The Front Porch Prophet

“What you have to do, Brick, is be direct,” he began. “You have to walk right up and ask ’em. What would it take to get some of that pussy? If they’re interested, they’ll tell you what it will take. If they’re not interested, they’ll let you know that, too.” A.J. immediately objected to this advice.

“Conley, that’s all wrong,” he said, glaring at Eugene. “What you have to do is be nice. Be polite. Maybe buy her some flowers.” Conley looked back and forth between his advisors. He was confused. A.J.’s method sounded promising, but there was no getting around Eugene’s impressive track record.

“Brickhead’s not wanting a girlfriend,” said Eugene. “He’s just wanting some of that thing. You’re going to mess him up, A.J.” Eugene was amused.

“No, a girlfriend would be okay,” Conley responded seriously. He had seen some pictures of that other business in a magazine and found it all a little hard to believe. But he was trying to take it on faith.

“What would it take to get some of that pussy?” Eugene intoned. “You listen to me, and I guarantee she’ll be crawling all over you.” Conley held both sides of his head, which was his way when presented with a quandary. He could only process so much information and was definitely in overload. He began to walk toward his car, still holding his head. A.J. walked with him.

“Eugene is full of shit,” he assured Conley. “Do what I told you to do, and you’ll be fine. If it doesn’t work out with Cyndi, don’t give up. It will work out with someone.” He patted Conley on his shoulder and sent him on his way.

Eugene was still chuckling when A.J. walked back up and slapped the beer bottle out of his hand. It crashed on the pavement, spilling warm, brown foam onto the road.

“How many times have I told you to leave him alone?” A.J. asked. They were nose to nose. The humor had left Eugene’s eyes.

“Fuck you, A.J. I was just having some fun. You know he’s not going to buy her flowers or ask her for any. Women are not for poor old Brickhead.” A hard tone entered his voice. “You owe me a beer. And the next time you pull this kind of shit, I’m going to have to hurt you.”

“Hurt me now,” A.J. said, pushing his shoulder. “Come on, Eugene. What would it take to get some of that ass?” They eyed each other a moment. Then the interlude passed, and the slow process of de-escalation began.

“You’re crazy,” Eugene said as he brushed past A.J. on the way to the newly acquired Lover.

“Leave Conley alone,” A.J. hollered at his back. “I don’t care who else you screw with, but leave Conley alone.”

The postscript to the evening’s events proved one of the pieces of advice had been valid and one had not. After much deliberation, Conley determined that A.J.’s suggestions would suffice. Stylistically, he was the Typhoid Mary of romance, but his heart was in the right place. Thus it was that Cyndi was inclined to kindness when Conley walked up to her and shoved a bouquet of slightly bent flowers into her arms. She smiled as he stood there, holding his head with both hands while inquiring about her health. She had known him since their childhood and knew him to be a harmless, gentle soul, one of the few she had encountered.

Cyndi’s lot in life up to that point had been to hoe the hard row. Her mother, Louise, was unparalleled in her ability to select marginal members of the male gender with whom to frolic, and the only positive result from her many unions was Cyndi. Cyndi’s father, Earl Hawkins, left for parts unknown via the Merchant Marine soon after impregnating Louise. He was a sensitive man, and had he known about his young wife’s condition he would have gone anyway, but he would have felt bad about doing it. Cyndi never knew him, and none of the misfits who took his place during her childhood made much of an impression on her, except to produce in her a general uneasiness about the male of the species. In retrospect, those were the good years, and they ended upon Louise’s marriage to Skim Murdock.

Skim was a man for whom the veneers of civilization held no appeal. He came to town with the county fair during the fall of Cyndi’s fourteenth year and elected to stay on when the fair slipped off a day early while Skim was passed out due to an excess of alcohol, cocaine, and two of the employees of the girlie show. During his tenure with the organization he had offended the sensibilities of an entire carnival, and they unanimously took their opportunity to cut and run when they saw it. When Louise and Cyndi arrived at the fairgrounds looking forward to a little fun, they found instead a large amount of garbage, a broken car from the Tilt-a-Whirl, and Skim, sitting on the ground eating a corn dog while wondering what in hell he was going to do now.