Family in the Flop House

Millie and Tod were sitting with me at the communal formica table in our kitchenette. We had been neighbors at the rooming house for a couple of years. The couple had a habit of airing their family matters in front of me.

"I think we should put him in the hospital," Tod said, like it was for a pre-existing condition.
Millie said, "Yeah, we should put him in the hospital," like a parent, and, "After what he did to us," more like the daughter of snake handling country preacher. Yea, though I'm holding this water mocasin I am a lucky religious leader.

I learned some new things about the couple that afternoon.
Millie had a displaced filtrim and slightly folded lip from a collision with lucrative government truck. The wreck put them into a Beverly Hillbillies situation, with two rugged ridge runners newly rich from a large settlement. But the wreck and riches were old news. They moved into the rooming house because they were nearing the end of their financial fortune.
Which gave the couple so many wonderful annecdotes to share with me in the kitcheonette. We had been sharing coffee in the afternoon regularly for months. I was at the rooming house for about six years, going in and out of a Pennsylvania State College like a busted reverse gear. And during much of that same time, Millie and Tod were traveling through India, Europe, and even the little places only the old rich know about. Neither spouse had finished junior high, but the two, most especially Millie, had a gift for gab and had been able to mix with the first class passengers, freely, given the generousity of a court. But Millie could get fully involved with almost anyone within minutes of meeting them.

Tod was a straight talker, probably a mountain man, if there is such a thing.
He adjusted to new situations well. While Millie was the social genius, Tod was more inclined to become a business owner. While all of their accounts of the last five years varied and transfigured, Tod was pretty clear that their auto detailing company was losing money, and most of the investments went sour. They had a lot of children between the two of them from previous common law marriages. They kept one juvenile delinquent in his own room at the house. The rest of the kids were either grown or caring for the younger siblings. Trailers. Parks. Trucks. Hanging drywall. Pardon my logorhea.

It was one of Tod's sons that had embezzled and absconded. It sounded like Millie and Tod would be committing a portion of their reserves to a road trip in the near future.
Of course I am full of shit with regard to my real thoughts and feelings, all the more during coffee with Tod and Millie. I was a lapsed humanities major, for fuck sake. I cannot really condone the Tod and Millie code of the hills. In conflict with ethics, Tod was built like a brick shit house, and Millie was cunning. So was Tod. Besides, we got along like Jed, Jethro, Granny, Elly May, and Mr. Dreisdale.