A Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie story
“Lord-a-mercy!” I said in my thickest southern drawl. “Somebody tell god to take the rest of the week off. He has made perfection, and there ain’t no topping that!”
The beautiful blonde woman scowled and blushed at the same time. It made her look seventeen again.
“Where is your charming husband? I can’t believe he’d ever dare to leave your side.”
She shook her head gravely, and maybe that was my cue to lay off. Or maybe not…
“Well, tell me what your boyfriend looks like, then. So I’ll know who to run from.”
She chuckled. “No boyfriend.”
“Well, then, the next man that asks, you tell him I’m sprouting gray hairs in patches and I carry a little paunch. I’m half-a-step slower than I never was. I’m ugly as sin, and I stink something awful toward the end of the day. You tell him that’s my description.”
She drew a finger across her eyebrow, the hair so fine it was almost white. Her eyes were blue and deeper than a quarry lake, alive with the light of mischief. “Am I to take that as an offer?”
I nodded gravely. “What fool could pass on perfection?”
She smiled a wistful little half-smile. A woman with a secret, a woman with a story to tell. “I think it was you…”
I wanted to stay and talk but somebody pulled me away. It was a New Year’s Eve party at my sister’s house. I was the guest of honor, the prodigal son returned, and I hadn’t seen some of the revelers for twenty years. I kept getting bounced around the room, passed like the torch of sobriety from one drunk to the next. But my eyes always sought her out, sought her supple perfection amidst all that was chaotic and deformed. She moved like liquid glass, like a cat, like a leopard. Her hands preceded her always, and she caressed everything with long, slender fingers. It was as though she had the power of vision in her fingertips, and she saw more than you or I will ever see with mere eyes.
She moved, and she graced the universe with Read more
