It was a pickup truck, dirty blue, with a gash in the driver’s side door from some other angry episode. We pulled into the gas station right after he’d hit me harder than the usual. I heard a thunk inside my head, followed by stars and the weird hot metal smell of an iron heating up. There was a little whitewashed clapboard church across the road with yellow flowers in front. There was also a pool hall within running distance on my side of the truck, but those flowers got my attention. When he went to pay for the gas, I grabbed my bag out of the back and ran across the road to the church. I slipped inside and crawled under one of the front pews while two old ladies cleaned around me. I was only there a minute before he stormed in. One of the ladies, bucket and mop in hand, asked if he was looking for Jesus. Since even he wouldn’t hit an old lady in a house of God, he shuffled out, I wished I’d seen it, and soon enough I heard the pickup gurgle as he drove off away.

One of the ladies said I could come out, the other offered me ice tea. I climbed a ladder to wash the windows they couldn’t reach and that night a biker chick I met at the pool hall let me sleep on her sofa. In the morning, I hitched a ride home with a bug-eyed hillbilly driving a big truck who must have done 100 the whole time.

He was from the New Orleans crew who ate at the restaurant where I was the waitress. There was also a gang of Texans who looked like peace and love hippies. And a bunch of badass pot growers from Alabama who drove souped up Caddies that could out run any sheriff’s vehicle. These were not bumpkins, and I fit right in with my lipstick red hair and elaborate silver and turquoise jewelry. When I moved in with him, I hadn’t even started to unpack before he yelled at me. He ran hot or cold, I never knew which he'd be and I spent most of my time trying to stay one step ahead of him, it was exhausting. When he moved out, he left some of his furniture behind and stuck me with the bills. I pushed his stuff out on the porch; when he came to pick it up and saw what I had done, he shut off the utilities with a monkey wrench. Later, I was bad mouthing him at a bar saying I wished his new house would burn down when the woman next to me leaned back and there he was. The room froze, just like in an old western movie; we glared at each other for a cold moment before I walked out. That same night, his new place did burn to the ground along with his truck, which was filled with what he’d rescued earlier from the porch. He got out just in time, he swore I had cursed him and caused it. 

Odd, I dreamed about him hopping around barefoot in front of a bonfire when it was actually happening.

Early on, when things still looked good with him, he took me to Mardi Gras. He told me bayou ghost stories as we drove along the Mississippi with spooky Spanish moss swaying from the trees, and on the day of the big parade, he wrote the address of where we were staying on my arm in case I got lost. Which, of course, I did. We were dancing with the crowd and suddenly he was gone. I bobbed around trying to find him until I saw a cop and showed him the address on my arm; he walked me to the bus stop to make sure I caught the right one. I showed the address to the bus driver too and when I sat down, I realized my shoes were missing. I thought I loved him at the time, I do know he didn’t love me. Years later, I heard he was born-again and preaching to his own congregation. He was the first of the three blond Irish-American men I’ve been with who’ve tried to wreck my life; you’d think once would have been enough to learn my lesson.