Dean

For as long as I could remember Dean had always protected me. On my fifth birthday Dean protected me from the grocery lady.

It had always just been me and him. Him and Me.

I remember this one time. I musta had been about five, that we were in the grocery store and the old lady who was checking us out smiled at us. I knew she was smiling at us because she looked at him and then she looked at me. I guess I looked pretty funny, while Dean had fallen asleep in front of the T.V. last week I had trimmed my hair real short. I thought it looked real fine. Dean had taken a deep breath, tooken off his hat, smoothed his hair down, and then put his hat back on and told me that I had to ask permission to use the scissors from now on. Between that and the fact that Dean never knew what clothes to buy me so I usually wore a mismatch of jeans and t-shirts or overalls, I looked more like a little boy than a little girl. But she still said, “You’ve got a beautiful little girl sir” to Dean. This made me happy and I smiled at her as I continued to pass her the groceries from within the cart.

Dean didn’t say anything but kept his head down and smiled and nodded. He was wearing a hat and sunglasses which was funny because we were inside. I wasn’t sure if he had heard.

“Oh Dean’s not my dad!” I told her laughing, “ He’s just the guy who showed up to take me from my house!”

She laughed a forced laugh that sounded little confused. Dean gave me a look, even with the sunglasses on I knew what kind of a look it was. It was a, “Mary, you shouldn’t have said that” kind of look-which was funny because it was true I told myself stubbornly. He was the guy who showed up to take me from my house! Dean put his baseball mit sized hand on my head and pushed me back into the cart. Not hard though.

“The stuff she says,” he said in a nervous laugh voice. “Here I think this will cover it.” He threw down few bills and pushed me and the cart with the groceries out into the parking lot.

My teeth jiggled in my head as the grocery cart rolled over the uneven asphalt, a box of eggos were digging into my thigh through the plastic bag they were in. cold. pointy. I looked back at the lady who was on the phone with someone. I just waved. She was frowning and talking into the phone still as she watched us load up into the truck. I think that was the red truck then, of course to this day we’ve gone through nearly thirty trucks and there were like 12 red ones.

As we rolled down the highway I looked to Dean who had taken off his sunglasses but left his hat on. I had taken out a bag of ramen noodles and weres eating them dry, but of course with the seasoning on. I weren’t no heathen.

I ground on the noodles pensively counting the electrical poles as they went by.

“Dean” I asked.

“Mary” he answered in a tired voice.

“Did I say something wrong? Back there, in the grocery store.” Dean took a deep breath through his nose and breathed it out slow. Then he took off his hat ran his hand over his hair and put his hat back on. I had said something wrong.

“I was speaking the truth” I said confused. We had talked about not telling fibs. “When you telled me how we got together you always say when everyone was gone I was the guy who showed up at the house to take you.” I recited his story dutifully. Dean was quiet for a moment.

“You’re right Mary” he said after a while. “ That’s true. I came after everyone was gone.” He said it as if those words carried more weight for him than they did for me. Which was funny because they were about me. I should have known.....I should have known. “But you can’t go around telling people that. Because saying that that way may make them think I did something wrong”

I continued to ground the noodles to dust between my mighty white teeth. “Did you do something wrong?” I asked him curiously.

“No little turkey” he smiled at me, “ With you I did something right”

Just then we hit a bump and I dropped my noodles in the floor. “Damn” I swore unclicking my seat belt and getting in the floor to pick up the big chunks. Dean winced at my language and I knew we were going to have another talk when we stopped. But not about fibbing this time. When I got back in my seat the lights started flashing behind us.

“Whoop, they’re comin” I said resting my chin on the back of the seat.

“Turn around Mary” Dean instructed. I sat and buckled but still craned around backwards. We went around the corner, “ They gone?” he asked.

“Yup” I said. And Dean sped up real real fast. And we disappeared into the night sky.

Life with Dean was like that- it sped up real fast, but he always seemed to know where we were going. Always seemed to see what would come next. Until my 17th birthday. When he obviously didn’t.

Because then he wouldn’t have been shot.