As Joan Miller looked out the kitchen window in hopes that she would be having company, with even the Jehovah's Witnesses being a welcome diversion from the boredom, the irony of how at 48 her life had come full circle from when she was a teen was not lost on the woman. She had come a long way, she thought as she looked at the rusted out swing set somehow still standing out in the yard, yet hadn't gotten anywhere.
Joan was back living in the home she grew up in after finally giving up on a loveless marriage and the mental and physical abuse that came with it, and while she claimed her returning was to help her aging mother out, it was also born of necessity because she had few other options since his worthless spouse had taken everything of value.
While waiting for her gentleman caller to appear, Joan recalled back when boyfriends would be sneaking around back there and she would go out and have fun in the barn with them. If her mother had ever found out she would have been furious.
Joan's father had figured it out though, but told her that while he understood all about being young unfortunately he would have to tell Mom what had been going on behind their backs.
"Unless..." her late father had suggested as an alternative, and from then on the signal to go back to the barn came from inside the house instead of outside.
"If Mom only knew," Joan mumbled, but when she saw her gentleman friend working his way around the back after parking the county dump truck somewhere down the road, Joan wondered whether her mother might be even more upset about what she did in the barn with Neville than what her husband had done back then.
Neville would not have been considered a proper suitor by Mom's standards, she mused while drying her hands and getting ready to sneak outside. He was coarse and crude, not particularly handsome and only wanted one thing, and had made that clear from the start a couple of months earlier.
***
The county worker had been picking up branches and bags of leaves that Joan had put by the side of the road, and after they exchanged names and greetings the husky man in the well-worn wife-beater said, "I don't know what I'd like to do more, fuck you in the pussy or the ass Joan."
Just like that. The words rolled off his tongue without the slightest bit of shame, and after she recovered from the shock she asked the burly middle-aged man whether he said that to all the woman he encountered during the course of the day.
"Just the ones I want to fuck," was his reply.
"I bet you get slapped a lot," Joan told him.
"Some, but I also get fucked a lot," he candidly replied, and then he held up a beefy black hand and said, "It don't rub off on you, if that's what concerns you."
"It's not that," Joan said, partly telling the truth.
"Husband inside?" he asked while nodding towards the house and the ring still on her finger.
"My mother," Joan answered. "I'm not - it's a long story but the ring is only on because it's the only jewelry I own."
"Couldn't get mine off if I wanted to," Neville said as she showed the gold band embedded in the thick black finger. "Your Mama, you think she'd be upset if she caught you sneaking a Negro inside?"
Neville's teeth glistened as he comically drew out the word "Negro", and Joan had noted that while he was grubby his smile was brilliant and contagious.
"Can't sneak nothing past her in the house, black or white," Joan told him. "I used to have better luck back in the barn."
"Ever meet any black boys back there?"
