After a blind date, Audrey and Hamilton find themselves falling in love with one another. Unknowingly, Hamilton was drafted, and sent out to fight in the Vietnam War. Audrey found her world spiraling out of control, with her first love on the other...
Outside on the porch was Hamilton's father, sitting in a old plaid button up, hand-me-down wranglers that where over worn, sipping his coke and "Jim Beam" whiskey.
He hollered from the porch, "alright son, days over with go shower up and come out here with me when your done."
Hamilton slams the tailgate of the truck shut. Sprinting into the house, down the hall and straight back to the bath room.
With Audrey on his mind he showered until the warm water grew cold.
Chills take over, circulation slows, lowering the oxygen in his body, narrowing the blood vessels making his feet turn purple.
Derealization sets in, as his emotions become numb.
Throwing the towel just below the abdomen, and securing it around his hips, he makes his way through the old shot gun house.
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Beads of water race down his body.
He dresses himself in boxers and pants only.
Barefooted, he makes his way to the porch. When his father opens his mouth, Mr. Jim Beam invites him to sit down first, then his father.
"Son, you can't go sticking ya' head in the sand and avoiding what's going on round ya'." His fathers says as he downs the last of his coke and whiskey.
"Pop, you don't know what you're talking about." Hamilton speaks the words as he hangs his head, just before looking back up to his father.
His father lets out a laugh, "you young bucks think you know everything."
" I seen the way that girl left out of here. I've seen your mother walk out of here that same way 15 years ago."
"Ma?" Hamilton mumbles beneath his breath.
"Your Paw was a hard man to please, he didn't think I was enough for your ma."
"Hell, son, even to this day I don't think I was enough for your ma!" His father continued.
"That woman deserved the world, the universe, and all I had to offer her was a mattress in a shitty built house, on a failing farm, in the shittest drought of the century."
"But Ma was so happy with what y'all had, with what y'all built together." Hamilton responded.
"But your Ma come from a big wig name. And being with someone like me would wreck her reputation, their reputation." His pop kept talking.
"I wanted to make her happy. That's all I ever wanted." Continuing he said,
"I tried to get away, but son, I was her happiness, it destroyed your ma when I left. I robbed her of joy."
"Ma, loved you pop!" Hamilton reassured.
"I loved your Ma. I loved her so much." tears filled his eyes beveling at the surface.
