I ordered another drink and poured it straight down my throat. That was the last of my money. I wandered out into the street, where a light rain was falling. It fell on my cap and my camouflage jacket. I held no animosity toward the lesbians. They were only having fun with one another. I went on up the street, looking for nothing in particular. Later that night I would knock a boy one hundred feet into a river, but at that moment, as I was remembering little Pancho and thinking of my daddy, and of how I was now in bars like he used to be when I was small and confused and didn’t know where he was or why he wouldn’t come home, I felt him there, deep inside my forty-year-old heart, and I knew that I was made of the same stuff as him.

The girl with the bad teeth staggered up out of the bushes, her clothes in disarray, and we smiled at each other. The rest is too bad to tell.

BIG BAD LOVE

Part I

Falling Out of Love

Sheena Baby, the one that I loved, and I were walking around. It was late one evening. All the clouds had gathered up into big marshmallows and mushrooms, and it was an evening as fine as you could ask for except that we had two flat tires on our car some miles back down the road and didn’t know where we were or who to ask. Besides this main emergency, I knew things weren’t right. We were about ready to kill one another, and I’ve spoken on this subject once before.

Sheena Baby was LOVE, a sex-kitten goddess. I’d loved her for a long time, ever since I’d gotten rid of Miss Sheila, and I felt like I’d given part of myself away. Sheena Baby didn’t hurt for me like I did for her. I knew it. I’d thought about shooting her first and me second, but that wouldn’t have done either one of us any good. It wouldn’t be nothing but a short article in some paper that strangers could read and shake their heads over, then turn to the sports. Love goes wrong. It happens every day. You don’t need to kill yourself for love if you can help it but sometimes it’s hard not to.

If we’d had inflated tires I could’ve got her off over in the woods somewhere, put some Thin Lizzy on, told her how we could work it out. Told her not only to be my baby but to be my only baby. Later, in the dark, we could have moved together. But she didn’t love me, and I could see that finally. So I decided to be real nasty to her.

I said: “You just don’t want to listen to anybody.”