Purim in the Trailer Park

Myrtle slowly turned the rusty crank to open up the back window of her double-wide. From outside, the hot wind carried the voices of her neighbors into the small trailer that was, she hated to admit, as close to a castle as she would ever get. Her afternoon reverie was interrupted by one of those voices, right outside her window.

“It’s all the fault of those damned kikes.” She recognized it at once: the scratchy, goat-roper twang of Houston Andrew Mahn, assistant manager of the trailer park and, as he was fond of pointing out, second in charge only to Myrtle’s husband. Mahn didn’t know his boss had married a Jew, but why should he? Myrtle had never told her husband, not even on their wedding day. And she wasn’t fixing to cozy up to Mahn and confide in him anytime soon; if there was one thing her cousin Mort had taught her, it was to stay the hell away from anti-Semites.

She cranked the window closed again, and wondered just where her hubbie had wandered off to, anyway. It seemed like if he wasn’t putting away the Pabst Blue Ribbon with Mahn or hiding out from his ex-wife’s lawyer, he was nowhere to be found. She’d have to figure out a way to get his attention – and let’s face it, she thought to herself: the only thing that keeps him coming back is my cooking… that and my girlish charm. At that thought, she laughed aloud. Sure, he might disappear now and then, but when it came down to it she knew she could count on him. And if Mahn ever worked his way up from insult to injury, it just might come to that.