later at UW, where I met a lesbian-and-proud-of-it. Cynthia said the neat thing about being a gay freshman in the dorms was that she made all the eighteen-year-old Wyoming girls nervous so she didn’t get stuck with a roommate. I liked Cynthia; she’d have been easier to live with than that dork Lucy Jane from Thermopolis.
I asked Cynthia a series of what must have been the most naive questions in gay history: How can you enjoy it if nothing goes in anything? Does one girl pretend to be the boy and one the girl, and if so, do you switch off roles or is the boy-girl always the boy? Do lesbians have a secret signal they flash so they can recognize each other?
Cynthia was from San Diego, where she said lesbians abound, so my curiosity must have seemed like Goober gone west. She said in the long run my life would be lots happier if I turned gay, and maybe it would have, but I wasn’t born with the chemicals. I figure it’s as hard to fake you are as it is to fake you aren’t.
Even though Cynthia had only been nailed by one man—her grandfather—she knew that all men are shits. I had to get nailed by an even dozen to reach the same conclusion. Then I came home and married the biggest shit of the lot.
7
I set Sam’s tent up next to my raspberry bushes in the corner of the yard, as far from the front door and walk as I could get and not be on the neighbor’s land. The rain fly didn’t perch right because I was three stakes short on account of Johnny Jenkins’s strict definition of sharp object.
As I ditched the north end of the tent, Sugar Cannelioski came out the front door and stood on the porch with her hands on her hips. She shouted across the lawn. “What are you doing in my yard?”
“Your yard?” Sugar had fuzz on her upper lip and no breasts at all, but she compensated with this long blond hair she must have brushed six hundred strokes a day. She stood with her thumbs front and fingers back like city women do the hands-on-the-hips thing. Anyone who’s used to wearing jeans does it the other way around.
“You heard me, get off my yard before I call Dothan. Scat.”
I put my hands on my hips the way you’re supposed to. “Come out and make me, you slimy bitch.”
She didn’t move. “I’m gonna call the police first, then Dothan.”
I took one step forward and she took one step back. “Does your yard come with my husband and my child?”
Sugar’s perky face went smug. Nobody liked her; she’d made a career of looking smug at women and stealing men. “Me and Dothan have a trial marriage, and yes, his child is part of it. You’ve messed that baby up but good, Maurey. It might take me weeks to straighten him out.”
I pulled Charley from my windbreaker and pointed him at her tiny tits. “Bring me my son or I’ll kill you.”
Sugar laughed. “You got no bullets. Johnny wouldn’t sell you bullets.”
I pulled the trigger and made a harmless click. To myself I said, “God, I hate this town.” To Sugar I said, “I don’t need bullets to stuff this gun up your ass.” I took three quick steps toward the porch and Sugar scooted back inside.
***
Dothan must have moved fast to bring in a replacement babysitter/whore in less than a week. Or maybe it’d been planned all along. I’d been fairly sure he was nailing Sugar Cannelioski—hell, everyone else who cheated on his wife did. Dothan didn’t have the imagination to nail someone original.
Sugar had been the town tramp ever since she was sixteen and ran off to Idaho Falls to marry a marine. He got himself killed rolling a Jeep off Teton Pass. People said they were fighting over her morals and Sugar grabbed the wheel. Whatever happened, the boy was killed and Sugar came out with a VA survivors’ pension.
A year later she seduced and married her sister’s boyfriend. That marriage lasted a month, long enough for her sister to gain forty pounds and the former boyfriend, now husband, to lose his religion and thirty-five percent of all
I asked Cynthia a series of what must have been the most naive questions in gay history: How can you enjoy it if nothing goes in anything? Does one girl pretend to be the boy and one the girl, and if so, do you switch off roles or is the boy-girl always the boy? Do lesbians have a secret signal they flash so they can recognize each other?
Cynthia was from San Diego, where she said lesbians abound, so my curiosity must have seemed like Goober gone west. She said in the long run my life would be lots happier if I turned gay, and maybe it would have, but I wasn’t born with the chemicals. I figure it’s as hard to fake you are as it is to fake you aren’t.
Even though Cynthia had only been nailed by one man—her grandfather—she knew that all men are shits. I had to get nailed by an even dozen to reach the same conclusion. Then I came home and married the biggest shit of the lot.
7
I set Sam’s tent up next to my raspberry bushes in the corner of the yard, as far from the front door and walk as I could get and not be on the neighbor’s land. The rain fly didn’t perch right because I was three stakes short on account of Johnny Jenkins’s strict definition of sharp object.
As I ditched the north end of the tent, Sugar Cannelioski came out the front door and stood on the porch with her hands on her hips. She shouted across the lawn. “What are you doing in my yard?”
“Your yard?” Sugar had fuzz on her upper lip and no breasts at all, but she compensated with this long blond hair she must have brushed six hundred strokes a day. She stood with her thumbs front and fingers back like city women do the hands-on-the-hips thing. Anyone who’s used to wearing jeans does it the other way around.
“You heard me, get off my yard before I call Dothan. Scat.”
I put my hands on my hips the way you’re supposed to. “Come out and make me, you slimy bitch.”
She didn’t move. “I’m gonna call the police first, then Dothan.”
I took one step forward and she took one step back. “Does your yard come with my husband and my child?”
Sugar’s perky face went smug. Nobody liked her; she’d made a career of looking smug at women and stealing men. “Me and Dothan have a trial marriage, and yes, his child is part of it. You’ve messed that baby up but good, Maurey. It might take me weeks to straighten him out.”
I pulled Charley from my windbreaker and pointed him at her tiny tits. “Bring me my son or I’ll kill you.”
Sugar laughed. “You got no bullets. Johnny wouldn’t sell you bullets.”
I pulled the trigger and made a harmless click. To myself I said, “God, I hate this town.” To Sugar I said, “I don’t need bullets to stuff this gun up your ass.” I took three quick steps toward the porch and Sugar scooted back inside.
***
Dothan must have moved fast to bring in a replacement babysitter/whore in less than a week. Or maybe it’d been planned all along. I’d been fairly sure he was nailing Sugar Cannelioski—hell, everyone else who cheated on his wife did. Dothan didn’t have the imagination to nail someone original.
Sugar had been the town tramp ever since she was sixteen and ran off to Idaho Falls to marry a marine. He got himself killed rolling a Jeep off Teton Pass. People said they were fighting over her morals and Sugar grabbed the wheel. Whatever happened, the boy was killed and Sugar came out with a VA survivors’ pension.
A year later she seduced and married her sister’s boyfriend. That marriage lasted a month, long enough for her sister to gain forty pounds and the former boyfriend, now husband, to lose his religion and thirty-five percent of all
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