Beauty and the Asshole
I could never figure out why Sylvia went with him. She was a beauty. Not just the body and face stuff either, her eyes were of a softness from another world, and her hair... oh man, her hair was beyond silk, beyond fragrance. I'm sure the sunlight was jealous of her hair. And he was an asshole.
-----"Screw it, man, I don't want that piece a trash, anyway." Laughing, Ralph walked away. I don't think the asshole even had a title for the bike.
-----So Sylvia, who'd always been standoffish, even when she was a cheerleader in high school and could of had her pick of the team, and could have gone to Hollywood and made it, I'm sure, but hung around this nowhere town and waited tables at the greasy spoon out on the highway, so Sylvia just looses it the first time she sees him. I was there having coffee and doughnuts when he walked in. A generic cigarette hung from his lip as he slouched up to the counter in his faded and torn leather jacket that was a size too small. Sylvia saw him and almost dropped the plates she was carrying. He saw her and dug deep in his pocket for some change. They left together when she got off work.
-----He moved into her apartment and started hanging out in our bar while she was working. He had money now. One day, just to be friendly I asked him,
-----"How's Sylvia?"
-----"She's the best goddamn piece of ass I've ever had." He laughed and gave me a mean stare, "Hey, how about you buy me a shot, asshole!" I left.
-----Sylvia began to show up at work with more make-up on one eye than the other. She had bruizes on her arms, and once, a nasty cigarette burn on her wrist which she tried to conceal. She always looked kind of sad, but not as sad as she did when we told her the asshole had been arrested for trying to sell baking powder to a junior high kid. The cops told him to get out of town and he did. Then Sylvia looked sad, really sad.
-----About a year later she married Marty. He was an engineer at the fish plant. After she had been with the asshole a lot of people treated her like she wasn't really clean. But Marty was always decent with her. He took her out for a long time. If any guy started showing too much interest in her he'd get surly. He was built big and nobody really wanted to cross him. Especially after that one guy ended up in the hostpital with a bunch of broken bones and a face like hamburger. No one knew for sure but people had a pretty good idea of what happened. They were married and life went on but she never looked as happy as she did those first few days with the asshole.
-----Well, it had to happen. The asshole came back to town. He was driving a trashed out Lincoln and wearing a cheap suit. He tried selling some really shitty stuff to a few people at the bar and then headed out to where Sylvia worked. The Lincoln started spending a lot of time parked at a little motel the next town over. Marty started coming to the bar real regular after work. He asked the bartender if he had seen Sylvia, saying she'd been coming home late for days. The bartender shrugged. Frank walked over and sat next to Marty.
-----"Haven't you heard, man, the assholes back in town."
-----Marty was pissed, really pissed.
-----That night someone kicked open the door of the motel room the Lincoln was parked in front of. Shots were fired and a couple was blown away as they labored at their pleasure. He got it in the head and another bullet severed her spine as it passed through her neck. More bullets just made a lot of holes and one hell of a mess. A friend of mine showed me some of the police photos. It wasn't even Sylvia and the asshole. It was some television preacher and a city councilmans wife. Marty got sent up the river for a long time. I remember seeing the preacher once on T.V. at my mom's house. He was going on about the sin of fornication bringing our great nation to its knees. I guess he was just trying to help the country pray.
-----Sylvia lost her job at the diner.
-----"I can't be havin' no slut workin' here." said her boss, a brash and ugly woman who'd probably forgotten what it was like to get any.
-----Sylvia and the asshole left town in the Lincoln. She's never been back. I almost named my first daughter Sylvia, but then I got to thinking, she would probably never turn out that beautiful, anyway.
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