Miss Lou on Marriage

September 4, 2015

I live with my ex-husband and my daddy. Daddy be ninety soon. The ex, he is eighty, seventeen years older than me. People when they hear that say, “Oh, my.”

We got married long ago in a Baptist church, but the ex had a wild hair up his butt. I did not know there for awhile, and then the minister’s wife, she told me, “Your husband got a wild hair up his butt—somebody got to tell you.”

You know what I mean by “wild hair?” Do I need to be graphic? So I told him, “Bye-bye, dickhead.”

And twenty-three years passed. By then the woman old Dickhead catted with was dead. She had sucked him dry every which way. And then she died to spite him. I guess.

And wouldn’t you know it, he come crawlin’ back to me and Daddy. Say he is lonely; he is so sorry—the hussy just wanted his money. What money? He never held on to no money.

I let him move back in. He told people it was love, and I held my tongue—a miracle by its ownself. He tried to marry me again—Dickhead—but I done learned my lesson on that subject. He protested, said we would be livin’ in sin, and I said okay by me. In case any more wild hairs growed back up his butt.

I got the house in my name; he is ailin’, and I got power of attorney. Oh yes. My momma didn’t raise no idiots.

Mommy? I get my mouth from her. She used to sit on a barstool, call ever’body around her “Ass-bite.” “Hey, Ass-bite, how y’all?” “Oh, Ass-bite, you done made your bed, now lay in it.” “Ass-bite, you a ugly sum bitch.”

Her friends’d wait for her to go pee in the Ladies, and they’d switch her beer from Pabst to somethin’ inferior, Stag and such. She couldn’t tell no difference, always told the bartender give her half a glass a beer; she drank a lot a halves. And do not be tellin’ her that two halves make a whole.

She called me “Ass-bite.” “Ass-bite, do the dishes.” “Ass-bite, be back home by eleven.” And such. She never called Daddy “Ass-bite,” though. He’d sit and drink his full glass a beer, watch the pool players.

I cannot prove it, but I bet Daddy never spoke five hundred words his whole life. He said, “Marry me,” of course—to Mommy—and four hundred, ninety-eight other words.

Get your gal pals in one place and talk about marriage then. Mine all wish they was livin’ in sin, own the house, got power of attorney over their Dickheads.

Got my mouth from Mommy, my good looks from Daddy, my brains from my own self.

About Eugene Jones Baldwin

I am a writer: non-fiction, fiction, journalism (Alton Telegraph), essays (The Genehouse Chronicles) and have a website: eugenebaldwin.com. I've published a couple dozen short stories and had eleven plays produced. Current projects: "Brother of the Stones" (available on Kindle), a book of short stories; "The Faithful Husband of the Rain, short stories"; "A Black Soldier's Letters Home, WWII,;" "There is No Color in Justice," a commentary on racism; "Ratkillers," a new play. I am an avocational archaeologist and I take parts of my collection of several thousand Indian artifacts (personal finds) to schools, nature centers, libraries etc. and talk about the 20,000 year history of The First people in Illinois. (See link to website) I'm also a playwright (eleven plays produced), musician, historian (authority on the Underground Railroad in Illinois, the Tuskegee Airmen) and teacher.
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