His name was Jay Hatfield
and for one night, I was his.
Romance ‘round these parts
isn’t like some dopey Jennifer
Aniston movie, it isn’t a lot of
laughs and wrong moves,
it really only takes a twelve pack
of cheap beer, bonfire at the Strippins
and you got be hornier than a goat.
I ain’t a skank but it’s the
company you keep that gives
you a reputation. My cousins
are skanks and they got
the notches to prove it and
they’ll show you with big
ol smiles.
And that night, it didn’t
take beer, I’ve known Jay
all my short life and when
I diddled myself, I always
imagined it was him.
Don’t know why he
said those things that night,
cause he wasn’t all that
drunk, I could still smell
his Wal-Mart special cologne.
And I don’t spread my legs for anyone,
they had to be special.
Maybe I was special ‘cause
I was no skank.
I knew I was pregnant
three months later, when I was late
and my clothes were getting tight.
two pink lines and it was true.
Around these parts
there are three types of girls
there is the type of girl who
gets knocked up, gets child support
gets welfare then keeps shoving
kids out until some doctor gets in her
head that her tubes should be tied or
she winds up on Jerry or Maury
there is the type of girl
who can leave the mountains
of West Virginia and never look back
and if she does come back
she is a professional woman
or one of those perfect moms
with perfect kids with perfect clothes
there is the type of girl
who doesn’t see anything
past Wet Virginia, who work
as waitresses, or at Wal-Mart
or some other shithole store
and the best they can hope for
is management or a husband in
the mines and no welfare.
I drove my beat up truck
to Wheeling and the abortion
would cost 500, which I didn’t have
but I made the appointment anyway
I could work extra hours.
They told me I can get help
they told me I can get support
I never went back
and the baby grew.
No one really noticed
no one really cared.
Eight months after
Jay Hatfield made love to me
I gave birth to our son
in the cardboard camper
I was living in
The baby cried
I cleaned him best I could
wrapped him in a bunch
of moth eaten blankets
and put him in small box.
The nurses at the hospital
asked too many questions.
They told me to get checked out.
in my mind I named him Jack.
I made manager
and I should have
had a doctor look at
my coochie ‘cause I really can’t
seem to have another baby
miscarried three times
since Jack ripped through into this world.
I think about Jack a lot.
Jay Hatfield is married
to his high school sweetheart and
they got a bunch of kids, one the same
age as Jack would be. He comes in
and winks at me. He lost a leg
a couple of years ago in that
big mine accident. If he asked-
I would still screw him
I used to dream about
telling Jay about baby Jack
we would find him and then
bring him home. Me and Jay
would get married
and sit on rocking chairs on the porch
as the grandchildren play. But that
shit is for the movies or for girls
who see past the mountains
and coal mines of West Virginia.
And just the other day,
this beautiful blonde woman came
in wearing fancy clothes
and perfume found in
worn issues of Cosmo
with a boy-
I looked at his face
and he looked at mine
and I saw myself.
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