Johnny Wraith Stories

When I was a young man I went to a party at a trailer park. We were a bunch of young kids drinking beer, whiskey, everything else, playing quarters, telling jokes and stories, laughing out loud. There were a lot of girls there in short, cut off jeans, their asses hanging out. I remember how she smiled at me every time I glanced over at her. It seemed like she cooed every time my eyes landed on her, looked up and down her, sucked at her braless nipples that were trying to poke through her Cinderella concert t-shirt. Boy did that blonde, curly-haired girl have nice, bare legs, sticking out the cut-off legs of her jeans, all the way down to her white cowboy boots.

Quarters bounced, we laughed out loud, drank the whiskey, beer, and everything down.

Though my vision was blurring, every time I looked her way, landed my eyes on her, she smiled at me, big white country girl teeth. Genuine. Love.

Quarters bounced, we laughed out loud, drank the whiskey, beer, and everything down.

And then she was sitting in my lap. My dick was hard and suffering.

Quarters bounced, we laughed out loud, drank the whiskey, beer, and everything down.

And we were tongue kissing.

Quarters bounced, we laughed out loud, drank the whiskey, beer, and everything down.

We’d fallen out of the chair and onto the floor. I was sucking on the parts of her ass cheeks that were sticking out of her cut off jeans. She was giggling and writhing into the dirty carpet, but on the verge of passing out from all the whiskey, beer, laughing, and everything else. I think she threw up a little bit as I was doing my best to give her a permanent hickey, right on the ass.

The crowd was cheering.

At least until her boyfriend arrived.

I was too drunk to take it all in, but I knew there was trouble. Next thing I knew, she was crying. My mouth wasn’t on her ass anymore, but I was wrestling around with him, and he had a knife in his hand.

All the whiskey and beer was knocked over, as we broke the place down. Broken glass, sitting in cold pools of booze, bit into my back, drew blood, and we rolled all around, that damned knife gleaming in his clenched hand, coming for me. It was the only thing I could see clearly. That knife. Glimmering. And the broken glass sitting in pools of cold booze bit into my back again and again, as we rolled about, embracing, one of us with a knife and determined to kill.

But even so drunk as I was, I was bigger, stronger, and had had enough. I threw him off of me as hard as I could, he flew a distance, hit his head hard on the edge of the kitchen table, and went down cold, unconscious, face first in the concoction of filth, spilt booze, and glass.

I made a run for it, though I was closer to crawling. Staggered outside and into my $500 VW Rabbit, onto the torn, blue, vinyl seats, stuck the key in, and turned. Found my way to the highway, and left the bouncing quarters, the laughing, the whiskey and beer, that girl’s ass, and her angry boyfriend behind me.

Or so I thought.

I was only a few miles down the highway when a lone motorcyclist showed up behind me. We were the only ones to be found on that lonely, dark highway that went for miles, and it was night. And that motorcycle, with its one headlight, zigzagged, circled, went from side to side of my car, not stopping, mile after mile, the rider shaking his fist, his face concealed by a black helmet.

Mile after mile that motorcycle, with its one headlight, zigzagged, circled, went from side to side of my car, not stopping, mile after mile, the rider shaking his fist, his face concealed by a black helmet.

And again, mile after mile, that motorcycle, with its one headlight, zigzagged, circled, went from side to side of my car, not stopping, mile after mile, the rider shaking his fist, his face concealed by a black helmet.

I lost all patience. In the final moment, I looked in the rear view, and there it was, that motorcycle, with its one headlight, within a foot of my rear bumper.

So I gave the brakes a tap. And the motorcycle, with its one headlight, went tumbling head over ass down the highway, metal and flesh grinding and breaking. Spilling into concrete for perhaps a quarter mile. All the whiskey and beer, laughter, quarters, that girl’s ass hanging out of her cut off jeans...

I pulled the VW over and went looking around. Too drunk to see anything but double, I closed one eye so I could see straighter.

I finally found him lying tied and contorted in a barbed-wire fence on the side of the road. His visor had been smashed away, but through the pulp and blood, and from the full moonlight of the night, I could see it was him. I would forever be the last man that sucked his girlfriend’s ass.

And for a moment I looked up into the sky, the many white stars, pondered the heavens, moon, and everything else. Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment.

And I realized what was done was finished.

I started up the VW, drove home, and got a good night’s sleep.

We’d laughed out loud, played quarters, drank the whiskey, beer, and everything down.

The girls had worn really short, cut-off, denim shorts.

And I keep driving.