Skipped Parts: A Heartbreaking, Wild, and Raunchy Comedy Read Online Free PDF Page A

food, there was the White Deck Cafe between a barbershop and an art gallery on the town triangle—as opposed to other towns that have a square—and the Tastee Freeze out on the highway by the Forest Service headquarters; except on Sunday nights when the VFW had all the wienies and beans you can eat for a buck.
    Anyone celebrating an anniversary or whatever would drive the twenty miles into Jackson where the restaurants had soupspoons and the cash register wasn’t a Dutch Masters box.
    The only reason for going to the White Deck was to eat.
    After we slid into the booth I started flipping the jukebox wheel while Lydia cleaned silverware with the hem of her shirt. For being a total slob at home, Lydia had remarkably high standards for cleanliness in others.
    The waitress called, “Keep your pants zipped, Jack, I’ll be there when I get there,” as she swept by with three dinner plates on her left arm and one in her right hand. She was in her early thirties, maybe ten pounds overweight, and on the back of her belt in white, square letters, I read the word dot .
    “Her name is Dot,” I said to Lydia.
    Lydia looked at her teeth reflected in the butter knife. “What kind of woman would name a child Dot. I’d rather be blind than saddled with a name like Dot.”
    Dot brought the plastic-wrapped menus and two waters all in one hand. “Max told me you’re the folks in Doc Wardell’s place. The guys paid me a dollar each to find out if you’re single.”
    There were four other booths of customers, four men each in three of the booths, all with their sleeves rolled up, and two ancient geezers looking dead in the corner. Lydia was the only woman, besides Dot, and I was the only kid. No one used the tables or the stools along the counter.
    Lydia inspected the water glasses for spots. “Who’s Max?”
    “He owns the place. Max said Doc Wardell rented his house to your father or grandfather or somebody—”
    “Tell them I have five husbands,” Lydia said, loud enough for the men to hear for themselves. “Every one of them rich, mean, and jealous. I’ll be rotating them through on a weekly basis.”
    Dot broke up. I love people who laugh so hard they break up. I’ve never broken up in my life. She went on for a good minute while the men shifted in their booths, suddenly developing a need for salt or mustard, anything to keep their hands moving. One skinny fart with a king-hell Adam’s apple stared right at Lydia, like she was in a zoo. I took him for a preacher.
    Dot draped her hand across my shoulder and I didn’t mind. “That line’ll be all over the valley by sundown,” she said. “Thirty years from now your name’ll come up in conversation and they’ll say, ‘Did you hear about her first night at the White Deck?’”
    Lydia opened her menu. “Just tell them I own a rifle.”
    I looked up at Dot and she smiled at me.
    ***
    One thing I’ve always wondered is whether or not men found Lydia good-looking. It’s so hard to be objective on your own mother. Most people tend to look at their own mom as beautiful until you hit seven or so, then you ignore her for a while, then you decide she’s an old hag.
    I had just turned thirteen then, which would put Lydia at twenty-eight, not all that over the hill, even for a mom. And, as we hung out together most of the time, we’d developed kind of a bitchy husband-and-wife deal. I don’t mean Oedipal or anything disgusting like that. When or if she kissed me good night, I always screamed “ Ooooh yech ,” and she screamed right back “ Ooooh yech. ” I just mean I took care of Lydia as much as she took care of me, and we hung around each other a lot, so I felt like we were orphans together, sort of.
    She hadn’t told me to go to bed or pick something off the floor in eight years—if she told me then.
    But back to pretty. Nine men out of ten took one look at Lydia and were afraid of her; the other one was willing to give up wife, job, and reputation to fuck her