I remember Scott Alvey and Marci Benson
from high school.
She was the most beautiful girl in school
and he was a dumb
funny looking kid
but she got drunk at a party once
and allowed him the ultimate liberties.
It didn't occur to me
that she had a serious self image problem,
having come from an orphanage,
or that one day eighteen years later
I would come back to town
and find her
still so beautiful,
a kept woman
with a suicidal sparkle in her eyes
and some bartender's new recipe
rug-burned into her knees.
I haven't seen Scott since high school
but I realize now what a hard time he had
and that fucking Marci
was possibly the pinnacle of his life.
I don't know what has become of him
but I was told
that a couple of years ago his father
strangled his mother
causing her to have a near fatal stroke,
and that's why
she doesn't cut hair
in her old shop on the corner anymore.