A real party girl
Look,
If I wanted to sit around this rooming house all night, every night, staring at the walls, I wouldn’t have left Daddy.
At least there I didn’t have to come home and make my own supper or iron my own skirts
Friday is the worst night to be stuck here, too, when you can nearly hear every note from the jukebox in the tavern across the street.
It makes me want to get up and dance.
And you know nobody in this place has energy or talent for anything so physical as that, let alone what comes later.
Besides, every time I danced by myself my landlord banged on the ceiling from downstairs to make me stop.
I know he would only bang twice as hard if I got anybody else to dance with me.
Maybe that’s why I go out sometimes.
And maybe this time I wanted to go out even more because my boss made me feel like shit because I mistyped some of his stuff, and I wanted some man somewhere to look at me like I was worth something again.
And men do look at me when I dance.
Besides, I’m drawn to the dance floor like a bee is honey.
Call me a party girl; I just can’t help myself.
I never meant for any trouble to come of it.
Maybe I always saw a bar where college kids hang out as less dangerous than those other places downtown, where a men strip a girl in their minds long before they even buy her the first drink.
I didn’t even think of what comes after.
I thought I could just dance.
I didn’t figure that alcohol would go to my head as quickly as it did.
Maybe somebody did put something else in it.
I don’t know.
This was a different kind of drunk than the other times.
I forget all that happened.
Some people tell me I acted pretty loose, following every pretty boy around until each and every one of them agreed to dance.
I suppose that much is true since my legs still ache and my shoes look as if I walked around the country in them.
Drunk or not, I’m not the kind of girl that takes a man back to my room.
At least not after just meeting them in a bar.
I tried to tell the drunken clod that, but he wouldn’t listen.
I remember that much.
I remember him asking to come up and me saying absolutely not
Even if the rest of what I said or did is a little hazy.
Okay, maybe I forgot to say absolutely, and maybe I actually said maybe some other time.
But I was being kind.
I sort of liked this boy and maybe wanted to see him again.
But when I said I’d see him later, I didn’t mean for him to come pounding on my door later that night, making such a to-do about my letting him that he woke up the whole house.
If he was drunk before, he was a lot worse then.
I could smell the alcohol through the door and knew then he wasn’t the kind of boy Daddy would approve of.
Boy did he howl when I refused to unlock the door, claiming I had promised to do him when I know I clearly said no such thing.
Sure, I hinted that it was possible he might do me some time somewhere.
But all girls flirt when they’re in the bar like that.
He should never have taken it so seriously, and acted so crazy when I told him that it wasn’t going to happen right then and there, and that he should go away before someone calls the cops.
I never heard such a fuss. He made the big bad wolf look tame, huffing and puffing and doing his best to knock my door down.
Three o’clock in the morning and the whole house was up, everybody wondering what was going on, and shouting at me to shut him up.
None of them tried to help me, or came out to escort the clod out to the street.
Wimps.
Not a man among them and they wonder why I go to the bar to find some entertainment.
Finally, the landlord got tired of banging on his ceiling and called the police.
After the police dragged the clod out, things settled down again.
But my landlord was peeved at me, saying just because I pay my rent on time doesn’t mean he has to put up with this kind of behavior night after night.
I did point out this was only the fourth time this week, but that didn’t appease him any.
Which is why he told me to leave.
And this is why I’m talking to you, Momma.
You think Daddy’ll take me back if I promise to behave?