August 31, 2004

my younger days

I was watching a Monday Night Football game when I heard a knock at my door. I thought maybe somebody I knew was coming over with a six-pack to watch the game with me, so I opened the door and was surprised to see Dora standing there under my porch light.

"I need a place to stay," she said. "I've had my last fight with Cecil. I'm not going back there again."

Cecil was a burly, hairy fucking troll that I never liked. I never understood what Dora saw in him in the first place and he beat her up a couple of times. I have NO RESPECT for a man who beats his woman. I knew that Dora was better off without him.

I also knew that Cecil would come looking for her. He might not come to my place first, but he'd get there eventually.

I told her to come on in. She had all her possessions that she had managed to flee with in two grocery bags. I carried them inside for her. She spent that first night on the couch but ended up in my bed for the next two.

Dora was a true redhead and one of the most gentle and sexy souls I've known in my life. I knew that she couldn't stay with me much longer without either Cecil or me ending up dead on my front porch, so I called Vonnie. Vonnie had her own apartment by then and was constantly bitching about making the rent and paying the bills all by herself. I asked Vonnie if she would like a roommate.

I took Dora over to Vonnie's place the next morning. They knew each other because they both were bartenders on River Street at the time and it was a match made in heaven. They got along well and set up efficient housekeeping. I believed that I had done a good deed. Dora took a week off from work to hide from Cecil.

I came home from the bar one night at 4:00 in the morning about a week later. I made a sandwich, opened a beer and sat down on my couch to eat. I heard a knock at my door... not so much a knock as a POUNDING on my front door. "Open up, you sumbitch!" I recognized Cecil's voice.

I put down my sandwich, grabbed a pistol, checked the load and opened the door and stepped back, with the pistol held in one hand, but behind me. "Go away, Cecil," I said.

"Where the hell is Dora? She's HERE, isn't she?" Cecil was drunk and fired up on something else, too, in MY humble opinion.

"I don't know where Dora is," I lied. "But she ain't here and you need to go home."

"I'm coming in to look for her!" Cecil shouted and he took a step forward. That's when I whipped up the gun and pointed it at his chest. Cecil stopped in his tracks.

"Cecil, Dora isn't here and you AIN'T coming in to look for her. You go home now if you want to see sunshine tomorrow. You take one more step and I'll put your guts all over my front porch." I meant it, too. Cecil was a BIG guy.

Cecil went away and I don't remember ever seeing him again. He and Dora never got back together, which was a good thing. Ten years later, I ended up living with Dora for almost two years, until I left her to marry Jennifer. That's the biggest mistake I ever made in my life.

I was 26 years old when this incident occurred.