Chapter 2

I have a JOB!!! Yea!! Now my bride and I can move from Mom's basement. Mom will be happy.

The bride I have is NOT the bride she expected.

Mom expected Nancy.

Nan was pretty.

Nan was tall.

Nan was "stately."

Nan was boob city.

Nan was responsible.

Nan had a really good job, because she needed to feel like she was "contributing to the greater good."

Nan didn't need to work.

Nan was old money.

Mom really liked the old money part. Mom was a "climber."

Jo is the bride I got.

Jo is "plain."

Jo is ... east Kentucky hill folk, in Child Protective Services, living with her Uncle, cursed with unusual siblings, the daughter of a drunk Baptist preacher, short and still in high school. Jo is poor, flat-chested, and broken.

She is broken due to two reasons. The nose is from a double strike with the butt of a gun.

Jo can not look down her nose at anyone.

Jo spent a year and a half in a full body cast due to an altercation with her horse and her brother. He wanted to "see some action" and waved his hat in front of the horses nose and then slapped it. The horse pitched her into a tree. That broke everything except her spine. The brother is the same brother who broke her nose with the gun. I did mention unusual siblings.

So now I find myself needing to explain.

East Kentucky hill folk: one million people, two last names.

Child Protective Services: her father came home drunk and wanted some, her sisters hid Jo in the closet.

Living with her Uncle: That's where the state put her. Not much better than home.

Siblings: we will eventually get to them.

Drunk Baptist preacher: enough said.

Short: genetics

High School: Yeah baby!!

She is also the funniest person I ever met, her humor can be wicked and sarcastic, she has a rubber face, she can close her eyes from the bottom up, she can wiggle her ears one at a time, both together or in opposite directions, she is protective of "hers" and she looks good dressed up: but she never wears panties! She is really smart and turned down full ride scholarships to marry me.

I met Jo because Nan had decided to "teach me a lesson." I had pissed her off for some reason only explainable to another woman: a man would never understand it. Nan broke up with me, gave me back the ring and broke my heart.

So, I'm doing without, a situation that seems to haunt me periodically since my first "with" at the age of 14.

I was playing bass at a street dance and saw the best walk I had ever seen in my 22 years. Those tight red pants she was wearing caught the eye. This girl woman had some moves.

I stopped playing and yelled, "Hey! Hey you! Tight red pants! Yeah, you! Stand over on that corner. I want to talk to you when this song is over!"

She did.

The rest is predictable. Two days later I was in her pants and two weeks after that we were married.

Then she met my mom. TSHTF!! (the shit hit the fan) Mom did a lot of yelling, Nan did a lot of yelling. (Nan was visiting mom, discussing me and my imagined transgressions.)

Jo yelled too. Jo was rattle snake mean and she won! (Jo had the license.)