1 Glad One - Crazy is a Relative Term

by Margaret Lashley

  I shook my head. Over the years, I’d heard countless tourists tell how, after taking a gander at the sugar-white sands and turquoise waters of St. Pete, they’d decided to ditch their old lives like losing lottery tickets. But nobody had ever matched Gladys for grit and gusto.

  “Honey, I grabbed onto the Sunshine State’s ass with both hands.”

  The old woman stood up and grabbed her own scrawny butt cheeks in a way-too-literal visual accompaniment. She grinned, lowered her arms and sat back down.

  “Nope. It didn’t take me long to hatch my escape plan, kiddo. Last day of Bobby’s dang revival, I snuck out the back of that church tent and into the driver’s seat of a 1966 Minnie Winnie RV.”

  She winked at me salaciously.

  “I’d got it real cheap off the guilty husband me and Bobby done been staying with.”

  Sparks danced in Gladys’s eyes as she recalled that day.

  “I climbed into that Minnie Winnie and shifted gears in more ways than one, you know? Drove to Sunset Beach and never looked back. It was 1974, by golly. Back then a body could do that. Just up and disappear.”

  Gladys drained her Fosters and shook her head wistfully.

  “Nowadays, they ain’t no good place to be a vagabond. Some uptight asshole with property rights always chases your ass away.”

  “Yeah, you’re right about that, Gladys,” I said.

  I envisioned all the quaint little beach houses I’d seen bulldozed over the years in the name of so-called progress.

  “Name’s Glad, kiddo. Not Gladys,” she said. “I ain’t that woman no more. No more Pious Patty. No more Blowjob Betty. No more Gladys. I’m just Glad now, plain and simple.”

  I studied her a moment and a smile crept across my lips.

  “The name suits you.”

  Glad beamed at the compliment.

  “That’s mighty nice a you. What’s your name, sugar?”

  “Name’s Val. Nice to meet you.”

  I surprised myself by actually meaning it. I reached over and shook Glad’s boney brown hand.

  “Sure you won’t have a beer?” she asked with a wink, tempting me with a shiny silver can.

  I hesitated. Since tossing that fateful coin toss on New Year’s Eve, I’d tried to set some kind of standards as to just how low I would let myself sink. I’d broken them all except one; No drinking before 8 a.m. I checked the time on my cellphone. It was 8:03. I smiled at the old woman and took the pint of Fosters she offered. I cracked the tab, tilted my head back and took a long, deep draught.

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