SIX MONTH ONE NIGHT STAND

A lot happened that year-it was during Vietnam

I was Thurston County Dairy Princess

attending Centralia College by day and

working the 3-11 shift at the

Oregon Trail Restaurant, nights

He came to my counter

just before closing, a broad dimpled

smile on his face and said,

I need coffee…

I had just cleaned the coffee machine

but I smiled and said, it’s brewing,

As I set it up to make a new mess

for the cute guy with the dazzling smile

And what is your name? he asked

Cinderella, I said and he laughed,

a resonant belly laugh that made me

flush crimson

He plopped himself down on a stool

and smiled at me as though I were

a treasure; a girl cannot ever forget a look

like that!

He drank coffee and we talked, while

I bustled about cleaning up

You’re ending your shift, he noted

How would you like to listen to

some really great music?

I was tired, but he was oh so cute,

so, I said, yes, even though I almost

fell asleep on the ride to his house

even though I knew I had Finals

beginning Monday and had planned

to study all weekend

I stayed up, necking till three,

listening to Waylon Jennings and

Ferlin Huskey singing about

broken hearts and love gone wrong

It was my first foray into country music

and what I did not realize at the time

it was the beginning of my own country song!

He was going through his second divorce and

he was only 26

A more experienced woman would have

seen it coming, but I was fresh off the farm

and only nineteen

Over the next few months, we had

lots of hot sex

I broke up with him when his attention

waned and he married some divorced bottle blonde

with a three year old ,the next spring

Let’s see, he was 27, it was his third marriage

when I met him, he was living with his mother

He had a Samoyed named “Alki” (short for alcoholic,

he laughingly said)

He had fathered a child at 18 with his older

sister’s friend, married her to give the boy a name

then divorced her as quick as the baby came

One night a call rang in from a girl he’d lived with

when he was in the army stationed in Alaska, when

he was 19- after he hung up he explained that she’d

been 17 at the time and he bragged about doing

her and her mama, too…eww!

Did I miss anything?

Red flags waving all over the place-

right in my face!

But I fell in love anyway

I mourned such a long time

then woke one morning and

I was fine…

 RMK, from the chapbook Love Roulette.