To Love And Die In Smackwater ,Part 2

Thelma Louise and I got married in Las Vegas in the Spring of 1969....We were blissfully happy that first week....We hardly ever left our room....Making sweet love every day, every night...and in between.... Going out , only to eat, then going right back to our room..

Sad thing is...I didn't really get to know Thelma Louise outside of that....She wasn't destined to live long enough...That was the shame of it. She could play cards as good as any man though.. She would play craps at the casino sometimes and win big...Unlike a lot of guys...bigtime playas that I ran with and who I saw in action....Old girl knew when to fold em. By the end of the second week in Vegas...She had won us a pile of money.

"Sweet Dick....Why don't we go to Louisiana and buy us a nice little home?" she said.

"That sounds like a fine idea baby girl, but we gots to go back to Smackwater first." I said.

"Smackwater? You don't wanna go back to that town Sweet Dick...There's nothin there...Don't you wanna find some honest work?" she asked.

"Sure I do...but I gotta go back there and settle things with Jack. I owe him money...and we did kind of run off and leave him in the lurch...We'll go back, settle up with Jack and I promise...We'll be out of Smackwater forever baby." I said. In hindsight, I should have listened to Thelma Louise and have never of gone back to Smackwater.

We drove from Las Vegas back to Texas...Stopping to lie in cornfields and stare at the moon...Eating in little dives and spending a night or two in this motel or that motel. Her body was intoxicating...Seems like I couldn't get enough of her and likewise she couldn't get enough of me either. I loved her as much as I had ever loved anyone...Why didn't I listen to her? Why?

I arrived in Smackwater with a toothy grin on my face and my new bride to much fanfare...Guys were giving me dap and the ladies were cooing-

"Chille..you got him .." She got me? Will you listen to that?

"She got her ,her Sweet dick....hhahahahahaha"

'Go head gurlll...you better hold on to Sweet Dick..." said another.

One person who wasn't glad to see me was Jack....even though I paid him the money I owed him.

"Negro ,have you lost yo mind?" He said as I continued to smile, while my new bride sat down and ordered a marguarita.

'What? Is that anyway to treat a man that just put five g's in yo pocket?" I laughed.

"You don't understand do you? You beat up Burt Curley....He and his brother Ernest have been besides themselves with anger ,lookin for you man....They're killers..especially Ernest...He did a twelve year bid for manslaughter....You need to take that broad and get in your car and get the hell out of here man." said Jack.



It was too late! Ernest Curley walked into the bar. He whispered to a couple of guys. One of them pointed at me....He smiled, but didn't say anything..You could smell the tension in the air as people began to move , almost in slow motion out of the way...

My wife had on a beautiful white sun dress that just accentuated her honey brown skin...She had a white gardenia in her hair that kind of reminded me of Billie Holiday. She was wearing blood red high heels....She looked good. I'll always remember her that way..Turning towards me, smiling...then watching her eyes grow large and that smile turn to horror as Ernest Curley pulled out his forty five and fired at her!!!!

The shot sounded like a cannon!... The bullet struck her heart...blood splashed and splattered on the wall.....She slumped on to the table....

"Now , We even Mr. Sweet Dick.....How sweet it is.." he laughed like a maniac.....

"You shouldn't have done that." I said, an anger boiling up in me like never before.

"Well don't feel too bad Mister Sweet Dick....cause you next....Thought we forgot about you huh? , Well , I didn't." he said.

He aimed at me and fired...I dove to the floor, rolled and came up shooting....See ,I carried a pistol on me too in them days....I don't think Ernest figured on that... I fired two shots..One hit him in the hip and the other hit him in the chest.... He jerked as if he was doing a new dance....then he groaned as blood just poured out of him like a gusher.

" Well I'll be damned...I don't beleive it...I've been shot." he said. Those were his last words in this life because he fell to the ground as dead as a doorknob.... as dead as my new wife was... A crowd surrounded his body....I heard a man in the crowd say-

"This must be my lucky day....I owed that guy some money....hot damn....thanks a lot fella.....get on out of here..me and my boys will get rid of his body...and the girl's too if ya want."

"No....she's going to be buried properly....I don't care what you do with him." I said , as I reloaded my gun.

"Sweet Dick...what are you doin?" said Jack.

"Where's Burt?"I said.

"Aww come on now man....aint it been enough killin for one day? Let it go...get in yo car and get out of here..." said Jack.

"Where is he?" I said ,aiming the gun at Jack's head.

"You gonna put a gun on me Sweet Dick, you son of a bitch?" said Jack.

"Where is he?" I asked again.

"I'll take you to him." said Jack.

We got in his car and drove seven or eight blocks to Burt Curley's house. Burt must have heard what happened because he opened fire on the car the minute we pulled up...Jack ducked down and I climbed out of my seat and crawled behind a row of neatly stacked trash cans...
Burt Curley came running out into the street with his gun blazing and I mowed him down with two good shots...One hit him in the side and the other shot hit him in the shoulder. He spun around and fell to the ground.

"Okay Sweet Dick...you done killed both of em...Ya happy now bitch?" said a very disgusted Jack.

"Yeah...I'm happy." I said as I burst into tears....I cried like a baby and leaned over Jack's car....In all of this gunplay, not one cop showed up. Shootings in this part of town between Negroes on the weekend were common place..The cops didn't care about Black men shooting other Black men.

"Sweet Dick...I'm gon take you back to your car now....I want you to get in it and don't never come back, ya hear?" said Jack.
I shook my head in agreement.....I got in my car and I drove out of Smackwater and out of Texas period.

Burt Curley didn't die. He was taken to the hospital and bandaged up. They never found a trace of his brother Ernest's body...I can only guess that those guys burried him out in the desert. I sent money to Jack and he made sure that Thelma Louise had a proper funeral. I had heard that Burt Curley said he was coming to Louisiana to get me, but he never did...I suspect he had had a gut full of me...Pun intended.

I was never the same...I couldn't love any woman that came after Thelma Louise quite right...Not Victoria's Mother, who I lived with for two years...Not Mabel and Corabeth's mother who I actually married and stayed with a good many years and certainly not Anita's mother. All of my children's mothers were good women...I was the problem..I was a damaged man....Now here I was married again and back in this god forsaken town...If I was going to ever move forward, I had to finish some old business.







(Conclusion next....)