Tagged: flash fiction
Regret and Resiliance
As vagabonds, their little car was pretty full. The back seat was littered with jackets, a bowling ball bag, a motorcycle helmet, and a few hangars. Not to mention H-‘s booster seat. Despite the fact that she’s a big girl now, he still thought it best to place whatever worksheets and artwork she carried out of school or church at the foot of her seat. These days, however, she was doing all the climbing-in and buckling-up herself. This meant that those papers and art projects might get trampled if care was not taken.
He opened the door for her and straightened out her seat-belt before backing up to allow her room to climb in. Seeing her choose her footing slowly in an effort to not step on the papers, he plainly observed, “Man. There is so much trash in this car.”
For her, probably just an instant passed. For him, an eternity. All he could do was look away and wait. His lips couldn’t purse together harder, nor his head shake with more regret. He certainly couldn’t look towards her face in the interim. A face that was staring at papers colored with love and care. Neither increasing the time it took to inhale, nor searching the sky proved effectual towards relieving the impending doom.
“My papers are not trash,” H- finally concluded, her voice begging for clarification.
“You’re right. They are not trash,” he said.
She seemed satisfied by the new decree, but that didn’t stop him from wondering how many more breaks he would receive. Probably too many.
Sleepless
“So how’s working nights these last three months been going?” George asked.
“It’s okay. The night shift is slightly less stressful and as you know I worked nights nearly my entire time in the Air Force,” Pete answered.
“That’s right. So no big thing? No problems sleeping?”
“Nope, no problems sleeping,” Pete said. “Well, that’s not entirely true. Sometimes, if I discover something undesirable is happening that is out of my control right before bed then I lie awake thinking about how to regain control. And then I just watch the clock. That’s no fun.”
“Like what?”
“The home loan thing did it to me last time. I have no idea why I answered the phone, but I did and it proceeded to limit my sleep to about three hours out of eight that afternoon. Want to know what I thought about most of that time?”
“Sure. What?” George asked.
“Her.”
“Of course you thought about her. H- is your daughter and you miss her. Everyone knows that. That’s nothing to be worried about,” George conceded.
“Not her. Well, of course her, but her. H-‘s mother.”
“Oh.”
“Yep. It seemed as rational and logical as anything as I laid there. I was trying to solve the problem of not seeing H- as much as I think I should. And then it hit me. If we re-married, then I’d be able to see H- all the time. And you know that I hate that she has another male adult figure in her life besides me. So I started developing this whole scenario of what life would be like if I approached her mom and tried to make an argument for trying again. She’d have to lose the dogs of course. And quit her job. And do what I say. But man, it could be perfect.”
“Jesus Pete.”
“I know!” Pete retorted. “I know. That’s what I’m saying George. It was eight acres all over again.”
“Eight acres?”
“Yeah. You remember? The book I’m writing. It’s about how some of us seem to be fine living with unpleasantness in the present by simply imagining and dreaming about some ideal future that is only a few strokes of luck away.”
“Oh, yeah. I remember. You didn’t mention this to her while you were gone did you?”
“Of course I did. Ha. It’s a lot of alone time George.”
“Oh shit. What’d she say?”
“Not interested.”
“Well, considering her actions during the marriage and the divorce I’d say she just did you a favor Pete. It would’ve never worked. H- would’ve been the worse for it.”
“You’re right. You’re right. Even when I did bring it up, the fantasy had worn off a little and reality set in,” Pete conceded with an expression of sadness that was quickly erased by sincerity. “I just want to see H-.”
“Yep. We all do. Don’t worry so much. You’ll figure it out.”
“I hope so.”
Protected: New Sodom
Paperback Giveaway and Future Post Warning
So. Another month of pay after just two weeks. And I’m still alive.
Here’s the scoop. Book sales have stalled out. At six. That’s cool, I didn’t do it to get rich, well, not in money–knowledge rich. And to prove it to you, I’m going to give it to you. I really am proud of the book/blog and want it to be read. So if money is the barrier between the paperback version of this blog and your hands, I’m removing that barrier. Just email me at pete.deakon@gmail.com. Tell me where to send it. I’ll send it. And then you’ll have it. Want a couple? Order away. This is a popularity contest after all people. Read it and tell others!
On a wholly different note, I have written a post that contains the most vulgar language I have ever heard spoken whether in person or film or books or whatever. It is still written by me (though not invented by me) and in the end has my voice/style, but seriously it is trash. No one should read it. By no one, I mean Grandma and Grandpa. Mom. Kate. Dad. Well, all family members. (Scratch that. Sam, you’ll likely chuckle in disbelief.) Friends, please consider proceeding carefully. I am going to password protect the post. But the password will be available on a page at the top of the blog called “password”.
Why did I write it? Because Tolstoy came close. He came really close to sharing locker room talk. But he never did. Maybe other fellas have, I can’t say I’ve ever searched for it. But I am frequently confronted by a feeling of shock when I listen to other people’s conversations, and the conversation that this post records takes the cake. I’m ashamed of it. I’m nervous about being associated with it. I’m embarrassed to have been in the group that witnessed it. But I loved writing it. Just don’t read it. And if you do, remember you’re the one who typed in the password.
Beaming
“So you sold your house, but don’t have a new one yet?”
“That’s right. I can’t get any bank to understand that my overtime pay is required by my job. The problem is most of my pay is from overtime, so by not counting it, it looks like I’m hardly working, which is about as far from the truth as possible. One lender is only giving me my hourly wage times eighty hours a month. I’m working eighty hours a week. They just keep saying that the VA loan has a guideline that requires two years of overtime history before it can be counted as income,” he said, pausing. As if hearing a starter’s pistol, he quickly resumed the story, saying, “The thing is they keep blaming the VA Loan guidelines. I’ve called the VA and they said that I’m right, and that they’ll essentially support any loan that a lender is willing to make. It’s the friggin’ Veterans Affairs after all, not the Anti-Veterans Affairs. They pointed out that they’re guidelines, not black and white, and more than that they said it’s the lenders money. The lender can do what they want. The VA is going to support the veteran. They just recommend that the lender document what they were thinking with unusual cases like mine.”
“So what are you and H- going to do then?
“Tell her, H-” he said, nudging H-.
“We’re vagabonds,” H- said.
He beamed.
“Tell her where our home is for now,” he said.
“Our home is the street-” she proudly continued.
“-No…no, no, no,” he corrected upon seeing the look on the grandma’s face. “The road, H-, the road. Our home is the road. You can’t say street. Totally different meaning. Our home is the road. Vagabond. Road.”
Oh. My. Goodness.
“H-. I just put your clothes out on the bed and so go upstairs and change while I put your cereal in a bag. I remembered we need to get going fast this morning,” he ordered as he jogged down the flight of stairs, himself still needing a change of clothes before stepping outside.
“Okay daddy,” said H-. She was nearly off the chair before she must’ve felt discipline’s heat and asked, “Please may I be excused?”
“Ha. Of course, H-. Get going.”
Dawdling as only a little girl can, H-‘s footpath revealed that she nearly forgot that her mission was to climb up the stairs and change into the clothes her father had put out. One glimpse of her father’s unmoving face refocused her promptly. The creaky stairs and second floor told him that she made it into the room.
“Oh. My. Goodness,” he heard her deliver with stunning maturity.
Interested in what could possibly be the reason for the disbelief she felt, he listened intently for the coming explanation.
“There’s no tag on my underwear!” she said.
He rounded the front hallway arriving at the bottom of the stairs only to look up and see two four-year-old arms holding out a pair of underwear at the top of the stairs. These arms were attached to a face whose eyes and smile sought confirmation that, more than unbelievable, this unprecedented silly situation required adult intervention. With no small amount of labor he climbed towards her, laughing.
“Can’t tell which is the back, eh?” he asked.
“No, I cannot,” she said definitively.
As he gave her a few tips for putting tag-less underwear on correctly, his mind couldn’t help but wander. A solitary sadness always led its journey, the sadness of knowing that her innocence is going to end some day. But this sadness was quickly washed away with the realization that it wasn’t going to end today. Not today. Not yet.
Part 6
His hands never did grow back. Of all the possible reminders of this fact, from eating to drinking, to driving, to making love, the one that bothered him most was hitting the snooze button on his morning alarm. It had been three years since losing Tara and his hands and he figured he’d had to reset that damn clock four hundred times. And while he could still use his nubs to navigate a smart phone or tablet holding one was another issue. For Jim the little things always added up to big things.
The sound of tires rubbing against cement accompanied his turn out of the garage as he backed out onto the dimly lit street before sunrise. After six months the neighbors began to openly question why he visited her grave every day. Leaving before they woke up was his solution. But he knew that they knew he still went.
For a while he tried to explain why he went, but no one would listen. Most people claimed ignorance about such things. They didn’t want to hear words like guilt and shame. Guilt and shame are what drove him to the cemetery though. Guilt for knowing he could’ve saved her. Shame for not saving her because of office politics or some such shit.
They hadn’t any children, so daily visits were the only way he could think to pay his respects and atone for his weaknesses. And the visits worked for the first half of every day. Three minutes into every lunch break, as he finally folded back the flaps of his brown paper lunch sack, though, he could only feel an intense desire to trade places with her. Or join her.
Huge Numbers For Four
“And when your daddy was young H-, he used to laugh so much at dinner that we had to send him to his room,” the grandma said as she leaned into the table signaling that this was privileged information.
“Uh-huh,” answered H-, happy to be counted as trustworthy.
“That’s right. We would have plans after dinner and need him to hurry, but he just wouldn’t stop laughing. So we sent him to his room.”
The little girl giggled and shyly glanced up at her dad seated to her right. She seemed poised to interject her thoughts.
Her grandma saw this too and in hopes of hearing some unpredictable commentary explained further, “It happened over and over again. He would just laugh and laugh, so we sent him to his room again and again.”
“Like a hundred fifteen nineteen times!?” H- guessed excitedly, her voice’s pitch rising to a nearly inaudible level.
The laughter that filled the room might have been mistaken for making fun of the guess if it wasn’t for the accompanying knowing nods between all adults and the purity in H-‘s eyes as she absorbed the limelight. Yes, she was her father’s daughter.
A Dinner Scene
“Speaking of people sounding black or white, I just watched this thing on back-up singers-,” the family matriarch began, steering the conversation in a new direction.
“Yeah, one of my friends mentioned that that is just a fantastic film,” the no-good smart-ass disrespectful-though-very-funny adult middle-child added.
“It really was!” she said earnestly, taking back the floor. “And the surprising part was that a lot of the singers were black and got their start in churches as little girls.”
“Ha. That’s exactly what my friend shared about the film. Funny.”
“Well, what I was going to say was that there was one scene where the girl said that she was singing back-up for Ray Charles. And she told a story about a time when Ray Charles stopped the concert and just played one note over and over again telling her that that was the note to sing. That note,” she said, repeatedly pressing her finger into the table with her eyes open wide in a reenactment of the scene. Laughing, she continued, “And the singer said that after that moment she never missed a note ever again. It was so embarrassing.”
“Crazy,” said the middle-child, voicing the sentiment he felt was expected.
“I mean just think of it. With all that noise and the sound of the crowd he was still able to pick out her voice,” she said, letting a natural pause emphasize her child-like wonder of the skill involved in such a feat.
He lived for moments like this one. Unable to withstand the opportunity, he timed the punchline perfectly as he inhaled with about-to-speak force and added with a tone of disbelief, “And he was deaf!”
“Blind!” the son-in-law corrected forcefully, coming to her defense.
“Blind!” the mother rejoined, happy to be defended but wishing she was faster to correct the constantly instigating know-it-all smart-alec.
Not only quicker on the draw, the son-in-law was also the first to shake his head and leave the table mad at himself for ever believing his brother-in-law had anything of value to say. Everyone else just laughed and laughed. The middle-child just smiled.
As for our storyteller? Her face red as a beet she laughed until she could not laugh anymore as she wondered what she ever did to be treated this way. She would have thrown something at him if everything in the room wasn’t so darn nice.
The Morning That She Didn’t Put Up A Fight
They had finished bathing the baby. She was asleep in the pack-n-play. The dog’s constant pacing made the temporary apartment feel smaller than it was. Not that it mattered now. The seller had accepted their latest offer on the house, so only a month remained until they closed and would be reunited with their own stuff.
“I care about you,” she began to answer. He couldn’t remember what question he had asked. “But I don’t like you,” she concluded.
She wore the same resigned look he had grown tired of seeing for the past two years. Ever since the stripper.
“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with this information,” he said. “Why would I want to live with someone who doesn’t like me? I’m glad you care about me, but to me that’s not as noble as you just made it sound. I’m taking the dog to pee. Is the trash full?”
Without their separate beds he let her have the covers and slept in his sleeping bag. Sleeping bags added a level of fun to any night so he didn’t mind. He was all out of fight himself as well, especially over something as trivial as sheets.
The closing was uneventful. He tried to stay positive about the new job that didn’t pay as much as they hoped. She tried to not stress about shift work on the weekends. With each passing day his walk to the bar seemed shorter; her options, fewer.
She went out with a co-worker after he returned from happy hour with a friend. Waking by himself at two-thirty he figured she was on her way. At three his worry hardened into a decision. He was never going to feel knots like those in his stomach again. Never. Four am will forever sound to him like a door handle, the bathroom fan, and the plop of vomit into toilet water.
After the baby went to sleep the next night they were finally alone. He raged. She sat as he lectured. With each non-response he raised his volume.
The following morning she behaved as if the fight was over. For her, the cycle was complete. For him, the marriage was. Some cycles should never be repeated.
She followed him out of the house for a few steps after he said divorce. He answered the phone thirty minutes later. She told him her parents had two attorneys ready to schedule a consultation.
He now lies to himself that the hurt has decreased since that morning–the morning that she didn’t even put up a fight.
Captain’s Log 