Nowadays I don’t expect too much. She doesn’t ask me to read her stuff any more. I get up and go to work, have a few beers with the boys afterwards. I come in and go in there and peck her on the cheek, then find my supper in the microwave and punch the button to start it. I might have a beer or two after supper, or read a little. I love her is the thing. I’ve tried to stop loving her, I’ve even tried seeing other women, but it never did feel right, so I quit it.

Sometimes she’ll surprise me. She’ll have a big candlelit dinner fixed, or step into the shower with me when I’m least expecting it. I don’t know where this writing thing came from or what caused it, but it’s a part of her now, like her arms or her face. Success for her isn’t a matter of if any more. It’s just a matter of when.

Once in a while, just for fun, I pull out “The Hunchwoman of Cincinnati” and read it. It’s got to be the worse damn thing I’ve ever read. But I’m sort of beginning to like the dog.

Wild Thing

She came into a bar I was in one night and she took a stool. I noticed the tight jeans, the long brown hair, the pretty red blouse. A woman like her, you have to notice. That’s what you’re sitting in there for.

I noticed that she looked around to see who was in the bar. There weren’t many people in there. It was early yet. So I began to wonder about her. A good-looking woman, alone in the early evening in a sort of redneck bar. I guess she felt me watching her. She turned to look at me, and she smiled for several seconds, and then she leaned over and spoke to the bartender, who soon brought her a beer.

I’d been out of things for a while. I was having trouble with my wife. One of the things that was wrong was that I was spending too many nights away from home, and it was causing fights that were hard for me to win. It’s hard to win when you don’t have right on your side. It’s hard to win when you know that your own fucking up is causing the problem.