’re going home. ”
He hits play. The opening guitar of “Home Sweet Home” by Motley Crüe fills the cab.
“Vince Neil is setting the tone,” Tex says. “You gotta let Vince set the tone.”
The songs roll through. “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” “Homeward Bound.” “Our House” by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Every one of them about going home, being home, wanting home. Tex sings along to all of them, badly and with complete commitment.
Somewhere outside Tallahassee, the opening riff of “Sweet Home Alabama” comes through the speakers and Tex turns it up.
“We don’t live in Alabama,” I say.
“Yeah, but entire state of Alabama lives with us in Panama City half the year. Consider it a welcome home from our seasonal residents.” He drums the steering wheel. “Besides, you can’t make a going-home playlist without Skynyrd. That’s illegal in the state of Florida. I checked.”
“How are things going at the bar?” I ask.
“I’m glad you asked,” Tex says. “I’m going to start with the important stuff and work my way down to the trivial stuff, which means I’m starting with the smoker because Big Bertha had a situation last Tuesday.”
“What happened?”