Melancholy Jeannie

Denis was sitting, leaning his back against the bar. He pulled the chair next to him close and patted it with Southern hospitality. The devil's ring was smiling at her with those glowing eyes. Jeannie strutted forward proud with straight legs and a high head. From this day on the, village would know her as a slut. Right now, they were all too busy with themselves to notice her.

"What bestows me with the honor of an audience," asked Jeannie respectfully.

"I like to study my demographic. I know about everyone here. That's what makes me a successful business man. Your daddy is Mr. Bushnell. He has a wheat farm near the crook in the river. You are a good girl. Your only contumacious stroke is that you studied French in high school. I bet your daddy was real mad that you would study something queer like that. And today, you walk in here as something entirely else. What happened?" inquired Denis completely sober in the middle of the rage of drunkenness.

"Well, it was time that I lived a little, tasted the wind, and told my daddy where the pepper grew," replied Jeannie.

"Let's drink to that. What's your poison?" offered Denis.

"Another green fairy. I'm determined to meet her tonight," asked Jeannie.

"Barkeep! You heard the lady. I ain't never met the green fairy. But, I've summoned my share of hellish demons," bragged Denis forgetting his reserve and trying to impress a regular country girl. Perhaps, it was the wild and uncontrollable burst that drew him to the girl, like a predator alien gets drawn to violence. Just how far could he push her? How far out of control could these wheels spin?

"I'm blushing. Though, here it goes. They say you have the mark tattooed on your you-know-what." Said Jeannie looking down at his dirty and scuffed biker boots.

"You take Ray's cock on camera in the truck and you still can't say prick. Today is your lucky day. I'm a gonna let you have a look," replied Denis.

With that he got up, sucked his gut in and pulled his pants forward. She leaned really close to his chest to peak down. She could smell the musk of his cologne. It was something that reminded of buffalo and English gentleman. In the shadow of his crotch, she could see the white meat and some dark lines on it. It was too dark in the bar and deep down his crotch to make out the design. And then he snapped his pants back. She was left with the after image of a master cock, much like a Maserati driving through their hick tone. She would never play at the town level of society, where they had such fancy things as tattoos and piercings.

"Why are you taking such a keen interest in me and even show me what half the village had been trying to confirm the whole year?" Jeannie stared straight into his face. She had lost all restraint in the maelstrom of such riveting company and insight into a world far from her wheat stalks.

"When I was your age, I worked with my daddy. My daddy brew moonshine. I'd drive it out to the customers. My daddy was his own best customer. And he was a mean drunk. He'd hit me with the belt, not the leather tip, but the buckle end. Look here. (And he held up his right ringer finger that was crooked.) He broke my finger one day. And I still crawled on the ground and begged for his forgiveness."

"One day, a lone biker road into town. He didn't talk to anybody. He stayed on the hill or in the far corners of a turn. Nobody ever saw his face. He always wore a hood that would darken his face. It seemed like he was looking for someone. When I'd run the liquor, I'd go real fast. That drew him out. He'd chase me down the hill road with the sharp turns until he got close enough to see that I was in the car by myself. Then, he'd fade away again. Some say that he was a demon or a mass hallucination. He never stopped at the gas station."

"I know different. You gotta keep this a secret. (Jeannie nodded her head eagerly. Her eyes were fastened on Denis in trance.) One November night, he was coming after me again. I was running a shortcut through Sherwood Forest. The pine needles were real soft. The car was shifting in its tracks. There were sharp rocks that would have cut open my tires. So, I was slinging around those. Each twist on the steering wheel send me into a soft glide through the pine needles. I was going maybe 70 mph. And the man was real close to me. It was a moonless night and the forest was deep. So, he couldn't see real well into my cab. He was close like a bumper sticker."

"It's important that it was November. It's mating season for deer. The young bucks can get really crazy. This young buck shows up in my headlights. Instead of running, the buck lowers its horns to challenge my two ton of metal and steel barreling at him, scrawny two year old buck. Now, I pull hard left and barrel into the trees, shooting through bushes and rotted undergrowth."

"The mystery man on the other hand couldn't see the buck in time. He went straight into the buck. He went flying high into the air. He hit the ground a couple times before, he started a long glide to disperse his momentum."

"I went looking after him. I had to help. And I was curious to see beneath that hood. He was a bleeding mess with a bone sticking out of his arm. He begged me not to take him to a doctor. He offered me a deal, the deal of my lifetime. If I kept him hidden and accomplished his mission, he'd take me on an apprenticeship for a year on the road. He'd teach me everything he knew. I can't tell you about the mission, his person, or what he taught me. I can tell you two things. He was a damn mother fucking tough guy. I healed him with duct tape and glue. And everything I am today, he taught me." Denis leaned back to let the tale sink into her head.

"Are you for real?" inquired Jeannie.

"I am wearing his seal," answered Denis. He turned over his hand. There was a long rectangle tattooed on the palm of his hand.

"That must have hurt!"

"Yes, it's tattooed in real deep as well. No laser can remove that tattoo. Once you are in certain circles, you are in for life. There are crossroads, where you have to decide between your village life and becoming something entirely different," said Denis ominously.

With Denis pulling back into silence, the bar sounds rushed in. The fight had escalated to someone lying on the ground and getting his kidney polished with farm boots that still had the horse manure sticking to it. Roxanne, the slender tall, black woman was pulling a beefcake of a man behind her into the bathroom. There goes a week's pay.

Ray was gripping the wooden post in the center of the bar. He straddled the ground wide with his legs as if he were on a boat during a storm. Then he doubled over. The vomit shot out of his mouth like a faucet belching out water after being dormant for a long time. The pieces of food and green bile splattered on the ground. The girls shrieked. A strong hand grabbed him by the neck of his shirt and pulled him outside, feet dragging behind.

"I am so hot, get me out of these close," came the yelling from Ray. He was tossed into the rain and the softening ground. He was tearing on his clothing. The bar hushed with pale faces. Gazes stole glimpses at Denis. Denis was sitting smitten, like a king. Was the curse taking hold?

"I ain't never telling the cops about your business, Denis. But keep the demons out of my bar," whispered the owner across the bar to Dennis. Jeannie could barely close enough to overhear them.

The man who kicked Ray out returned to the bar. "He's fine. He's not rolling around the mud like a pig. He simply got a little overexcited today. He's driving home to sleep it off."

Jeannie meandered over to the pool table. The guys crowded around the table. Knowing her place as a woman, she took a high stool against the wall. The game continued. There was a tricky shot that required the white ball to jump over the opponent's ball and sink the black ball. Greens were slapped on the ledge of the pool table. One pile said yay. One pile said nay. When Collin reached under her shirt and pulled out her bra to slap drape it over the yay-pile, the crowd got really heated up. Money started piling on the other side, not because of the likeliness but because of the prize. The player, a young, skinny led, who was good with accounting ledgers, was squinting real hard from anxiety.

The door slammed open. The door always slams, because it's heavy. This time however, the door slammed so hard against the wall that the windows shook as if a jet had crossed the sound barrier overhead. Good ol' daddy was standing in the door. He held a navy green sea sack in his left hand and a double barreled shot gun in the right. With heavy legs, he stomped forward. His legs were bow legged from riding the farm horse. The bar crowd receded away from him to make him a pass like the sea did for Moses.

"You ain't my daughter no more. George Benet send me the video of you fucking every men in this devils place. Ray! You had to fuck Ray! Go ahead with your miserable life. Go fuck every cockroach, because it ain't matter to me no more, because you ain't me daughter no more. In the Lords' name, I say sever any ties between us," riled daddy with spit flying from his mouth. He slammed the sea sack at Jeannie's feet. "I saw you smiling at the camera with Ray's cock buried in your belly, like you are some porn star. If you set foot on my farm, I'm gonna shoot you on sight. Go, see if Ray pays for the babies growing in that womb right now! Don't come begging to me!" The old man was panting.

Then, he dragged his legs out. His shoulders were slumped over, as if he were defeated. The crowd watched him silently go out the door. The engine of his Ford truck grinded a couple turns before the engine jumped on. Then he revved the engine hard two times to avoid it dying out. When the gear dropped in and the engine quieted to a hum, the relief of tension was welcomed by all. Even the fight had stopped. The guy with his arms held behind the back was slowly dripping blood out of his mouth.

"Thank god the church ladies aren't here anymore."

"Looks like Ray got himself a girlfriend now."

"Skank!"

"Sanders, take the shot already!"

That was daddy's navy sea sack from when he went to Vietnam. All her belongings were so meager that they fit into this back. It was a shock to the belly realize how little she had off the world. Had she stayed with her dad, she might have gotten a second sea sack filled with her wedding dress and two editions of Reader's Digest.

Jeannie's literature teacher came to mind. One particular sunny summer day, the heat in the classroom had become so overbearing that eve wiping the brow with a handkerchief did not help. So, he took them for a little walk down to the creek. And he told them about a German writer named Goethe. He had been a young man at the time. He lived his life intensely. One day he was madly in love. The next day, he was madly enraged in a vendetta. His goal was to live every moment of life to its depth. During a quiet, reflective evening on life, he realized, "trust yourself and you will know how to life." Stop asking authorities for how to live life best. Deep inside you there is a knowledge, or you may call it soul, that knows exactly how your individually, unique life should be lived.

With that thought, she was breathing and fighting back the tears.

The crowd got drunk. The crowd got rowdy. The crowd damaged bodies, bar property, and relationships. The crowd puked, tired, and fell asleep. The owner rang the bell. The high-pitched metal sound told them to go home. The owner turned the lights on. The bright white light hurt the retina. The crowd scrambled out the door into the soothing darkness and fresh rain mud. Alone in the corner, Jeannie was left with her sea sack.

"Crossroads," said Denis standing in front of her. His leather boots were pointed duck footed to the sides. He still hadn't drunk a drop of alcohol. Thoughts were rushing over his face. His eyes looked clear. He was upraising her.

"Seeing how you have no place to go, you might as well stay with me."

She looked at him with an open mouth. "For reals? You will take me into your world of city life, drugs, music, devil, and the mystery man?" Everything felt real glassy, as if it could break at a moment. Earlier the day, she had been mulling in the wheat field and thought she'd never see the world. And there, the most adventurous and mystical man asked her to follow him into what she could only dream off, while reading books her father had forbidden her to read. It was all going to disappear in a second like a dream or a cruel joke.

"I have many people crashing at my house in the city. City life is different. People change their life circumstances and surf a couch for a while. You'll meet Annabelle. You'll find she is much like you, reinventing herself like caterpillar reinvents itself to be a butterfly. And she also is drawn to my mystique, my world. And in a few months, some other hapless soul will look at what you have become and dream to walk the ground hallowed by your footsteps. C'mon, I won't let you sleep in the rain mud behind the bar."

"You tell me if I become a burden or don't act right. I don't know how to behave in front of demons. I have never done any drugs. I haven't even been to the city. I hear city people speak differently. I... I... I..."

"Don't worry, boob," he said calmly with a warm smile and shouldered her sea sack.

She walked behind him out the door, keeping her distance in deep respect. "The devil scores another point against god," whispered the bar owner behind her back. The all-black Kawasaki Ninja was leaning on its stand, patiently waiting for its master. The master placed the sea sack on the tank.

"I don't have a helmet," stammered Jeannie, fearing that's where her dream would stop.

"Don't worry. You don't need a helmet with me. You need this," replied Denis. He pushed an IPod into her front jeans pocket. She could feel his strong fingers pressing on her hips. His fingers pressed ear buds into her ear. A screech, half male, half beast, was yelling into her ear: "Raaaaa-ra-ra-ra-raaaaaaaaaaah." A whirlwind of drums was chasing down the yell. Heavy machine equipment, like a press that stamps out car metal, was pounding the sound into a tight format. The volume was high. All environmental sound was drowned out. She felt her head filling with the sound. Almost dizzy, disoriented, and lost to this world, he guided her to sit down behind her on the bike.

The back seat was higher. Her ass was lifted high into the air. Having to get her knees high, required her ass to squat. The bottom of her butt cheeks peered out. The squatting position made her ass swell round and bulbous. The mini jeans shaped it sexily. Her high heels were precariously perched on the round stick foot rests. The heels poked far. The airstream pushed up the white t-shirt at the back. It was flapping helplessly around. On a good flap, her blue bra strap was exposed to anyone watching them shoot through the night.

She leaned forward. Her boobs were pressed against his thick leather jacket so that he couldn't even feel them. Her arms were wrapped around his body. She crossed them around the point between his belly and his chest. That way, she was snug safely close. And she could take in how his whole body felt, his body proportions, the much larger frame and the much stiffer way that he was holding himself. Her cheeks were pressed against his ears. She was the little fragile girl on the high point of the bike with nothing to protect her against the elements or the road surface during a crash.

The engine made her whole body vibrate. The ride required her to lean into turns, to lean forward with the break depressing the front shocks, and to hold tight when the engine whined and shot them into warp speed. She had to surrender to those motions that took her whole body smoothly with strength through the landscape of flat farm roads, dark forests, and curvy hills. There was something psychologically submissive about giving into those motions with her whole being, cuddling into the strong man with a purpose and direction. She felt like a little cat ready to roll over and follow him anywhere. "Take me! Oh, yeah, I am taken. I have never been this far," whispered Jeannie to herself.

The Ninja's controls had a big RPM meter. The needle flicked swiftly like a cow's tail, when Denis changed gears or turned his wrist all the way back. The speed was read digitally: 60 mph. The little shifts that she had done occasionally became hard. The wind was making her movements lethargic. She worried about letting go, because the wind might smash her hand back and she may not be able to lift it forward around his chest again.

The road was straight down a clover field towards a patch of timber trees. The darkness of the night was around them. The headlight cut a few dozens of yards ahead. However, it did not reach far enough to illuminate the things that were flying at them and passed them. Denis torqued the right hand again. The front tired lifted off the ground. Even though, it was only a couple inches of the ground, her body felt the precariously wobbly bike underneath her. Her heart pounded strong fistfuls of blood. Bam, each stroke of her heart was as powerful as it had ever been. She had never been that surrendered and in the moment her whole life.

The front tired slowly sunk down to the road, as the engine lost strength at the higher speed. 70 mph... 80 mph... The skin on her face was flubbing hard. It felt like her face was being torn off. Her eyes were tearing from the cold air. It felt like the air was pushing under her eye lids. She was sucking the air out of the wind as hard as an old man dying from asthma.

90 mph.... 100mph... She couldn't hold her head steady any more. Her head kept bouncing against his head. Her neck was so weak that it couldn't hold her head steady. The skin on her face turned cold and painful. The engine was whining so strong that it was coming through the loud music. She had to hold on. She had to push through this. This was her moment on triumph.

110 mph... Her body hugged onto Dennis with her whole strength. He smiled deliciously at feeling her small body wrapped tightly around her, the thighs were pressing against him. Her cheeks were right next to his. And he could feel the essence of her being emerging in that instinctive survival hug.

Bam, the gear jumped out, the power dropped off. The front breaks made the bike dip so deeply that it bottomed out on the front shocks. A hard clang sounded to say that it was fully loaded with force and could dip no farther. Jeannie felt like puking and struggling for her life to be held under water. The dip was so deep and abrupt. Yet, she held on, as she felt her whole weight riding on his back. He was bracing hard against the handles.

The next moment, the entered into the darkness of the forest. The bike tore hard left, right, left. She was bounced around like a butte fly in a washing machine. She didn't know where up and down was anymore. For a moment her eyes glanced at the controls: Only 30 mph, yet the pin needle turns made him lay the bike almost down to the ground to make it. For a moment, she looked to the inside of a turn, it felt as if someone was running the pavement right past her eyes a mere foot away -- a blur. The singer blurred for the first time in English amid the animal grunts that he used to belt: "Fire all your desire. Another lost soul about to be mine."

The engine calmed down. All the rush of the speed and turns left her body tingling, when the bike turned off the road into the forest. A sudden fear rushed over her mind. Would she become another newspaper story of a dumb country brunette being lured into the dark forest? The bike bobbed over a tree root. The front tire swiveled around to steer around the trees. The darkness of the forest enveloped them.