It was one of those hot, muggy nights that seemed to make even breathing a chore. The crickets were playing their little violins and the katydids were joining in full force. I was lying in my bed trying to sleep, hoping that the occasional flicker of lightning off in the distance might indicate that we were going to get some rain to cool us off later in the night.
Our motel, “The Straight Flush” was filled, so mom had turned on the “NO VACANCY” sign out front. The door between my room and the hall leading down to the motel office was slightly ajar so I could hear the mumble of the TV and could just see the dim flicker of the bluish -white glow coming from the darkened office. Mom was obviously watching TV. We weren’t rich and only owned the one TV for ourselves, but it didn’t really matter as we could only get two decent channels on it and most of them shows didn’t interest me.
It was around ten o’clock and it felt like it was still around ninety degrees outside. I was naked and my pajamas were lying in a wadded up heap on the floor beside my bed. It was just too damned hot to wear them.
I was wondering if I would ever be able to leave Deer Valley and find a life of my own. I’m eighteen and I’d made it through the tenth grade before I had to quit school to help mom run the motel. High school graduation, much less college didn’t seem to be on my radar scope, so I went along doing what I could to help mom and I get along. My pa was never around to help out with what needed doing anyhow.
He’d always been a bit of a drifter, a gambler, and a general ne’er-do-well. Amazingly, he’d won the motel in a poker game up in Atlanta with a – you guessed it – a straight flush. But he would avoid anything which remotely resembled work, so that left running the motel up to mom and me. I was pretty good with my hands and did ninety percent of the maintenance and helped out mom with the linen, room cleaning and just about anything else that came along.
Now it was rumored that Pa wasn’t exactly monogamous. Monogamous? Yeah, I know, that’s a pretty big word for a guy with an tenth-grade education, but I’d decided that if I couldn’t go to school anymore, I could improve myself on my own. Every night I’d take my dictionary and look up five words I didn’t know the meaning of and commit them to my vocabulary.
Oh, yeah, monogamous? It means like the practice of having a sexual relationship with only one partner. Now my luscious blond mom seemed to know about pa’s wayward ways, because I’d hear them quarrelling about it sometimes, but every time I came around they’d stop arguing and start talking about something else. I couldn’t for the life of me see what mom saw in pa and I don’t know why she put up with it all.
Now the Straight Flush Motel wasn’t any Holiday Inn, but mom and I kept the place clean and in good repair. The motel was out on Highway 371 on the edge of Deer Valley and had ten units in it. We rarely received a complaint and most of the little cards the guests filled out after they stayed gave us an above average rating.
Mom and I were able to eke out a living of sorts. There always seemed to be just enough money to get by on, but it seemed like every time mom was able to put a little aside for a rainy day, that old fart would show up and we’d be back right where we started. He’d take the money and head off on some new get-rich quick scheme he’d come up with.
Now mom weren’t no Marilyn Monroe, but she was pretty. Maybe she was a little wide across the stern, and had a bit of a paunch, but it didn’t take away from her other good looks. At thirty-eight, if there was any flaw in mom’s personality maybe it was her vanity for her big breasts. I don’t even know that you could even call it a flaw, but she did seem to go out of her way to show them off. Not that I’m complaining now. She’d wear low cut blouses, tight sweaters, even go braless on occasion which just wasn’t heard of in our neck of the woods.
Her obvious vanity wasn’t lost on my pop either. Hell, maybe that’s why he’d married her as he was always eyeing them and grabbing a groping when he didn’t think I was looking. On one of his infrequent visits, Pa had had a couple of glasses of moonshine and we were just finishing up supper. Mom was wearing one of her lowest-cut blouses and the majority of her big; creamy-pink tits were on display as usual. I found myself sneaking a peak at them every time I thought no one was watching me. Now I don’t think of myself as a pervert or anything, but hell, they were tits! And they were hanging out right in front of me. What was I supposed to do?
“Look at all that baby fat,” I heard my Pa tipsily snicker as he stared at mom’s boobs.
“Clarence Hatfield, you watch your tongue. Not in front of Chet,” she huffed, shuffling over to the sink with her hands full of dishes.
“Baby Fat, get it, Boy,” Pa guffawed. ” Baby . . . fat.”
No, I didn’t get it, but I guess that he was insinuating some kind of connection between babies, tits, and fat.
Mom sure didn’t think it was funny and was back across the room almost before the words were out of his mouth. Her arm flew back and she slapped him on the cheek so hard his head went flying back. I was stunned. I’d never seen my mother retaliate to any of Dad’s crude, coarse language or jokes and Lord knows there was plenty of opportunities for that.
Angrily shoving his chair back, Dad flew out of it with his hand fisted and arm drawn back threateningly.
“You didn’t have no cause to go and do that—” he snarled and I could see the muscles in his arm tightening in preparation to swing.
Reaching over, I grasped hold of his wrist to stop the swing. Now maybe I didn’t have any gym to work out in, but I’d made me a set of weights out of cement and pipes and I worked out next to the shed out back where we kept all the motel cleaning supplies and stuff. I worked out every day if I could and even though if I had to say so myself, I was pretty bulked out.
The moonshine had apparently loosened Pa’s tongue and he didn’t seem to care what he said as he turned and glared at me.
“You in cahoots with her now?” he barked, trying to jerk his arm away from my hand, but I was too strong for him and held on.
“Just shut up, Clarence!” Mom scowled, taking a step back away from him just in case.
“I get it now,” he snorted, straining to pull his arm away from my clutching hand. “You and him, huh? The two of you have something going on, don’t you? Hell, I shoulda seen it, the way you’re fawning all over him all the time.”
“Are you crazy?” Mom shouted, now drawing her arm back for another swing. “He’s our son!”
Realizing that the situation was rapidly spiraling out of control, I stepped in between them and spun Dad around until he was facing the door.
“Pa, why don’t you just disappear for a while,” I told him, giving him a little shove toward the door. “You know, ’til things cool down a little.”
Mom said,”Yeah, get out of here—I don’t want to see any more of your ugly face tonight,” she added from behind me.
“Shit, I’m outta here. I can see when I’m not wanted,” the shithead growled, taking a step toward the door. “Probably want me outta here so you two can crawl in bed and fuck, don’t you?”
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