Big Bad Love by Larry Brown Read Free Book Online Page B

a hot sixer and a one twenty-nine bag of ice. I knew Mildred would be perturbed when she saw that I was out loose again. Lord love her, she had trouble keeping me home; her puss was just not that good. And so I would have to strike out occasionally, for parts and places unknown.
    There was a nice place on the other side of town that didn’t look cross-eyed at country people coming in there just because they didn’t have a whole lot of class. The only thing wrong with it was that sometimes the people who came in there had so little class that often they would get to arguing and begin to shoot and cut one another. They wouldn’t do it when they were sober, it would just be after they were drinking. I figured it would be a good place to be sitting on a stool right about that time, before they all got to drinking heavy.
    I parked my truck under a tree and went inside that establishment and it was dark and cool, like under a corn crib would be. I knew I had that six-pack to drive me all the way home. Mildred was sexually frustrated because of her over-large organ and it just wore me out trying to apply enough friction to that thing for her to achieve internal orgasm. So, it was titillating for me to sit on a stool and talk to the young waitresses who served drinks and just generally fantasize about their young normal organs and wonder what they would be like, although it was guilty work and unsettling and morally not right.
    I ordered a beer, spoke to everybody in general, lit a cigarette.I felt quite at home. I had on a clean shirt and my teeth had been brushed. I saw by my wristwatch that Mildred would be pulling into our driveway in about five more minutes. My beer arrived and I held it up high in the air and, saluting, said, “Here’s to Mildred.” Several people looked at me funny.
    This particular bar had a lot of red velvet in it. It also had numerous mirrors that looked like they had been splattered with gold paint. It was quite classy, particularly for a place that had so many people with so little or no class come into it.
    After I drank a little, I went over to the jukebox and put some money in to help pass the time and help take my mind off thoughts of Mildred. They had fourteen Tom T. Hall songs, and I played every one of them. It seemed to put everybody in a good mood. I noticed several people looking at me kindly, as if to say thanks for playing all that Tom T. I knew that, by then, Mildred had seen my dead dog. I didn’t want to think about it, and I didn’t know what she would think about it. I knew that she would be unhappy with me for not going ahead and burying the dog, and also for being out late drinking and riding. We had been over this thing many times before, and we weren’t getting any closer to a solution. I just couldn’t do anything with her big Tunnel of Love. I could hit one side at a time, but not both sides. I didn’t feel like this was my fault, since I, like many other men or nearly all men, played high school basketball and football and baseball and hockey and have taken many showers with naked boys and know by casual observance that I am adequately hung. Perhaps even wellhung. I have seen boys whose peters looked like acorns. Mildred would not have even known one of those boys had it inserted. I would have had to be the Moby Dick of love to adequately satisfy Mildred. But I had sworn before God and Church to always cherish her and I supposed I would always have to. I did not cherish my first, other wife; I threw her over for Mildred. But it did not keep me from wanting something a little different from the feeling of sticking my equipment out the window and having relations with the whole world.
    I got back on my stool and drank a little more and thought about the time Mildred and I discussed corrective surgery for her deformity. Mildred, I should point out, had the most wonderful ass. That was the original point of interest that attracted me to her. I