F.I.N.E.

pretty fakes

You got to run the window unit, she said. And put the fan on too. So I did. Her teeth were kind of bucked out, like how Lauren Hutton has that gap thing going on. Not like a cartoon squirrel, but in a hot way. I know you’re too young to know what that means but it used to mean a whole lot. But I guess, maybe kind of like a squirrel.

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She didn’t have to tell me to turn on the god-dang a.c. It was August in Alabama. If you weren’t running the a.c. it was because somebody had stole the window unit off the sill or you were broke. I had been in both situations before but we were in good shape for the moment. The Redmond Motor Court had little bars over the window units so nobody could get at them. Plus the electricity was figured in with the weekly rent. I didn’t mind the heat outdoors so much but if you were inside you couldn’t really breathe.

We need to go get some beer, she said, which we did, and I said okay. I told her to put her shoes on and she made a face and made a point out of walking out into the parking lot in her bare feet and leaving the door wide open.

She wanted to drive and I said okay, it was her car after all. She put on the radio, which was always playing the same Aerosmith song on Rock 99. Either that or that dang Queen opera song. I used to like Aerosmith just fine but all of a sudden they were always on tv and had a video for every song they had out. I thought they used to be a real hard rock band but I have been wrong about a lot of things. Anyway she declared that the song that was always on was “our song,” that it really spoke to her, and I wish that I could ever understand what that meant.

When we got back to the Redmond she squeezed my hand and said baby I want a little alone time and I am not the jealous type so I said okay and took the six-pack of High Life and went on in and put it in the minifridge for her and turned on the tv. She left in the Datsun, and I heard it crackle through the gravel as she left. The Redmond had HBO real big on the sign outside but all that was ever on HBO when we stayed there was Overboard and Innerspace. I had gotten where I had probably seen both of them four or maybe even five times a piece and neither one of them really stood up to that much rewatching. I was partial to Innerspace because I liked science fiction quite a bit but I cannot stand that Martin Short. He just about ruins the whole experience.

So I just sat there and listened to the movie and made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and when the sun went down I didn’t turn on the lights and I just laid there on the bed. All you could hear was the fuzzy sound of the a.c. and the hum of Highway Eleven. I guess you are supposed to call it the Super Highway but I never figured out what made it so much better than the other highways.

Even though she wasn’t with me there was still the smell of her everywhere, a good smell of that perfume she got at the Big B, plus a summersweat smell from riding in the Datsun with the t-tops out. I know that perfume is probably cheap but that don’t mean it’s sorry. Peanuts are cheap & they’re good. M&M’s are fifty cents and they’re good. Peanuts M&M’s are the best and they’re the same price as normal M&M’s plus you get peanuts. It’s a real bargain.

I got to wondering about that Aerosmith song and whether it was a good or bad to have as our song. I pulled out my wallet and counted out how much money we had left. Seventeen dollars. I figured maybe we could go down to Carnaggio’s, which was our special place to go, and spend it on a single order of lasagna, pretend like we were in The Godfather. I wondered if she’d ever seen The Godfather. They didn’t show it on HBO. She didn’t really like to sit through a whole movie. She liked Overboard pretty good though.

I heard the little four cylinder rattle up outside. The door flung open, and she was there smiling with those cute buckteeth, eyes all bloodshot. She made a little noise like hi-yaa and jumped onto the bed, hopping up and down and flipping the plate my sandwich had been on to the floor, where it clanked and rattled and then lay flat. It was so dumb I had to laugh. Then she yelled bodyslam and bellyflopped on me and I would have been mad because she was all elbows and knees but it was sweet in its way and she didn’t weigh nothing.

Get out of the bed until you take a shower, I said, because she smelled like cigarette smoke and had been running around all day with her flip flops off and had grocery store feet like a little kid. She poked her lip out and I said I didn’t care, those feet were gross and I didn’t want them on the bed. They are just on the bedspread, she grinned, and I almost gave in but I think when your feet look like that it makes you white trash. Come on, I said, get cleaned up and let’s go get some Italian, acting like I was all put out because we had made plans and she was late, and she squealed and hugged me.

The perfume was called Star, I think. It was just drugstore perfume but boy I sure loved it. It really almost made me love her.

GORJUS is a dispatch devoted to art and life in the South, held fast with instant film. This story is largely fictional, but the perfume isn’t, and many of the places and feelings aren’t either. Once I was driving around in Hot Springs, Arkansas, I had been walking down Central Avenue and it was so hot that I had soaked my shirt through, and finally gotten back into the car and I was just riding around and I saw this just absolutely thrashed old Pontiac, even had a real firebird painted on the hood, and even though it didn’t have anything to do with anything, I swear when I saw it I could almost smell that Star perfume.

If you’ve ever gotten tangled up in your memories like that, and you once had a song with someone else, then this is for you, and I reckon we would be friends. Consider forwarding this letter to a pal who is like us. I’m gorjusjxn on Instagram, and you can see an archive of Polaroids at McCartyPolaroids.