The idea was to get a room at the Days Inn so I get some quiet time to work on my poetry, and then Brenda shows up late in the afternoon so we have some romantic private time away from her parents\u2019 place. Added bonus for me:\u00a0I don\u2019t have to hear her parents crack jokes about when my poems are getting published or how much money they\u2019ll make like they do every time they see me with my notebook. I tell them my poems are my legacy, but I don\u2019t think that really registers with them.<\/p>\n
We told them we were going to Jim and Teresa\u2019s place for a barbecue and we\u2019d be out late, but that\u2019s subterfuge so Brenda\u2019s parents don\u2019t nag us about paying the back rent we owe them instead of getting a hotel room. Jim and Teresa don\u2019t even have barbecues or anything else since their baby came. Same with most of our friends. Which is why we end up at home with Brenda\u2019s parents, or babysitting Brenda\u2019s nieces and nephews.<\/p>\n
Baby time is coming for us, though. Brenda keeps saying that her nieces and nephews are enough and that we can wait, but I think we\u2019re ready. A baby will straighten us up and get us focused on life. It\u2019ll be great motivation to finally get married, too, and get out on our own. Plus, if we have a baby, that\u2019d be a great way to get back to hanging out with our friends.<\/p>\n
So is tonight the night it could happen?\u00a0Maybe. The thought crossed my mind when I hatched this plan. Plus, now that Brenda is here we\u2019re sharing a half pint of vodka as we sit on the balcony outside our room. We get a little reckless sometimes when we\u2019ve been drinking. Forgetful about the protection. Or the rhythm. Nothing has happened yet, but you can\u2019t tempt fate forever, right?<\/p>\n
I look at Brenda and wonder if she\u2019s thinking any of this. She\u2019s lighting the last cigarette from her pack. I take a few deep breaths and tell her, \u201cI\u2019m breathing in love.\u201d I know it\u2019s corny and it\u2019s not my best stuff, but whatever. My mind is running free since spending the day with my poems, and I\u2019m going to let it. I sip some more vodka and slump in my chair.<\/p>\n
Brenda stands up and looks out across the hotel\u2019s back parking lot. Past the dry, cracked asphalt and patches of brown weeds pocked with plastic bags and broken bottles. Neon lights flicker on from the fast-food restaurants and gas stations along the main drag three blocks over. She watches them, but then focuses on a group of teens that cuts through, leaving a trail of vape smoke in their wake.<\/p>\n
She turns to me and says, \u201cI\u2019m gonna need more cigarettes. Some more vodka would be good, too, don\u2019t you think?\u201d<\/p>\n
Hell yeah, I think!\u00a0I pull some cash out of my wallet.<\/p>\n
She takes it and tucks it into her pocket. \u201cHow soon you want me back?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow soon do you think?\u201d\u00a0I almost choke on the words.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s so coy sometimes. \u201cReal soon,\u201d I say and flick my eyebrows.<\/p>\n
I watch her as she walks to the stairs at the end of the balcony and then across the parking lot toward the neon mosaic. I think about the countless diapers we\u2019ve changed and stories we\u2019ve read. I can see motherhood in Brenda, even if she can\u2019t see it herself.<\/p>\n
I wait on the balcony for her to return, sipping the vodka until the sky is a swath of black velvet pocked with little holes where light sparkles through. I see a cloud of smoke across the parking lot at one point, but it\u2019s the teens cutting through again. Mosquitoes are swarming, so I go inside.<\/p>\n
I grab my journal and scratch out a poem before Brenda returns:<\/p>\n
Special Night<\/u><\/p>\n
Always remember<\/p>\n
the special night<\/p>\n
we came together.<\/p>\n
All was right<\/p>\n
as we laid<\/p>\n
soft as a feather<\/p>\n
and made<\/p>\n
our family.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
That\u2019s not bad for being rushed.<\/p>\n
I step outside to get some fresh air and clear my head. I like my word play with \u201cwe came together,\u201d but is it too dirty?<\/p>\n
A tender tone would be better. \u201cIt finally happened\u201d?\u00a0 That\u2019s good. But what about my rhymes?<\/p>\n
I can tuck it away for right now. If things happen tonight, I can\u2019t hardly imagine how stunned Brenda will be that I wrote a poem about it beforehand.<\/p>\n
I look out through the dim light across the parking lot. The teens have set up a makeshift party and are clustered around a car with its doors hanging open. Their music thumps through the night air. Empty beer cans are scattered on the pavement like dead soldiers. The group shifts with the beat of the music, and that\u2019s when I see Brenda. She\u2019s swigging from a bottle they\u2019re passing around. I think she looks towards me, but I\u2019m not sure. I open my mouth to call her, but the music is probably too loud for her to hear me. I could go get her. But maybe she just needs to get this out of her system.<\/p>\n
I go back in the room and lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. A dull pain creeps like an inchworm into my head. Brenda needs to get back here if this is going to happen. And I mean fast. Like, faster than lightning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Brenda stands up and looks out across the hotel\u2019s back parking lot. Past the dry, cracked asphalt and patches of brown weeds pocked with plastic bags and broken bottles. Neon lights flicker on from the fast-food restaurants and gas stations along the main drag three blocks over. She watches them, but then focuses on a group of teens that cuts through, leaving a trail of vape smoke in their wake. She turns to me and says, \u201cI\u2019m gonna need more cigarettes. Some more vodka would be good, too, don\u2019t you think?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":16867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-jeff-burd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16814"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16860,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16814\/revisions\/16860"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}