That Horrible Mouth of Yours

FOURTEEN

Devil's Lake, North Dakota. October 12, 1975. 1: 07 AM.

"Should we talk?" Dale calls out from across the bar.

The last customer had just left, and we were shutting the place down. I was wiping down tables, and Dale was restocking the bar.

I had kept my distance all night, unsure of how to handle the situation.

"What is there to talk about?" I look up and lean my elbows on the table.

Dale does the same and gives me an exasperated look. We stand there, staring at each other from across the bar.

"I don't know. What is this? What are we doing? I like you, Marty. I've liked you since the day you first walked through those doors, asking for a job, looking like a lost deer, stuck in the headlights."

"Well, why would you do that? I'm sure there are plenty of other nice girls that wouldn't mind a second glance from you," I try not to sound so flippant, but I'm at war with myself. On one hand, Dale is the perfect guy for me: nondescript, hardworking, and sweet. On the other, Clement was the one and only love of my life, and I was breaking his heart.

Dale comes around the bar and stands five feet in front of me, staring me down.

"I don't want a nice girl, I want you. Something about you just draws me in, like a magnet."

"So what, now I'm not a nice girl?"

There it is, in the back of my mind. Eddie's voice.

"That don't match unless your a hooker."

"So what, now I'm a hooker?"

I remember his words exactly like he was standing in front of me.

"Well, darlin', you too ripe and you're mouth's too big!"

Maybe he was right. Or maybe he just knew girls like me.

Dale still stood in front of me, searching for an apology.

"It's fine. Because you're right, Dale. I'm not a nice girl. I'm mean. I'm a mean girl, a liar, a cheater," my voice cracks as I utter those words, the weight of last night settling on me. "I'm a horrible person."

Tears almost form big drops in my eyes before Dale put his hands on both sides of my face.

"Hey," his low, quiet voice comforts me, "you're not a horrible person. You've just had some really shitty things happen to you."

His hands, though not much bigger than mine, are strong, and his sturdy, muscular frame suddenly seems safer than Clement's lanky limbs. My body folds into his, and I feel protected.

"Why me?" I stutter into the fabric of his liquor-soaked shirt, "why did all the bad things have to happen to me? I had plans, I was gonna do something with my life."

I look up at Dale's face: kind, earnest, good looking, there's nothing about him that stands out. He looks like your average hardworking American, he's the perfect man you would start a family with, and fade into the background like everyone else. I rest one hand on his face and bring him closer for one long kiss. In an instant I'm straddling him, my hands gripping at every inch of him, surely leaving scratches on his back. He does the same to me, leaving love bites up and down my neck, pulling on fistfuls of my long blonde hair.

................

It goes on like this for another week, Dale and I screwing behind the bar every night, and me crawling into bed next to an unsuspecting Clement, sound asleep. Sometimes I don't even go home, I just stay at Dale's house, relishing the great, normal life he lives.