CHAPTER ONE

 

There’s a lot what I got to tell. There was a lot of stuff that happened.  Some of it I ain’t told nobody before.  You might not believe some of it but that’s okay.  I find some of it hard to believe myself an’ it went an’ happened to me.  Molly, that’s my wife, says that the stuff that happened wouldn’t have happened to nobody else but me. Most times I gotta agree with what Molly says an’ I definitely gotta agree with her on that. I think maybe it was like I had a sign stuck to my ass that said, “KICK ME!”

I don’t really know where to start. Things really got outta hand with that older woman. She was definitely on the far side of sixty an’, you know, sprung around the middle. An’, gray had done more than just lick her temples. She weren’t nothin’ special, just an’ average older woman. I don’t want you gettin’ the wrong idea. I didn’t go an’ do nothin’ nasty with somebody’s gramma.  It had nothin’ to do with her an’ sex. There was some sex stuff what happened but definitely not with that older woman.

It was what she wore that caught my eye.  See, I only saw her for just a second or maybe two, just long enough to read what was written on her T-shirt in great big letters.  It read, “LEAVE ME ALONE”.  Just three little words an’ any other time I doubt if I would have even noticed her at all. But, seein’ as I was already in a mood I seemed to have zeroed right in on that T-shirt.  It just summed up the whole of what I was feelin’. I didn’t even look at her face until after I read what her shirt said an’ then it was only ‘cause I wanted to see what somebody who felt the way I did looked like.

I was kinda surprised. I was surprised ‘cause she looked like, as I already told you, somebody’s gramma. I couldn’t understand how somebody who looked like somebody’s gramma could have had stuff happen to her to make her feel the way I was feelin’. I’ve thought about that some an’ I remember somethin’ I read one time. The man who wrote it was Willard Gaylin but I can’t remember where I read it, but I ain’t never forgotten it. He said that a person might not be all they appear to be but what they appear to be is a significant part of who they are. So, even though she might not have had all kinds of stuff happen to her like what happened to me, she must have felt like I did in some way an’ that’s why she was wearin’ a shirt sayin’ what it did. But, I want to make it perfectly clear that it weren’t nothin’ sexual about her.

In some ways, believe it or not, I am glad I ran into her but, mostly, I wish to God that I’d never seen her. She’s what put me here where I am. She brought the whole thing to a head. I’m not sure I’m any better off an’ I’m not sure that I’m gonna be any happier neither. But, a lot of times I ain’t so sure that what I think is important to nobody anyhow.

I suppose the thing is to tell the whole story from the very beginnin’ so you don’t got to take my word for nothin’. I’ll do my best to tell it the way it happened an’ I won’t exaggerate nothin’, nor leave nothin’ out. I gotta say that there’s a lot of stuff that I’d certainly prefer not to tell nobody, it’s why I ain’t told the whole story to nobody before, but I got to tell it if I expect anybody to see the whole picture. I’ve had time to think about it all an’ now an’, I think, I can tell it the way it needs to be told.

I wanna tell you up front that I know a lot of it is my own fault. I know it but, then again, there really ain’t no need for blamin’ nobody. There was just a lot of weird stuff that happened an’ some people got hurt, especially my wife, Molly. It’s all rather confusin’, even worse when I start usin’ words like blame an’ hurt.  The best thing to do is just not worry about all that an’ just get on with tellin’ it.

I’m just an average guy. I ain’t tall an’ I ain’t short, not fat nor skinny, not rich nor poor. I’m just...just average. I’ve always been average for as long as I can remember.  Being average is just about the best thing I think you can be ‘cause you don’t never feel no pressure. If you’re a moron then you gotta live with bein’ stupid an’ if you’re smart then you got all kinds of people expectin’ smart things from you all the time. When you’re average you don’t got nobody who got any right to be lookin’ down their nose at you an’ at the same time you always got somethin’ better to look forward to.

Molly an’ me have been married for almost eight years. Maybe it’s nine, I’m not sure. Anyway, we got two kids, a four an’ a half year old daughter an’ a little baby boy.  Molly an’ me got the usual mortgage on a house in town an’ we got payments on two vehicles what never stay runnin’ for more than a few months before I gotta be wrenchin’ on ‘em. An’, we both work so we don’t want for nothin’. My salary pays the mortgage, the utilities, an’ the car payments. Molly’s paycheck pays for everythin’ else an’, most times, there ain’t nothin’ left over.

Molly an’ me have opened a savin’s account with our income tax refund just about every year since we got married. An’ every year, by June, the bank goes an’ closes it ‘cause the service charges are more than what we got left in it. We were hopin’ that this year we’re gonna do better an’ really start savin’, to put somethin’ aside every couple of weeks. But, if it goes like it’s been goin’ we don’t got much chance. If it ain’t one of the kids gettin’ sick then it’ll be either her car or my truck that will break down. It don’t matter what it is when it happens ‘cause you gotta have the money to take care of it.

As I said, I’m just an average guy an’, for the most part, I don’t got an ugly word to say to nobody unless they got it comin’. Even then, most times, I don’t say nothin’ anyway unless they really got somethin’ comin’. I don’t go to church but I ain’t never tried to stop Molly an’ the kids from goin’. Molly is free to believe whatever she wants an’ she can make the kids believers, too. Molly has always had a firm belief in the Holy Trinity an’ Heaven an’ I sure as hell don’t wanna deny Molly in no way. Molly gave up long ago on tryin’ to change that part of me but, I gotta give her credit, she gave it her best shot. After a few years she just said I was hopeless an’ gave up. I can’t blame her for tryin’ so hard ‘cause I know she only wants what’s best for me. She still feels this church thing is best for me but she don’t push it on me no more. I think she finally realized that there must have been somethin’ what happened between me an’ the Lord an’ it would be best to stop pushin’ an’ started prayin’.

Molly knows that if she asks often enough, whines, or pouts, she’s eventually gonna get whatever it is she wants. But, I put my foot down when it came to this church thing. Just between you and me, it ain’t so much that it was the Lord what turned me from church. It’s just that I don’t like nobody tellin’ me that I got more than just one foot in hell an’ then passin’ me the plate so I can buy my sorry ass outta the flames.  Knowin’ my generous contribution would help finance expensive missions over seas to convert otherwise happy heathens won’t pry a nickel outta my hand neither.

I kinda got off on a tangent there an’, I know, I promised I weren’t gonna squeeze in no opinions. I suppose, it’s only fair that I warn you that I learned how to tell a story from my grandfather. When I was little I used to listen to him for hours an’ most of the time I didn’t have no idea what the hell he was talkin’ about. Molly says that I listened to my grandfather ‘cause he was the only one who talked to me. My folks, nor nobody else, never did an’ seein’ as he was the one that talked to me I learned to tell stuff the way he use tell it. Molly says I frustrate her when I tell her somethin’ ‘cause I don’t never finish it. Somehow, I manage to end up tellin’ somethin’ completely different an’ then I forget what the hell I was talkin’ about when I first started talkin’. It’s ‘cause I digress.

The first time Molly told me I digressed I didn’t know what that meant. So, I looked up the meanin’ of the word in the dictionary, an’ I thought about it, an’ I decided Molly was right. See, there was this one time that I came from work an’ was gonna tell her that Josh who runs the horizontal mill an’ his pregnant wife, the ones what won the Caribbean cruise, had their baby.  But, I got off onto how they won the cruise an’ how they went right away ‘cause she was sick of being pregnant an’ bein’ up to her ankles in snow.  I completely forgot to tell her that she went an’ had the baby on the damn boat. I told Molly the next day, of course, but I didn’t tell her I knew the day before ‘cause that meant I’d have to admit I had digressed. An’, there’s been a few other incidents like that so, I suppose, what Molly say’s is right. Sometimes I do digress.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER TWO

 

If I’m gonna tell the whole story I gotta go a long ways back, long before I saw that older woman. See, there was a lot that happened before that, the stuff that led up to that, the stuff that got me in that mood. So, I’m gonna go back, all the way to the very beginnin’.  An’, I still gotta tell you what happened after.

For the most part, things were goin’ along okay. There weren’t nothin’ special happenin’. The new baby was eight months old so the new baby excitement was startin’ to pass an’ things were beginnin’ to settle down. Under Molly’s tight orchestration we were preparin’ the house for the inevitable invasion of a toddler. Molly needed to feel comfortable that nothin’ was gonna get ruined or broken.  She’s under the impression that most of the junk what we got is gonna be sacred heirlooms someday an’ I ain’t the one that’s gonna burst her bubble. 

I’m kinda lookin’ forward to the toddler thing. Molly likes the new baby thing the best but not me. I think new babies are a lot more work an’ is a whole lot more frustratin’. Lookin’ after a toddler an’ a new baby are the complete opposite. With a toddler you just gotta go take away what they got that they ain’t supposed to have, tell ‘em, no, an’ make ‘em cry.  A new baby ain’t like that.  They start out cryin’ an’ you gotta figure out what’s the matter with ‘em while they’re screamin’ at you for all they’re worth. That’s how things were goin’ until stuff started to happen.

It’s been my experience that when somethin’ happens, it ain’t just one thing,  it’s a whole lot of stuff that happens in a row. Sometimes it’s good stuff that happens an’ other times it ain’t. Most times, though, it’s bad stuff an’ just when you think you can’t take no more somethin’ else happens. It’d be okay if you knew ahead of time so you could stay in bed all day. The thing is, this time when stuff started to happen I should have stayed in bed for a couple of days. I sure as hell weren’t lookin’ for no trouble, but every time I turned around I stepped into somethin’ nasty. Molly says it’s that I just weren’t lookin’, period.  But, some of what happened is ‘cause of Molly.

In fact, the very first thing what happened is ‘cause of Molly. It’s ‘cause she reads them damn magazines. ‘Women’s Trends’ is the one I hate the most. That’s how she got on this kick about the kind of underwear I wear. All my life I’ve been wearin’ white cotton briefs an’ everybody who even knew seemed perfectly satisfied. For that matter, I don’t think nobody even cared. Then, Molly goes an’ reads somethin’ in that magazine an’, all of a sudden, there’s a problem. Seems that some men wear sexy underwear for their wives. It’s just fine with me if some guy struts around for his wife naked except for a red ribbon tied to the end of his little fella. I just don’t wanna know nothin’ about it. 

Stuff like that ain’t what polite people tell each other. I don’t wanna know what goes on inside somebody’s bedroom an’ I don’t want nobody knowin’ nothin’ about what goes on in mine. I especially don’t think nobody should be writin’ about it in some damn magazine. Doin’ stuff like that only puts ideas that wouldn’t normally be there into people’s heads. An’, that’s exactly what happened when Molly went an’ read what some feminist wrote in ‘Woman’s Trends’. I never heard such bull in my life but, unfortunately, it struck some peculiar fancy in my sweet Molly.

Once she got the notion in her head she started right in on me an’ she didn’t never let up. She kept it up for days. I hate to admit it, but I was completely avoidin’ her. I even changed the oil in the truck, in the driveway, in the middle of February, just to get a few minutes away from her harpin’ about it. She finally got to me durin’ a ballgame.  The kids was asleep, I had the best part of a six-pack cold beer, an’ the Celtics were, for once in a very long time, beatin’ the Lakers. 

It ain’t the least bit funny how life can set you up for a fall. Here I was, havin’ a few rare moments of peace an’ quiet just before Molly started in. Normally, I don’t mind Molly comin’ into the livin’ room an’ nuzzlin’ up next to me. Sure, it frustrates me that she don’t never know nothin’ about how the game is played an’ she irritates me occasionally by askin’ stupid questions but, for the most part, it’s real nice havin’ her next to me. I gotta give her credit though, she noticed me cringe when she walked into the room an’ she waited a good five minutes before she started. 

It was halfway through the final quarter an’ I couldn’t take it no more. I just wanted to watch the game. you know, the Celtics don’t win like they used too an’ they don’t never beat the Lakers no more. Anyway, since I love my Molly the way I do, I gave in instead of gettin’ pissed at her for screwin’ up the ballgame. I suppose I got the silly notion in my head that if I agreed to the underwear thing she’d go away an’ let me watch the ball game in peace. I agreed to wear sexy new underwear for her but she was the one what had to go out an’ buy ‘em.

I probably wouldn’t have agreed to it at all if I’d had any idea at all that I weren’t gonna see the end of the ballgame. I mean, even if Molly’s chatterin’ was drownin’ out the play-by-play I could have watched it an’ seen what was goin’ on. All I would have had to do was look at her once in a while, smile at her every so often, an’ just say, “Huh,” every now an’ then, an’ that would have been it. As it turned out Molly decided she needed to go get this catalog with pictures of men in sexy underwear. She switched the TV off a few minutes later ‘cause I was bein’ distracted by it.

I didn’t know they even had catalogs like that. You know, with men in ‘em. I weren’t real comfortable knowin’ Molly was lookin’ at almost naked guys, especially the ones where them guys had on stuff what was barely wide enough to fill the crack of their behind. Molly said she only cares for the catalogs that are tastefully done. I didn’t see nothing tasteful but I didn’t say nothin’. I was mostly pissed that Molly went an’ turned the TV off on me but, since she was so excited, I didn’t say nothin’ about that neither. I humored her an’ let her point out all these pictures of what other husbands, sexy husbands, wear for their wives. I started gettin’ a real bad feelin’. I knew I went an’ screwed up the moment I agreed to this underwear thing an’ the whole thing got more an’ more sour by the minute.

I barely slept at all that night.  First, Molly felt the need to vent all that nervous sexual energy she went an’ built up by lookin’ at them guy’s butts an’ then I couldn’t fall asleep. I laid there for hours starin’ at the ceilin’ an’ listenin’ to the clock tickin’. I had this vision of me comin’ home from work the next day an’ Molly waitin’ by the door. All I could see was her holdin’ this bag contain’ a charge card receipt an’ my sexy new underwear an’ her supportin’ the world’s biggest shit-eatin’-grin.

That’s pretty much what happened. Except, Molly had to go an’ throw in a few little twists of her own. She somehow had talked Mrs. O’Reilly, her mom, into watchin’ the kids for the night an’ she was wearin’ her sexy new underwear, too. I gotta tell you, it was a side of Molly I ain’t never seen before an’ one of these days I’m gonna tell her that I would have preferred her new outfit to have been white, even pink, but definitely not black. An’, while I’m at it, I gonna tell her that I ain’t comfortable seein’ her in them shiny black boots that come up to her thighs neither.

I know I don’t have to tell you what happened. If you’re married you already know an’ if you ain’t then I don’t wanna spoil the surprise. Personally, when I come home tired from work all I wanna do is grab a beer outta the refrigerator an’ the paper off the table an’ go to the john. I usually go to the one in the back ‘cause it’s lots quieter an’ most days I can get through the comics an’ the sports section before I get bothered.  Earning a metal in the sex olympics ain’t never been one of my favorite ways to unwind.

The worse thing was I knew I didn’t look nothin’ like any of them guys in the catalog. I suppose there weren’t no way Molly didn’t notice it neither. But, if she were disappointed, she didn’t show it. Anyway, I didn’t have to wear the damn things too long. Although, there’s probably some deranged liberated woman sittin’ at a desk in a dark damp basement corner at ‘Women’s Trends’ to devise a way for a man to perform while wearin’ his sexy new underwear.

They’ll publish it, too. Whatever their twisted little minds come up with they’re willin’ to share with the rest of the female world. I don’t even wanna think about what they’re like at home. For all I know, they could be livin’ weird with other women or maybe they’re goin’ out with old guys ‘cause they wanna be datin’ their daddies.  Anythin’ is possible, but what I don’t understand is why they gotta go an’ put ideas into somebody else’s head. Most folks is happy an’ perfectly content until there’s somebody who comes along an’ goes an’ starts up somethin’.

Some people got no problem wakin’ up early if they go to bed early. Me, I don’t like to wake up no matter how much sleep I get. Molly is one of those people that always wakes up early no matter what. Molly is also one of those people who wakes up even earlier when she goes to bed early an’ we didn’t even get to see the six o’clock news. I normally don’t mind that Molly wakes up early but I had just finally fallen asleep. An’, to make matters worse, Molly seemed to have built up a whole bunch more nervous sexual energy while she was sleepin’. I really don’t know what gets into my Molly sometimes. 

I think it was in the mornin’ when she went an’ put that hickey on my thigh. That hickey is the only savin’ grace out of this whole thing. It made a lot of people look at me in a whole different way. I ain’t never come across as a romance kinda guy so all of a sudden people started wonderin’. I’ll admit it in a way I kinda like ‘em thinkin’ it, but really it’s just somethin’ else that can get me into trouble. An’, gettin’ into trouble is somethin’ I can do all by myself.

I went an’ got ahead of myself a bit. I can’t help it. I still get worked up when I think about it an’ I got carried away.

The next day Molly went an’ insisted that I wear the damn things to work.  She said she thought it was excitin’ just thinkin’ about me bein’ in ‘em. An’, bein’ a woman, she was born with a natural gift for persuasion. Persuasion is what they call it anyway. The law calls it blackmail. I call it guilt. Anyway, the thing is, when I left the house for work that mornin’ I was wearin’ my sexy new silk underwear.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Just ‘cause I wear briefs don’t mean I got somethin’ against boxers. Boxers are okay but I prefer to...to support my boys. I suppose, what I’m sayin’ is that it ain’t right for boxers to be silk an’ black an’ have big red hearts on ‘em.  It’s just not natural. It’s just not natural for a man to be wearin’ underwear what’s silk in the first place. An’, I sure as hell didn’t feel natural wearin’ ‘em, especially to work.

All day long I felt like the guys at the shop were lookin’ at me funny, starin’ at me.  You know, like they knew. Mike, that’s my best buddy, even said that I weren’t actin’ like myself. An, I gotta admit, I weren’t. I suffered the whole day without takin’ a pee ‘cause I didn’t wanna take the chance that one of ‘em would see my underwear. It wouldn’t take long an’ it’d be all over the shop an’ before I knew it somebody would be sayin’ I was, you know, a homosexual. The toilets don’t even have no walls dividin’ ‘em so there weren’t no place private I could go.

I think they went an’ did that intentionally. I’ll bet them people what design johns for the workplace know full well that some fellas don’t know there’s a difference between a crapper an’ a library. You know the kind fellas I’m talkin’ about. The ones what take thirty minute dumps an’ you’re outside hoppin’ up an’ down on one foot an’ listenin’ to ‘em in there flippin’ pages. I suppose, they figure a fella would be a lot less likely to be sittin’ in there readin’ if everybody what walked in could see ‘em sittin’ out there in the open. I ain’t a bashful kinda guy but I do think there are some things that polite folks need to do in private. Molly says it’s ‘cause I’m homophobic. I don’t know what she means by that but I sure as hell don’t like the sound of it. I ain’t aware of nothin’ I ever done that might make her start thinkin’ I was homo anythin’. It kinda bothers me that Molly would go an’ even think somethin’ like that. I don’t like it much when people go an’ say stuff when I don’t know exactly what they mean. Maybe Molly don’t mean anythin’ bad by it, but she knows I’m touchy about homosexual stuff, so she should make herself more clear.

When quittin’ time came, lemme tell you, I was glad to get my ass the heck outta there. I told Mike an’ Fred as we walked to the carryout on the way to the truck that I weren’t even gonna stop by the bar. The bar don’t have no door on the toilet neither an’ I sure as hell weren’t gonna take no chances of somebody in there seein’ me in them silk boxers with the big red hearts. I told ‘em that all I was gonna do was buy a six pack an’ go home. I didn’t tell ‘em that I weren’t really lookin’ forward to goin’ home. I figured that I’d be in for another night of it after Molly got herself all worked up knowin’ that all day I’d been wearin’ my sexy new underwear.

I hope they catch that son-of-a-bitch. They better catch him ‘cause if I get my hands on that scrawny little bastard first I’ll twist his greasy little head off. Not only did he rob us an’ the till from the carry out but he made us strip. He made us strip right down to our underwear.

I was standin’ right there but I couldn’t believe what he said so I asked, “You want us to do what?”

He waved this big ol’ revolver under my nose and says, “You heard me, you dumb asshole. Strip!”

“Why?” I asked. I should have been pissed ‘cause he called me dumb. I don’t never let nobody call me dumb but all I could think of was those damn silk boxers with the big red hearts I was wearin’.  

He pulled the hammer back on the pistol an’ pushed up against the tip of my nose. “I don’t want you turning into some kind of hero and following me when I leave,” he says.

I was pretty much convinced that he weren’t kiddin’ an’ I knew that me assurin’ him I weren’t the hero type weren’t gonna change his mind.  I was gonna have to display my sexy new underwear for my two best buddies an’ Sara.  Sara is the little blonde who works days at the carry out an’ weekends down at the bar. 

I gotta tell you they laughed.  Even that scrawny son-of-a-bitch with the gun laughed. They laughed a long time before I looked down an’ realized they weren’t just laughin’ at my black silk boxers with the big red hearts. I don’t expect I’ll ever be able to express it properly so you’ll never know just how embarrassed I was when I looked down an’ saw that I had a big ol’ woody to complete the outfit.

Molly says it was just ‘cause I was nervous an’ it weren’t no big deal. Right!  She ain’t never had no woody an’ she sure as hell ain’t never had no woody out in public, so Molly just don’t know. Molly says that there’s lots of embarrassin’ stuff what happens to everybody every single day an’ nobody never remembers it very long. She never did get real specific as to how she defines embarrassin’ nor how long not very long is. See, steppin’ in somethin’ what a dog left on the ground an’ carryin’ the smell around is embarrassin’. What happened to me goes way beyond that. Although, I suspect the stink from this mess is somethin’ what’s gonna be clingin’ to me for quite some time.  

Like I said, as far as I can see the only savin’ grace was that hickey Molly went an’ put on my thigh. The paper even went an’ mentioned it in the article about Grand Fork’s first armed robbery in over fifty years. The paper referred to it as a lover’s tattoo strategically placed high on the thigh of one of the victims. I take very little pride in the local paper now since it takes such a humorous stance on armed robberies. Fortunately, the author of the exposé had the good taste to not mention the name of the victim supporting the tattoo. Thankfully, he made no mention of the woody at all.

Molly cut the article out of the paper. She says she wants to have it laminated an’ save it. I hope she don’t think it’s one of them things that she can hang onto an’ have it become a family heirloom. It ain’t the kind of thing I want my kids showing my grand kids. I mean, what are they goin’ to say. “Look, Junior, this is where your grandpa was a victim in an armed robbery. It was real funny ‘cause he had on black silk boxers with big red hearts an’ he had a woody.” Personally, this whole thing is somethin’ I’d just as soon everybody forgot all about an’ the fewer reminders there are the better.  

See, even in high school when all the zit-faced boys were trying to make any cheerleader they could I didn’t have much interest in it. Molly says that it ain’t normal for teenage boys not to be on the make all the time ‘cause they got them hormones goin’ crazy. I don’t know if that’s true or not but that ain’t the way I was. It’s the reason Molly went to prom with me instead of Mike. Molly says she knew I weren’t the type that was only interested in gettin’ in a girl’s pants. She, bein’ a good Irish Catholic girl, was savin’ herself for her weddin’ night. Her plan didn’t work out so good. Just ‘cause I weren’t interested in gettin’ in her pants don’t mean she weren’t interested in gettin’ in mine.  Anyway, the point is I’m just not comfortable bein’ the center of attention an’ it’s especially annoyin’ to me when it’s sex stuff.

I know I don’t have to tell you that I ain’t never gonna wear them damn boxers no more. Molly agreed that I don’t have to but she says she’s gonna wash ‘em an’ put ‘em away for posterity. I don’t got a clue as to what posterity means but I got the notion that what she’s sayin’ is that she’s gonna keep ‘em so that anytime she needs a good laugh she can just take ‘em out an’ look at ‘em. I just don’t never wanna see ‘em ever again an’ I better not ever find out she’s showin’ ‘em to nobody neither.

I don’t think Molly would do that ‘cause Molly would never do nothin’ on purpose to hurt me. An’, without a doubt, Molly has been a wonderful wife. She’s always been there for me, even when I get my goofy ass into trouble. Sure, she gives me grief when I got it comin’. She yells at me like I was some damn kid an’ she gives me all kinds of hell but it don’t never last long. Everythin’ blows over in a few days an’ she forgets about it an’ then things get back to normal.

Molly says I made a real big deal outta nothin’ with this underwear an’ woody thing, that I got all bent out of shape ‘cause my pride was hurt. Molly says it was all just coincidence an’ that I gotta come to terms with it. If that was all that happened, I suppose, I would have to agree with her. But, there was a lot of stuff that happened after that which made it a lot worse. An’, comin’ to terms with it weren’t one of the things I was thinkin’ about when I dropped Fred an’ Mike off at the bar after the great Grand Fork armed robbery.

 

CHAPTER THREE

 

I was dreadin’ goin’ home. I was late, real late. Seein’ as I was one of the victims an’ bein’ one of the four people that saw the perpetrator I had to give a full accountin’ of everythin’ that happened. I had to tell ‘em what time it was, what the guy looked like, what he was wearin’, an’ all kinds of stuff like that. They kept askin’ if maybe I was forgettin’ somethin’ an’ I kept tellin’ ‘em that I weren’t. That were a little bit of a white lie ‘cause I didn’t say nothin’ about the woody but, if you wanna know the truth, once I noticed the woody I really weren’t aware of nothin’ else what happened until after the little arshole with the gun left an’ Mike ran out in the street an’ picked up our clothes.

I wanted to be invisible as I was sneakin’ in the back door. Bein’ late like I was, Molly was gonna want know exactly where I was an’ what I was doin’ that was more important than bein’ home with my family. I think Molly tends to over dramatize stuff sometimes. The thing was, I didn’t really want to tell her the truth. I had made up this little story about stoppin’ at the bar for a quick one an’ losin’ track of time. A story like that would normally work ‘cause it happens every now an’ then. Molly says it happens too damn often but she only says that when it does an’ she’s pissed ‘cause, like I told you, Molly don’t normally swear. The thing was, I didn’t have no beer on my breath so Molly was gonna know that it weren’t true.

Right up until the time I pulled into the driveway I was workin’ on another excuse. You know, somethin’ what Molly would believe an’ so I wouldn’t have to tell her what really happened. But, I don’t work well under pressure an’ I couldn’t come up with nothin’ else. So, I figured what the hell, I might as well tell the truth an’ just get it over with. I mean, it weren’t like she weren’t never gonna find out anyway so I might as well let her get her laughs in an’ get it over with.

Molly was in the livin’ room an’ heard the back door open. “Can you come here for a second, sweetheart?” she asked.

I froze. I weren’t sure if I was bein’ set up or not. See, Molly does stuff like that all the time. She talks to me real nice, acts all lovey, just to lull me into a false sense of security, right before I get my pecker slapped.

Please don’t tell Molly I said somethin’ about gettin’ my pecker slapped. She gets pissed when I say it ‘cause she thinks it’s vulgar. Molly says she don’t understand why I always gotta be so crude when she’s only tryin’ to help me. I suppose sayin’ that I get my pecker slapped is pretty crude but it’s just an expression. Molly don’t realize that I don’t got the words to express myself the way she does.   

Anyway, the sad truth is I walked into the livin’ room to a chorus of laughter from more than a half a dozen women. I couldn’t believe it. It was a nightmare. The whole damn room was filled with Molly’s friends an’ our neighbors. It was quite obvious, right from the get-go, that I weren’t gonna have to go through the ordeal of havin’ to tell Molly what happened. An’, of course, it were equally obvious that it had been a complete waste of my time thinkin’ up excuses. 

Some dear soul, probably Rhoda Myers ‘cause she’s always got her nose in somebody else’s business, went an’ called Molly an’ told her all the sordid details. Of course, that same dear soul also called half the damn town before she got around to callin’ Molly. Molly’s best friend, Jenny was also there.  She’s also the uppity hog what Mike went an’ married. God, I wanted to slap her. I thought she was gonna pass out ‘cause she weren’t able to catch her breath ‘cause she was laughin’ so hard. Tears were just streamin’ down her cheeks an’ she was snortin’ just like the ol’ hog she is an’ I felt that she really needed a good slap. I ain’t the kind of guy who thinks a man got any right to ever be hittin’ a woman but Jenny was in definite need of a quick slap, like they used to do in the ol’ movies, to bring her back to her senses.  

I just stood there an’ let ‘em laugh. There weren’t nothin’ else I could think of to do. I ain’t quick with the wit like some folks an’ it’s ‘cause, like I already told you, I don’t do well under pressure. I knew they knew all about my sexy new underwear an’, there weren’t much doubt, they knew all about the woody. They laughed for a long time an’ you can just imagine how long it seemed to me since I were the unwillin’ center of their amusement. Eventually they did stop but Molly had to go an’ start ‘em up all over again.

I should have seen it comin’ ‘cause she had this shit-eatin’-grin that she always gets when she’s fulla piss an’ vinegar. “So, how was your day?” She asked with this fake concern in her voice. Then she went an’ started to giggle like some damn fool. The next thing I know is they’re all laughin’ their asses off again an’ that was all I could take. I couldn’t stand to hear one more grunt outta the uppity hog. I turned, grabbed the paper off the kitchen table, an’ headed for the john in the back. For some reason even that must have struck ‘em all kinda funny, too, ‘cause their laughter seemed to get even louder after I slammed the john door closed. An’, I wanna remind you, that I was facin’ all of this without so much as the moral support of a beer.

I finally took the damn phone off the hook. Every wiseass in town seemed to think it was necessary to take it upon themselves to call the house. They all seemed to think they were the only ones what called an’ they all thought they were a whole lot funnier than I did. After I unplugged the phone some of ‘em even took the liberty of droppin’ by. For the most part, they was just havin’ fun an’ havin’ a laugh but it was only Bob from across the street that was considerate enough to bring beer. Molly says Bob brought the six-pack ‘cause he wanted to feel welcome to stay for the whole show. She might be right about that but I really don’t care ‘cause the arshole was so busy laughin’ that I drank all but one can of his beer.

Molly says I drank all of Bob’s beer ‘cause I was embarrassed an’ I wanted to get drunk.  Molly is right, there weren’t never no question about that. Molly is right but what she didn’t know was that too much stuff was happenin’ an’ I was startin’ to get bent outta shape. I was beginnin’ to get all tense inside an’ no one, not even Molly, had even asked if I was okay. They all had lots of interest in my black silk boxers with the red hearts an’ my ability to sprout a woody but I don’t remember nobody ever askin’ how I was feelin’.

It weren’t no big deal I suppose. But, it was the beginnin’ of a whole bunch more stuff that happened. An’, it was the first time I remember feelin’ like I was bein’ backed up against a wall. Things from then on just sorta happened an’ I didn’t have no control of ‘em at all. The more things that happened the more I felt like I had my back up tighter against the wall until I saw that older woman in that T-shirt.

I got ahead of myself again. I went an’ jumped all the way ahead to that woman in the T-shirt. I don’t wanna leave nothin’ out but I won’t bother tellin’ you much about work the next day. I don’t think I got to. I’m pretty sure you can imagine it for yourself an’ you should feel confident that just about whatever you imagine actually happened. It weren’t pretty. I think I rode it out fairly well, I handled it all okay. I laughed along with ‘em an’, I gotta admit, if this had went an’ happened to some other poor dumb son-of-a-bitch I would have thought it was just as funny as they all did. For the most part, it was good-natured ribbin’ an’ I wouldn’t have had no problem if my foreman, Horace Locklear, hadn’t went an’ started in on me. Horace has tried to fire me so many times an’ failed it ain’t even funny. He’s finally given up tryin’ but he does go out of his way to make each an’ every workday as miserable for me as he possibly can.  

See, one Christmas Mr. Tilley, the ol’ man that owns the shop, came outta the office up front with fruit cake. He decided that it would be a wonderful gesture an’ in keepin’ with the true spirit of the season if he shared a piece of his wife’s homemade Christmas fruit cake with the hired help. Molly says that she’s had some of Mrs. Tilley’s Christmas fruit cake an’ she thinks the ol’ man was just tryin’ to off the cake on us so he wouldn’t have to eat it all himself or feel guilty for throwin’ it away. I can’t say if that’s true of not ‘cause I didn’t never get none of the cake.  Before Horace had dutifully doled out the paper plates with the cake on ‘em Mr. Tilley went an’ started chokin’ on a piece of it.

Everybody just stood there an’ listened to the ol’ man gag an’ grunt. Nobody did nothin’ to help him, nobody moved. Fred was standin’ next to him an’ he swears Mr. Tilley was beginnin’ to turn blue just before he started to run around with his arms flappin’. All of a sudden he started comin’ straight at me. I don’t know what got into me an’ made me do what I did ‘cause, like I said, I don’t do so good under pressure. Anyway, I spun the ol’ fella around an’ gave him one hell of a smack in the middle of the back with the palm of my hand. Well, that glob of gooey an’ half eaten, spit covered, wad of fruit cake came flyin’ outta his mouth like a slug outta the barrel of a shotgun an’ splattered its messy ol’ self all over Horace’s face. Horace just stood there with a plate with cake in each hand an’ that goop all over his face.

Mr. Tilley was grateful. In fact, he was very grateful an’ swore in front of everybody that was there that I had saved his life. He went on to say that ‘cause of what I had done for him that as long as he lived an’ owned the shop I would always have a job workin’ for him. Horace, on the other hand, weren’t so grateful. I don’t know for sure but I think he copped an attitude about me right then an’ there. I think it was mostly ‘cause he thought some of the guys was laughin’ at him wipin’ the goop what come out of Mr. Tilley’s mouth off his face instead of bein’ happy an’ laughin’ ‘cause Mr. Tilley was okay. I mean, he was right ‘cause pretty much all the guys really was laughin’ at him but it weren’t like I went an’ did it to him on purpose.

In any case, things went down hill between me an’ Horace real quick after that. Before that happened Horace didn’t ride me much ‘cause even though I didn’t never turn out as many parts as some other guys the parts I do turn out are right. I’ve only had a total of fourteen bad parts in all the years I’ve been runnin’ them gear shapers. Some of the fellas have that much scrap in a day when Horace pulls me off them machines an’ puts somebody else on ‘em. The brass them gears is made of is real expensive an’ that don’t even account for the cost of havin’ ‘em cast in the first place.  Mr. Tilley don’t take it well when he sees parts what are no good thrown in the scrap bins.

Anyway, after the cake thing it didn’t take very long an’ I realized that I didn’t have to work quite so hard no more. An’, I could mouth off to Horace an’ there weren’t a damn thing he could do about it. The whole situation tends to make this little blue vein he has on his temple to start trobbin’. Molly says that I take advantage of Horace at Mr. Tilley’s expense but that ain’t exactly true. I don’t never do nothin’ to start trouble with Horace, he comes lookin’ for me. I figure if he’s willin’ to start somethin’ then he gets what he deserves. So far he ain’t never done nothin’ to deserve no respect.  

If you wanna know the truth, Molly works me harder than Horace ever could. I ain’t never seen nobody that has so much energy as my sweet Molly. She works down at Al’s Grocery Store three an’ sometimes four days a week, she looks after me an’ the kids, goes to the community college two nights a week, an’ she’s always wantin’ to paint, wallpaper, or change somethin’ with the house. Molly says she does stuff to the house all the time ‘cause she’s doin’ it for us. When people come to visit we’ll look like we’re somebody. I suppose she’s right, she usually is, but every time she gets started on somethin’ it means she’s gonna have stuff that I gotta do. Usually, I gotta fix somethin’ or change somethin’ an’ I always seem to screw it up.

It’s like that time she wanted to fix up the little john in the back. I figured a coat of paint an’ I’d recaulk the tub an’ that’d be the end of it. Boy, was I wrong. Molly went an’ decided we didn’t like the tile that was on the floor an’ we wanted new stuff an’ while I was at it I could fix where the toilet was leakin’ every once in a while. I talked to Mr. O’Reilly, Molly’s dad, an’ he said it weren’t no big deal. All I had to do was take the toilet out, put in a new beeswax seal, an’ then put it back. Simple. Well, it weren’t. It cost almost two hundred dollars for a plumber to come in an’ put it all back together. Molly was really pissed.

Molly says she thinks I screw stuff up on purpose just so she won’t ask me to do nothin’.  Molly says that if that’s what I think then I have another thing comin’. We’re in this marriage together an’ I ain’t just along for the ride. I gotta get my ass in gear an’ start carryin’ my own weight. What Molly don’t realize is that her an’ me see stuff differently.  I looked at that bathroom an’ thought, “If it ain’t broke then don’t fix it.” Molly, on the other hand, looked at that bathroom an’ thought the house was gonna fall down.

I did it again. I kinda got off onto somethin’ else there. I was tellin’ you about what happened with Horace.

Anyway, like I was sayin’, Hoarse went an’ started it. I still had that feelin’ of havin’ my back against the wall an’ I just weren’t about to take no crap from Horace. Molly says that I was takin’ my frustration out on Horace ‘cause I don’t like him. Maybe, but Horace should have know better than to go an’ start somethin’.

I was fair, more than just fair. I let him get in one or two of his little digs. I just let ‘em slide right on by. I think Mike suspected that there was gonna be trouble the first time Horace mouthed off ‘cause he kinda disappeared behind me. After the third smartassed comment I’d been pushed too far, I weren’t gonna take no more of his shit. I told him that at least was wearin’ boxers an’ I weren’t a crossdressin’ closet flit that wears women's pink panties. That probably weren’t the nicest thing to say ‘cause it had only been a few months since his son was booted outta the army for doing inappropriate stuff on account of him bein’ gay.

Evidently, that musta pushed one of Horace’s buttons ‘cause he gave me a shove so I let him have it. It was just a quick poke in the nose with the left an’ followed by a pretty solid right to the jaw. It was a pleasure seein’ them beady rat eyes roll up into his head. Before he hit the floor Mike had me by the arms an’ was holdin’ me back so I didn’t go after him some more.

“You’re fired!” Horace hollered as he was scramblin’ like some damn spider to get to his feet.

I looked him straight in the eye an’ said, “Kiss my ass, Horace.  Mr. Tilley is the only one that can fire me. ”  

He wiped his bloody nose with the back of his hand an’ smiled.  “No, you can kiss my ass!” he says an’ laughs. “Mr. Tilley left for his annual month vacation to Florida last Friday.  He left running the shop to me. Until he comes back from his vacation you’re fired. You’re fired and you’re fucked!”

There weren’t no doubt about it. I was definitely gonna deck him again but Mike knew it was comin’. He twisted me around an’ got me outside before I went an’ did somethin’ Molly says I would have regretted. Molly says it’s one of the nicest things what Mike has ever went an’ done for me. Perhaps she’s right, but I really wanted to pop Horace again.

When we got outside Mike asked why the hell I had to go an’ do that an’ told me to calm down. He told me that poppin’ Horace in the face like that was a really stupid thing to do. I was supposed to go straight home an’ not to do nothin’ else stupid. I know now that he was sayin’ this stuff to calm me down but gettin’ right in my face an’ tellin’ me I was stupid when I was feelin’ like I had my against the was goin’ about it all wrong. An’, since I couldn’t pop Horace in the face I popped Mike instead.

CHAPTER FOUR

 

There are times, like I told you before, when nothin’ seems to go right, when every time you take a step you step in somethin’ nasty. Times when stuff starts to happen an’ you don’t got no control over any of it. I ain’t just talkin’ about the feelin’ you get when you’re on the butt end of a practical joke. You know, when everybody is laughin’ at you an’ you’re havin’ a real difficult time seein’ any humor in the situation at all. What I’m talkin’ about is the gut feelin’ you get when stuff is goin’ on an’ you ain’t gettin’ a fair shake.

Molly says it’s my own fault ‘cause I let stuff happen. It wouldn’t be like that if I just took charge once in a while. Molly says I need to have real obtainable short-term goals an’ go after ‘em. I suppose she’s right. I gotta admit that I do get all fired up after one of our little pep talks. But, it don’t take long, maybe a couple of days, an’ I start slippin’. After a week or so stuff starts to happen an’ it’s not all my fault.

I know I shouldn’t have punched Mike in the mouth. I knew it was wrong right after I did it. An’, if I would have thought about it at all before I went an’ did it I would have realized it was wrong then an’ I wouldn’t have done it at all. If I could go back, I’d shake his hand an’ tell ‘em thanks for gettin’ me out of there an’ tryin’ to talk some sense into me. Molly says that’s way life is, you go forward ‘cause you can’t go back.

There ain’t nobody what appreciates bein’ punched in the mouth. It’s especially frustratin’ for a guy to be punched in the mouth by his best buddy so I can’t say that I blame Mike for gettin’ mad an’ doin’ what he did, but I just weren’t myself. Mike should have known that I weren’t actin’ normal. I mean I weren’t even actin’ what Molly would say was normal for me. The thing was, I weren’t even mad at Mike. I was plenty mad at Horace an’ I was pissed at life in general ‘cause of how stuff kept happenin’.

See, Horace had me over a barrel. He knew it an’ I knew it. The son-of-a-bitch had gone an’ set me up an’ I fell for it hook, line, an’ sinker.  Every year Mr. Tilley goes to Florida on vacation for a month. He always goes at the end of the first full week in February an’ when he’s gone Horace runs the shop for him.  Durin’ the month Mr. Tilley is in Florida Horace is all over me like lipstick on a hooker. He rides me up one wall an’ down another tryin’ to make me quit or, at least, to give him some reason to fire me. Durin’ the month Mr. Tilley is gone I pretty much gotta tow the line. That is, I tow it up until the week before Mr. Tilley comes back.

It’s a little game that I’ve been playin’ with Horace for the last five years or so. The week before Mr. Tilley comes back I mouth off or intentionally do somethin’ to make him fire me.  That way I can get a week off knowin’ full well that I can come back to work the followin’ Monday. I just gotta go into the office an’ talk to Mr. Tilley. I tell him that Horace is out to get me ‘cause I was the one what saved him when he was chokin’. Mr. Tilley smiles an’ tells me that he remembers what happened an’ he remembers what he said an’ that I gotta get my ass to work.

This year Horace had gone an’ set me up. He went an’ played it cool for a few days after Mr. Tilley left an’ ‘cause I had so much stuff happenin’ I went an’ forgot all about him bein’ gone. Usually, Horace comes out an’ announces it, like he’s God until Mr. Tilley comes back from Florida. He had apparently become wise to what I was doin’. He was lookin’ to get somethin’ on me so he could fire me right away. Instead of gettin’ a week off I had to go home an’ tell Molly that I was fired almost four weeks.

I gotta tell you that I weren’t none to thrilled about goin’ home an’ tellin’ Molly we weren’t gonna get to spend my next three paychecks an’ then some. Molly was definitely gonna be mad. She was gonna be pissed an’, there weren’t no doubt in my mind, she was gonna be swearin’ at me. I was gonna hear all about how damn irresponsible I am, how damn broke we was ‘cause it was just after Christmas, an’ I was gonna hear how bad I needed to get my damn head outta my damn ass. She was gonna tell me how hard she tried, how hard she worked, an’ it was all ‘cause she wanted a better damn life for us. Molly was gonna tell me that it was all my fault. It was all my fault ‘cause stuff was happenin’ ‘cause I let it happen. She was gonna make me feel like I didn’t give a damn about how hard she worked or what she wanted. An’ this was exactly what I was thinkin’ as I was lookin’ down at Mike.

Like I said, I knew what I did was wrong right away an’ I wanted to tell him I was sorry for punchin’ him in the mouth an’ explain it to him. You know, explain to him that I weren’t really mad at him at all. I wanted to tell him that stuff was happenin’ to me an’ I were havin’ a little trouble copin’ with all of it. I knew if I explained it he’d understand but I couldn’t. My thoughts were movin’ way too fast for me to turn ‘em into words that would make sense.

I just left Mike sittin’ there rubbin’ his jaw. I just turned an’ walked away. I figured whatever I could make come outta my mouth weren’t gonna make no sense so why even bother to say anythin’ if it weren’t gonna make no sense. I could always talk to him later. You know, wait until I had a better grip on what was goin’ on an’ then explain it to him as best I could.  Since Mike was my oldest an’ best buddy I was pretty sure he’d understand. Mike an’ me have been buddies for a long time an’ he had to know it weren’t like me to be punchin’ nobody in the face, even Horace, but especially him.

A couple of seconds later Mike called out to me an’ I stopped an’ started to turn around.  The next thing I know is I’m layin’ on the ground in two inches of slush an’ I’m feelin’ like somebody had gone an’ whacked me up along side of my head with a Louisville Slugger. My ear was ringin’ real bad. I layed there for moment, just waitin, knowin’ just how bad I was gonna feel when it finally started to hurt.  You know, there’s always the brief instant between doin’ somethin’ to hurt yourself an’ when you actually feel it. I got knocked off my feet pretty hard so I knew it was gonna hurt an awful lot. I knew that when it finally started to hurt my ear was gonna feel like it was on fire an’, at the same time, I could feel slush packed inside it.  There was more slush slidin’ down inside my shirt collar an’ I didn’t give a shit. I didn’t give a shit about nothin’.

There was a strange calm that came over me while I was layin’ there by the side of the road in pain. I realized that Mike had thrown an’ hit me right in the ear with a slushball an’ I didn’t care. It didn’t matter. Nothin’ mattered ‘cause, all of a sudden, nothin’ made no sense at all. I’d never ever felt like that before an’ it was a scary feelin’ that way.

Mike was my buddy.  He saw where he hit me an’ he saw me go down an’ he came runnin’.  He asked me if I was okay, helped me up, an’ he brushed the slush off me.  He said he was sorry an’ that he called out to me to get me to duck. He didn’t want me to stop an’ turn around an’ get hit with the slushball. He said somethin’ about Molly an’ a million other things but he was talkin’ way too fast an’ I had no idea what he was tryin’ to tell me. I just told him I was all right even though I weren’t.

See, I weren’t all right ‘cause now this had to go an’ happen. It was like havin’ to go home an’ tell Molly about gettin’ my ass fired for almost four weeks weren’t bad enough. It weren’t bad enough that Molly had drove me crazy about the damn silk boxers for weeks. It weren’t enough that the day before the whole damn town was laughin’ at me ‘cause of them silk boxers an’ me sproutin’ a woody durin’ an armed robbery. An’, it weren’t bad enough that Molly was gonna think I let her down again ‘cause all of it was my fault. Mike had to go an’ cap off the whole damn thing by tryin’ to knock my head off with a damn slushball.

I never said nothin’ else to Mike, I just walked away. I knew whatever came outta my mouth was gonna make even less sense than it was before I got hit. Like I said, I was feelin’ like nothin’ made no sense.

My lawyer says that I might have to tell in court all about the slushball thing. He says he has a doctor who’ll testify that I probably had a concussion an’ some subdura-somethin’-or-other. An’, of course, he wants me to tell the trauma of bein’ a victim of an armed robbery, a crime where my life was in jeopardy. I don’t think I’m gonna say anythin’ about that. I just don’t think it’s necessary to tell a court, so it can become a permanent public record, the story of my black silk boxers with the big red hearts an’ my woody.

Like I said, I just walked away. As I was walkin’ I remember thinkin’ how my legs an’ arms didn’t feel right. It was like they were there but not really there. Molly says that I should have had a headache but I don’t really remember havin’ one. I had that damn ringin’ in my ear an’ my hands an’ feet felt like they were numb but that’s all I remember. More than likely I had a headache an’ I just don’t remember. I mean, it takes a pretty good smack to knock a person off their feet.  

Mike walked with me for a little while. All the time he was talkin’ an’ I couldn’t make a lick of sense out of nothin’ he was sayin’. I caught a few words here an’ there like: stupid thing, Molly, home, an’ relax. I put it together later. Mike was tellin’ me that I had went an’ done somethin’ stupid an’ that I needed to go home to Molly an’ tell her what I’d done. An’ that I needed to relax. It weren’t all that damn complicated but it didn’t make no sense at all to me at the time.  

Besides, all that stuff was easy for Mike to say. He weren’t the one that went an’ got his ass fired. He also weren’t the one who had to go home an’ tell Molly. An’, as bad as stuff was, I knew that I had to be the one that told Molly. If Molly heard it from anybody else then it was gonna be a lot worse. The thing was I knew what a job it was gonna be tellin’ Molly.

Explainin’ somethin’ to Molly is anythin’ but simple for me ‘cause Molly an’ me play this stupid little game. I start out by tellin’ her somethin’ an’ if it’s somethin’ stupid that I went an’ done then Molly gets pissed pretty quick. When Molly gets pissed the game starts. See, she stops me in the middle an’ asks questions an’ it don’t matter if I’m on a roll or not. I just gotta answer the questions an’ I don’t never get to fill in none of the details so Molly don’t get the whole story. Molly says it ‘cause I ramble. Molly says that she just wants the headlines an’ if she wants the details then she’ll get the newspaper tomorrow an’ read ‘em from an unbiased opinion. Sometimes I really don’t appreciate Molly’s sense of humor.

I want you to know that this time I didn’t digress. I told you that stuff ‘cause I wanted you to know how I was feelin’. But, to understand how I was feelin’ you had to know what I had to look forward to when I told Molly what had happened. See, Molly was gonna get pissed right away ‘cause I was fired for almost four weeks an’ she wasn’t gonna be willin’ to hear nothin’ else. I weren’t gonna get the chance to tell her how stuff just kept happenin’ an’ I weren’t handlin’ it well. Molly was just gonna want the headlines. I really, really needed to tell her that somethin’ was wrong. I knew I weren’t gonna be able to explain it to her but I was gonna try. I also knew that I weren’t gonna be able to tell her enough before she got even more pissed an’ then I’d just have to give up. Molly says that I should have just went home, sat her down, an’ told her. You know, made her listen. Molly knows better than that. Stuff don’t work that way between Molly an’ me. It’s not that simple.  

Anyway, like I was sayin’, I was walkin’ back to the truck an’ I was beginnin’ to get cold. It felt like it was twenty degrees colder than the weatherman promised it was gonna be. I suppose it weren’t really that much colder but ‘cause I was all wet from layin’ in the slush it made me feel like it was. There weren’t no part of me that weren’t feelin’ cold but it didn’t matter ‘cause I was still feelin’ real confused an’, like I already told you, I didn’t give a shit about nothin’.

When I got to the truck I got in an’ I just sat there for a while. I didn’t do nothin’, I just sat there. Molly says that I was thinkin’ up excuses. She thinks I was tryin’ to find ways what I could blame somebody else so I didn’t have to take responsibility for what I’d gone an’ done. She might be right but I don’t remember thinkin’ about makin’ up excuses. The only thing I remember thinkin’ about was how all this stuff what was happenin’ to me. I had all this stuff happenin’ an’ I didn’t know what to do to make it stop. I kept hopin’ that it was all just a very bad dream an’ that I was gonna wake up an’ it’d be over.

At that moment I felt pretty bad. I didn’t think there were nothin’ else what could possibly happen that could make my life any worse. I was feelin’ so confused an’ frustrated an’ stuff just kept on happenin’ to make me even more an’ more confused an’ frustrated. I didn’t even feel like I could make Molly, the one person in this world that is most important to me, understand. I was beginnin’ to feel like I had my shoulders pressed as tight against the wall as they could get. I startin’ to fell like I was gettin’ pissed. So, I think maybe I was sittin’ there in the truck just so I could have a few minutes alone.

I miss that sometimes. You know, havin’ time alone. When I was a kid I was left alone all the time. I have a brother an’ a sister but they’re a lot older. An’, by the time I started to get old enough to know what was goin’ on they were old enough to be doin’ stuff they didn’t want me knowin’ about. So, they left me alone. My mom was always workin’ an’ my dad was always off doin’ whatever it was he used to do. My grandfather passed away when I was kindergarden an’ so I got used to bein’ alone. An’, lookin’ back I don’t think that was a bad thing.

Stuff was simple back then. Everybody was so busy doin’ what they were doin’ that I got left alone. It didn’t matter to nobody what I did as long as I didn’t get into no trouble. For the most part, I didn’t hardly never get into no trouble. I did stupid kid stuff what all boys do. An’, except for that time I lit that firecracker off in my bedroom an’ caught the drapes on fire, nobody cared much where I was or what I was doin’. For a while after I nearly burned the house down they all kept a pretty close eye on me, but not for long.  

It ain’t like that now. Everythin’ is so damn complicated. An’, people gotta go an’ make stuff a lot more complicated than what it’s gotta be. People gotta study an’ analyze everythin’. Hell, it’s gotten so bad you’re afraid to do somethin’ nice for somebody an’ help ‘em out ‘cause, more times than not, they gotta go twist it all around. Before you know it they’re thinkin’ that you want somethin’ from ‘em. Molly says that’s life an’ that I’m here for the duration so I just gotta accept it. I suppose she’s right but it don’t mean I gotta like it.

I was real mad at the doctor, the polish guy whose name sounds like Buttski, ‘cause he didn’t help much. Some wonderful damn healer he turned out to be. A real medicine man, if you catch my drift. He went an’ gave me tranquilizers ‘cause he was afraid I was tryin’ to hurt myself. Bullshit! Sure, I was pissed at the world. I would have been perfectly willin’ to be off livin’ on some deserted island livin’ like Robinson What’s-his-name but I weren’t tryin’ to do nothin’ except catch a break. Molly says they were all concerned ‘cause I weren’t actin’ like myself. Well, if they wanted me sedated then they should have left me to do it myself an’ let me get good an’ drunk. As for hurtin’ myself, well, that thought never even entered my head.

Jez, I did it again. If Molly was here an’ listenin’ to me tellin’ this she’d be laughin’ her ass off. She has developed this habit of lettin’ me ramble until she thinks I don’t remember what I was talkin’ about. Then she starts laughin’ ‘cause she can’t hold it in no more. She stops after a little while an’ asks if I might have digressed. After a few more snickers she’ll ask if I remember what I was talkin’ about. I gotta admit there are a lot of times that I don’t. But, this is one of them times I do. I was tellin’ you about sittin’ in the truck.

I don’t remember how long I sat there in the truck. An’, I don’t remember startin’ it nor drivin’ the truck neither. All I can tell you is that one minute I was sittin’ in the truck in the parkin’ lot at work an’ the next minute, when I looked up, I was sittin’ in the truck in front of the bar.    

Molly says that she don’t believe that part an’ that I went to the bar on purpose. She thinks I went to drink a few glass of liquid courage before I came home with my tail between my legs. Anythin’ is possible an’, like I already said, Molly is usually right but I don’t think I agree with her on this. I don’t think that were the case at all but I don’t know for sure. I don’t remember what my thoughts were ‘cause I don’t even remember goin’ there. I just remember lookin’ up an’ bein’ there. 

Anyway, I went into the bar. I don’t know why I went an’ did that neither. If I had to do it over I know it ain’t somethin’ I would do again. All I can say is that I just weren’t thinkin’ straight. I knew if I walked into the bar Trish would see me, draw a glass of draft, an’ she’d sit it on the bar for me. An’, I’d sit wherever she sits my beer an’ I talk to whoever it is I’m gonna be sittin’ next to. Trish is an ol’ girl but she’s a damn fine barmaid. When she knows you’re gonna be anchored there for a while an’ you’re finishin’ up that last swallow of beer she’s right there with a fresh one before you can sit the empty one down.

I dunno why I always sit where Trish puts my glass. I suppose it’s ‘cause I don’t mind sittin’ next to nobody an’ I don’t mind talkin’ to ‘em neither.  Fortunately, the bar is an outta-the-way neighborhood place an’ we don’t hardly never get no strangers. I’ve been goin’ in there since I was sixteen so I pretty much know everybody what goes there an’ they all know me.  The only one that bothers me at all is ol’ Greenteeth, Jim.

Jim is the crazy ol’ guy that lives three house down from Molly an’ me. Sometimes he’s okay, he says really smart stuff that is kinda wise an’ profound an’ he shocks the shit outta people. Most of the time, though, the stuff he says is really off the wall an’ don’t make no sense at all an’ sometimes that shocks the shit outta people too. But, nobody don’t never get him goin’ ‘cause on the off chance they’ll hit him in one of his good spells an’ he’ll make ‘em look like an ass. That ain’t why he bugs me though. It’s his teeth, they’re green.

I know it ain’t polite but it drives me nuts. I can’t take it. All I can do is look at them teeth when he’s talkin’ an’ it don’t take long an’ my stomach starts to turn. Then, I get to imaginin’ what it must feel like when he rubs that ol’ gray tongue across ‘em an’ all of a sudden my beer don’t taste so good no more. There’s been more than one occasion when I left a half of a a glass of beer on the bar an’ went home to Molly ‘cause I was afraid I was gonna be sick on account of ol’ Jim an’ his green teeth.

Once in a while Trish sits my beer down over on the far corner an’ I can watch the young guys play darts. It’s fun watchin’ ‘em. I thought about buyin’ a set of darts for a while. I even worked out a plan. I’d slide a few drafts on my tab an’ stash the beer money Molly gives me. Well, actually Molly says it’s lunch money but that’s not important. In a few weeks I would have had enough for one of the cheap sets they got in the case behind the bar. Of course the down side was havin’ to get Molly to come in an’ pay off the tab for me. She’d be mad as a wet hen but I could get a set of darts.  

I was ready to start doin’ it until one day after work I sat down there an’ watched them kids play. I decided that it just weren’t worth it. I mean pissin’ Molly off was one thing but lookin’ like a fool in front of the kids by tryin’ to play darts with ‘em was another. It seemed kinda silly after I thought about it some more an’ I decided to forget the whole idea of gettin’ my own set of darts. Besides, the bar got darts what you can borrow if you wanna play. Every once in a while Mike an’ me goes on there in a Saturday afternoon an’ we play a few games if the kids ain’t there. Mike usually always wins. Sometimes he’s a pal an’ lets me win, but never when we’re playin’ for money.     

I can remember walkin’ into the bar as plain as anythin’ I ever done. I gotta admit, though, it was special. Molly says that I got what I deserved an’ that I should have known better in the first place. But, like I said, I just weren’t thinkin’ straight.