She Loves Me

I ain't like the other guys. I know how to treat a girl.

Saturday, took a girl out for dinner.

Not just any girl. There's a lot of girls in this town but she was special, real pretty, sky-blue eyes and straw hair.

Said to her, 'You remind of the farm I grew up on. Sky-blue eyes, straw hair.'

She smiled. She was shy.

She said, 'I don't know about any farm. Lived in this city my whole life.'

I had ribs. She had eggs.

Said to her, 'Don't you think it's strange, having eggs not in the morning?'

She said, 'Thing about eggs is, y'always know where you are, with eggs.'

Well, I wasn't so sure about that. But I didn't say nothing. I ain't like other guys, start an argument over a silly thing like eggs, ruin a nice dinner.

Asked the girl where she grew up. Just a few blocks from here, she said. Not a good part of town.

Told her I grew up down South. Good family, with three negroes working for us. Thirty years, never caused us any trouble.

She said she didn't like negroes much. Those negro girls are bad for business. I said I don't know too much about that.

I took another beer. Said, 'I don't need desert, after that big ol' rack of ribs.'

She ordered waffles, with a great pile of cream and nuts on top.

She said, 'Thing about eggs is, you always got room for desert, after eggs.'

Well, I couldn't argue with that.

After dinner I had a smoke but she didn't want one. Then we drove across town to the Buddy Holly, which is certainly a long way from being the worst motel around here. I find the rooms pretty clean and you get good hot water from the shower.

So we went up to the room and did our thing and she was good, very spry and lively and such. She seemed to be having a good time although I know some girls are pretty good at pretending about that sorta thing. And while we were going at it, her hollering in ecstasy and such, I thought 'she loves me!' and that made me laugh a bit in my head because it was a good joke. What she does, ain't nothing to do with love.

And then we sat in bed and we both had a smoke this time, and then I took a can of beer from the little fridge they have even though I knew I'd be charged about five bucks for it when I came to pay the bill for the room.

I started to snooze a bit, and woke up and saw her crouched down in the corner going into my wallet. Well, I gave her a good hard smack across the cheek for that. Said she was only gonna take the money we'd agreed but it's hard to believe a whore and some guys woulda thrown a girl out right away. But I paid her what I owed because I'd had a good evening and also I could see the skin by her eye was starting to redden and I reckoned she'd get a bit of a black eye from where I'd taught her not to go through people's wallets. Knew she'd struggle getting much business for a week or two because men like to imagine their girl is good and pure and not some street whore with a black eye.

So she went into the night with fifty-five of my bucks probably to buy food for her kid she hadn't mentioned or maybe to buy drugs. And I sat on the bed and put a ball game on the box and drank my beer and though what a good evening we'd had together.

Don't reckon I'll see her again, though. There's a lot of nice girls in this town.