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Christmas Eve in Trailerville

fingers of dysfunction
tickle the underbelly of the trailer court
causing it to belch out a stinking fog
of crank smoke and ketchup.
no sleep is devoid of nightmare in this human drain trap,
no waking moment free from the horrific echoes of the past.
incest, murder, pedophilia, suicide,
cancer, rape, thievery, revenge--
this is the common vocabulary of the tragic tribe
co-existing in the fifty dilapidated crackerboxes
at the corner of  Desperation Street and Oblivion Avenue.
for this is not a comfortable retirement villa
of over-the-hill overachievers;
this is not even a lower-middle class refuge
for under-the-table underachievers--
this is the end.
this is the place Death visits first.
this is Christmas Eve in Trailerville, my home, and these are some of its stories.
                                       ---
across the street from my place, a man with an utterly repugnant
case of malignant facial warts 
hunkers behind the closed curtains of his mobile
and wishes he was Harrison Ford.
in the trailer next to him, a compulsive gambler who never bathes
makes life utterly miserable
for his recovering alcoholic girlfriend;
she falls headfirst off the wagon this very night.
just beyond that, a grotesquely obese woman stands on a decrepit porch
and berates her wimpy noodle-spine of a husband
for getting caught growing marijuana;
what could she expect--she had been watering
the plant in the backyard herself.
across the chicken wire and duct tape 
that masquerades as the fat woman’s fence, three Mexican families
are crammed into one two-bedroom trailer.
it is lice-infested claustrophobia.
they sure dress their children nice, though.
in a double-wide Fleetwood four spaces from them, 
a large red and white sign is posted in a window:
“Warning:  Sex Offender.”
the state said it was not okay for Bill the electrician, forty,
to stick his finger in Erica the babysitter, twelve.
the smell of cooking amphetamine issues from the trailer
next to Electric Bill’s; it is only a matter of time
before these local businessmen are turned in.
meanwhile, however, everyone is having one hell
of a long party--going on two weeks now, to be exact.
then there is the park management:
on the surface, they appear almost legit.
a closer look, however, reveals them as veteran grifters,
legendary on the horserace and rodeo circuit,
anyplace the short con mixed
with large crowds and strong drinks.
the “team” has settled down now,
content to skim the books, overcharge unwary tenants,
and run a used-car lot on the premises;
with them at the head of the dogsled to hell,
it is small wonder Trailerville gets such a bad rap.
across from the manager’s office
lives the most obnoxious drunk of a woman
in the sea of obnoxious drunks.
“Night Train Jane” she is called
and she is dying of cirrhosis of the liver.
she wails because children’s services took her kids;
she bellows because her sister is fucking her husband;
she moans because no one is fucking her.
meanwhile, in the trailer behind Jane’s,
a step-father is sticking a finger in his step-daughter.
the law has not caught up with him yet,
which is strange, considering his neighbor
has filmed the action on numerous occasions
and is selling the footage on an internet porn site.
speaking of porn, Trailerville’s wealthiest resident 
is Rita the stripper.  her spacious Marlette is neatly landscaped
and resides in the most desirable corner lot.
Rita shoots heroin between her toes.
Christmas Eve a year ago,
Harold “Rat” Moses and Wanda Somday, a star-crossed Indian couple,
drank a half-gallon of Wild Turkey
then pulled .22 pistols and simultaneously shot 
each other between the eyes.
their trailer burned to the ground two days later
(some say in a symbolic action of the tribe).
in my 14x70 single-wide, life is good.
we have a fake Christmas tree with faux snow this year,
and there are more than five presents under it.
the Chihuahua just pissed in the hallway
and the Siamese is fatter than shit,
but considering it’s Christmas Eve and my wife has not been arrested
in over a month,
i feel like giving the four-legged animals of Trailerville a little break.

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