Devonne Brown

I’ve never been successful in relationships.

He stood in the kitchen too.

“Ninety-nine ninety-five, no tax. Now just tell me that you love me, and I’m yours,” the man said.

“I can have you if I give you money and tell you I love you? Will you love me back?” I said, but in my heart I doubted.

“Forever,” he said.

I doubted, yes, I did, but true love didn’t come around for ninety-nine, ninety-five, no tax every day. And it was the governor’s tax holiday too. It was sounding more and more prophetic. It rang legit.

I doubted. Yet, I happened to have ninety-nine ninety-five, I even had tax. If I needed it, but I didn’t. So, I did what every sixty-something year old dowager does, I gave the man ninety-nine, ninety-five, no tax. In exchange, I was promised true love forever.

He smiled sweetly.

“What do I get for ninety-nine ninety-five, no tax?” I asked, after I’d already made the transaction, of course. I didn’t want the deal to get away.

“I’ll clean the back room and empty the dishwasher,” he said. “If you want sticks picked up in the yard, I’ll do that too, but every night at nine, I vanish,” he said.

“Where are you going? I thought you were mine for ninety-nine ninety-five, no tax?”

“You never said you loved me, I’m not hanging around twenty-four seven without that, I do have principles,” he said. “See you tomorrow.”

“Shit, just what I needed, a man with principles,” I poured myself a big glass of bourbon, the good stuff, no ice. This kind of situation called for sippin’ whisky. I was disgusted. Here I thought I had found just what I wanted and blew it by not following directions, again. For chrissakes. I knew all about following directions. I wrote them all the time. Clear ones, succinct ones.

“When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder?” I asked him. 

“HUH?” he said.

It was a title of a play I’d been in a long time ago. A guy named Mark Medoff wrote it. I like using lines from the titles of plays I’d been in or knew.

You’re really not mine, not for ninety-nine ninety-five, no tax. You’re not mine. I was sad at the revelation.

I sighed, he was like every other man I’d hired. I should have read the directions more carefully. He was too cheap to be a companion and not expensive enough to be a decent handyman.

The bourbon burned going down.

Story of my life.