"Thanks for the lift, Pete." Bubba got down from the cab of the pulp wood truck, "See you tomorrow."

"Nah, got nothing tomorrow, but we'll start cuttin' that new place on Thursday, pick you up at 6:30."

"Kay."

He walked across the worn pavement and through the door of the Dew Drop Inn Bar and Grill. He stooped to scratch behind the ears of Daisy, the Black and Tan that Donna, the barmaid bred. Donna reached in the cooler for a Pabst Blue Ribbon, popped the cap off, and set it on the bar in front of the chair Bubba occupied most nights until closing. "Hungry?" She'd given up asking him to wipe the clay off his boots before he came in, she just swept the floor after closing and let it go.

"Yeah, lemme have a burger, Donna."

Donna yelled through the window to the kitchen, "One burger, Trey."

She turned back to Bubba, looked at the empty bottle and reached for another beer for him. "When are you and me going to go out and have some fun?"

"You know Daddy don't give me a night off much and then I got to see my kid." Her excuse for all the local men that hit on her, and they all did. Her thoughts were more along the lines of No way in hell even in your wet dreams you smelly fuck. She dressed to encourage it, but really to encourage the tips their fantasies would generate. Her skirt was short to show off her legs, and her top was one size too small to stretch the buttons and cause the small gap between her breasts. Her bra peeked through sometimes, just enough to keep the horny regulars hoping.

Bubba was on his third beer as the bar started to get some customers and they ordered food, mostly hamburgers, to go with the normal beers that quenched their working-class thirsts. The Dew Drop had a reputation for the best hamburgers in the eastern half of the county, but the atmosphere and usual cliental kept most of the residents of the town of 2,300 away, Most preferred getting worse food from the McDonalds on the outskirts of town. Ian McCooke had bought the property on both sides of the highway, along with his brother, when they moved toward the coast from the foothills where they'd grown up with the rest of their Scots-Irish family. Donna and Trey were his two children, both in their thirties, both divorced.

The property consisted of the Dew Drop, which sat in the center of the U shaped Jefferson Davis Motel. Both had seen better days before the Interstate had gone through 15 miles to the south, and then, as if to seal the fate of the small community, a bypass had been built that took most traffic to the other side of the town and past the Walmart. Ian McCooke believed something was against him in the town. He'd sold the motel to Pavas Patel a few years before, but kept the Coleman Plantation Mobile Home Park across the road for the meager rents and sales it produced. Bubba rented one of the trailers.

Bubba moved from the bar to a booth with two of his friends from high school. They would spend the rest of the evening talking of the greatest accomplishments of their lives, all behind them. This was Bubba's night to brag.

"Sunday night, I got me some. I didn't believe it, but them two twins Lila and Layla come down the road and started flirting with me. They was both wearing Daisy Dukes and some kinda tee shirt they'd cut off so there wasn't much but a tube left of it and they'd put on some of they Momma's perfume and lipstick. They looked right slut like."

"Bubba, how old are those twins? I remember them on tricycles."

"Dunno 'xactly, But they was both talking dirty to me and making like they wanted to git it on. So I said Y'all come on in the trailer here and we'll have some fun. So they do, and then one of them, Lila, goes in the fridge and gits three beers and hands them around and they get to drinking them with me. I was thinking they too young to drink, but they took 'em themselves. Then Layla, or the other one says Lets get what we came her for and she shucks off her clothes right there, and starts tugging on my shirt to get it over my head. The other one says I'm scart, but Layla says don't be, and sorta pulls me back toward the bed. The scart one just watches and when Layla pulls my jeans down and lays back on the bed with them legs open she runs out the door. But I got to going, and she's real tight and making noises and shit so I put my hand over her mouth so she don't get the neighbors annoyed. Then we're all done and she gets up and puts her clothes on and says Thanks Bubba and runs out the door. My sheets was a mess. Blood all over them. I reckon she was a first timer."

"Damn, Bubba." It was a non-committal statement from Donnie Ray.

Donna was at the booth with three more beers and had heard most of the story. "Those twins are only fourteen. Are you outa your fuckin' mind?" She set the beers down an walked away shaking her head.

Bubba wiggled his fingers one at a time as he counted. "Shit, that ain't but seven years younger than me, what's wrong with that? My momma's fourteen years younger then my daddy."

His companions said what passed for good night and left, Bubba finished his beer and then the other two that his friends hadn't touched. He left two twenties on the table and staggered out the door, and across the street toward his trailer. There was one light in the middle of the row of twenty house trailers, all without wheels, ten on each side of the road. He hadn't bothered to check the mailbox for anything, he hadn't bothered for the entire week because he'd never made it home sober enough to find his mailbox key since Sunday. He stumbled up the cinder block steps and through the door. He never locked the door. He didn't have anything to steal and he'd only lose the key if he did. He thought about getting a beer from the refrigerator, but couldn't quite remember where it was so he sat on the sofa and passed out.

Bubba'a leg exploded in pain. He woke with start and sat up. Two bright eyes were shining at him in the darkness blinding him. He smelled grease, motor oil, transmission fluid, body odor but his brain was too foggy to sort it out.

"Tape him boys." The creature with the two eyes spoke and one eye moved. Something trapped around his head covering his mouth and someone grabbed his hands and held them together. A tearing sound accompanied a feeling of tightness over his wrists. Too late, he started to struggle against whoever it was he couldn't see. Someone pushed him back down on the sofa and someone grabbed his legs. The tearing sound again and this time it was his legs that couldn't move apart. Something sticky pulled the hair on his legs when he tried to move.

"Pick him up and let's go."

Bubba was picked up, he couldn't tell by how many arms. He sensed rather than saw himself being carried out the door of his trailer to the road. He could see a pickup there and he was loaded into the back. Someone got in with him and kicked him. "Lay still, boy."

The doors of the pickup closed, the engine started and it began to move. There was a hard bump as it crossed over the culvert an onto the highway. Bubba noticed his leg still hurt. He looked down at the deepening bruise. His companion noticed the gaze and laughed. "You lucky I missed yo' balls, boy. Now lay still."

Bubba moved his eyes and saw the aluminum baseball bat in his companion's hand. He looked vaguely familiar. He looked around as they went under street lights. He could see a large roll bar bolted to the bed of the truck with lights on the top of it. He was laying on a plastic bed liner. There was a chain, and a hi-lift jack and a few other tools against the side of the truck. He couldn't make out anything else before they left the outskirts of the town and the lights stopped. He had no idea of the time but it was still full dark. The truck picked up speed.

There were lights follow them, At a dip in the road he could see two sets behind them, both looked to be pickups. The first one, at least, was pulling a trailer with a boat attached. He didn't see anything else other than the tops of pine trees along the road until they slowed and turned off. He caught the top of the sign for Larry's Bait and Tackle that marked the dirt road leading down to Eight Mile Pond. The Pond was a favorite fishing spot for some locals and Larry kept a few jon boats at his boat ramp that he rented for two dollars an hour or five dollars a day, bring your own motor, oars, or paddle, or he'd rent you those and life jackets at the store. It mostly worked on the honer system and people just left the money in the box on the side of the store.

The road was rough and Bubba bounced and hurt in the back of the truck. Eight Mile Pond got its name because it backed water eight miles up Catfish Creek. The beaver dam had been there since before the War of Northern Aggression, and escaped distruction because it was only a beaver dam and not some man made structure. There were now three beaver lodges up from the damn and all three families worked at maintaining the dam. Larry tended to float small logs and branches down to dam to help the beavers after particularly bad storms when the Pond had flooded. The ramp was at the widest part of the pond, and most fishermen didn't venture far from the main body of water up into the creek as it wandered through the cypress and tupelo that thrived in the shallow water.

The pickup stopped at the ramp and the others followed down nearby. The one towing the boat trailer turned and backed down the ramp. Bubba noticed a square stern canoe in the back of the other truck. His square steered canoe. A car was parked there, also. The doors opened and the men got out. Bubba smelled the grease and oil again. They came around and dropped the tail gate. One of the men grabbed his leg and pulled him out and they stood him up in the headlights.

Bubba recognized the leader. Short, skinny, and in coveralls that were spotted and stained. He ran a small garage where he fixed peoples older cars and trucks. Bubba couldn't remember his name, but did know him as some of the white trash from the town. Bubba never got the irony of thinking of someone else as white trash. The man waved at the car and the doors opened. A man, a woman and two girls got out. Bubba recognized the twins. Shit was his only thought.

"Is this the fella that done that to you?"

"Yeah, Unc Henry, that's the one." It was Lila that spoke, the one who had run away. Layla stood beside her, silent.

"Okay, y'all gwine and git home, we'll teach this sumbitch to go givin' you clamidah."

Bubba wondered what clamidah was and who'd given it to who. Maybe he meant the clap but Bubba didn't have that because it didn't hurt to pee. Lila looked triumphant and glowered at him. Layla met his eyes and looked sad. Her lips moved but Bubba couldn't tell what she said. The family got in the car and it drove away.

"Cut them panties off'n him and put him in the boat."

A click sounded behind him and he felt something cold run down his back. Then his boxers were pull off of him. He was lifted and carried down to the boat on the ramp and put near the bow. Another jon boat towing his canoe was already running and led the way toward the opening of the trees that marked where the main body of the creak entered the pond. They had large flashlights lighting their way.

Soon they entered a stand of tupelo that hid everything behind and in front of them. The channel was barely visible leading upstream. Upstream was more of a notion than defined by any flow of water. The pond was still. Bubba didn't have a good idea of the distance they went, he'd never ventured this far to where the trees, now mostly bald cyprus, closed in around them, branches arching over the watery path. In clear spots he could see the sky turning a paler shade of black, and fewer stars visible. He was sure he was going to die in the swamp.

In a small clear spot in the creek the boat pulled to one side around the stump of a cypress tree that had been cut off about two feet above the water.

"Git him up there."

Hands grabbed him, lifted him out of the boat and set him on a cypress stump. They held him in place like he was sitting on a chair with no back. The older man that was leading the group picked up a hammer and a nail. "Hold him still, now. Boy, you hold that dick of yourn outta the way less'n you want it smashed. That wouldn't bother me none."

"What?"

" Pick your dick up before it gits smushed, Ain't none of my boys gonna touch that thang."

Bubba didn't know what else to do, so with one of his taped together hands, he picked himself up. The younger men on either side moved his knees apart. The older man took the nail and placed it dead center on Bubba's scrotum and then drove it through with the hammer. Bubba screamed. He kept driving until the head of the nail was down on the skin of the scrotum.

"Alrighty, boys, that's our good deed for the day. Let's git outta here and let this boy have some peace."

They let him go and Bubba swayed back and forth, almost fainting. He caught his balance and watched the boats disappear among the trees. He looked at his hands, duct taped around the wrists. Then he looked at the nail in the middle of his scrotum. He was bleeding, but not much. The pain was still there. He moved his knees together just slightly. He bent forward and looked at his ankles duct taped together.

He tried not to panic. He screamed into the duct tape.

Once the pain in his crotch had reduced to a dull throb, Bubba relaxed his body and slumped. He nearly lost his balance, but recovered without putting any strain on his delicate attachment to the stump. He tried pushing the tape away from his mouth, wetting it with spit, but it didn't work. He gently worked at his wrists to see if he could loosen the tape, but that didn't work either. He used his hand to try and pull the nail out of the stump but it didn't move.

The sky had turned to the pale blue of a clear dawn. It reflected off of the still water. A ripple disturbed the water and Bubba followed it to its center and saw two eyes and a snout watching him. He dug out his memory and it told him the distance between the nose and the eyes was the length of the alligator in feet. Looked like 8 inches, so the gator was about 8 feet long. Big, but probably a female off her nest, not likely to jump on the stump to attack him. He watched the gator watching him. The gator submerged and then disappeared in the brown water. Bubba thought At least I have company.

As the sun rose higher he heard a hawk call overhead, looked up and watched it circling lazily overhead, looking for a meal. The hawk kept his attention for a quarter of an hour before it dove to catch something. Bubba couldn't see since it was below the tops of the trees.

The sun continued its path through the sky and Bubba began to feel the burn on his skin. His face, neck, and arms were tanned from working outside every day, but his shoulders and back were starting to redden and burn. When he glanced down at his thighs, they were also beginning to burn.

At last the sun went below the tree tops leaving him in shadow and the burn subsided a little bit. The pain in his back from sitting for so long caused him to try moving from side to side and back and forth always being careful to avoid falling off of the stump and leaving parts of him behind.

As night fell, the noises changed. There was the occasional splash of something jumping or diving in the water. He worried about what that might be. An owl hooted in the tree next to him for what he thought was a couple of hours. Frogs made their various mating calls, some deep from the bull frogs and some small from the tree frogs.

He jerked awake. He had no idea how long he slept. He wasn't even aware of falling asleep. The first light started to give shape to the trees around him. He could see color start to reflect from the sky onto the water. He was hungry and thirsty. His throat ached. But the pain in his scrotum was gone. His legs and ass were sore from the stump. He started to think this was a lousy way to die.

Something caught his eye moving behind him to the right. He turned and looked and watched a large moth caught in a spider's web. The moth struggled, but was trapped. The large black and yellow garden spider, after feeling the vibrations of the captured prey, walked slowly over the web to the moth. Then mounting on top of it, bit it and killed it. The spider then began sucking the juices from the hulk of the moth.

The sun reflected from the surface of the water like a mirror. The intensity seemed magnified on his legs where he wasn't tanned. His back and chest continued to broil. Something rippled the surface of the mirror. Bubba squinted into the glare seeking the source. He found it. A snake was swimming across the pond about fifty feet in front of him. He watched as it held its black head above the surface and curved its body through the water. He tried to figure out if it was a black snake or a cottonmouth. He couldn't tell in the Sun's reflection. Then there was a splash, larger waves circled out from where the alligator had grabbed the snake. The alligator disappeared below the water and the mirror calmed and began to cook his skin again.

There was almost no sound around him. Softly,from behind him, he heard the dip of paddles in the water. He turned to look over his shoulder. A tandem kayak approached him and the source of his trouble was paddling it. Layla was in the front and Lila in the rear. It paddled up close, and Layla kneeled up on the deck.

"Hey, stupid, you're going to flip us." Lila yelled at her.

"Just chill." Layla reached up and grabbed the tape on his mouth and pulled. It hurt as it pulled out his whisker stubble.

"Ouch!" Bubba looked at them with some degree of fear.

"Look here, big bad man got his balls nailed to a stump." Lila laughed. She was clearly proud of this.

"Bubba, I didn't have anything to do with this." Layla told him quickly.

"What?"

"It was all Lila. She told Daddy and he went and got Uncle Jim Bob. I didn't say nothing to no body,."

"Shut up, stupid." Lila swung the paddle at Layla, hitting her on the shoulder. Then back paddled to get away from the stump and Bubba. "You don't look like you're ready to fuck any girls now, big boy. You'll be out here in the swamp for a long time. Your balls will rot off before you get off that stump." Lila laughed.

Layla's eyes looked at him. She mouthed something, but he couldn't make it out.

"Somebody's coming, lets get outta here." Lila started paddling.

"No, wait." Layla tried to stop her.

"We'll get arrested if they catch us. Or Daddy will tear us a new one."

Layla picked up her paddle and started paddling, looking back over her shoulder at Bubba as the disappeared in the trees.

When they were gone, Bubba could hear the sound of an outboard. He listened. Hoping. It went past on the other side of him from where the twins had disappeared. He yelled, but the trees and the sound of the motor kept him from being heard by the driver. He didn't even see the boat go past.

Bubba listened carefully and the buzzing whine of the outboard multiplied. There were others. He began to crane around an look for them. He prepared to yell when they got close enough. There was hope.

He began pulling at the tape on his wrists with his teeth and slowly loosened it up. After a long time working on it, he got one hand free and pull the tape from his other wrist. He looked at his now hairless wrists.

The sound of the outboards had faded up stream.

Fatigue was overtaking Bubba and he started to nod off in the sun. He was burnt but he could bear it for now. His mind was too fuzzy to think of a way to get off of the stump although he tried.

A bird screamed. Or so he thought when it brought him out of his daze. He looked around the circle of sky visible to him. A hawk circled overhead once then disappeared. He was alone again.

Bubba was relieved when a cloud rolled over the sun and stopped the burning. Distant and deep rumbling announced that this was a thunderstorm and he shouldn't get too used to the shade it provided. He was grateful anyway.

The rumbling became louder and the clouds darker. Except for the thunder, the swamp became quiet. The quiet was a preparation for the flash and ripping crack of a lightening strike nearby. He didn't notice a lag between the flash and the noise. "Damn, that's close," he said to the critters that had abandoned him. A few drops of rain began to dimple the surface of the water. Another flash and crack proceeded by seconds the downpour of rain that was almost as loud on the water and leaves around him as the thunder. Wind blew the rain nearly horizontally against his back. It hurt. Not only did the drops hit painfully hard but they had come from miles up in the sky and were nearly ice when they hit his sunburned skin. Bubba began to cry.

The wind let up and the rain tapered off leaving just the clouds and colder air settled against the water. He started to shiver from the burn and the cold. He shivered himself into what passed for sleeping while keeping his balance on the stump like bird on a new twig.

Something woke him. It was dark. The stars were shining brightly this far from any lights and the cloud of stars that shows the Milky Way was prominent across the sky. Bubba looked up and remembered what it was from science in high school. He liked science, or at least the simple science classes he'd gotten into.

The owl called again. Bubba didn't recognize the bubbling call as an owl. He'd watched movies and TV so he thought an owl only made repetitive hoots. The sound frightened him, then soothed him with the repetition. There was a sound of air over wings and the owl was gone.

Bubba dozed lightly. The sun burnt his skin where it hit directly or reflected off the water. He dozed through the pain of the sunburn. His scrotum had stopped hurting leaving only the muscle ache from sitting and trying not to fall off the stump.

He dreamed of a soft hand touching his leg and moving slowly up from the ankle toward his knee. He woke up and wasn't aware that he'd dozed off. The hand still moved up his leg. He looked at his calf and the had resolved into a black spider about seven inches across. Bubba screamed and bent to swipe the spider off his leg. When he did he leaned forward to swat with his hand and lost his balance. In one smooth motion he scared the spider away and fell off the stump into the water.

Bubba panicked. He was scared of the alligator, the snakes, drowning, but most of all the spider. He thrashed under water and breathed in some in his panic. He struggled to reach the surface. His face broke the surface and his arm fought hard to keep his face above water while he gasped for breath and coughed up the water.

His feet touched something soft and recoiled from it. When he pickup up his legs, he sank below the water again. He waved his arms and got his face up again. He clung to the stump. His foot hit the soft bit again and sunk in to hid calf. Then his other foot did the same and he was standing in waist deep water on the soft bottom of rotting leaves and mud left there by a hundred autumns.

He waded over to his canoe and rolled into it without tipping it over. It wasn't until then that he noticed that his balls hurt from being torn from stump. His hand went to his crotch and he counted. Two were still there. There was a lightly bleeding hole where the nail had torn through. He held his balls and passed out.

Something rocked the canoe and woke him. He opened his eyes and look up at the woman. She was in the boat with SHERIFF painted on the side.

"Are you hurt?"

"My nut sack has a hole in it." Bubba didn't move his hand to let her look.

"Can you get into my boat?" She reached her hand out to him. He held hers and moved across. She helped him sit on the seat in front of the console and tied his boat on the back.

"Base from Unit Six."

"Go ahead, Six."

"I've found him. He's injured. We'll need transport from the landing."

"Roger, I'll dispatch it. What is the nature of his injuries?"

"He's badly sunburned and has a hole in the nut sack, er his scrotum."

"I'll have the ambulance meet you at the landing."

Bubba curled sideways on the seat, pulled the blanket over himself and fell asleep. He barely woke up when they transferred him to the ambulance and remained mostly unconscious e in the emergency room.

Bubba woke up. There were sheets and blankes on the bed and rails beside him. A tube fed the needle leading into his arm. The wrist of that arm are was held to the rail with a handcuff. He moved his other arm. It was dark except for a dim light over his head and some instruments to his side. Something buzzed and squeezed his arm. One of the dials moved and a line drew jagged bumps on the screen. The squeeze on his arm relaxed. Something beeped.

The door opened fully and a woman walked in. She was wearing scrubs. "Hi, Bubba, you've been asleep for a while. How do you feel?" She wrote something on a clipboard and looked at the dials and gages.

"Um, Kinda tired. Where am I?"

"County Hospital.You came in yesterday afternoon. Don't you remember?"

"No, not much."

"You were dehydrated, and had been awake for a long time. You had a spider bite and another injury."

"Thanks, I don't remember much of yesterday." Bubba closed his eyes and was back asleep. The nurse noted this and checked his IV.

Bubba woke up. It was dark outside his window. There was a tray of food on the stand next to the bed. He didn't know what had woken him until he saw one of the twins gently sobbing in the chair.

"Hey."

"Oh, God, Bubba, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen to you."

"I ain't sure how it happened to me." He looked at her as she stood and walked to the side of the bed. It was Layla.

"Are you hungry? They give you something to eat here, but it looks cold." She touched it. "Yep. But the jello is still good."

"Okay, lemme have some of that." He reached for it, but the handcuff prevented him from moving that arm.

"I'll help you." Layla took the plastic spoon and began to feed him the Jello. Neither of them spoke. He finished about half of it then fell back asleep.

When Bubba woke up in the morning, the sheriff and the district attorney were there. The district attorney started, "Bubba you caught one lucky break this week. That girl, Layla, says you didn't rape her, says she wanted you to do it to her. Says it was like her birthday present. She turned 18 that day so we can't bring you up on statutory rape either."

Bubba just looked at them blankly. The sheriff undid the handcuffs holding him to the bed.

"Now, were you thinking of pressing charges against Jim Bob and the rest of them? I'm not sure that would be a good idea. Anyways, he's skipped town right now. Nobody seems to know where he is or when he'll be back."

Bubba thought quickly. He knew the sheriff and the District Attorney were first cousins, and he figured Jim Bob was hooked in with that family somehow, too. He figured there would be hell to pay somewhere down the line. "Well, how do I know they ain't gonna be doin' that sort of stuff to somebody else? That ain't right what they did."

The sheriff looked him in the eye and told him, "Don't worry, we took care of him good. He won't bother no body else."

Bubba didn't know exactly what that meant, but he did know federal kidnapping charges would open this town up and no body wanted that. Too many skeletons. He thought of his friends working the pulpwood. They would help him make double sure. "Naw, I don't reckon there's need for no legal trouble."

"I'm right glad to hear you say that, Bubba. You're free to go whenever your doctor lets you out of here."

"Bye, Sherriff," They left the room. Bubba dozed.

Later that day, about mid afternoon, Donna came in the door. "Hi Bubba, heard you weren't quite as perky as you were last time I saw you. How you feeling now?"

"I've been better. Balls hurt."

"I reckon they oughta. Never heard of anyone getting nailed to a stump by the scrot before. But I brought you a burger. Got to be better than the food here. Bubba took the bag, opened it and started to eat the burger.

"You got no idea how good this tastes. I ain't had a decent meal in days, shit, since the last burger I had at the Dew Drop."

"You're welcome."

"Actually they say you're ready to leave. They've got to unplug all that stuff from you and then you can go. I brought you some clothes seeing as you didn't have any when you came it. Push that button and get the nurse in here to undo you."

Bubba pressed the button. By the time he finished the hamburger, the door opened and the nurse came in. "Ready to go home?"

"I reckon."

"Okay, just let me get you all set here. And change your bandages. Donna said she'd look after the bandages once you were home, so I'll show her how and give you a mess of stuff you'll need to take care of your wound."

Donna smirked and Bubba blushed. "Er, well, maybe I should come back and get it looked after."

"Nonsense, Donna used to be a nurse. Ought to come work here, we're short."

Bubba looked at the nurse's name tag. Jessica. Same name as the one on the top of the marker board on the wall. "Does the doctor look at me?"

"She checked on your this morning, said you could go when you were ready. There is no infection from the nail and the spider wasn't poisonous." She unhooked the IV tubes, and then took the needle out of his arm and put a piece of cotton and some tape over it. "Now, lets change the bandages." She moved the sheet so she could get to his thigh and took the tape and gauze from it. "This looks good, swelling is down. We can just leave it now."

Bubba looked at his thigh. It was slightly red around two small bite marks. It didn't look alarming except he remembered the terror of having the spider crawling on his leg.

"Now for the bad part. Just lie back so we can get to it." Bubba lay back on the bed but was still elevated. The nurse moved his gown and exposed the bandaged area that enclosed his scrotum. Bubba realized that Donna was standing there looking as his junk. He blushed.

Donna helped Bubba up the steps to his trailer. When he opened the door and looked around he stopped. It was clean. "Did you do this? I ain't never had the place this clean."

"No, Layla's been down here everyday cleaning it up for you. She borrowed some of my stuff and she brought all your clothes and stuff to the motel to wash 'em. She's worked real hard to get it fit to live in. And it sure wasn't before."

"Damn, what she do that for?"

"Maybe she felt bad about what happened to you."

"Wasn't much her fault."

"Still..."

"It's real nice to have a clean place. And thanks for bringing me home and all."

"Gotta keep my best customers happy."

"I'm going to take a nap, now."

Donna left and closed the door as Bubba sagged on the sofa. He noticed it didn't even smell bad anymore. Then he dozed off to sleep.

A light tap on his door woke him up. The door opened and Layla walking in. "Hi, Bubba. How ya feeling? I brought us a couple of burgers and some beer. And a coke for me."

"Well, thanks."

"Lets eat at the table." The implication that she felt she was welcome to eat here with him was apparent. She set the bag down on the table, reached in the cabinet and took out two plastic plates. Bubba remembered having them but not using them for the last year. Layla set the plates on the table, took two burgers out of the bag and unwrapped them and placed them on the plates. Then she opened one of the beers and the bottle of Coke and put them beside the plates. "Hungry? Can you walk okay?"

"I might could eat. Yeah, I can walk, just hurts a little bit."

Donna's been real nice about helping me straighten out your place here. And she said this was how you liked your burgers."

"Donna's a nice lady."

"Yeah. I been talking with her a lot."

"What about?"

"Oh, girl stuff, mostly. She told me lots of stuff my momma never did, and lots of stuff I wouldn't want to be talking to my momma about, anyhow." Layla blushed slightly.

"I see."

"And I got something I got to ask you."

"Thank you for getting the burgers. This is real good. What you need to ask me?"

"It's like this. My momma got a job cleaning at UGA in Athens and that too far to drive so she's moving up there and Lila is moving with her but I don't want to go, I don't like Lila anymore after what she did and I want to stay here with my friends and finish school here and I wondered if I could move in here with you." Then Layla breathed and blushed.

"I'd get in trouble for corrupting minor. And I ain't got but one bedroom."

"No, you wouldn't, I got the paper from Momma signed that says I can get married."

"Married? What the fuck you talking about?"

"No, it ain't like that, I'm not trying to marry you or anything, that just makes it so can't nobody mess with you for having me here in your house." She looked him right in the eye. "Or in your bed."

"What you mean in my bed? You aiming to sleep with me?"

"Well, yeah, if you don't mind, I'd like that."

Bubba looked at her. He looked at her hard. He looked at her long black hair, her large hazel eyes, her small mouth and pert nose. He knew he liked her for someone that was around the trailer park enough for him to know who she was. And they did have that Sunday night. She took good care of the trailer, it looked like. "So where you gonna keep all your stuff?"

Layla smiled at him. Bubba suddenly realized that he'd consented to her living with him. He wasn't sure he'd meant to or not. "And you're sure it's all legal and none of your asshole relatives are going to use me for alligator bait?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. I asked Donna about it, too. And she's going to take me to the doctor to be birth controled so we don't have to use rubbers."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah."

"But what about STDs and stuff. Wasn't that why I got nailed to the stump? Cause you had something?"

"No. You got nailed to the stump cause that bitch sister of mine said you'd gave me something. I asked Donna and she said ain't no way cause it takes 10 days before you can be tested and I ain't been tested and anyway you couldn'ta give me anything cause you don't have nothing."

"Yeah, right, I don't have nothing."

"Donna says you can't cause you ain't never been laid no how. And you can't have sexually transmitted disease if you ain't had sex."

Bubba looked at her. How did Donna know that?

"Well, okay then. But what about your stuff?"

"It's all moved in. I didn't have much and you had plenty of room once I cleaned up and organized your drawers and closet."

"Really. So you're already living here and I'm just finding out about it?"

"Yeah, I guess, but you can toss me out if you don't want me."

Bubba thought for a minute. Not longer. He looked at her again. "I reckon we can give it a try."

Layla reached across the corner of the table and hugged him. Then she kissed him. "You want some ice cream? I can run to the store and get us some."

"Sure, I could eat some ice cream."

"Can I have some money to buy it? I don't have any."

"Sure, there should be some in my wallet, wherever you put that."

"It's on your dresser, where it belongs. What's your favorite flavor?"

Bubba thought about the top of his dresser. He hadn't seen it in a while for all the stuff he piled on it.

"Butter pecan."

"I reckon we should get a car or something, too. So we can go to the store and all that stuff, too. I can learn to drive and all."

Bubba looked at his girl and smiled. He was going to like this.