Look at It This Way

All he knew about Mexico was what he heard from his friend Rebecca.
She married this guy because he made her pregnant and wanted her
and the child to live with him on the army base in Fort Riley, Kansas.
Rebecca told Bobby about Tijuana and the donkey-fucking whores.
That’s where they went on the way to Kansas, a round-about way there.
Some people never know how to go straight. Ah yes, the philosopher
on the ward is in. Bobby knew nobody could know what Mexico was
if they didn’t get south of Tijuana. Rebecca said they were on their way
to Mazatlan. Bobby told Rebecca she should have finished high school.
She told him to clam up, she knew what she wanted out of this life.
As it turned out, she left the guy after she had the baby and in Seattle
raised her daughter on a waitress’s salary. He knew more than one
waitress.

Now he knew a nurse, Melindra Collins, knew her more than most.
Bobby had loved how many times? Earlene, Cathleen. At twenty-one,
his heart was just getting off the ground to soar twice and turn once
more, a third time, with this woman, Lovely, maybe like an older sister
but a wonder in the arts of bliss, the care and nurturing of another soul.
They were both growing too close to a borderline they’d never crossed.
At thirty she kept telling him she’d never known a man who never
bored her. She was afraid, though, and openly said so. She wanted him,
she knew he wanted her. That was plain, and Bobby said so straight out,
he had to tell her the truth, he was afraid, how would they go on living
once he left the ward and retrieved what was left of his scholarship . . .
She worried about him having no job. She didn’t make enough, a mere
nurse.

(16 February 2012)

copyright 2012 by Floyce Alexander