perry dale

Perry Dale IV, hotshot and big boy, tough guy and fast motherfucker, short fused and dangerous eyes. Southern drawl that will make your jaw drop, a secret heart that will make your breath stop. Dale and Pitts family, his grandnanny dale and grandmama raised him, he loves his mother and he would do anything for her but it don't mean they get along. She's young but she's not hella young. She used to put on her helmet and play g.i. joes with them in the front yard.

he doesn't get along with his cousin brad, he knows anna inside out, he forgets reid is a little gay boy. he almost married jenny dobbs, he flies flags a lot, and he's a mountain and forest folk dale, not an appalachian independent minded son of a bitch. and he's the first to say he's the truest son of a bitch you'll ever meet. He always carries a knife, and he won't stab you, but he'll pull it out and you'll think twice.

in his head he says he sounds like an english gentleman, but I've never heard such a rough and ready thick drawl in my entire life. he hates those liberal minded federalist sympathizing closed minded ignorant pansy fucks, and he has a nervous tick of swearing when he's under pressure. he has a mouth like a fucking sailor.

perry is enoug to make you wish you were perfect, even if it were just so that you could have him if you wanted. because you do. that's what's up. word.

perry's dad died in a car accident fourteen years after perry was in second grade, fourteen years after the four heart attacks and the lower two valves of his heart failed and they gave him nine months. And the doctors said it was all the whiskey he drank that saved him - perry's never seen a man who goes through jack daniels like that man did. that's why he doesn't drink liquor much anymore. and perry will tear up, hearing that big boy nick name, because his daddy used to call him that, but now his family's quit. He earned the nickname hotshot when he shot the wick off a candle from forty yards away, he believes to this day it was just luck. And things like that happen, and he wished it didn't happen to him, but he just hopes it happened for the best and that his daddy's in a better place. But it made Perry's lease on life seem a lot more fallible, because before he was a dale man who all lived to be a hundred. and then his dad went and got himself killed before his time. and perry says it doesn't matter what you did, where you were, or when you did it, if you ever served your country his hat is off to you. and perry will cry about his granmama's arthritis, and he'll tell you how glad he is that your daddy is working on something like that because he hates to see someone he loves like that in pain.

Perry keeps his candy stash in a mario brothers blue aladdin lunch box, which he'll tell you was made in nashville, and show you the seal stamped on the back. all the aladdin ones are. And Perry Dale is not happy unless he's sweating - he doesn't go north of the mason dixon line. And people hate humidity, but Perry loves to walk outside in the tennessee summer and have that humidity hit you like a brick wall. He says it's how you know you're alive. You're hot and you're sweating and you know it's summertime and you know you're alive. And for perry, that wall means he knows he's in the South, so it means he's mostly happy too.

And Perry will tell you all day about the history channel or the military channel, he wants to be a history teacher some day but he can't do math to save his life. He doesn't test well, but he could write for days or talk about anything long enough to sell it to just about anyone, including the car salesman who tried to sell perry on being a car salesman.

and get him to tell you stories, you'll laugh for days or cry a little and only want to hold his hand.

and there's a lot to perry that I don't understand, and I almost want to hurry through it as though I'm not going to get the chance to remember it again. the way his room looked, the way his lips feel, the way you smile in the morning when you realize your lips hurt from kissing him. the way his forearms and his hands are a sweet spot, the way he goes submissive when you give him a back rub, the way he says he's just like a dog - pet him, stroke him, treat him right and he's reliable as all goddamned gettout, but piss him off and he'll bite you. that's why all dogs love perry, because he knows he's like them. the way he's not going to turn on you like john dodson did because he's not a rattlesnake. the way it feels when you get a perry kiss on the forehead and a sweet goodbye. the way he says yes ma'am or thank you ma'am or giggles at ping pong and tells you maybe he doesn't want to let other people see him giggle. perry is not intimidating, he is not a failure, and he is not going to fail, even though he has been told all these things his entire life. Perry holds onto what he sees as infallible and undeniable- his bloodline, his genes, and his pride. Perry is trying to be more careful with his heart, and maybe he'll succeed, but I sure as hell hope not because all perry needs to own the world is a true love so deep it can match his and hold a candle to his flame. and god bless, good NIGHT I could love perry dale so hard, I'm pretty sure I already can. So FUCK your noise.