sir, step away from the Candy

Candy, my ass. She was sweet as a cherry Lifesaver, but dumb as the center of a Tootsie Pop. Ker-runch! I met Candy when I was 6 and lost touch for awhile, through jr. high and high school. But I never forgot her simple ways. We held hands under the gum tree and shook the dry seed from monkey balls, then strung the spiky seedpods into necklace loops that nobody in their right minds would ever want to wear. When she wasn't sucking on a sourball, she was smacking on bubble gum and blowing humongous pink bubbles. I always wanted to scribble words on them, I imagined thought balloons. Phrases like, did someone step on a duck? or wadda ya want for nothin', a rubber biscuit? No, I didn't know what any of it meant, but I heard the older kids saying that kind of stuff all the time. When I mentioned my thoughts to Candy she would tilt her head and say, 'like, really. Wow'. But I never saw her lips moving, just a bobbing bubble.

So I missed those middle years, the ones where little girls grow into young women. I wasn't prepared for the shock of seeing my Candy, dear little freckle friend, leaning over a library shelf perusing a home interiors catalog with her chin resting on two bent wrists. She was wearing a pink t and some kind of skirt that now hiked well over her lower thigh. At first I didn't recognize her, I just double taked at the spectacle. Then her eyes turned to mine and a pink bubble grew to gradually cover the middle of her face. That's what I remembered, the edges of her face hadn't changed at all. Her hairline, and eyes. Those eyes, now painted with long lashes and sculpted brows. Wow, those eyes. She said, 'like, what's up, stranger?'

Candy took me back to her apartment, and we caught up. She had been through a dozen men, all older, all wealthy types who supplied her with paying jobs and fancy things. The big studio was filled with cardboard boxes now—no one was paying the rent, and this place was too high end for her now meager salary. Not only that, her candy red convertible was towed away last week, repoed for a similar reason. Ha ha, she was between boyfriends at the moment, times were tough. Guys were finding it hard to keep both a wife and a little plaything happy while their stash of gold coins dwindled. Priorities, like, you know?

We talked all night, drank her last bottle of Merlot, and finally fell into bed together. I'd never been with a girl like Candy before. Her lips tasted like wine, probably did even when she wasn't tipsy, and her body was soft and flexible. We bounced in the sheets until the bed seemed too small, then plummeted off onto the pillow covered floor shaking the apartment and rolling into stacked boxes that tipped and spilled their wares. Hot. Man, that's gonna leave a mark, that's a scar I can talk about.

She made coffee, and sat cross legged on the oversized couch sipping naked from the thick mug. Candy tilted her head and peered over the rim, I lost the middle of her face. Just like old times. And that's when I saw the thought bubbles. She was still dumb, but she wasn't naive; that was me. However, I could see her wheels turning.

The coffee wasn't strong enough to keep her awake for long, or me, but I toughed it out sans the toothpicks to prop open my eyelids. I couldn't afford to stay, or I'd be lost—shipwrecked, and who needs that kind of pain? Candy is for kids, and at some point in life a guy needs to lose his sweet tooth and move on, before the cavities move in and create sinkholes the size of city blocks in his heart. She looked sweet, lying there under a couple of fluff pillows, her eyes scrunched up. Those eyes were all I could see, and the thought bubbles were full of candy corn and pink unicorns. I preferred to remember her that way, closing the door softly, making my escape. Oh, and I enjoy a sweet piece of candy as much as anyone; the key is in moderation....