Good evening.
Welcome to Sleep Tight, the section of Kindling where I publish original short fiction.
If you didn’t catch last week’s post, you may want to start this story at the beginning. This is “Flat Tire, Over”, a short story I wrote a couple of years ago. This is the tale of Bob, a man bent on survival against all odds. His dedicated prepping has led him to an isolated, lonely existence. His days are spent obsessing over the end of the world, so much so that he’s overlooked basic things, like keeping a spare in his car, an oversight that will cost him everything.
Last week we ended with Bob stranded on desert highway, his tire flat after he hears the voice of his dead father come in over the radio. His trunk is filled with supplies he’s storing up for the end of the world, the tire well teeming with batteries, iodine tablets, first aid kits, emergency blankets, and a gun. Nothing that can help him get back on the road, and take him safely home.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
He had run through the scenario in his head hundreds of times. It could happen in a lot of different ways. Maybe it would be the banks first. The facade of the stock market and the S&P 500 would crumble. A run like in the 20's. Only this time, the dems institute martial law. The people respond, criminals and patriots alike. A revolution. A civil war. The people against the powers that be. Yeah, he could see that.
Or maybe Russia or China would finally get foolhardy. Decide to knock out the entire power grid. Confuse communications towers. Shut down cell phone service. Neuter the nukes. Invade.
Or the bees would finally die. The hives would collapse. The crops would fail. Panic buying would empty the shelves. Then the killing would start. Groups of raiders would fill neighborhoods. Armed to the teeth and prepared to do anything to keep from starving.
He was dripping sweat in puddles. It fell on boxes of canned goods, darkened the cardboard to near black. The moisture disappeared in an instant. Sunlight kissed it into steam. The heat was getting to him. He jostled through piles of gear until he finally found the tarp, army green and folded to the size of a cargo pocket. It was hidden beneath a Navajo blanket striped red and grey. He pulled at the fabric to examine the diamond God's eye. A warning.
It wouldn't do much in the way of warmth, but he could fold it twice more and use it as a makeshift pillow. Sometimes, when he needed a break from canning or digging his cellar, he would drive out to the edge of his forty acres and lay the old thing across his hood. His back, cool against the glass of the windshield, his arms folded chicken wing style behind his head. He would wait and watch the stars blink on. One, then three, then a million, as blue went to black.
He set the blanket aside and went to work on the tarp. It didn't take long, but in the glare of the summer day he was dripping, his whole body shedding water into dust. He used tent stakes to hold down two of the corners, and pounded them into hard earth with his boots. He looped paracord in the two opposite holes, then tied it to the rack of the car.
A nice patch of shade lay beneath the stretch of green plastic. Bob laid out the blanket so the white fringe at either end was bathed in light. He took his shirt off. It stuck to the wet and peeled off like grape skin between front teeth. He stretched it at the sleeves and laid it on the metal hood expecting it to sizzle when it touched, then tucked in beneath the square of black shadow.
He lay that way, eyes facing dark green plastic like it was the universe for twenty minutes before the bump of his wallet got to him. He shifted onto his left hip and pulled the sticky brown leather from his back pocket. He sighed, couldn't help it, the discomfort suddenly gone. He pulled the hand stitched wallet from his side and held it above his face, turned it in both hands.
The bulge where his money and cards were was worn yellow in the middle. The brown of the oiled animal skin feathered out to almost black where the edges dipped into crevices created by thick thread. The stitching, done with sinew from a deer killed four falls before, was sewn in careful white X's around the edges. He ran his right thumb across them, retracing each shape starting in the top left corner, then moving until he reached the bottom left, where the wallet joined and folded in half.
He tucked his thumb in the center of the inner crease and fanned it open like a book. The hinge was worn from use and the heavy left side flopped back against his bent knee. He pulled it apart and looked into the mouth of it. Lines of bills, over five hundred dollars worth, looked back at him.
"Put your money where your mouth is."
He jumped, his back and butt hovered over the ground for a second, his head turned wildly left and right.
"What?"
Static. The radio.
"Put your money where your mouth is."
He was twelve years old. His father was standing in front of him. Fists buckled tight and raised just below his chin. Knees bent, a gentle rock, his weight shifting from one leg to the other. An imitation of the great boxers, a nod to Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali. He stared back at the man, hands down at his side.
The next part happened in slow motion. The right shoulder shifted forward, his body turned left. His right fist cocked, wound all the energy of the thirty year old's muscle tight like a rubber band. He froze like that, maybe thought about it, maybe hesitated. At least Bob liked to think so. Then he cut it, let go, and slammed his fist like a hammer into Bob's left eye.
His orbital socket, blown. Fragments of cheekbone loosened like cracked granite from a boulder. The world a sea of stars. Inky black like an octopus blotting out the edges, then moving in closer until the light was a pinhole. Goodnight.
The roar of static brought him back. He pushed up and stood, ducking out of the tarp cover to see what was the matter with the thing. His keys were in the ignition. He let his breath out and turned them, took them out and put them in his pocket.
"I thought I did that already," he said to open air, then blinked and shoved a hand to shade his face.
There was no engine noise, just wind kicking up dirt and the patter of sand against the metal of his car. He went back to his shelter and sat cross-legged on the blanket. The wallet was next to him, flipped open and tonguing the bills out in jest. He grabbed it and went for one of the credit card pockets. Reached behind his ID and a Visa that had expired two years earlier.
The hard thin edge of photo paper cut him. He pulled back and sucked on his finger, then dipped and pulled them out in a small pile. The first one was old and faded. A snapshot of him and his mother taken on an old Kodak. Printed and snipped so he could take it with him wherever he went. The only one he needed when the world ended.
He was standing in front of a car, an old baby blue Ford Mustang. One from the 1960's. His hair is gently curled into the beginnings of an afro. His skin is shades darker than his white mother. His eyes in the photograph, blue like hers. The car didn't belong to them. It was her boyfriend, John Gibbons' car. The one who cut those curls Christmas of 1968. When he was thirteen.
"What are you supposed to be?"
The neighbor kid. The one who lived on the boyfriend's street. A freckled brunette with a badass bike and clubs for hands. Bob doesn't answer. Kicks rocks between his converse. Imagines he's a soccer player and the crowd is going wild, drowning out the noise.
"Did you hear me half-breed?"
Bob looks up then. Doesn't quite make eye contact. Focuses on the constellation of freckles that spatter across the boy's cheeks and the bridge of his nose. Watches him lick his lips. Wonders if there's spots on his tongue.
"Holy shit he's got blue eyes!"
A couple of boys run to see, dropping bikes and baseballs to gawk at the mixed kid. Bob looks down again, kicks the rocks between his feet. Tries to scoop a big one onto the toe of his converse. The motion is simple. A quick scrape down, point the toe ballerina style, then up. Balance it. He tries it again and again. The noise of it against the road, all he can hear as the boys talk amongst themselves.
"Look at 'em. Show 'em your eyes."
Bob doesn't look at them. Doesn't hear. Lets the words wash off him like water droplets on duck feathers. He scrapes his shoe, the white tip of his converse streaked with the black of the asphalt.
"Did you hear me? I said look at them!"
Right at the end of that sentence, before the point of the exclamation mark is dabbed violently into the world by a fist, Bob gets the rock to balance on his shoe. A smile crosses his face, and he looks up to see the world gone mad. There are six boys, some older, some younger. Their eyes are wide and expectant. They fan out to the left and right of neighbor boy. Always the ringleader.
"Whoa!" one of them exclaims from the back.
"He is mulatto," another one says.
Bob feels the gentle weight of the stone on his foot. He lifts the sole of his shoe and balances it.
"Pretty boy like you is gonna have trouble around here," says the kid, batting his eye lashes.
He cocks his fist back, and Bob is ready. He balances for one moment, the rock perfectly centered on the white of his shoe, then rears back before flicking his leg into a kick good enough to score the winning goal. His aim, impeccable. His execution, perfect. The rock flings off his foot, going at least a hundred miles per hour, and lands square in the eye of the freckled kid. His elbow is still pulled back into a punching position when it happens.
Bob knows enough not to watch. To take his good fortune and make a run for it. And he does. Legs pumping away from danger. His heart, filling with courage as he flees the scene of the would-be beatdown, the first of many attempts on that street. The boy is screaming at the top of his lungs, but all he hears is the roar of the fans in the bleachers.
It wasn’t his memory that was roaring. It was the radio static again. He pushed off of his hands and crashed through the stretched tarp. He stomped and reached toward the ignition to turn the engine off for the second time that day. His hand hit smooth metal. He reached around to his back pocket and felt a lump there, the keys.
"Put your money where your mouth is."
His father's voice came through, pushing aside the mumbles of other stations and the white noise of the aimless desert radio.
"We've done this already!" Bob yelled to settled dust. The breeze had stopped. Nothing but the slow, pulsing heat of the summer.
"God dammit!"
He turned and kicked the tire, the good one on the drivers side. His breath came out in grunts as his foot made contact, again and again. His shin bone rattled, his knee echoing each kick to the rubber up into his hip, his pelvis. But Bob kept going. He kicked until the pain hurt so bad he couldn't stand anymore. He fell to his knees, his hands flat on his thighs, head hung, facing the ground. Any car passing by would think the man was getting right with God. Or headed for the mental institution. Maybe both. The static roared again.
"Put your money where your mouth is."
Bob is sixteen years old. He stands six inches taller than his old man.
"Six shades lighter too."
His dad says it with a crooked smile. The click of a lighter goes off and turns the end of his white cigarette amber.
"You got money for when you get to Chicago?"
His exhale is animated by white smoke. Bob's hands are stuffed in tight jean pockets. His hair is dreaded like Bob Marley. He's been growing it for the past year and a half. It's already at his shoulders.
"I got some," he says. Then turns his blue eyes away from his father's brown ones. Looks at the ground, but not so far down that he can't see. The man is laughing at him with no sound.
"You know what's waiting for you in Chicago?"
Bob shuffles his feet. Indoor soccer shoes. He found them at the DAV a few weeks before. That was what drew him to Marley in the first place. It wasn't just the music. He was a good soccer player.
"I got a job--"
"That's not what I'm talking about." He flicks the cigarette to the ground. It hits the concrete of the stairwell and bounces before landing on its side right between Bob's shoes. A sliver of white swirls up, up, up.
"There's gangs in Chicago. And they ain't nothing like the white boys you tangoed with in California."
Bob scuffs his shoe against the concrete landing, glances at the stairwell. White walls streaked yellow with years of oil and dirt. Nicotine from anxious single mothers. Schitzophrenic fathers. They gather in the hallways. Tap feet and sit on stairs. Cry to their neighbors. Stare at the windows that shine squares of light onto the joyless gray innards of the projects.
"Watch’ya come here for anyway?"
His father steps on the cigarette. Wipes it back, smudging ash in a line from Bob's feet to his own. A cave wall drawing made from fire. The line between them was more than that. Their line was blood.
Bob's eyes hit his again. Tears are welling even though he doesn't want them to.
"To say goodbye I guess."
His dad's lips part into a jack-o-lantern smile. Three front teeth and the pink tipped crevices of his gum line bounce as he laughs. Then, his eyes dart to the side. Bob looks up the stairs too. Watches to see who's there. But there's no one. When his dad looks back, all the humor is gone.
"You lying ain't you?"
Bob's blood leaves his face. He fights a tremor in his chest when he says no. Takes a step back. Looks down at the stairs leading out to the street. Notes the weight of keys in his pocket that will carry him away from here and to Chicago.
"Why they send you?"
"Dad, what?"
"You ain't my son!" He screams it. The words echo off the walls. His eyes are slits now. Full rage behind them.
Bob turns and makes a run for it. He's flying now. His dad wailing behind him. As he rounds the corner, he turns back, tries to assess how far behind his old man is. The little patch of sunlight from the stairwell window hits his dad. His arm held up as he stumbles down the steps, metal reflecting for an instant.
"Shit, shit."
His legs work impossibly faster, running for his life.
"Who sent you!"
Adrenaline has pumped out pain. Pushed it to the ends of his fingers and toes. Made way for infinite energy and speed. Bob leaps ahead to the stairwell. Almost to the bottom floor. Almost to the car that will take him. That will save him.
He lands on his ankle, his foot bent sideways for a moment. He goes to run on it and stumbles. The tendons don't connect right. The muscles don't move when commanded. He falls, tucks, rolls down the stairs. When he hits the landing below, his father is on him. His eyes flickering. His arm raised above his head. Lips pulled back.
"Dad, it's me! It's me!"
For a moment his dad pauses. His eyes flit around Bob's face. Stare at the tears streaming out of Bob's eyes. Tears well in his father's too.
"Why did you come here?"
"Just for some money. A little gas money to get me to Chicago," Bob cries.
His dad's face, a mixture of confusion and fear. The blade, coming down again and again.
Phenomenal, Shaina. As Dan says, this is so well structured. I feel like we're drifting in and out of memory caused by the heat. It's brutal and affecting, gritty and real, but there's a veneer of something unsettling too, caused by the radio/keys in the ignition.
My apologies for being slow on keeping up with these, I've been saving each entry as it arrives.
Nothing like a haunted radio to make you think.
Car off, check.
Radio off, check.
Still the ghosts use it to communicate.
Spooky, but good.
Still can't believe he forgot or didn't want to pack a tire.