Chapter 1: Your Cheatin' Heart

Emily and me was married for fifteen wonderfully whole, thought provoking and blissful years, when the unthinkable got thought. And believe you me I was not the one doing any of the thinking. I never would let myself get caught thinking the unthinkable because that could leave you deep in the doodoo. How ... ever there it was before my very own eyes and no one else's, and I seen what I saw first hand.

I caught her trading spit and doing tongue maneuvers with none other than Homer C. Carville, who up until that fateful day was my very best friend before I caught them having carnal knowledge with each other. In fact, they were carnal as all get out. At first I was real pissed at her for putting a big strain on Homer's and my great friendship. Then I turned my righteous wrath on him for betraying my openhearted trust in him. I mean, my heart stopped and the world kept on going around, just like it says in all the country western songs that all America loves and plays and listens to, well except for some New York City and California preverts. I figure they don't count for anything anyhow.

All they want to do is belly up against each other, one he with another he which I don't even like to contemplate on. Now a he and a she is a whole different road race, as they say. Because there, in search of permanent true romance or at least a one night stand, anything goes and is legal if neither party is left unconscious, maimed or herniated.

Although I do admit as how when I saw some pictures of a she going with another she I got some excited. Not that I had ever asked to see my simple and innocent Emily doing that shit with another woman. Well, if she really wanted to and let me join in some I guess it might be all right to go along with the action. You have to pardon me because right now I have so many thoughts wiggling around in my head that I am digressing here.

However, let me get back on the way I found out about my sweet and innocent Emily and one rotten son of a bitch Homer was I had the unhappenable happen to me out on the road. I ran out of bullets for my nine shot .22 caliber Colt revolver. Shoving a garbage truck around the county all day can be right boring and a hell of a strain on the brain without mental diversions. I mean, unless you got a way to plink the little reflectors out of road signs and try to pop various parts of the anatomy of the people on the bill boards as you drive by, well, your mind just gets sort of drifty.

Now I mean to tell you that when a man is driving a garbage truck he is doing a thinking man's job. Just imagine if you had some ignorant and semiliterate Arkansas red neck hillbilly, zoned out of his mind on uppers and corn whiskey picking up your trash. It would be downright scary.

One or the other is okay, if you're man enough to handle the overload on your nervous system, but never both at the same time. (Or at least not too often.) Too much of two good things is just courting trouble is my motto. You got to have at least one functioning cell in each side of your brain to keep you from being lopsided in your thoughts. And let me tell you for sure I do qualify there. My brain is a finely tuned instrument and is never ever lopsided. My erection is always erect and my mind is always focused somewhere on something or other, usually.

Anyway, I walked in the back door of our trailer house (because the front door was broke and nailed shut.) and stumbled over Homer and Em both naked as jaybirds, hugging and kissing and just moaning to beat the band. Let me tell you that old boy had his tongue so far down my little gal's throat I knew if he would of sneezed, she would have farted. And I don't say it to be indelicate, not one bit. I respect my sweet and darling Emily too much to be indelicate about her. But believe me I seen it with my own eyes and nobody else's.

Well, after I saw what was going on right there under my nose, I said, "Homer, just what in the hell do you think you are doing with my sweet and innocent wife?" I wanted to give him a chance to explain, in case there was a good and reasonable reason for this behavior of his. I couldn't think of a good reason for them to be doing this shit, but I do try to be fair.

That is because I am a fair-minded man and wanted him to have a chance to explain before I let my right hand grab him by the nuts, after which I would then try my damndest to lift him off the floor by them. But like I said, I did want to give him a chance to weasel out of it if he could. A friendship like ours is not something what you would ever wish to destroy by being too sudden in your actions. It ain't good to jump to conclusions too fast. If you jump to conclusions, you should do so with all due deliberation. Then you kill the son of a bitch.

Hell, I can tell you me and Homer went way back together. I mean, I even stayed and took the fourth grade over for the second time so I wouldn't leave him behind. This is how deep my side of the friendship goes. I probably could have had already passed the third grade on my second try at it but I waited for old Homer. Some people just have no sense of gratitude.

I got to admit it, though. I surely did like lording it over the dumb little kids who was taking it for the first time and I already knew all the answers. Well, some of 'em, anyways. It felt good to know something when the other guy doesn't, even if they was just little kids. Ever little bit helps, as they say in one of those country western songs that all America sings with a joyous heart. (Have you ever thought where this old world would be without country and western music?)

Of course our teacher was some pissed at me when I started to make my moves on that sweet and pretty little Francine Miller. But she didn't have no worries. Francine told me she was saving it for her Uncle Leroy. I understand family obligations. In fact, it was kind of sweet, her saving it for Leroy and all. He had a whole year left on his sentence before they was going to let him out of prison where he went for beating the shit out of that deputy for busting up his still. And there she was being loyal and true mostly, just waiting for Leroy. (That's where I got the idea for our hit song later on, "Waitin' For Leroy.") But I am now getting ahead of myself.

So, anyway, I walked in and decided to give Homer a chance to explain. And here he looked up at me standing there with my empty revolver in my hand and he screamed "Oh shit." He then jumped up and dove out through a closed mobile home window in the front room and was running bare assed naked down middle of the road.

I never really had any idea what a long old Johnson he had on him till then. I mean it was way too big to be legal on a white man. He sure was a sight, skinny bare butt showing, knobby knees pumping high enough to almost hit him in the chin and his big, long dammed old pecker flapping from side to side and bouncing against his knees. I was going to have to tell him as how my little twenty-two revolver was empty as my cousin Archibald's head. He ought to see the humor in something like that. If he didn't, he should have.

Then I looked at my sweet darling bride Emily, laying there all spraddle legged and looking some delicious. So I stopped and pulled my jeans down and crawled on and had me some of what she was showing. I got done after a couple of minutes and belched and farted my appreciation and stood up and started to pull my pants back up.

"You are a disgusting pig, Wilbur Smith. You know something? You really are just some disgusting." she was laying there looking real mad at me.

"You done said that before, Honey. What's the matter with you now?" I mean, after fifteen years and I still find my wife good looking enough for a little spur of the moment screwing like I just did, what in hell could be the matter now?

"Well, I'll tell you what the matter is. You come waltzing in here with your truck pistol in your hand and catch me bare ass naked with another man and you don't shoot him? I mean, even if he is your best friend, you should of shot him, at least once, somewhere. What kind of disrespect is it to show your wife and the mother of your child?"

"Well, I would have, but it ain't loaded so I couldn't have, Honey Pie. It's as empty as your daddy's head. I ran out of bullets and come back for more. Shit, Honey, I'd do just about anything for you, you know without me having to tell you." When I have to be, I am one smooth and silver tongued old fox.

"Honey," I asked her, sort of perplexed, "What's this about a kid? You're not knocked up, are you?" I mean, it ain't like we been taking cautions and all. But she ain't never been knocked up and she says something about me being the father of her child?

She dismissed my question with, "I was talking in one of them there metaphors, Wilbur. The she looked up at me, still flat on her back and still looking all real delicious and innocent, "Would you really of shot him for me?" she asked, not so pissed off looking any more now since she knowed I wasn't disrespecting her none.

She shifted her position some and grinned and said, You come back down here and let's do it again right, with you naked and all." I mean she had this polecat biting grin what left me no doubt what she wanted once I was back down on the old carpet with her.

I hesitated until I saw the mean look she was starting to get again on her face. Well, there is times when a man just has to rise above himself and this was one of them. I figured once oughta be plenty for a woman when her man puts his all into it. But no, a woman has to get all emotional and notional and a man has to do the best he can. (By God, there could be a great title for a new country western song, "Emotional And Notional.") So I got buck-naked and started to crawl on top and she said, wait.

So I waited and she opened her mouth and slid down in bed and started to chew on it. Let me tell you I was really surprised some when she done it to me. I had heard of it being done, but I never had it done to me. But then it started to feel real good and she started to moan with her mouth full and growl in her throat and I got excited and my dick started to jump and she spit it out and slapped it a hard one and I went soft, all at once.

"Owww" I yelled at her, "Why did you bite me? You sure as hell derailed my passion train just as I was about to go off."

"That is part of the problem with you Wilbur." She gave me a painful squeeze and went on, "I been married to you since I was fourteen years old. We been married for fifteen years and you count 'em; I am now twenty-five years old and I only got off with you maybe a half dozen times in that whole fifteen years. You just crawl on stick it in and shoot it off. And there I am still laying there, always hungry for a little more." She looked at me like I was a retarded child. (I finally did write a song, "Hungry For A Little More" that all America loved from New Mexico to Mississippi, including Oklahoma and Texas of course.)

"Wilbur, you made me go out cheating to get some satisfaction." She shook her head. "Cain't you see? It is all your fault, you made me a cheating wife." (Now there is a fine theme for a soul racking and heart drenching kind of guilt-ridden song. "You Made Me A Cheatin Wife is a great title. I'll just have to throw some words to it when I get the chance.)

"Well, hell, you didn't have to wait fifteen years to tell me what you wanted. I mean all you had to do was say something. Did you have him over here just to teach me some kind of a lesson?

"Wilbur, you blank headed moron, this is not the first time Homer has been over here and Homer is not the first I cheated on you with. I am a growed woman and I have a growed woman's needs and desires, just like in the song, 'Lies and Sighs' which I sing so much and so well. It's all because I mean it from the bottom of my womanly heart. Except I quit sighing the first week we was married and I never bothered lying cause I just never said anything."