leaning lightly on my stick
waiting for Bubba to shoot.
I had just met Bubba two games back.
His buddy sat slumped on a stool over by the wall.
The big ox played better than I had expected
but I wasn’t worried.
I had given him the first game to draw him in.
But I took the second game to keep him interested.
Bubba was just lining up his shot
when the door opened up
and Luann stepped in.
Luann looked around,
spotted me,
and walked up to the table.
“C’mon, baby, we gotta go” was all she said.
I gave her a puzzled look.
Luann knew to leave me alone when I was working.
She gave me a wild desperate look
and jerked her arms out to her sides.
“No, really. We gotta go. Now!”
I could tell something was terrible-wrong
but before I could say anything
Bubba spoke up.
“Hey, we’re in the middle of a game here”.
Luann looked at him like he was an alien from outer space.
She looked back at me and shook her head.
I started to unscrew my cue stick
but Bubba wrapped his big hand around the stick.
“You ain’t goin’ nowhere, fancy man, unlessin’ you pay up first”.
I looked over towards Luann.
She had that little 32 out,
the snubby I had given her for Valentine’s Day
a couple of years back.
She was pointing it straight at Bubba.
I thought to myself
that this big boy didn’t know how lucky he was.
She had just saved him a boatload of money.
I looked at him and nodded my head towards Luann.
When he saw the gun
he let go of my stick and stepped back.
His pal sat up straight
his eyes wide open
but he stayed on the stool where he belonged.
“C’mon, baby, we gotta go”, she said again.
I followed her out the door
and fled with her into the night.