Here's a short summer story for today's ROBBLOG folks. It came to me as I watched a similar situation unfold a few days ago. It's best to be read out loud in a sultry, hot, southernish accent y'all can muster. Ask yer Mama or yer Man to play the Serina part! Oh and have a Happy Canada Day!
A hot summer day in a small Canadian backwoods town. Sweltering actually. The kind of day when you pray for a cool breeze- any kind of cool breeze but it just doesn't seem to materialize. The world goes by but everything appears to be at a much slower pace. People can seem to be stupid and ill-mannered. Suddenly, you start to talk and think in a thick, southern-style accent. The kind you hear in a dull, old Tennessee Williams Play.
Serina is leaning up against the hood of a 1957 Ford. Light blue. Convertible. She's a beauty.
The car- not Serina.
Serina is blond. Bottle blonde. She's wearing a blousey white top, open down a few buttons. Her bleached hair is tied up on top of her head but strings of hair fall like a fake, blonde landslide- straight from a box of Clairol colour, falling haphazardly down her cheeks. She's wearing powder blue jeans that are rolled up to her calves. She has bangles- seven to be exact, jingling around her right wrist. They clang in the hot, late morning sun.
She's wearing flip-flops each with a huge, purple, petunia-like flower on the strap. On her nose are propped a pair of black, oversized sunglasses.
One foot is resting up behind her, caught in the Ford's ample bumper as she appears to be striking a model's pose.
She's not perfected it at all.
Her right hand is holding a rather long cigarette.
Maybe a Virginia Slims.
Maybe a contraband cigarette from the local reservation.
She pulls a long hard drag as she watches a bare-chested young man dig a trench a few yards away.
The man's chest and arms glisten with sweat from the unbearably high humidity- yet he keeps digging. His bluejeans are soaked from pocket to crotch. He seems oblivious to the notion that he's being watched. Glared at...
Serina calls over to him in a sultry, southern, sexy voice...
Serina: Hey!
The young man doesn't answer but keeps digging as sweat rolls down his neck and falls between the thick, black, matted hair on his olive-tanned chest.
Serina:(louder). Hey! I said Hey!...Can't y'all hear me? she puffs Whatzsamatter big boy? Cat's got yer tongue.
Man: Oh, I hears ya all right.
Serina: Then, why don't y'all answer me then- huh? (Her bangles clash and clatter on her wrist)
Man: (His shovel clangs against a rock in the trench slash ditch) 'cause I am suppostah be digging this here trench Ma'am.
Serina: Oh! Ma'am is it? I ain't you're Ma'am, I tells you that much. You think I'm old enuff to be your Momma or sumptin?
Man: No Ma'am. Not et all. Just being proper like.
Serina: Zat so. Zat's what proper is like on such a fuckin' hot morning as dis?
Man: Could be...
Serina: Could be! Dat's all you and your heavin' big muscles gotta say fer yourselves?
Man: 'ppears so Ma'am....I uh mean- Miss.
Serina: (she drags on the cigarette and holds it aloft in her right hand supported at the elbow by her left) I ain't no "Miss" dat for sure. Hey, whatz yer name anyway?
Man: Buzz.
Serina: Buzz? Like the bee? What kinda fuckin' name is that for a man such as yerself. Buzz? Why I ain't never hear of that name for a young, healthy-looking fellah such as yer self.
Buzz: Well, that's what they's call me. That's for certain. (He keeps digging in the hard, stony earth and only pauses long enough to take a red hanky out of his back jeans pocket to wipe his brow)
Serina: Huh! Buzz. Don't that beat all. (She flicks the ash from the end of her huge cigarette).
So...Buzz...how long have y'all be digging ditches?
Buzz: Trenches Ma'am...
Serina: It's god-damned Serina. "Sir" like a Mister and "reena".
Buzz: Serina. Pardon Ma'am. I means Serina. Glad y'all cleared that up. I was wonderin' somethin' fierce!(He looks down for a second at his work) Oh and this? This is a trench not a ditch.
Serina: S'iff ders a difference. Y'all pulling on my leg or somethin?
Buzz: No Miss Serina. I is not pulling yer leg.
She pauses and stares at the young man's rear end as he bends over to pick a big rock out of the trench and throws it, sending it sailing though the thick, humid morning air. It plunks down with a thunk in a brown field a few feet away.
Serina: So, y'all been diggin' these "trenches" fer long or you been diggin' other things s'well.
(she puffs and draws long and hard on her cigarette. The smoke circles her head)
Buzz: I don't always digs dees ditches. I do what's I'ze asked to do if'in the monies right and good.
Serina: So y'all digs trenches then for money. (pause) U'huh... Much money? (she places her right foot flatly on the hot earth next to her left and waits for an answer)
Buzz: Enuff all right. Enuff to keep bitches likes yer self guessin' in the late mornin' of a haus and pfeffer day such as this...
Serina: Bitches? Y'all calling me a bitch Buzz?
Buzz: If'in the name fits. Say, y'all lost the buttons on that blouse of yers or are's you just too poor to 'f'ord 'em?
Serina: Fuck off Buzz!!. Whatch y'all know about anything anywhay other than diggin' dem ditches and throwin' rocks a few feet away from where ya stand. Big hairy deal Buzz. Big fuckin' hairy deal!
Buzz: Why, y'all 'ppears to have a mouth on ya...'mungst other things.
Serina: Oh, so ya's not just a rock digger after all. Ya's also just a typical slimeball of a young asshole just trying to look a girl all over, up and down, top to bottom. I knows your type Buzz.(she points at him directly, bangles clashing as she nervously points)
Buzz: And I knows yours too Serina. Believe me- I knows yours too. Y'all stand there watching a poor, hard-working, half-nekked man such as myself here and ya's goes all to town ogglin' and a watchin' and a sizin' me up. I got's yer number sweetheart and it starts with a big "S"!
Serina: What? Why, you smart-alec'd piece of shit. I outta come right over there and slap you across your indecent mouth. Y'all think I'm a standin' here for the good of my health? Fer the fun of it on such a hot, damn day?
Buzz: I don't know what yer all standing over there for Lady. I ain't quite figgerer'd it all out but I'se gots the beginning of an idea and it ain't fitting for a lady. No lady. At all. Nevah.
Serina: So, (puff, drag) what's this word of yers that starts with a big ole "S"?
Buzz: Wow, y'all not such a smarty-pants, is ya now? Why girl, that big "S" stands for Slut and dat's exactly what's you are standing there for, thinkin' yer a-temptin me with all that girly stuff goin' on and lawrd knows what else ya gots hangin 'round in dat half brain of yers.
Serina: Now listen here boy- mister big shot trench digger with the heaving chest muscles and all them tight things there lining yer skin back and forth across yer belly just above yer jeans top, I'se just standin' her trying to grab some air, having a refreshing cigarette and passin' the time of day and y'all hauls off and starts to insult me by calling me names like "Lady" and "Miss Serina". Why there ought t'be a law. If'in my Daddy were here 'bouts he'd wup your sweaty ass right tuh the other side of town. That's what's he'd do to some piece of sweaty bugger shit like yerself- Mister Buzz whatever yer last name happens to be.
Buzz: Windsor- Haven.
Serina: (she stops and looks as the man as if he just recited the Lord's Prayer in Pig Latin) What the Windsor-Haven fuck? Dat's yer last name. Windsor-Haven?
Buzz: Y'sm. Dat's it. My Great Granddaddy was a Duke over in the old country.
Serina: Well, I'll be good, god-damned. A fucking piece of royalty standing diggin' a fuckin' trench right on my fuckin' street on the hottest fuckin' mornin' of the whole god-damned fuckin' year. Now, ain't I the fuckin' lucky girl?
Buzz: 'ppears you is Ma'am.
Serina: I be snookered up, down and sideways. (she butts out her cigarette and then lights another with the sharp snap of her lighter opening and closing) So, y'all know what- Mr. Buzz Windsor-Haven?
Buzz: What's dat?
Serina: It may jist be the heat but I'se don't gives a flying fart. Anyhoo, yawls just been peering over here tuh have a look see at my womanly bits and boobies. I sees dat. Y'all may be high-flootin' and stuff but yers still a god damned man with a prick and I ain't fooled one bit.
Buzz: Well, Ma'am, Serina, y'alls welcome to yer opinion.
Serina (she points at him with a cigarette clenched between two long, slender fingers)
Yes, well, y'all gots that right. Now, den, just averts yer big ole bug eyes and gets back to your diggin' and throwin' stones and leave a lady to enjoy her last few minutes of a glee-orious summer morning.
Buzz: Yes Ma'am. I cans do dat. I cans do dat exactly. (he laughs)
Serina folds her arms across her bosoms and Buzz continues to dig- while shirtless, at the hard, parched earth beneath his feet. The blistering sun throws down darts of stinging sunshine to all those- like Serina and Buzz who care to be outdoors on such a morning as this...
