She said that he would take me if I didn't use my gun

by anna at 06:49 PM on September 28, 2005

A fool walks into a bar. Though it's in a college town there are no saucy coeds waiting around to get picked up as one might a bowling ball. It's a working class joint catering to textile workers. Peering through the cloud of smoke and clots of people he determines that there is only one available stool. And it's his lucky night, it's right next to a cute factory worker, sitting alone nursing her boilermaker. Still the dolt doesn't put 2 and 2 together.

He chats with her and buys her a drink. She seems receptive, but still he doesn't think anything is amiss. As conversation progresses, the telltale hand goes to the arm and he's thinking it's a done deal. He wakes up from this dream on the filthy floor, seeing stars. His cheek is so swollen he can only see out of one eye. The factory girl is administering to his wounds and cursing about her soon-to-be-ex-husband.

He didn't even know what hit him, that's how clean a sucker-punch it was.

Her name was Caroline, pronounced the southern way i.e. rhymes with narrow line, not Marilyn. Caroline suggests she could take better care of this bruise and cut at her shack. The fool agrees. That very night he discovers that her toddler is a light sleeper and an inquisitive little bugger too. Her shanty has but one bed, you see.

As time goes on he gets to know her better. She calls him college boy. She says she likes her sugars in the morning. He has no idea what she means. She throws parties and goes around afterwards collecting the beer cans and cigarette butts. Then she drinks what's leftover in the cans and smokes the little butts, one after the other. He learns that she's deaf in one ear from having her head smashed against the kitchen floor repeatedly.

She shows him the loaded pistol she keeps in the nightstand in case the soon-to-be-ex shows up and violates what she calls his "restraint order." She says if that happens it's best to shoot first and ask questions later, very matter of factly.

He calls her up one evening and she informs him that she and the STBEH have decided to get back to get back together for the good of the kid. He's been promoted to foreman and promises not to get drunk and beat her so often. She's hedged her bets by keeping the loaded gun around just in case. The college boy slumming with factory girl romance was kaput.

I often wonder which one killed the other first.

Maybe they both shot each other simultaneously, as no doubt happens sometimes in duels. Duels are cool, what a clean, tidy way to settle petty disputes! The most famous one occured in 1804, when US vice president Aaron Burr and former treasury secretary Al Hamilton squared off. Hamilton died, Burr got convicted of two counts of murder. Curiously he wasn't hanged; he was even allowed to serve out his term as VP! Hamilton wound up on the ten dollar bill.

I don't know who else Burr capped.