"Call Her Savage," or Texas Hold 'Em

The personal, private, top, top super-secret diary of Nasa Springer

No boys allowed! (tee-hee)

June 12, 1932

Dear Diary:

Just got back from riding my horses across our vast Texas estate. We stopped for a water break at Dallas and then got as far as Amarillo before we turned back. Oh, and I savagely killed a rattlesnake with a whip. No wonder that whenever people refer to me, they say, "Call Her Savage"!

June 13, 1932

Dear Diary:

Did I mention I love horses? I love their smooth skin, their tight hindquarters, their bulging muscles, their sinewy legs ... and did I mention I also like boys? Oh, and also today my temper got the best of me again and I crashed a guitar over someone's head.

June 14, 1932

Dear Diary:

Father is mad at me again! All I did was bring a family of rabid possums into the house and interrupt some silly cotillion or something. Oh, and I forgot to put on underwear. The babies were so cute! The possums, I mean. But daddy was having none of it. He just gave me an angry look the way he always does, and said, "She's no daughter of mine!" And mother gave him a funny look and said, "You don't know how right you are!" Wonder what she means by that?

June 15, 1932

Dear Diary:

Well, now I'm in Chicago attending finishing school. I've been on my very best behavior, which means I have reduced my fighting to once a week. Oh, and I've met the most wonderful man! He looks just like that actor in the movies, Monroe Owsley. Except that in the movies Monroe Owsley always plays rotten cads, and this man seems great! I'm sure things will work out perfectly! P.S. I have learned enough in finishing school to know that you don't put an apostrophe in "kayos," silly Daily Express! P.P.S. I am wearing underwear more often.

June 16, 1932

Dear Diary:

I've found out that married life has its challenges, especially when your husband turns out to be a congenitally unfaithful sociopath whose brain is being eaten by syphilis. But nobody's perfect. Oh, and I am pregnant.

June 17, 1932

Dear Diary:

My baby is sick and my husband has deserted me, so in order to afford medicine I must walk the streets. I really don't have any other choice -- the only things I know how to do are ride horses and get into fights. So I went out and pretended to be very interested in a Bromo-Seltzer sign and one thing led to another. Oh, and while I was out my apartment building burned down.

 

June 18, 1932

Dear Diary:

You'll never believe this, but I'm wealthy again! My grandfather or whatever left me a lot of money, so I've been going out with very handsome men. I've learned to control my hot-blooded nature and I'm down to fighting only once a month. Or maybe twice. Oh, and under police orders I am allowed to eat off of only paper plates.

June 19, 1932

Dear Diary:

I have begun to seriously re-evaluate my relationships with men. What makes me such a savage around them? Why was I such a disappointment to my father? Why has my mother always had such an interest in Native American culture? What happened to those rabid possums? So many questions, diary, and so few mirrors!

June 20, 1932

Dear Diary:

What a crazy month! It's been as tempestuous as my very nature! But now I am home again in Texas because my mother has passed away. In her final words, she pointed to my father and said, "He's not your real -- " and that was it! I'll never figure out what she meant! But my lifelong friend Moonglow is here, and today we went together to the wooded glen where I have so many happy memories of whipping rattlesnakes to death. And there, diary, I asked Moonglow the question that has long been on my mind ...