Val's Story

Since there is nothing over the transom this morning, I'm going to put in a short short story I wrote a few years ago.

So she liked to smoke dope, was that a crime?  Apparently, since it got her kicked out of her rocky mountain high to this patch on the banks of the muddy Missouri.  So it goes, so it goes, she was not the sort of girl who got all weepy about things that were under the bridge, she would make her way, just fine.

Her way right now was to Speedy's, she had just scored a dollop of dope from an old pal and now she needed just the right flavor of Doritos to enhance the experience.  She was thinking cool ranch, but when she approached the array, the jalapeno cheddar caught her eye, that cool ranch was kind of bland and she needed something to put a little rocket into her pocket.

Everything had been so drab since her expulsion from the garden of legal dope.  Her old friends were fine but you know how it is when you appear on the doorstep with empty pockets, things are a little cool at the ranch.  She needed something to lift her spirits, to put a little strut in her step, so jalapeno cheddar it was.

They sell produce at Speedy's, but it's mostly just crap, all wilted and shrunken and just plain pathetic, and she couldn't believe that that sap was picking out a head of yellowing lettuce.

She had to step in.  "You can't do that." she told him grasping his wrist gently.

"I was just going to, to make a salad, for the kids, you know something healthy," his voice trailed off as his look went down, She was glad she was wearing her shorty shorts.

"Not with that you aren't," she told him, maybe a little forcefully, but it was okay, she knew she could get away with it.  She could easily have hit him up for a fiver, a tenner, maybe even an Andrew Jackson.

But that wasn't the mood she was in.  She was frankly not all that eager to go back to her friend's place.  She would have to share the dope, and the Doritos. 

So she steered him to Mother Nature's, walked down the aisles with him filling his grocery cart with good healthy food.  He had some sad story about his ex-wife, Jenny, who maybe she was a bitch, or maybe it was his fault for not being sensitive enough.  Either way she didn't care.  Hey we all have problems, you didn't hear her going on about Bear, that bastard.  She was just killing time before having to share her dope and Doritos.

But when she saw his face, so downcast, so helpless, even worse than when he was telling the sad Jenny-O story, as he looked at the big sack of groceries that he would never be able to cook.  She was like Fine, Fine, I'll cook you up a meal.

Arms crossed across her chest, she looked at him exasperated, but what was this, a shy little spark of gratitude in his humble brown eyes?  It touched her a little, she was surprised, but then you never know.  What if he got a decent haircut?

And she wasn't crazy about moppets and there were two of them, one of each sex, and Gramps, a dirty old man if she ever saw one.

But she did like to cook and she wasn't half bad at it, the frying pan was sizzling and a couple pots were boiling, and those moppets and Gramps had eyes like in those paintings, and here comes the sap out of the bathroom, and oh my goodness, did he comb his hair?

And you know she just felt so great, so fucking great, bringing the food to the table and the sap and Gramps and the moppets with napkins tucked into the fronts of their shirts, like a bunch of baby birds.  Well a gal has feelings you know.

But what about desert?  She remembered her little dollop of dope, as yet untouched.  Brownies sounded like a great idea.