Diary of a Dirty Cowboy

Chapter Six

July 3rd, 2005

Dear Jesse,

Mama practically had to drag my ass out of bed with the tractor this morning. She said I smelled like the inside of a whiskey barrel and looked like I'd slept under the doghouse.

You know what that means. I had to go to church with her.

She gave me the famous temperance lecture about the "evils of liquor and loose women" at full, head-pounding volume, then she spit-shined my face and threw me into my scratchiest Sunday suit.

I swear to Christ, Reverend Buchler on a hangover is hell on earth. With my ears ringing and the whole chapel spinning like a carnival ride, his fire and brimstone sermon battered my eardrums and burned in my rebellious gut.

Now I remember why I haven't had a sip of liquor since freshman year, since that time you and Clay took me out on a turkey shoot and made me drink a whole fifth of Jack Daniels by myself.

If I remember correctly, Mama made the two of you suffer almost as much as I did for that little stunt.

The floor of ol' Abner's chicken house was the cleanest in the state! Clay still don't eat chicken. The smell alone makes him gag.

So last night I tied one on, in case you hadn't already picked up on that. I stayed late for the bonfire after the fireworks.

The football team tapped a coupla kegs and everybody was passin' bottles of Jack and Jose around, hangin' real loose and easy. Glory and Presley were makin' out with the guys on the team (and sometimes each other.)

Glory's a wild one lately, brother. She took it real hard when you died. I think she's trying to keep from getting hurt, acting like that. She doesn't have time to get close to any of the guys she dates, she get rid of them so fast it's almost a revolving door at her place. I feel real bad for her, I can tell she feels like me, just... lost without you around. She's mad too. Mad at life for taking you away.

Savannah was stuck to Clay like a fly to honey. He was sorta trying to shake her, but not very hard. I think he's a little soft on her. He wasn't paying much attention to anyone else.

Lorelei was there, trying to keep her baby sister Bonnie out of the beer.

That asshole Tommy Francis kept trying to get Bonnie away from the fire and Lorelei was getting madder every minute.

She couldn't ask me to take care of Bonnie for her, knowing how she is, so she asked me to take care of Tommy.

Christ, what am I? His fuckin' babysitter? I couldn't handle him sober, so I got him drunk. The only way to get him drunk is to try to out-drink him, so there I was, parked underneath the keg, slurping up jello shots and tipping back the foam with Tommy Fucking Francis.

Bonnie finally got a ride home, but I was in no shape to drive after the party.

Lorelei owed me, since I took her home from the Cineplex. She collected me out from under the keg and poured me into the backseat of the car somehow. I don't even want to know what I said while she was doing it.

I might've told her I loved her, for all I know. I just hope I didn't ask her to eat my corndog.

She propped me in the swing on the front porch and drove the Pony on home.

I guess the good Reverend figured out what happened last night because he kept catching my eye and wagging his finger at me, while he hollered about the lake of fire. I guess he couldn't have missed that shiny red Mustang in his driveway. I can't blame Lorelei for telling him the truth, but he might've felt a little different about it if he knew I done it to protect his baby daughter's virtue.

Mama was laughing under her breath the whole time. She kept pinching me whenever I tried to close my eyes for a minute, and plucked a sawbuck outta my wallet and dropped in the collection plate right under my nose.

Well, Reverend Buchler can use it to buy some new communion wine 'cause the swill he's serving is vile.

I'm going back to bed and sleep this shit off.

Stay loose, Jesse.

* * * *

July 7th, 2005

Dear Jesse,

Lorelei and I went out to Miss Cassy's ranch this afternoon and cleaned up brush for her.

She had her hip replaced last week, and the church ladies got together and promised their kids would do the hard work around the house for a while.

I'm not complaining, mind you. It's just that some of that work ain't been done in years, bad hip or no.

The fence around her yard was plum grown over with tangle-vines and thorns. She sat up on the porch with a big pitcher of tea while we worked, and bitched about what a crummy job I was doing.

I guess she's just cranky 'cause her hip hurts, but I wasn't feeling very charitable after that, and I might've torn out some lilac and honeysuckle, too, without noticing.

Lorelei was painting the rail and posts around the porch. She was wearing her cut-offs with a man's shirt, rolled up at the cuffs. She tied it in a knot around her waist and put a hankie over her hair to keep the paint off.

Miss Cassy was nice as pie to Lorelei, offering her tea and telling her to rest a spell if she got too hot.

That would've been enough to send me packing, but Lorelei brought me a glass of tea and plopped down in the shade with me for a little while.

There wasn't anything that old bat could say about it, since she'd offered it to Lorelei.

I was parched after an hour in that heat, and downed the whole glass in one swallow.

I was so hot I didn't think twice about ripping off my T-shirt. I dumped the ice in it and tied it in a little bundle, then plopped it on my head.

Lorelei only laughed for a minute, until she got to feelin' the heat, and then she took my ice bundle right off of my head.

I made a show of snatching it back, but I wanted to see what she would do with it more than I wanted it back.

She tipped her head forward and put it on the back of her neck first. She had the Genie ponytail in again today. I guess it's cooler that way. After she wet the back of her neck, she dragged the ice around to the front, and leaned back against the tree.

She spread her feet out for balance, and I could see the insides of her thighs.

They were paler than the rest of her legs, but smooth and supple. I could tell they were soft, like rose petals. I could almost feel them under my fingers.

She let the ice melt on her neck and the water trickled down into the vee between her breasts. The shirt wasn't buttoned up, just tied, and she wasn't wearing a bra at all.

Her shirt got a little wet and I could see her nipples through the fabric, dark and small.

She squeezed a little water out of the T-shirt onto her hands, and rubbed it on her legs.

I could see a little damp patch forming in the front of her shorts, from the water running down her front. I thought about pressing her down in the shade of the tree and lapping the cool water from her skin.

When she rubbed ice water on the insides of her thighs, her fingers brushed up underneath her shorts a few times, and I could tell she was really enjoying herself.

I wasn't getting any cooler watching her, but I'd have given her every last piece of ice in the county just to keep her going.

Miss Cassy'd had enough of our "break," though, and started hollering about the work not doing itself.

That's not the best part, though.

Lorelei took my ice-filled T-shirt and dumped it right down her under-drawers. Then she smiled and handed it back, empty.

I'll never wash this T-shirt again.

Stay loose, Jesse.

*****