The Balloon Gets Popped

You gotta understand, Sumaye grew up relatively poor. Actually, back then nobody we knew was really poor in the sense of going without food or clothing or the real needs of life. It was just some were more deficient in getting their wants than others. Sumazye's daddy was the only person I ever knew that listed his occupation as professional gambler. He spent a lot of time in New Orleans at the race track or in French Quarter card games. Later on he was a regular visitor to Las Vegas, but that was after Sumaye was married and out from under his support. The net effect of his profession on his family was a life of plenty with long spaces of things not so good. I reckon it was natural for Sumaye to be on the lookout for a prosperous husband and my cousin, Leroy, filled the bill. Sumaye was real good at flashing her brown eyes and went to work luring in my poor cousin. It wasn't a year until they were married. My cousin, before the wedding, used to tell me how he couldn't wait to be with Sumaye. Seems she was real good at taking him to a point where he absolutely had to go for more and more wasn't available out of wedlock. Anyway, they got hitched and lived in what I took to be wedded bliss for about three years. That was when Sumaye was pregnant with their second child and that was when she determined Leroy's usefulness had shifted for security and sperm to just security. That's when the balloon popped.
Tomorrow: Living With a Popped Balloon

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle