A Practical Life

When Johnny showed up, Adair went mad. The fellow from Alabama hadn't been around for awhile and then there was Johnny. He was just the sort you'd think. He had dark hair and olive skin and wore an old leather jacket like a movie star. All the girls liked him--at least the bad ones--and Adair was not immune to his particular qualities. Johnny had an entourage of guys who followed him around, guys who were willing to take a fall for him, and that's just what happened, though how bad it was, you will have to judge for yourself.

When Adair got pregnant, everyone knew it was Johnny's baby, but everyone also knew that he wanted nothing to do with it. And just like that, Johnny was gone. One of the boys who hung out with him, though, was smitten with Adair, and he began to court her. He was not the sort of guy she would normally have picked. He was tall and skinny in a southern way that looked malnourished, and when he spoke, which was rarely most of the time, the southern Mississippi dialect was so thick he was barely understandable. He was shy and unassuming until he drank, but then a switch went off in him and he became a different person, one, I thought, he preferred. After a beer or two, he would begin to get loud and aggressive. Everyone was an asshole then, and he was willing to fight any sonofabitch who didn't like it. On a normal day, you would think anyone could take him, but when he got drunk, you couldn't be so sure. Sometimes late at night when he could barely stand straight, he would begin to lunge at the crowd swinging wildly with his long arms twirling like Cesna propellers, and everyone would get out of his way.

But Adair was in trouble, and she knew it. It would be no good to live in a trailer with your parents raising a young baby. She was smart enough to know that. And soon she began to be seen with him, riding in his car on weekends, going to movies or to eat at some fast food restaurant. After that, it was said that she was pregnant and that it was by him. And maybe he began to believe it himself, for he was proud enough. Mostly, though, he was happy to have Adair, a girl who in normal circumstances would never have noticed him.

Before the baby was born, they got married. He had a job working at a construction supply house in the shipping department, and they bought their own trailer in another park across town. It was a nice trailer and Adair kept it clean. The trailer had a screened-in porch where they sat in the evenings after dinner, and when the baby came, they named her Shawnee after Adair's grandmother. Later, they got a small dog, a Chihuahua, that liked to bark, and Adair's husband quit drinking. They got to know the neighbors who thought they were nice.

And so they settled down to life, a married couple with a trailer, a child, and a dog. I guess some things just work out for the best.