The International Harvester Dude

As you may recall, when I graduated from college, I went back to my parents and laid on the couch watching repeats of "In the Heat of the Night" for a month until my mom made it clear that I could not spend the rest of my life dreaming about Bubba Skinner and hoping that none of my college friends knew what a failure I was. So, I got a job at the local newspaper. One of the most fun things about working at the newspaper is that the police scanner was always on. And, since the town was tiny, not much happened. Here are the two things I remember: 1. There were three city police men, not counting the Chief. One night, one of the police men got on the scanner looking for the Chief, because he had caught the other two police men taking pictures of teenage girls wearing nothing but police hats and holsters while posing on the hood of one of the police cars. Nothing says, "Do what you want, folks" like a town having to replace half its police force at once. 2. One night, the police went to break up a party out in the country. They hollered for the kids to come out of the woods and get their asses home, but the kids wouldn't come. And so they called all the kids' parents and reported that their cars had been found abandoned out in the country and so if the parents wouldn't come get them right then, at two in the morning, the cars would be towed. Anyway, one of the weirder people I encountered that year was the son of the owner of the International Harvester dealership in town. He was my age, or maybe a little older--the son, not the owner--and he was surprisingly bland looking. I don't know if you've ever seen any people like this, but it's like there's nothing distinguishing about them. They aren't ugly or too good looking or tall or short and they don't have dimples or a kind of grin that makes you feel like they might be up for some no good. And, seriously, the minute they leave your sight, you can't remember what they even looked like. That was this guy. And at least once a week, he would call me at work and ask, "When are we going to go out?" and I would say, at the encouragement of the ad department, "As soon as you ask me." and he never did. Which was fine with me. But (and because), the mind-blowing part was that he was fucking both his fiancee and his fiancee's mother and everyone in town knew it. I still think back on how bland he was and marvel. Maybe liking non-descript men runs in families and he was just lucky enough to find such a family. But it makes no sense, when the hottest man in town, who worked for the city and thus could take him some "long lunches," would fuck anyone who asked. The other woman in my department and I had a grand old time driving around in the afternoons, me leaning way out the window, her leaning over me, hollering at him and his crew as they leaned against their shovels, shirts open or off, dirt caked on brown ropey arms, late sun sparkling on their sweaty shoulders... Mmm. Anyway, the International Harvester dude. There was one more weird thing. Even though he was incredibly forward with me on the phone--"I'm just sitting here on my boat, out on the river, thinking about fucking you"--whenever he came into the office, if I was out front, he'd get all red and stare at his shoes*. And yet, he got two women, two related women, to sleep with his shameful ass. That must have been one fucked up family dynamic. *Let me just offer you this bit of advice, gentlemen, women will put up with a lot of uncouth behavior if it seems like you can back it up. But, if, after calling someone at work to talk about her cooter, you can't even meet her eyes when you see her in person, she's never going to fuck you unless she herself is very fucked up.