Mandy broke up with him before he went into the Army.
She said she was going to college and needed her space.
Though he never tried to talk Mandy out of leaving him,
in his heart he never broke up with her.
After he returned home from the Army four year later,
he learned that Mandy was back in town too.
A shady guy named Randall said she’d become a whore,
and he could see her downtown hooking on Park Ave.
He slammed Randal against a wall for his blatant lie
but heard from some of his old buddies that Randall was right.
He drove down to Park Ave and saw Mandy there on a corner looking like she was drugged out and not like herself.
A seedy guy in an old pickup truck stopped in front of her and Mandy got in the car and rode down an alley with him.
He followed and saw Mandy having sex with him in his truck.
Sickened, he almost threw up when he saw the god awful truth with disgust and sadness in his heart, he drove home.
He couldn’t sleep that night wondering what happened to his once innocent and sweet high school sweetheart.
He decided to go looking for her the next day
to try to rescue her from what she had done to herself.
He drove up and down Park Ave, but never found Mandy until he saw in the 6 pm news, that she had died of a drug overdose on Park Ave the night before.
Tears welled up in his eyes. He regretted not trying to
rescue Mandy the day before when he saw her on Park Ave.
He left town after that and reenlisted back in the Army
and volunteered to fight in the deserts of Afghanistan.
Distraught and endlessly thinking about Mandy,
he stood up and walked into enemy fire in a battle there,
committing suicide with the hope of joining her in death.
Bob Boyd