Dead Dog

Mike Segretto

ISBN 0-9744614-0-7

image

She was at it again.

I could never quite tell if she was trying to catch somebody’s attention or if she was just trying to turn her skin two shades browner than a January turd, but the old lady was out sunning herself stark naked in the courtyard again. And by old lady, I mean the curvy, fire-haired wife of the Trailer Master. I mean, this little number was put together all right. Sure, sometimes she showed up with a couple of bruises on her arms or thighs, but she had these extra long legs that looked as though they could snap you in half with just the tiniest bit of effort. To be quite honest, for as much time as this chick spent laying on that stained chaise lounge, her complexion was always creamy and milky like she’d been dipped in extra light, extra sweet coffee. Maybe it’s because the sky was always overcast over that dusty, barren trailer park.

Anyway, she always looked a little pale from the window of my trailer. Hell, everything looked kind of washed out and gray through that filthy, spotted pane. It didn’t make her any less sexy. It didn’t make it any less hilarious when Mrs. Hernandez walked by that crazy naked broad with her 11-year-old son. It never failed to amaze me how that same shade of shocking red that looked so stunning in the Trailer Master’s wife’s hair could look so cartoonish when propped up in a bouffant on that fat cow’s cranium. Ol’ Bag-face gasped and slapped her hand over her kid's eyes like she was walking him past a concentration camp. The way I see it, there ain’t nothing wrong about what Mrs. Trailer was doing. What difference does it make anyway? Naked, clothed. We all wind up pushing up them proverbial daisies in the cold, cold ground eventually. How long are you gonna stay clothed when those worms start nibbling at your pants? Not too long, let me tell you.

I took one last hard drag off of my Lucky Strike and snubbed it out in my mug. The butt went out with a quick hiss as it drowned in the shallow puddle of room temperature coffee. I left the mug on the windowsill and padded over to the toilet where I took a long, satisfying leak. I love the sound of a good leak. Mind you, I can’t much say that I love a lot of things, but you know that feeling you get when you’ve been loading up on coffee all day long and it feels like your back is about to burst from the pressure, and then you just park yourself right in front of that commode and let it loose? Feels good, right? Well, that’s what that sound always signified for me. It signified that good feeling. Feeling good is no easy thing to accomplish. But you probably know that already. As they say, I’m probably preaching to the choir.

But I digress. I got a tendency to do that.


© 2004 Contemporary Press.

Distributed By Publishers Group West. Click Here for inquiries.