Candy

If Florida is the Willy Johnson of America, Arkansas is the armpit.

I’d found work, or you could say it found me, at the KOA campground on the outskirts of Fort Smith, a twenty acre ensemble carved out of a hollow made up of primitive sites, hookups for recreational vehicles, and even half a dozen cabins for rent by the day or by the week for the truly wealthy.

My duties as I understood them seemed to consist of waking at six o’clock, collecting the trash throughout the grounds, making sure the swimming pool was crystal clear when it opened at eight in the morning—way too early if anyone was to ask me, which they didn’t—and running off any derelicts attempting to skate by an extra night.

I lived above the campground store in a one room shitbox. No bathroom. No kitchen. I'd arrived at the campground in early summer, probably June if memory serves, having hitched a ride from where I'd been staying in northern California with a family on their way east to Virginia. I'd met them at a rodeo just north of Mendocino where I’d won a hundred bucks by staying on the back of a bull named Cajoles for all of twenty seconds. This is not something I recommend.

Joe had family out east. Though I wasn’t particularly set on the idea his wife convinced me to ride along with them, Candy and Joe and their three girls. They didn’t have enough money to make the trip on their own but between us, we could manage. And despite the whisperings of Old Reliable, Candy did have a fine and convincing way about her.

We'd stopped at the KOA the third night out from California and I'd gotten drunk as was the norm in those days. Joe had gone to sleep early with plans on leaving first light but I wasn’t tired so along with my good friend Jack Daniel’s I wandered down by the pool to perhaps take a midnight splash. I remember it being Arkansas hot, even for June, and man that water sure looked inviting.

Uh oh. Splashing.

I first I thought it was a muskrat swimming across the top of the water. I stood still in the shadows, watching. I could smell a bite of chlorine wafting off the pool and the moon cut in half threw just enough light to make out movement, nothing more. I wondered if I should turn around and go back to our campsite. The last thing I needed was to be attacked by a feral marmot. Especially since I had no swim suit, figuring a skinny dip was in order, but did not fancy tempting those nasty Fates by dangling my little water-shriveled thingy anywhere close to those razor teeth I thought I could see glittering in the moonlight.

I took a long drink of whiskey, waiting, deciding, wishing my bottle wasn’t half empty already. Directly though, something emerged from the water. And lo, it wasn’t a ferret but a girl. A mermaid? No, no, but still and again and I couldn’t be sure, but from my vantage point, she seemed to be, yes, naked. A split second later I recognized her as Candy, Joe's wife. About the same time I saw her, she looked my way. I expected her to cover those big jiggly boobs, turn, and flee, but instead she seemed to grin in the half moonlight, shook out her long and tangled hair, and sauntered closer to where I stood.

Candy was a thick woman, not especially pretty, but her body more than made up for the lack of looks above her shoulders. That and it was fairly dark. She took my bottle of Jack Daniel’s, put it to her way too luscious lips, tilted it back, and guzzled down three or four good swallows as her boobs bounced. Next thing I knew, she was tugging me into the pool, stripping off my clothes, and kissing me with eager tongue and unabated want in her moonlighted eyes. I kept hearing Old Reliable saying: this isn’t a good idea, sir. Joe's liable to wake up any time. I have serious doubts that he'd appreciate you skinny dipping with wife Candy. But then again, she looked pretty and even fine what with the scanty lights of the campground and that of the moon flickering off her wet skin. And so, as usual, I ignored the good advice being offered up.

The water was still warm from the heat of the day as we played, as I took the girl in my arms, and promptly forgot all about Old Reliable and Joe. The next thing I knew, something bright was shining in my eyes, forcing them open. I discovered I was stretched out backside down on cement as hard as my heart and rough as sandpaper beneath my naked skin. A gaggle of giant children were gathered around me. They seemed to be peering down pointing and giggling about something delightful. I raised my head and looked about but no. My clothes were nowhere to be found. My head ached, my mouth tasted as if something foul and ugly died inside of it, and someone was kicking me unceremoniously in the ribcage, obviously an irate mother, who, once she had my undivided attention, scolded me for my condition.

All I really wanted was to roll over and go back to sleep but when someone said something about the police I thought it best to at least cover my dangling privates. Thus, I mounted a serious search for my wayward clothes. It didn’t take long to find them tangle like flotsam floating in the pool alongside an empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a bra. The bra wasn’t mine.

I'd been left behind, marooned in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Checking my pockets it also became uncomfortably apparent that either I'd spent all my money the night before wooing Candy or more likely she'd rifled my pants after I'd fallen into a stupor, made off with what little cash I had left of that bull riding hundred dollar bill, and was now well on her way to Virginia with cuckold Joe and her three ugly kids not one of which looked like him.

The thing that troubled me the most—even more than half the campground eyeballing my shriveled up and orphaned Willy Johnson—was the empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s tinkling a sad tune against the side of the pool. God, I needed a drink... just a taste of that good old time sippin' whiskey to set my head right.

Wringing out my blue jeans before laboriously pulling them onto my legs and shuddering as the coldness of them settled into my gonads I set out to find a quiet place where I might finish sleeping off my drunk. My stomach threatened to disgorge its contents at any moment, the back of my skull seemed as if it might be splitting in two.

About that time I made it out the gate an extremely upset man appeared way too abruptly, thrusting his person rudely into my personal sphere of influence. At first, I thought it was Joe come to kick me in the ass for boning his wife though foggy as my memory was, I couldn’t be sure exactly what had taken place between the two of us. It'd been my sorry experience in the past to discover wee Willy could not rise to the occasion when I'd over imbibed, and despite my uncertainty over whether or not I'd consummated a relationship with Candy the night before, I was more than sure I'd over-indulged to the point of blacking out.

It turned out not to be Joe at all, but rather the proprietor of the campground. He seemed disappointed in me though at first, I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. He soon related, however, how I'd promised him, swore, dammit, the day before, to make good for the camping fees incurred not only by me but by Joe, Candy, and the children. I wondered if he'd take a check but he didn’t seem to see the humor lurking behind my query.

Upon learning that my pockets were as empty as that bottle of Jack Daniel’s drifting along the edges of the pool behind me, the man flew into a tirade with spittle ejaculating from the edges of his lips as he uttered a parade of profanity that I was sure made even my dead mother blush. I listened as intently as I could before offering him my services in exchange for any and all moneys due.

He must have by that time either exhausted his breath or else had a sudden epiphany that that was as good as things were going to get for him. After another lambasting he finally agreed to hire my sorry soggy ass at two bucks an hour—three quarters of which to be withheld until said bill was paid in full—plus the use of the storage room above the campground grocery store, the grocery store where all items were on sale for ten times the amount a person could get them for in a regular store.

Finally, after all his bellyaching and cussing, the man reached into his back pocket, pulled out a half pint of vodka, and handed it to me. Apparently with his doubtless and superior intellect he'd discerned my tremors had more to do with alcohol withdrawal symptoms than the warm Arkansas morning blooming all around us.

His name was Butch and he needed an assistant, someone to perform all the jobs around the campground that he disliked doing. As I watched a group of scantily clad ladies made their silly way past us to the pool. I told him: sure, Butch, I'm your man. I never much liked the taste of cheap vodka but as they say, any port. After a few guzzles the tremors subsided and my head seemed to be coming back together.

I'd met lots of men like Butch, recovering from being a recovered alcoholic, you know the type. They spend way too much time telling strangers that they no longer want to drink yet all the while oh yeah they’re just itching to grab hold of a bottle again and not let go. I never much liked getting up in front of a bunch of drunks and proclaiming that I'm an alcoholic. I'm not. I just like to drink, that's all. So far as I can see there's nothing wrong with that. I'm one of those quiet drinkers. If I was queer they'd say I was hiding in the closet but I like the women too much for that.

Now, one thing I learned in a hurry was a KOA campground had lots of people passing through and that a goodly portion of those folk were girls, and wonders of wonders lots of those girls were lonely. Now me, I'd never been all that particular about which girls I liked. As long as they'd tolerate my presence, I pretty much went for them. Maybe that's why I've always had the success with them that I've enjoyed over the years. Now, of course, I date women. I’m not a pervert, thank you anyway.

Debbie was my first. I still dream about that girl. She was eighteen, three years older than me and worldlier. I lied about my age to get the job after being booted out of high school over some stupid crap no one should have cared two shits about. We worked together. Debbie was engaged to be married to some asshole twice her age and I guess she just wanted some strange before being tied down the rest of her sorry life. We only went out one time, but what a night. Debbie opened my eyes to all different sorts of possibilities I dreamed existed but never knew for sure. She wasn’t what anyone would consider a pretty girl nor was she slim. None of that mattered.

After I went out with Debbie, suddenly all the girls working at that factory wanted to date me. I took turns taking them out, a never ending parade of girls just lining up for me. I don't think I ever dated the same girl twice in those days. As the years passed, I'd sometimes see their names in the local paper where they were marrying some old boy and I'd smile at the memories and pity them, along with that voice in the back of my head, Old Reliable, lamenting the loss of youth.

These days the girls are just as easy, women I mean, and it's the memories that are more difficult to hold onto. Oh, the long-term memories are still here, like that KOA campground way back there in the armpit of America also known as Arkansas. Now, most mornings when I wake I'm unsure who I am or what I'm doing here in the Willy Johnson of America. Sometimes it takes me half the day to figure it out, and other times I might go a week or more without a clue. A month, even.

I have discovered that in Florida a person can do or be anything they want, or not do or be anything at all if that’s their preference. You could say I’ve found my niche here. I no longer write much as days past, rather I am a more generally rounded artist. You could say I like this place, and can willingly waste my time here.