Bo's Lament
by Mel Bosworth
"Leave
them dogs 'lone," said Randy.
Darlene, his
momma, tossed empty beer cans at the pooches,
snapping her head back in toothless glee each
time one hit.
"Ain't
both'rin them none, Randy," she mocked. "Go
fetch momma 'nother tall boy."
Randy, long
neck and sunken shoulders, scuffed into the house
and fetched a tall boy. Stricken with thought at
the crooked doorway, he stopped and popped the
top. Darlene boomed from the yard, rocking
in a lawn chair, Queen of the Tipsy Sea:
"Randy!
Move that ass! Dogs is sittin'! Soon
to be shittin'! Need my tall boy!"
Swill in the
bottom gave it heft. Darlene spilled out of
her chair, hands a-spinning in the dust,
scribbling an incoherent explanation of the
sudden tinny thud that slapped her ear and then
scattered.
Randy spat
through the doorway. Bo, one of his pups, howled,
and Randy took it for a thank you.
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