F**k, Fight, or See Taillights

Have you ever known that someone was a terrible person but it didn't matter?

 Either that person was so attractive or fun or exciting that their less than impressive qualities were smoothed out.

Someone who's essential essence overrode the rot at their core. 

It doesn't have to be a sexual thing at all, no it can be as simple as a tone of voice. 

I'll give you an example: when I was a much younger man, I went to the same night club in New Orleans night after night just to be lied to by this dude with an interesting voice. 

I am vigorously heterosexual, and even if I weren't Arkansas Red was an intensely ugly man.  The only thing was that I enjoyed the sound of the old man's voice. 

So I listened to a life story filled with lies and efforts to make himself seem to be a superhero. We both drank "Soco" and lime, neat, so I would spring for a bottle.  

I plied the old gent with liquor, and he fed this shiftless youth a wealth of stories.

 He told me this story the first time I met him, I knew then that he was worthless.

 He told a good story though, but don't take my word for it, judge for yourself. 

First time I saw her I was done. 

I was still young then, and I was a slave to my dick. 

She was pretty, what we used to call "Paper sack brown" and finer than a rich spider's silk. I eased over to her, I was dressed to impress, you hear me? I used to have a perm my hair was straight down my back. Reckon, back then my freckles, were considered to be charming and I had all of my teeth! I wasn't ever the type to be chosen with his mouth closed, but son when I opened my mouth, I dazzled them. 
Women were different back then, they weren't fast like they are now. If a hundred women were in a room, only about 12 of them, were fucking. They were serious about waiting for marriage. 

Man, I wasn't going to get married just to get a shot of ass. 
Anyway, I put my best mack down on this fine motherfucker and I could see the indecision on her face. Her good home training and preacher Daddy were battling for her heart with the boss game I was spitting in her ear. I played with her mind with metaphors and Similes, made adjectives and adverbs dance for a solid month. 

That gal's, legs stayed locked, she let me play "stink finger" if you know what I mean, but she wasn't going to let me in.

 I studied the situation for a while.

 I even had an older man ready to pretend to be a preacher. I am telling you that I was determined to get that big legged heifer. 
She was smart.

 She wouldn't be swayed. 

My phony preacher scam wouldn't work, finally got tired of waiting for it. I got angry with that thick thing tempting and teasing me.

 I was just about to go to the Justice of the peace. 

I told her that I would but I had one more trick up my sleeve I was gonna try. 

I slipped a little something in her tea, told that we were going to take a look at the house I was going to take her too once we were married the next week. 

I had her sitting in my 1958 Cadillac and as soon as she passed out I drove that car like I had stolen it. I guess I could have taken her while she was passed out but where's the fun in that?

By the time she woke up, It was pitch black outside.

 I had no idea where we were but it was the middle of nowhere. I had been driving towards Chicago the entire time, I planned on moving there anyway because I had developed a couple of legal problems down in Amite City, Louisiana. I pulled to the side of that dark ass street, I turned the car off, but left the keys and left the radio playing.

 I told her: "You can fuck, you can fight, or you can see taillights. What's it gonna be?" 

That ignorant young girl must have really thought that I loved her because she started crying, wailing and blubbering. 

We got out of the front seat of that old hog and I was excited, harder than diamonds, I opened the back door and the next thing I know she had kicked me in my stones.

 I was so excited that when she kicked me I must have blacked out. 

The next thing I know her and my car were gone.

 It wound up taking me a while to get to Chicago. 

That gal had turned my pockets inside out.

 Had to pawn my pinkie ring to get bus fare.

 As far as I know, that big bootie girl made it back to Louisiana.

 I never had a mind to check. 

Not all of Red's stories ended up with him getting the short end of things, but I knew this story was true because of that. I can't say the same for all of his tales but as a parent to daughters, son to a mother, lover of a wife and a brother to sisters, I always saw this one as having a happy ending.