I put the groceries away and took a shower and put on clean clothes. Tracey was asleep in her bed and Betty was asleep in hers. I waited until she started snoring and then I started gathering things up. I had a week’s pay in my pocket and the truck was paid for. I had the title in the glove box. I could trade it off, buy another one, whatever.

Tracey doesn’t sleep well most nights, but that night she did. She slept through Grenada, through Jackson, on through Hattiesburg. The miles piled up behind us. I knew Betty wouldn’t send anybody after us. I knew Betty would probably be relieved.

I had Myra’s number in my pocket and I thought I might call her when we got to where we were going. I thought I might wish her some luck.

The End of Romance

Miss Sheila and I were riding around, as we often did in those days. But I was pretty sure it was going to be the last afternoon of our relationship. Things hadn’t been good lately.

It was hot. We’d been drinking all day, and we’d drunk almost enough. We lacked just a little getting to a certain point. I’d already come to a point. I’d come down to the point where I could still get an erection over her, but my heart wouldn’t be going crazy and jumping up in my throat like a snake-bit frog. I wouldn’t be fearing for my life when I mounted her. I knew it was time for me to book for a fat man’s ass. She bitched about how much time I spent locked in my room, how my mother was bossy, when would I ever learn some couth? And you get them started nagging at you, you might as well be married. Well. I’d been out of women when I found her and I’d be out of women again until I found another one. But there were hundreds of other women, thousands, millions. They’d been making new ones every day for years.

“I ain’t drunk,” she said.

“Well, I’m not drunk, either.”

“You look like you are.”

“So do you.”

“You got enough money to get some more? You can take all that Nobel Prize money and get us a coupla sixers, can’t you?”

She was bad about chagrinning me like that.

“I magine I can manage it,” I said.

So she whipped it into one of those little quick-joints that are so popular around here, one of those chicken-scarfing places, whipped it up in front of the door and stopped. She stared straight ahead through the windshield. Nothing worse than a drunken woman. Empty beer cans were all piled up around our feet. The end of romance is never easy.

“What matter?” I said.

“Nuttin matter. Everything just hunkin funkin dunky.”

“You mean hunky dory?”