Lies In The Middle Age

He sidled up to the bar with a wifebeater shirt on

Next to a pretty woman ten years your junior

Keeping his middle aged arms flexed for show

And to minimize the underskin sag

He bought her a drink or three

While I watched the band and drank my one

During a lull in the music I heard one of his lines

As it found a quirk in the acoustics path to my ears

While touching his upper left arm

I heard him say

"Got that when a smuggler's bullet grazed me

While we were on patrol in the Gulf of Mexico"

Her pink pony painted fingernails came up almost reverently 

As her fingertip traced the small oval scar with a slightly raised center

My own right hand mimiced what she was doing

As I slid my finger up the left sleeve of my t-shirt

Tracing the small oval scar with the slightly raised center

That I'd had since the early 1970's

The smallpox vaccination gun leaves a very distinct mark on most people

I chuckled to myself and had another sip of my now British warm draft budweiser swill

Telling myself I should at least order a Guinness if I'm going to let it go all room temperature like this

But I can already feel the headache coming on

That even one beer can give me these days

So I stand and throw on my coat

Making my slow way through the crowded bar to the door

Passing right by my truth bending Casanova acquaintance

I feel my arm tugged just as I'm almost free of the area

"Fritz, Fritz!" he says with a half in the bag smile of way too friendly

Tell Amanda here about the monster truck I have in my back pole barn!"

With a wink, he expects me to back him up on this nightly poon tang quest

With a sigh, I do what I interperet to by my duty

"Oh yeah!" I exclaim with a mock admiring look towards him

"The fucking thing is massive! He's got harvester tires on the bastard

That he totes stole them from the farmer down the road over a gambling debt

And blackmailed the local mechanic into building up an awesome engine for it!

I heard it can go from zero to man-gasm in about five seconds

Hell, that truck is a monster every bit as impressive as his cock

(or so I hear)!"

He hadn't hardly listened to me

And she was still trying to process what I'd said properly

So with a gleeful fistbump to my faux buddy

I crashed for the door muttering

"What a douchebag"

To myself