It was getting dark when they drove up a narrow trail into a gulch. When the road flattened out they came upon a rusty, weatherbeaten trailer too small and insignificant to be called a “mobile home.”
There was no sign of life. Joe got out of the car, walked up and knocked on the door. Nothing. He waited five minutes and knocked again. Still no answer. He walked around behind the trailer and saw a chainlink fence and a few goats. Walking closer, Joe heard a faint buzz. Something moved behind a low shrub. He was staring at a round shape that he finally recognized as buttocks when the woman stood up.
She was nearly a perfect sphere; almost as wide as she was tall. When she turned around to face him, he saw that both arms and the exposed portion of her bosom were covered with tattoos.
“Hi there,” she boomed. “What kin I do fer ye? Sorry I didn’t hear ya.” She pointed to her ears to indicate she was hard of hearing.
“We’re lookin’ for a place to stay,” Joe answered.
The woman shook her head. “Nuthin’ around here. Nearest town’s twenty miles away. Nuthin’ there neither.”
“We’ve got to find something,” Joe said. “I’m with my w…- my girlfriend and babies.”
Joe led the lady back to the car and introduced Mary and the twins.
"My God, what happened to this young'n?" The woman asked.
"There was an accident," Joe said. He thought it best not to go into too much detail.
“You can stay here,” the lady said without hesitation. “Not much, but then you can see that. My name’s Marge.”
Marge’s real name was Marjorie Chandler. She was middle-aged with streaks of gray in her brown hair. Originally from south Tennessee, she married a Colorado man she met while working in the post office. “Wanted to get out of that small town and see some snow,” she explained. “Big adventure, I thought. Huh! Some adventure. We got snow, all right. Then Frank died, and left me with all this.” She made a grand, sweeping gesture over her pitifully small plot. “...But it’s home,” she said with a big grin. “No use complainin’. Nobody to hear ya nohow.”
“Thank you,” Joe said. “We’ll try not be a nuisance.”
“Stay as long as you want,” Marge said. “I could use a little nuisance. Nobody around here to fight with!”
No comments:
Post a Comment