happy mothers day

Dottie’s was a shit hole bar, with an oyster shell hillock serving as a parking lot, sitting off a big drainage ditch on highway 35. It was ramshackle and dark and it smelled bad. But it wasn’t filled with people like our parents. It was filled with the guys who didn’t waste any time trying to fool anybody. Guys who had just turned themselves over to alcoholism in their early twenties sat on barstools and ruined their smooth, pink livers. We were there too.

We knew the barmaid and she’d let Tammy bring in her own six-pack of Michelob Light from the seven eleven. They didn’t serve Michelob Light at the bar and ever since Tammy got pregnant it was the only beer she could drink without getting heartburn.

We’d hang out there all night long smoking cigarettes and drinking, me and Tammy and Rhonda Sue and Dottie. Playing songs on the jukebox. Sometimes Billy would hang out with us too. Occasionally the drunks in the bar would listen in and sometimes join in on our conversations. We’d all take turns going back and forth to the seven eleven to get Tammy more six-packs of Michelob Light.

Late at night when we were all shit faced, sometimes, the baby would kick. Tammy would make us all touch her stomach.

We’d laugh and maybe say whoa or something and then light more cigarettes and drink more beers. Maybe we’d put some more quarters in the jukebox.