CHAPTER 5

Billy Ray Barnwell here, well since my long-distance relationship with Ila Faye Hostetter went belly up a couple of weeks ago and we are no longer Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, we are no longer Heloise and Abelard, face it, we were never even Sonny and Cher, I figured I needed to do something else with my life, something important, or I would go crazy, so I thought and thought about it and here’s what I have decided I will do, I have decided I will become a real estate agent so I can sell houses and maybe also those whatchamacallits, condominia, to all the new people moving in around here but I just have to wait a few more days until my nose heals up and this black eye goes away. See, what happened was Udella Mabry and her friend Juanita decided to take me out on the town last night to get my mind off Ila Faye, I think what they really wanted was to get me good and drunk even though they know I don’t drink, well actually I do drink, everybody drinks, I just don’t drink what they drink, I heard the famous singer Pat Boone say that one time on the Tonight show with Johnny Carson, so anyways we went to a new club out on McFarland Road, Saffron’s or Sapporo or something like that, no wait, I remember now, it was called Sappho’s, well wonder of wonders I had my pick of any woman in the place to dance with as it turned out I was just about the only man in the entire establishment, it was kind of fun in a weird sort of way, all the women were dancing with each other, and you know what, they seemed to be having a good time even without benefit of male companionship, go figure. Well, I must not have been sending out the usual waves of animal magnetism, or maybe it was because of the funk I was in over losing Ila Faye, but would you believe it, not one of those lovely ladies would consent to take a spin around the floor with me so since there was no action whatsoever at Sappho’s I left Udella and Juanita there and went across the street to a place called The End Zone, which turned out to be a sports bar, and ended up watching professional football on the big screen. I ordered a root beer and a hamburger and struck up a conversation with this guy sitting next to me at the bar who looked big enough to have been a defensive lineman in the NFL himself. “I just come from Sappho’s across the street” I said and he said “Well I’m new in town but I hear that place is full of lezzies” and my first thought was how shocked Udella and Juanita would be if they knew, and then it occurred to me that since this guy had just moved here he might be a prospect for my upcoming real estate career, so I decided to change the subject, I leaned in a little closer to him and said, “Well I don’t know about that, but would you be interested in having a condominia?” and I won’t repeat what he said back to me but it was ugly and uncalled for and then before I even knew what was happening he hauled off and socked me square in the jaw with one fist and up side of the nose with the other, bam, bam, just like that, I guess it was what people call a one-two punch, he hit me so hard I flew off the barstool and landed face down kersplat on the floor, I ended up with a broken nose and a black eye on top of a sore jaw, I have no idea why Mr. NFL got so upset, it’s a mystery to me, but I’m just glad I still have all my teeth, and this is Billy Ray Barnwell signing off.