A Boy Named Pony - A Sequel to East West Sunset

Chapter Four - Betty

There had to be a catch - things never worked out that perfectly, right? Boys didn't usually smile at girls and make them promise not to forget their names, stop grinning when they felt that rush of something cold and hot at the same time pass through their joined hands, laugh a little at the world tumbling around them like a kaleidoscope. Boys didn't usually do any of those things without wanting something in return.

Sure, yeah - that was all I could say in the face of it. Part of me knew what was happening and didn't lift a finger; the other part decided it couldn't be true. I thought I knew everything there was to know. Love was a fickle thing, in my mind, a transaction between two partners who both needed something and didn't want to give more than they needed to. Early on, wouldn't it have been easier to have cut my losses and left him standing there, without going on and giving him too much of myself to ever get back? If love was a transaction, then I was a trader's fool - everyone knows you don't invest in stocks whose worth you know will plummet the second the winds start to blow south.

He had scars on his hands. They twined and wove around the tendons across the back of his fist, silver and pale against his rough skin. How strange that looking at that evidence of cruelty made my heart melt a little inside; how terrible that I didn't realize how dangerous he was just then.

I believed that love was a transaction. You give, he takes, he might offer just a little in return - because that was how my world made sense. That was how my fragile reality could keep on evolving. Boys didn't usually shine their hearts out through their smile without wanting something in return.

But I had just met a boy named Pony.

~~~~~

My dad paid people to take care of the lawn in the back, so that he never had to look at scraggly brown overgrowth but never had to do any of the work himself, either. Though the lawncare guys came by twice a month to spray weedkiller across the soft green carpet of grass, they had missed a spot towards the back fence. I could see the bobbing heads of banana yellow dandelions all the way from the kitchen window.

When I pointed them out to my dad, his mouth twisted deeper into a frown, as was to be expected.

"I pay how much for those people to come and spray my lawn?" he huffed. "Jesus! What good does it do?"

The Saturday morning paper lay in front of him on the kitchen table, the ink for the most part dry. I was glad for that at least; he hated getting smudges of ink on his hands, and that was sure to put him in an even worse mood. If that was even possible.

If there was one man who could find fault with a perfect September morning like this, it was my father. He worked as a teller at one of the big banks downtown, and maybe it was being stuffed into a suit jacket all day that soured his temper so. Or maybe it was having to be polite to every person who came through the bank doors, no matter how impolite they were back. I didn't know. Whatever the reason, he never could seem to have anything nice to say about anyone or anything, especially me. He was the main reason I hated Tulsa so much.

"I can go out and pull them up," I offered, nodding towards the patch of dandelions. 

"Sure. You ought to do more to pull your weight around here, anyhow." He flipped up the newspaper again, hiding himself from view, as I gritted my teeth in annoyance.

"I suppose there's still dishes to do from last night?"

"I sure as hell didn't do them. You're the lady of the house."

"Yeah, sure am," I muttered.

"Don't give me sass, Betty. Just go and pull out those damn weeds since you said you would."