She seemed awful.
It was Sunday and so that meant football. I'm not a huge fan, but being on the road I've been looking for some structure. And what's better than Sunday football and watching your fantasy team go down in flames?
There was a seat at the bar with space on either side, but when more people came I moved down. And she started talking to me.
She and her husband were from New Jersey, but they retired down to the Outer Banks in North Carolina. “He loves it down here,” she said, with a look that seemed – confusingly – to border on contempt.
“As soon as he dies, I'm leaving.”
The three of us talked for 15 minutes. I said almost nothing after our introduction. Her husband said even less. But this woman cursed everything and everybody. Kids. The police. City services. Local politics. Kids, again.
“If I had a dick, I wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire,” she said of someone.
“Once my husband dies, if I still needed a tampon I'd run so fast I'd leave the string behind.”
She drank warm rail vodka, straight. She was not a happy person, and she made sure everyone knew it.
Finally I couldn't take it anymore and stood to leave. She insisted I take their phone number, in case I ever needed a place to stay.
