The Custard Hut was my usual haunt. No breakfast and they closed pretty early. Easy parking lot to make a home. That Saturday was a surprise to me though, when I woke up in the
back corner of WaWa’s parking lot with Jeanine still in the truck and the heat (and therefore engine) still going. I was reclined in the driver’s seat with my shorts around my ankles
and the keys in the ignition. With the way Jeanine looked, I was practically begging to be arrested for multiple crimes, driving while intoxicated being the least offensive.
“Jeanine,” I said, raspy in a way that shocked me into being more awake. “Why is the heat on? Jesus, what happened to your face?”
I pulled up my shorts and gently turned her head over. She was bruised everywhere. It is at a moment like this when a man lesser than myself might have feared he had done something
terrible. A man who doesn’t really know himself, and only finds out in spits and sputters when he turns his consciousness away and lets his limbic intrusions assume complete control. But I know myself. I took out my phone and snapped a picture of her, for posterity.
Nick Denardi 