Evelyn’s cosmetic procedures aside, there’s often rude behavior to be found outdoors at night. That’s why Big Ed, owner of Alice T’s, routinely tells the women to holler out if somethin’ ain’t right when headin’ to their cars.
Case in point, last April, Kennon Carlson was gettin’ severely crotch bit when Big Ed heard her wailin’ out back and laid wood to Gus Wilson’s head to the point where Gus walks funny and drools uncontrollably, though he proudly wears the bracelet he made from Kennon’s snatch hair he picked from his teeth. Durin’ argument season, Big Ed points to Gus’s bracelet as proof Kennon ain’t a natural redhead.
Sometimes the menfolk show up with their wives and kids in tow. Mostly these wives regard me with mistrust, like maybe they think I’m gonna steal their warts and mustaches or somethin’. While some of the kids are cute in an Easter Island statue sort of way, an outsized number of them walk around town with a mutant, Children of the Corn look about them.
What I’m really sayin’, I don’t want to wind up like the people I wait on.
I’m still livin’ in the house I grew up in. A house so sorry you can fling a cat through any wall without touchin’ wood.
I want out. Want to get the hell out of town before the next bad thing happens, which is why I’m payin’ middlin’ attention to the nicely-dressed doctor at table sixteen on the far side of the room. I’m allowin’ him to flirt with me, though he’s not much good at it.
Partly it’s his age, which makes him automatically sound lame when he talks.
How old is he? Forty, at least. Maybe more.
Reason I know he’s a doctor, it’s the first thing he said when I brought the menu.
I said, “Hi, I’m Trudy. I’ll be your waitress tonight, if that’s all right with you.”
He said, “Hello, Trudy. I’m Dr. Gideon Box, from New York City.”
“Really?” I said. “What kind of doctor are you?”
“I’m a world-famous cardiothoracic surgeon,” he said, proud as punch.
“I guess you got Doc Blanchard beat six ways to Sunday,” I said.
“Is that your general practitioner?”
“Yeah, but his degree is in veterinary medicine.”
“You can’t be serious,” he said.
I asked, “Do you have business at the county hospital, or you just passin’ through?”
He smiled a goofy grin and said, “That sort of depends on you.”
“Me?”
“I notice you’re not wearing a wedding ring.”
I said, “Neither are you.”
Then he looked me up and down and said, “I’ve met five women prettier than you.”
Like I said, he’s not very smooth. But I took it as a compliment since his eyes seemed to find a home in my boobs.
We spoke some words durin’ the drink order, and durin’ the drink bringin’, and the food order, the food bringin’, and now he’s stallin’, tryin’ to see if his charm’s workin’ on me.
I can’t decide if he’s interested in a relationship, or just lookin’ to get laid and move along.
If he’s truly interested in me, I’ll have to sort out my feelin’s for him.
On the one hand, he reeks of money, which makes him rarer in this town than a freshly-wiped ass. On the other, while he’s not even close to bein’ ugly, there’s somethin’ off-puttin in his manner.
What’s the worst that can happen by bein’ nice to him?
I’ll almost certainly get a big tip. I can live with that. In fact, he already asked, “What’s the biggest tip you ever got?”
I had to decide between tellin’ the truth and lyin’ to get more.
“Twenty dollars,” I said, stickin’ with the truth.
“That’s pitiful,” he said.
“Kennon Carlson got fifty dollars once,” I blurted out.
“Which one’s she?”
I pointed her out.
He said, “She’s cute. But she’s not in your league.”
I rewarded him with my best smile for sayin’ that.
If the worst is a good tip, what’s the best I can hope for out of this doctor?
Jury’s still out on that.
But he’s been workin’ hard these ninety minutes, struttin’ his wealth and worldly ways, flirtin’ hard, tryin’ to impress me.
It’s workin’.
I mean, I’m not stupid. He’s a man, and men want what they want. It’s a fact of life. The trick is makin’ them think that what they’re gonna get is as good as the thing they want.
It’s like that battle we studied in high school, where Robert E. Lee created a diversion. That’s what you gotta do when a superior force is about to make its move. And he’s a superior force ’cause he’s holdin’ all the cards. He’s rich, he’s worldly, he’s smart, and he’s got a car.
All I’ve got is my looks.
Around here, looks’ll get you any man you want, but Dr. Box is a famous surgeon from New York City. I read somewhere that one out of every ten thousand women is considered movie-star beautiful, and here in Frog Shit County, that’s pretty much me. But in New York City the ratio’s a hundred times higher, because women who look like movie stars don’t strive to live here.
I figure twenty thousand women in New York City are prettier and more sophisticated than me. So I’ve got to decide if what I’ve got can compete with what he can get with a phone call.
My advantage is I’m here, and they’re there.
Okay, so it’s a short-term advantage. Like a one-night-stand sort of advantage.
If this doctor’s my ticket out, I can’t let him turn me into a one-night stand.
If I let him pursue me, I’ll have to put his mind on somethin’ else. Somethin’ good enough to hold his interest, but different than what he’s hopin’ for.
2
Dr. Gideon Box.
I’m Dr. Gideon Box. Those who know me think I’m crazy.
That’s why it’s nice to get away sometimes, fly to a city I’ve never visited before, rent a car, hit the back roads, see if I can fuck a couple of the women I’ve been flirting with on social media for the past two weeks.
You do this often enough, every now and then you get a bonus.
It’s late, you’re driving, hungry. You stop at a little hole-in-the wall called Alice T’s, in Bum Fuck, Kentucky, whose sign promises “Good Country Cooking!” You go in, expecting the worst, and someone pops up right out of the blue, someone who was never on the radar, someone who turns out to be better than what you were hoping to find in Ralston, Kentucky.
Like the young waitress lingering at my table.
Trudy Lake.
“Nice watch,” Trudy says.
I glance at my wrist.
She’s right. It’s a helluva watch.
“What is it, a Rolex?”
“Piaget.”
She nods. “I like it.”
“Thanks.”
I like it, too. That’s why I stole it from Austin Devereaux while attending the party to celebrate his daughter’s
