Checkered Flannel

Brad was in an ugly mood. He was pounding beer in a road house, the television news covering the Feenis County Fair, and the regs, mostly farmers and tool and die men, were talking about Linda LaMote.

"Hey LaRue, what year was she Miss Feenis County?"

"Don't remember. But I was driving that F100, I know that."

"What's that got to do with when she was Miss Feenis," Donnell Yokes asked.

These were all slow talking men, with whole minutes passing before replies.


"I crashed that truck two years ago, so it's a ball park figure."

On the nineteen inch black and white screen a local news personality was interviewing a husband and wife taffy pulling operation, with the Ferris wheel and concession tents in the background. The homely couple, both with white paper cunt-caps on their heads, did their laughing tug of war as they talked, both ends of the taffy gangling out of their hands like a low hanging scrotum.

"It ain't about liking to do this," the rotund, thin haired lady puller told the interviewer. "it's about just doing it. It's what we been doing since 1963."

The men seated like red flannel crows around the horseshoe bar were still talking about Linda LaMote. "She been in a lotta movies, since being crowned queen here." The comment sounded dangerously sarcastic, though LaRue's inflections were nearly flat.


"I wouldn't fuck her with my worst enemy's dick," Brad bellowed out, before he had even bothered sounding out the words in his head.

The outburst came as no surprise to the rest of the patrons. Linda had been invited to appear at the fair, and turned down the invitation. No one was ready to forgive her for doing a thing like that. Or, rather, for not doing a thing like that.

"Ain't that a crime of ommission?" A sincere and dry shot at humor by Larue

"Damn straight," Brad agreed, this time, at least, thinking before he spoke.