08.04.2026 @ 12:46:06

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/ We were young and our happiness dazzled \
| us with its strength. But there was     |
| also a terrible betrayal that lay       |
| within me like a Merle Haggard song at  |
| a French restaurant. [...] I could not  |
| tell the girl about the woman of the    |
| tollway, of her milk white BMW and her  |
| Jordache smile. There had been a fight. |
| I had punched her boyfriend, who fought |
| the mechanical bulls. Everyone told     |
| him, "You ride the bull, senor. You do  |
| not fight it." But he was lean and      |
| tough like a bad rib-eye and he fought  |
| the bull. And then he fought me. And    |
| when we finished there were no winners, |
| just men doing what men must do. [...]  |
| "Stop the car," the girl said. There    |
| was a look of terrible sadness in her   |
| eyes. She knew about the woman of the   |
| tollway. I knew not how. I started to   |
| speak, but she raised an arm and spoke  |
| with a quiet and peace I will never     |
| forget. "I do not ask for whom's the    |
| tollway belle," she said, "the tollway  |
| belle's for thee." The next morning our |
| youth was a memory, and our happiness   |
| was a lie. Life is like a bad margarita |
| with good tequila, I thought as I       |
| poured whiskey onto my granola and      |
| faced a new day. -- Peter Applebome,    |
| International Imitation Hemingway       |
\ Competition                             /
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