Zuza

Flash fiction

I stomped my truck pedal,

and rolled past a broke-down

filling station and a thousand 

acres of Texas harvest. I had no

call to quit kicking up dust, but

then I spotted Zuza sitting

on a split rail fence, looking east

to where a  twister was gobbling 

up subdivisions. 

Zuza had gypsy curls and wore

a sweet pair  of Yeezy Boost 

on the ends of her dangling legs. 

I hit the brakes and rolled the passenger

window down.

See, we'd shared glitter and paste sticks

when we were small, and it didn't matter

that the years had gone by and that she

was a hooker, and I was a saddle tramp with

cow-s**t boots. 

"Hey, Zuz," I said, rubbing a sunburn peel 

off my neck. 

"You probably don't remember me."

She shot me a glance.

"I sure as s**t do, Hobo." 

She put up a hand to shush me. 

"Goddamn!" she shouted. "Look how 

it came  apart."

I said, "I guess that's Peggy's Hi-Lo, 

ain't it?"

"Used to be," said Zuz.

I was shy about talking to her because

of her tits and her pretty face and her

truck stop, Beau, who  pimped for her

and beat her sometimes and kept an 

Italian switchblade in his pocket and

kept an office in the back of Peggy's 

Hi-Lo, which was a watering hole

for shitters and the like. 

Zuza  pointed to the Hi-Lo and Chico's 

Caddilac just as the funnel sucked it up.

"I reckon that's an F-5," said Zuza.

And then she climbed into my truck 

and saddled up next to me.