Going Down to the Hardee's for some Pussy

I found this in my drafts.  I'm tired as anything.  I don't get it, either.  Good night, folks.



Harlan County, Kentucky, couple arrested for sex in public in Hardee's parking lot.

"I guess that gives new meaning to the saying 'I'm going down to the Hardee's for some Pussy,'" he said, the leer evident without my even needing to turn to look at him to see it.  I could feel it.  Its greasy essence nearly prompting me to turn on the defrost.

"That's not a saying," I said, regretting evening dignifying his statement with comment before I got past the second T.

"It's a saying."

"No it's not."

"It's a local thing."

"We're from the same town, Ricky."

"Yeah, I've been around longer, though" he said.  He puffed out his chest.

"I don't care how old you are.  Nobody says that."

"Yeah they do."

"Who says that, Ricky?  Who the fuck says 'I'm going down to the Hardee's for some Pussy?'"

"Lots of people.  It was our class motto when we graduated."

"You didn't graduate."

"Got my equivalency."

"Your class motto was not 'I'm going down to the Hardee's for Pussy."

"Some Pussy," he said, putting respectful emphasis on the words.

"That wasn't your class motto."

"Yes it was," he said, rummaging around in his pocket.

"No it wasn't."

We stopped at the light going up Depot Hill.  The light was green, but a bus from First Baptist was turning left.  We waited, so that the senior spares and pairs could make it to Classic Lanes for their 9 AM league.

"Why isn't there a turn lane?" Ricky said, and then "Look."

"I am looking."

"No," he said, holding his phone out to me, "look!"

I looked at what he was holding out.  He'd pulled up a picture on his phone.  It was Ricky Scott minus 30 years of drive-thru, male pattern baldness and Busch Light.  His silver tuxedo brought out the strawberry in hair that still more strawberry than sand.  He stood regally, green eyes bursting from his freckled skull at his good fortune.

"Who's your girl?" I asked.  She was actually quite pretty.  I was impressed at 1986 Ricky Scott's good fortune.

"Fuck the girl," he said, "look at the backdrop."

I did, or at least I tried, but before I could take in the orange lettering on a red backdrop, a horn tooted behind me.

"Shit," I said, realizing the church bus had turned and I was impeding rush hour.  I dropped his phone into the seat between us.

"Did you read it?"

"Read what?"

"What's on the backdrop?"

"No," I said.  "I'm lead car in a 3-car parade."

"The back drop says "Going down to the Hardee's for some Pussy."

"No it does not."

"It does," he said, trying to retrieve his phone, which had slipped into the crevasse made between the seats by his belt buckle.

"Yes, Mark, it does.  Shit."

"What?"

"Can't reach my phone, asshole."

"It's not my fault."

"Yeah it is, Orel Hershiser" he said, continuing to dig while I pondered his choice of epithet.

"How did your class motto become 'Going down to the Hardee's for some Pussy?'" I was regretting my investment, but we had 20 miles before getting to Hannah's, and if I was lucky, I could distract Ricky before another Steve Miller classic came on the radio, and he needed me to turn it up so that I could have hearing and sanity obliterated by Jet Airplane.

"Well," he said, rooting still with his left hand.  He'd managed to push past his wrist, a quarter way up his left forearm rooting underneath my seat, before he continued:

"One day, when me and your Dad were in high school, we were getting ready for homecoming."