My Cardboard Balcony

Just For Kicks by Belinda Roddie She's new in town. Red heels, long skirt, big lips and all swish and sway. She drinks a rum and coke and bites down hard on the straw when I get too close for comfort. She says that a dance costs a drink and a kiss costs a kick in the shin, then swivels on her stool back to her friends, leaving me winded and gasping for colder, cleaner air. I try to swish her and sway her, but my gyrations are clumsy, my hips scraping against wood and metal and leaving bruises. She's not impressed. She sucks the remaining dregs of sin from her glass, stands up, and leaves me aching. Just because someone is new in town, of course, doesn't mean that she's meant for me.

Last time my uncle drank moonshine, he went blind. Now he kept drinking moonshine, hoping he'd go deaf, too. The dog he owned didn't have any more vision than he did, slumped at his feet and whining for another sliver of something to eat. When I visited, I was happy to give the poor pooch the leftovers of what I cooked for dinner. When it came to my uncle, I didn't exactly like to reward him much.