Mostly Anecdotal

We were looking for girls and there were girls looking for guys like us, well maybe not exactly guys like us, since we’d been up and down State a couple of times and though we were looking at them they were not looking at us. That’s not quite right. They were looking but not long enough to give us more than a not-in-a-million-years turn of the head in exchange for our lustful smiles. Perhaps if there had only been two or three of us instead of four things would have been different. Maybe some in our group were butt-faced ugly and spoiling it for the rest of us. Maybe a hotter car would have done it. The fact was the action just wasn’t there. It was then I decided we should take a short detour, give the girls a chance to reconsider. Instead of turning and retracing our route back down State we continued up the hill to the State Capitol Building, and away from the action, at least that’s what we all thought.

“I lived just west of here when I was five years old,” I said.

“I don’t really give a fuck,” said Gerry. “We’re not going to find any girls on your memory lane.”

I ignored him, “It’s on the right,” I said. “There,” I said pulling over and stopping. The lack of interest in my trip down memory lane suddenly changed. There sitting on the front porch of the place where I’d lived was a knockout, a babe, and she was smiling at us.

“Hey baby how’s it going,” a voice from the back seat yelled. She said nothing but continued to smile.

“Hey gorgeous how bout you come down here and talk,” said another voice. Still, she said nothing but tilted her head to the side; her hair provided a little wave to go with her smile.

I put the car in gear and pulled away convinced that our efforts were going nowhere and anxious to give State Street another try. “Are you fucking crazy,” Tom said, “she smiled at us.” The others repeated the message in less polite ways and so I drove around the block stopping in front of her house again. She was still on the front porch, still beautiful, and still smiling.

“Hey baby,” someone shouted, and then we heard his voice—where he came from we didn’t know. “What the hell do you think you’re doing,” he said. What the hell’s it to you several voices responded simultaneously. There were after all four of us and only one of him. It was then we saw the gun. “That’s my wife you’re talking to asshole,” he said. Our apologies tumbled out of the car like a kids soccer team.

The evidence that it wasn’t enough followed quickly with the sound of bones cracking and blood gushing into Gerry’s lap. The cracking was the sound of the butt of the gun meeting his nose. We were frozen in terror; I was frozen in terror. A voice, one of our voices said let’s get the hell out of here, we did.

Whenever I think about that night, a verse from a popular fifties’ song comes to mind.

Standing on the corner watching all the girls go by Standing on the corner underneath the springtime sky Brother, you can’t go to jail for what you’re thinking Or for the “Woo!” look in your eye You’re only standing on the corner watching all the girls go by

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 1st, 2007 at 8:00 am and is filed under Friends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.