Dear Diary, That Man Wasn't Very Nice At All

Dear Diary,
I still had my stomach ache when the nice man from dairy queen helped me into his truck. He said he was trucking Angel Food Ice Cream from Memphis to Little Rock, but the front part of the truck was so hot I'm pretty sure it was soup by now. The man said his name was Daryl and that he was from a long line of dairy farmers but hated cows. Diary, if he hates cows so much what is he doing with cold cow cream? I guess he only hated the smell, and I don't blame him one bit.

One thing I learned at Magnolia Woods is that cows stink! I mean I didn't learn that inside the house. Our neighbors, the Frittles, have cows on their property. But not for dairy. They were meat cows, the kind you get in a fancy restaurant, like McDonalds.

Anyways so Daryl and I were in the truck, and he was driving like ninety miles an hour! And he goes, "So kid tell me more about ya"

Well, I started telling him about Auntie Mary Joans and how when I was just a baby fresh from the womb my Mama ran away to El Paso, and left me with nothing--not even a diaper. And how she always stuffed herself into skirts to tight so that her belly flopped over like dough with her watermelon bosoms flopping around like loose change. I told him how I was the youngest girl in the house, how all the other girls dressed me up with feather boa's and church hats, and how I used to slide around in their high heals with my toddler toes, how they use to make me up with rosy cheeks and pink lips. I told him how one day, when I was old enough to read, like five, I found a stray kitten and brought it home, but that Auntie Mary Joans was so mad she threatened to drop it in the washin machine--and that made me so scared that I pushed the cat under the barb wire of the Frittles cow farm. I thought i saved the cat until i heard Darcy Lou talking about this cat the Frittles found that their bull has stomped to death. I told him how I cried so much that Darcy Lou came into my room early one night, when I was going to bed and she was gearing for work, and she petted my hair and soothed me to sleep. But that the next morning when I tried to hold her hand at church, she slapped it away and said she wasn't nobody's Mamma and didn't want to be.

Finally Daryl told me to shut up or he was gonna push me out the truck door, he said he wasn't even gonna stop--he was just gonna reach over, open, and push. I must admit that did shut me up. For about two minutes.

But I just had to know about the picture of two smiling kids and a pretty blond woman. I asked daryl, "Who're they?"

He told me to mind my own beeswax, but I asked again with a purdy please, so he told me.

"My ex-wife and ma babies"

I got real excited for some reason cause I never had a daddy and so I got real stupid and asked if Daryl would be my daddy cause I never had one. Now, Dairy, this was a mistake cause Daryl turned off at the next exit and told me to get out at the Dennys. He said he didn't have time for any charities and I was no exception. He pulled a five dollar bill out of his wallet and told me to get out of his truck. I closed the door to him muttering about, "That's what he gets for trying to do one nice thing, and that this was the last time."

So Diary, now I'm sitting at Dennys in a booth by myself. The waitress is real nice and when I told her that no, I didn't have no parents, that I was running away, she brought me pancakes and eggs with orange juice and bacon and told me I didn't have to pay a thing. Maybe I should ask her to be ma Mamma!

Oh shoot, I just spilt some orange juice on yer clean page! I do apologize. Guess I better put you away. Bye diary!

Love you,
Bellaray Dave