Hank laid down in the back seat of his beat-up, light blue Dodge. He folded his arms behind his head and stared up at the neon liquor store sign. Of course, he thought of Jackleen. Long, pretty hair and curvy hips, lips you could sink into.
Oh, what was the use? He should've known from the beginning.
Jackleen might have lived in a trailer park, but she belonged in a penthouse. Hank knew that she would make it out and work her way up, but he, on the other hand, was strictly dead-end from the start. But he loved/needed her - more than he'd even admit to himself - and she loved him, or thought she did.
Jackleen took Hank with her when she moved to the city. She housed him in her grand, art deco apartment and tried to find him a good job. But her friends - all artists and writers and musicians and such - had no use for some old hillbilly with skills only fit for manual labor.
Then Hank started laying around and making a mess of her pretty place. Then he began to drink more often. Finally, they stopped having sex. She literally pushed him out of bed; he hit his head on the corner of the bed on the way down to the floor but didn't feel it until morning.
Two weeks later, Hank woke up to find all of his things in two trash bags by the door. No words had been said the night before, she didn't leave a note, and he left before she returned from work. Jackleen obviously didn't want to talk to him, and he wouldn't have known what to say to her anyway.
Now here he was, sleeping in a parking lot on the edge of town. He had started parking next to the liquor store to make it easier on himself, but now, with no money left in his pockets, it only served as aggravation. Hank didn't feel much like drinking now anyway; that shit was part of what got him into trouble in the first place. It didn't work right for him anyway; his sorrows were as easy to drown as an Olympic swimmer.
What the hell time was it anyway? Hank wondered. Midnight. About time to take a drive. He hadn't intended to make a routine of it; he just fell into it. The first night had been utter, uncontrollable compulsion. He had even verbally fought with himself as he watched his hand twist the key in the ignition, but he was at the mercy of his own self-destruction. His eyes had begun to mist up on first sight of her window, and he wasn't a man who cried easily. He had to pull over ten yards past her building to collect himself.
Hank rubbed his face and climbed into the front seat. Why do you do this to yourself, you fool? Hank asked himself. It was worse than being a junkie.
He turned the key in the ignition. Time to travel the lonely road to hell.