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Survival of the Fittest


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Survival of the Fittest
Texas Star

MaryAnn Kohenskey

��Growing up, I blamed Mama for my unhappiness. Then one day, happiness found me—in Texas.
��During my high school years, I wasn’t known as the girl most likely to do anything. I wasn’t known at all. Unfortunately, every year before school started, Mama cut and home-permed my hair. I looked like a white Samuel L. Jackson. She’d purchase a new wardrobe from Goodwill, and say “No use payin’ retail for something that’ll go out of style in five years.”
��Dating wasn’t a priority for me. I had other goals. I didn’t want to end up like Mama. I wanted to escape from El Dorado trailer park. I dreamed of having loads of money and moving into prestigious Windcastle subdivision, located three miles and a million dollars away.
��Depending on Mama for help in furthering my education was useless. If I wanted to go to college, I needed a scholarship. By the time I entered my senior year in high school, Mama—oblivious to my needs—wrapped our existence around saving her lifeless fourth marriage. From the start, the foundation of that unholy union wobbled like gelatin. Mama would say, “Sophie, the devil’s out to get us. Be on the lookout. He’ll hunt you down—and he’ll getcha every time.” I thought the best place to hide from the devil might be in a big state like Texas, so I mapped out a life plan to move there after graduation, before the devil had a chance to find me.
��After my senior year, a recurring nightmare haunted me. I’m lying naked on a table, waiting for a gynecological exam, my legs strapped into stirrups. A red-horned demon wearing a white coat, and carrying the book of my life, enters the room. He leans between my legs and takes a bloodhound’s whiff. I wake up. That demonic creature crawled into my sleep almost every night. Maybe it had something to do with Stepdaddy leering at me through door cracks and digging through the hamper to sniff my dirty underpants.
��I succeeded in obtaining a full ride to a local university. It wasn’t Ivy League, and it wasn’t Texas, but its campus sat a good ten miles from Mama, Stepdaddy Dearest, and the trailer park. After completing my college freshman year on the Dean’s List, I managed to trade in my Goodwill—Samuel L. Jackson look for a softer, Samantha Fox style. I felt like the ruts in the road had finally smoothed over.
��Other than my disturbing nightmare, I was happy living as the only virgin on campus. My roommate, Marie Star, became my best friend. Marie was the kind of friend who rescued lonely people. She invited me to spend two weeks of summer vacation with her at her family’s cabin on Mark Twain Lake. I accepted.
��We drove to the lake with Marie’s parents. Angie, her mom, looked like someone who carried a tennis racket and sipped iced-tea from a tall, thin glass. Her dad, Tony, resembled Harrison Ford and talked so much, and so fast, no one had a chance to lasso the conversation away from him.
��Marie’s uncle, Jess Star, met us at the family’s cabin. He managed Star Moving and Storage, a company based in Kansas City. Jess wore snake-skin boots, a tattered cowboy hat, and a belt buckle as big as Texas. It didn’t matter that he was twelve years older than me; his emerald eyes made me feel like an Eskimo pie melting into the asphalt on a sweltering August afternoon.
��The first day at the lake, I wore a metallic bathing suit. I hoped its sparkles would make Jess notice me. It didn’t, except when I belly flopped off the deck near his fishing spot. He tilted back his cowboy hat and called, “You all right, little lady? You scared all the fish.” He grinned at me like I was the catch of the day. Then he moved his line away from my splashing. I guessed a twenty-year-old girl flapping in the water wasn’t as interesting as the worm squiggling on the end of his line.
��That afternoon, we ate lemon-smoked bluegill fresh from the lake. After lunch, Jess and Tony strummed their guitars and sang Eagles songs. Later, we watched the movie Psycho while munching on popcorn, but halfway through, Marie complained of a pain in her side. By the time Janet Leigh lay bleeding to death in the shower, Marie lay writhing in agony on the floor of the cabin.
��Tony said, “Sophie, stay here with Jess. Angie and I are taking Marie to the hospital. We’ll call when we know something.” He lifted his daughter into his arms like a baby, and he whisked her away.
��Thunder clapped, and Jess placed his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry, little lady,” he said, “Marie will be just fine.”
��“I think it might storm,” I replied and looked up into eyes as green as endless Texas prairies.
��He tilted back his hat and replied, “Yep.”
��Minutes later, trees bent like rubber and fallen leaves flew like flocks of birds. Deadly streaks of lightning slashed through charcoal skies and we lost power. I watched a funnel form and drop from a cloud. I’d lived in a trailer park long enough to know tornadoes carried the power to blow away your life.
��“I’ll grab a flashlight,” Jess yelled, “Let’s head out.”
��“Out?” I asked.
��“Yep, cellar’s on the side of the cabin.”
��Jess stuck a flashlight in his pocket, took my hand and held onto his hat. We battled strong winds as they wrestled us on our way to the cellar. Debris blew into my eyes. I held onto Jess with both hands as he opened the door to the tomb-like hole in the ground.
��“Get in!” he yelled. His hat blew off and disappeared.
��I didn’t want to die in the storm, but I refused to climb into a grave. “I can’t!”
��Jess hoisted me over his shoulder, and we slid down the ladder. Blackness swallowed us. He set me on my feet. With only the beam from the flashlight, he fought to latch the door shut. It stunk in that hole like the inside of an unplugged refrigerator. I reached out and clawed for the ladder, but Jess pulled me off.
��“Please let me go! I have to get out!” The trees cracking above us sounded like a monster severing bones from bodies. “I’m going to die!” I cried.
��He sheltered me in his arms. “Shhh...” he said. He rocked me back and forth. Through the slats in the wooden door, I saw bolts flashing as a circle of light danced around us. “Hold on, Sophie. We’ll be fine.” Softly, he crooned into my ear, “Welcome to the Hotel California...”
��I tucked my head under his chin as the storm bellowed. The door above our heads strained; a force pulled at us, like a hungry dragon trying to suck its victims from deep within the bowels of the earth.
��Jess sang, “Such a lovely place...”
��I begged, “Don’t let me go.” I ran my hand over his face, across his solid chest and down his stomach. “Take me. Please.”
��“No. Not like this.” He held my head to his heart. “A pretty gal like you should be with someone your own age,” he whispered and gently kissed my forehead.
��I buried my face into the nape of his neck, and a force brewed inside me like Texas tea bursting from a newly discovered oil well. I yanked his denim shirt until the buttons popped off. Our lips met, and I slipped from his embrace and pulled him down to the floor. We were like the storm—hands pulling at clothes, bare, wet skin—rolling in filth and muck, touching and groping.
��An unexpected jolt of pain struck me as he thrust between my legs. My explosive cry echoed into the thunder as he broke the shell that separated a girl from a woman. I didn’t feel any of the ecstasy that I’d read about in Mama’s trashy novels.
��“There, there, darlin’, it’s okay,” Jess said and rode me like a cowboy at full gallop on his favorite filly. “Relax. The pain’s over. I promise.” In a few moments he stiffened and groaned as if he felt the same shock I had. He rolled off me and onto his back. “You were a virgin?” He patted my shoulder like I was a good horse. “I’m sorry. I would have been—much—I—wouldn’t—have—I’m sorry.”
��The storm subsided, we dressed, and he helped me out of the cellar. Trees littered the ground like discarded building blocks. Part of the roof had blown off—but unlike my innocence—the structure of the cabin remained intact. That night, Marie’s poisoned appendix had to be removed. Jess drove me home and continued to apologize, stammering in awkward, unfinished sentences.
��I served out my summer as prisoner of the El Dorado trailer park. Mama got a divorce and regularly attended church—in search of husband number five. I returned to classes in the fall and came down with a serious case of pregnant. I confided in Marie, because my first symptoms gave me hope that my appendix might be about to rupture. Marie held my hand while we waited for the pee stick to decide my fate. I never divulged to anyone that Jess was the father. I assumed that Marie told her mom about my condition, and her mom told her dad, and her dad told Jess.
��Apparently, Jess solved the riddle. One day, he showed up at my dorm donning a fresh cowboy hat. He continued to apologize, brought me arm loads of bluebonnets and boxes of chocolate. He took me to expensive dinners that made me nauseous. As the watermelon seed inside my belly grew, I gave in to his persistence and decided to play the game of life with Jess. Gradually, I fell in love with the soft-spoken cowboy who changed my future on a stormy night. We married and moved into a sprawling seven-hundred-and-twenty-square-foot ranch home in Kansas City. The sex improved, and we settled into a perfect life. I gave birth to a baby girl with emerald eyes and named her—Texas Star.
��Texas isn’t always where you think it is.



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