Babydoll

When I met you, you knew exactly what you wanted. You knew exactly where I would fit.

I don't know what you thought of me the half dozen times I came into the store. You were always talking with the river guides. You were their only girl of summer.

I bought a can of beef stew. Then a pack of crackers. Then a roll of toilet paper. Then a lighter. The next day I bought a loaf of bread. Then another can of beef stew. That second can was just an excuse to see you.

You'll never read this, so I can be honest: I loved you, but I didn't think you were all that attractive. Not at first. There wasn't much else for distraction there at the Three Forks KOA.

You were drunk when you stumbled past my site.

"Nice lawn," you said, snapping your tongue on your teeth. I thought you were flirting. It was weeks before i realized you clucked like that with all your nasal stop consonants.

"Nice lawn."

I'd been on the road so long I couldn't tell ironic from wholesome. I just wanted to fuck. I wanted to fuck you.

I was sitting in a plastic chair on plastic grass. A cigarette hung limply from my lip. Tom Waits played from the trailer. And I asked if you wanted a beer.

Babydoll, you have a wonderful ass, but...well, shit, that night it could have been any girl walking by and I would've asked her to stop for a minute.

After half a bottle of Johnny Red and 3 beers, you were nothing to me but the rock of your hips and the pinch in your jeans. I don't say that to be cruel. I loved you, babydoll.

"Nice lawn."

You never liked that grass carpet outside my trailer. You thought it was ironic at first, and maybe some of it was, but irony only works if there's an audience. You can't be ironic by yourself. You thought my lawn chairs were ironic too. You talked about them as if they were allusions to something else. As if I didn't use them to sit in, but to inspire thoughts about leisure. I hated thinking about leisure. And those chairs were beautiful to me. Elegant aluminum tubes. Simple. I spent months looking in ten different states for that three tone nylon webbing. Brown, orange and cream. You thought the colors were like an affected mustache.