Elmer Does the Hula
Stumbling across the train tracks in a daze, Elmer fought desperately to stay alive. The Dolly Parton wig he’d stuffed into the hole in his left thigh had bled through, creating a color only a young person could love. Elmer feared if he didn’t get help soon he’d never hula again.
“What an idiot!” he thought, pushing past his pain.
But there was no going back. The entire Texas panhandle was swarming with MPs looking for a tubby middle-aged white man in a grass skirt.
“How was I to know?” Elmer wailed at the night.
The sergeant had started out all frisky and playful.
Then, his meaty hand between Elmer’s thighs.
The sergeant’s shocking discovery.
The whole platoon roaring at Sarge’s naiveté.
Sarge going for the pistol in his boot.
Elmer’s shriek.
The beer-stoked bullet-peppered tussle.
Sarge on the sawdust floor, bleeding from between his tight, toned pecs.
Elmer escaping through the pantry in the ensuing melee.
Hitching a freight—like a hobo, for goodness sake!
Crossing state lines to the relative safety of Oklahoma.
And now, Elmer, alone at the end of the night.
But for the first time not lonely.
Energized by the imbroglio.
And alive, really and finally alive.
©Lisa Martinovic