Daddy
drank. Mom
watched
aggressively,
thoroughly
removed his sweatshirt
and he stood there holding
his
glistening
self,
a
frail, malnourished body
tweaking and sputtering
premium
cable
television
and
developed
cancer.
and after making my mom
orgasm for the first time
daddy
could
remember,
they went into the casino
and daddy made an extra
two
hundred
grand
at
craps, a game he’d never
in the dim.
“I was thinking about the gun,” he
thought to play. Also, that night
told me, eyes fluttering at me, “I’m
he purchased the first alcoholic
always thinking about it.”
beverage of his life.
sighing
They told versions of this story
was halted to allow forth a self-
repeatedly over the following years
deprecating moan.
until daddy, drunk one night with
Luscious’
arrhythmic
Daddy made a lot of money in
Laughlin one year.
old friends, told mom to shut her
cunt mouth as she entered into the
After twenty-seven years ringing
familiar introductory throes of the
up customers at a Cash ‘n Carry,
tale. He’d grown weary of it and
Daddy put one quarter into one
told everyone it was a boring story
machine and made love to my
with a dull outcome and who gives
mother that night a millionaire.
a shit, anyway. The friends left and
They drove their RV to the best
mom, humiliated by her increasingly
hotel along the Colorado River
alcoholic husband, a man who was
and had it valet parked, a concept
always sober, timid and kind, locked
that thrilled them. They paid for
her person in their bedroom for a
the best room money could buy
few days. Friends were never again
69 | NOVUS | ISSUE ONE