What I Made of It - Bonnie Smetts

“Baby, I’m loving you so much right now,” Roy says to me. It’s one time I don’t jump up and stamp around and tell him to stop with saying love. Roy’s definition of love is about a different from mine as him having black eyes and me having blue. But he pulls me closer to him and I can’t think of anything sweeter than his smooth skin.

“Baby, I don’t know what’s gonna happen to me now,” he says, he’s whispering close to my ear. I don’t know either. He’s facing a judge I know takes no excuses.

“Roy, you gotta say you’re sorry, you gotta admit you did something wrong. This guy’s not gonna be listening to you sweet talking,” I say.

“Sweet talk, what are you talking about. I tell it like I see it and I’m gonna do that again,” he says, moving a tiny bit away from me now. “I didn’t do nothing wrong, that guy come on my property and I got a right to shoot his dog.”

“Roy, you don’t have a right to shoot his dog,” I say. I’m no lawyer but I’ve been listening to the goings on in court now for a year. “Make of it what you like, but there’s laws, Roy.”

And I know Roy is going to go on making it up, making up whatever he wants life to be, but now he’s up against somebody else making the rules.

The sun’s shining into his trailer, lighting us up like it did when I didn’t have sense to stay away from this man. I still don’t, just like the sun still comes in the window.

“Sweety, I gotta be going. I gotta put in my time at the diner, Shirley’s still needing me Sundays,” I say. Roy pulls me back to the warmth in his chest. He bends my head, gently gently into the spot under his chin and I curl into his chest. I breathe in his scent. “Roy, I gotta go, really. And tomorrow, you gotta do right, Roy,” I say, finally sliding myself away from him like a ship leaving shore.

I bend down and kiss him one more time. And he pulls me to him, his mouth is on mine, hard and fast.