JOY TOY -- THE MATRIARCH OF Springdale 

"Thank god it is almost the first!" Joy muttered bitterly, late one
afternoon sitting inside the Regal Tavern in the heart of the sleepy hamlet
of Springdale. "I'm so broke I have forgotten what money looks like
anymore."

Joy acquired her unusual name by virtue of her first marriage, to half-caste
oriental-Native American, Louis Toi, who she met late one autumn night while
drinking at the Reservation Tavern. It was, as are most of Springdale
relationships, casual lust at first sight. 

Whenever she is brave or drunk enough to look back upon her marriage to
Louis, it seems like a bad memory viewed down long, long drain pipe, yet in
reality, it was only six years ago. Since her divorce from Louis and shortly
thereafter, second marriage to Nasty Pavarone's half brother, Fred, at the
ripe age of thirty five, she had amassed five children from two divorces and
relationships with half a dozen other men. Yet she continued to reside in
the town that has been the source of both her angst and pleasure. 

In some social circles in the town she is given the respect befitting one
the town's more powerful matriarchal figures, however, in other segments of
the tiny social register of the town, she is scorned. Some days, it's hard
to decipher which is which. 

Lighting a cigarette, she took a deep draught, leaned back in the bar stool
and snapped at no one in particular, "Goddamn welfare system sucks. Ask
anybody that's ever been on it. We should put all the goddamn politicians on
it for six months and then see what would happen." 

At the other end of the bar, Freddy the Logger, already well into his cups,
although barely two o'clock in the afternoon, is half-slumbering with his
head on the bar. Like an old bull who just heard the sound of the butcher's
truck driving in the farmer's driveway, Freddy's leonine head came up off
the bar in a flash at the sound her voice. 

"What the hell did you just say?" he muttered thickly. 

"I said what this country needs is for all the politicians spend few months
on welfare and then see what they would about the rampant poverty among the
welfare class." 

"S'Bullshit," Freddy snarled angrily, waving his hand, swatting a pesky fly,
and in the process nearly knocking his pitcher beer onto the floor. "There
you go again with that leftist bullshit that don't hold water." 

Freddy made no bones about the fact that he hated Joy. Not only did he
dislike her endless string of screaming kids she'd had by several different
men, she was always some bizarre rhetoric about the system. 'That's probably
why she never held onto a man for long,' he thought to himself, and put his
head back down on the bar. 

"Up yours, Freddy." Joy snapped. "You are about the poorest excuse I ever
saw for a human being." 

The retort went unanswered by Freddy, already back fast asleep on the bar.
Carolyn Delaney, one of Joy's best friends, walked in the door of the tavern
and flopped onto the adjacent bar stool. 

"Pshaw, but it's hot out there."

After Carolyn's third marriage fell flat about three years back, she moved
back to her mom's old house directly up the street from Joy and the pair of
them had become inseparable friends. Hardly a day went by but what they met,
talking about men, their kids, but most of all the endless gossip of the
town. Joy knew that there couldn't possibly be much in the tiny burg of
Springdale that escaped their attention. 

Carolyn, on the other hand, was herself often the topic of the loose tongues
in the town. Although no one was certain how much she weighed, contemporary
guesses placed her heft at about three hundred pounds. Several years back,
bartender the Reservation Tavern even held a contest to see who had the guts
to ask her out on a date, even crudely offering a bonus to the contest
winner would take her to bed.

All the talk mattered little to Joy. Carolyn was much outcast the town as
she, and together they took personal pleasure keeping a close eye on
anything that took place within the town. 

Looking down the bar, Carolyn spied Freddy, slumbering away, and tittered,
"I see Freddy's priming his pump a little early today." 

"Yeah, he's pretty much been that way ever since the new Town Marshall
threatened give him a ticket for not having driver's license and some other
stuff." 

They both cackled with glee at that as Carolyn waved at the bartender for a
cup of coffee. Joy leaned closer to Carolyn and asked a conspiratorial tone,
"Do you BELIEVE our new Town Marshall? What a name for a cop...Goldstar."

Carolyn laughed, dryly adding, "But haven't you heard? was down in the Rez
Tavern last night, drunk as three lords, after writing four citations to
people for drunk driving." 

"He won't last long in Springdale!" Joy crowed. "His kind won't last long at
all, mark my words. The Tribe will fix his butt for him." 

The afternoon began to wane, and as the light began fade outside, first
Joy's kids, then Carolyn's, came from the school bus to stand in a circle
outside the door of the tavern, waiting their respective mothers. 

Freddy the Logger woke from sleeping on the bar and was about to pour
himself another beer. Both women, wisely heeding Freddy's ire, decided to
gather their kids and leave. 

Before Joy got into her faded Ford Falcon to drive up the hill to her house,
she looked carefully both ways, lest the Town Marshall was hiding out
somewhere. For she, like most of the people had no driver's license and the
tabs on her license plate were expired, too. 

"The Tribe'll get that sumbitch Goldstar. And none too soon, either." she
muttered to herself as she pumped the accelerator the requisite five times
took to get her twenty year old derelict to start. 

Her kids started fighting in the back seat as soon she put the car in gear,
and she yelled over her shoulder, "Now knock that crap off...Jeremie, Patsy
Ann...now you two sit on opposite sides of the back seat." She never looked
back to see if they complied. At least they stopped fighting. 

Marshall Goldstar was indeed watching as Joy Toy drove the hill, trailing
blue oil smoke in her wake, but he didn't move the police car one inch.
Hidden behind the old cafe, he was nearly certain Joy Toy hadn't seen him,
and furthermore, he was positive that Freddy the Logger was still drunk in
the Regal Tavern since he had been that way for three days now. He was
hoping that Freddy would dumb enough to try and drive his precious log truck
home. Nothing, not even the possibility of stopping Joy Toy, would deter him
from the pleasure of arresting that loudmouth drunk before he killed
somebody with that damned rattletrap log truck.