I woke up this morning from a dream. This doesn’t happen very often, but when it does I like to write them down. I was dreaming that I was talking to some other girl, I’m not sure who it was though. We kept mentioning two guys names, but I don’t remember the names now that I’m awake. I was racking miniature pool balls. They were half the size of regular pool balls and they had very faded paint, I could only see a hint of stripes on the striped balls sort of as if all the paint had been stripped off them and it was just a shadow that was left. That was the whole dream. We were expecting someone to walk in the door also, I remember that. And the dream left me wishing I had clay and an oven so I could make a miniature pool table with tiny balls, tiny cues, and a tiny rack to go with it.
In other news, Sean and I are “celebrating” our 4th anniversary tomorrow. I have to work the whole day and Sean is a bit put out by that. I don’t really blame him. It does suck that I’ll be working the whole day, but we need the money. They asked me to stay late at work tomorrow so I could put labels up on my route. I agreed to it not thinking of the date, so I think I will call Ginger today and let her know what’s going on. Maybe we can work something out.
Now, let us have an attempt at some more fiction, what do you say?
The small green and white ball rolled back and forth across the floor between Emily’s hands. She was spinning the ball sideways as she pushed it towards her other hand and watching the white stripe through the middle twist and turn. She picked it up and examined the little black 14 on the side of the ball and tried to remember how many birthdays she had left before she would be the stripey green ball. Her mom gave her a billiard ball every year for her birthday and today she would get her solid orange ball with the white circle and a black 5 in the middle. Emily remembered that when she turned 9 she would get her very first stripe. She couldn’t wait! Right now Mom and Daddy were in bed though and she was playing with the balls from their pool table. She didn’t think they would be mad. The clock only had a 6 on it and she knew not to wake them up until after that first number became a 7. And besides, they weren’t using the stripey green ball right now.
Emily heard a noise in the hall to the living room and she looked up to see who was coming. Her brother Roland had just woken up and was headed for the bathroom. She was so jealous of him. This year he had gotten the all black 8 ball for his birthday. Next year he would get his first stripe and Daddy said he would have enough of his own balls to play 9 ball with them. As it was she knew she would have to move soon. Rollie liked to play on Mom and Daddy’s table sometimes if he woke up before them and she would be in the way here. They didn’t mind the kids playing on the table, as long as they remembered it was for grown ups and didn’t hurt it or break it. After they woke up though sometimes there was no time to play on the table because the family was going somewhere. Or sometimes there was all the time in the world to play pool but all their friends would come over and then the kids were chased off to play with their own toys. Emily thought what really bothered Rollie was the advice. If he played by himself he could just have fun and play games on the table. He didn’t always take his time and line the shot up when he was alone, or even when she tried to play him in the early hours. (He usually won those games, even if he wasn’t lining the shots up.) They never kept track of innings or discussed whether the cue ball went behind the kitchen when they scratched. They never argued a good hit when they were playing each other. Sometimes Daddy or Mom would walk into the room and say something like, “Roland, shouldn’t you use a bridge for that shot?” Or “Rollie, why did you take the 2 ball in the side? It might have been better to take the 7 all the way down instead.” At 8 years old Roland wasn’t bad at pool. They had both lived their whole lives with a pool table in the living room and they knew it was a game, but they also saw grown ups playing on tv for tournaments. They knew Mom and Dad didn’t have any plans to play on tv, but they also knew Mom and Dad had been playing since before they came along. Even though it was a game sometimes things got awfully serious.
Emily remembered one time when Daddy’s friend Russ came over and some other guy she hadn’t known had hit him in the face just because he said something wrong while they were playing. She knew she had never seen anyone hit someone else while they were playing Monopoly or Sorry. Sometimes when she was in trouble or she had done something wrong she would promise herself that someday she would play tournaments on tv and be the best pool player in the world and Mom and Dad would come and cheer for her. Then she would make things all better. Of course, things always got all better before she had the chance to grow up and develop her pool skills.
Roland came walking down the hall. He was in his guitar pajama pants that Grandma had made him. She was wearing her fishy night gown this morning. As he walked into the living room Emily held the 14 ball at him. He ruffled her hair and said, “keep it, Squirt, I’m going to play 9 ball. You want to play too?” She frowned up at him from the floor, her blond hair a mess from sleep. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to play or not. Sometimes it was frustrating for her because she was so short. Roland held out his hand to help her to her feet. “I’ll bring the step stool from the kitchen, Ems. Then you can reach better.” She took his hand and let him help her up.
“Okay, Rollie, I’ll play with you but you have to be nice to me.”
“Deal, Sis.”
Emily walked over to the stick rack with him and picked up her short, pink cue. He picked up Daddy’s green cue and she looked up at him with a look of horror on her face. “You can’t use Daddy’s cue, Rollie. He’s gonna get mad if he sees that.”
“I know, I wasn’t going to use it. I just wanted to feel the weight of it. Someday I’ll have an even better cue of my own. Someday I’ll be even better than Grandpa Keith at pool and then I’ll tell Daddy he better not use my cue cause he might break it.” Roland gave a chuckle at the idea of this and Emily laughed a little too. “My cue is going to be solid gold with a pure silver tip on it.”
“I don’t think you can chalk silver though, Rollie. How will you keep chalk on the tip? It has to be wood.”
“My silver tip will be magic, it won’t need any chalk on it. And my cue will shoot straight every time and sink every ball and I’ll make shots on purpose off 6 banks!”
“Big talk for a little kid,” Emily told him, smiling. Grandpa Keith said that to them all the time when they were playing pool. He was fun to play with usually, but Emily knew even Grandpa Keith took the game seriously. He had fun playing with the kids on the pool table, but she had seen him slam a few cues around when playing grown ups sometimes.
Roland made a face at her and went to the kitchen to get the step stool. They started their game of 9 ball. Roland was lining his shots up this morning really well. He let her break on the first game, standing on her step stool and she hoped it would be the worst break she’d ever have as a 5 year old, because it was terrible. Roland ended up breaking up the balls with his next shot, he called it a “push” but Emily didn’t quite understand what that was, only that you could do it once a game in 9 ball and you didn’t have to hit the 1. Emily only got one ball in the whole game. She sank the 5. And with Roland taking his time and lining up shots it only took him 6 turns to win. In all fairness for him, one of the shots he missed was only because he couldn’t reach enough even with a bridge to make the right shot, so he had to try for a harder pocket just so he could be closer to the ball.
After he pulled the balls out for her Roland put her step stool at the end of the table so she could rack for him. This was the very first thing she learned to do well on a pool table. Her racks were so tight that if Daddy was playing someone and got a loose rack he would joke with them. He would say, “if you give Emy 2 dollars she’ll rack for you.” She grinned as she racked the balls in their little diamond shape. Someday Daddy would tell people, “If you give Emy 5 dollars she’ll break for you too.”
Roland broke the balls and they went everywhere. He sank the 5 ball and Emily was a little sad about that because she wanted to sink that one. He sank the 1 ball and missed his next shot on the 2. Emily moved her step stool and looked at the table and Roland said, “Let me show you the shot, Squirt.” He came over to her and pointed at the 9 ball sitting in front of the 2. “If you hit this 9 ball right here it will go in the corner pocket, but you have to hit the 2 first cause that’s how you play the game. So, hit the 2 ball right here.” He moved her step stool over in front of the shot on the 2 ball and lined her up in the right direction. “Okay, don’t hit it really hard or really soft, sis, you can make this.” Emily squinted her eyes at the ball and leaned down like Mom and Dad had shown her. She squared her chin over her cue and pulled her arm back. She made a practice stroke to make sure the tip of the cue was centered on the cue ball. Then she smoothly pulled her arm back and stroked forward into the cue. The cue hit the 2 and the 2 hit the 9 and the 9 slow rolled toward the pocket. It looked like it might catch a little of the nipple. Then it did hit, but it hit inside the nipple and although it was rolling awfully slow it tipped a little and….stopped. Emily felt a little frustration creeping up in her. She had really wanted the 9 ball to go. Just when she was about to step off her stool and proclaim that she wasn’t playing anymore pool today the 9 ball fell into the pocket.
Roland came over and wrapped his arms around her. He picked her up off the step stool and spun her in a circle. “Emily cheeses the 9 ball off the 2 for the win!!! Happy birthday, Squirt. Mom said if you beat me this morning I could give you something.” He put her down and ran into his room. When he came out he was holding a wrapped ball. It seemed more often than not that one of these packages was present at every family birthday party.
Emily took the package from him. He had tied a pink ribbon around it and wrapped it in white paper with unicorns, they were her favorite. Emily was excited, it was her 5 ball! She couldn’t wait to get the paper off and feel the smoothness and coolness of it under her fingers. She pulled one end of the ribbon and it fell away. Slowly she pulled up a corner of the wrapping and looked underneath. It wasn’t orange though. It was white instead. She sat down on the ground because this wasn’t what she expected. She tried not to be in a hurry to see what it was. She tried to be careful with the pretty unicorn paper. She was anxious to see, but she didn’t want to see too fast either so she closed her eyes as she let the wrapping fall to the floor. She put both hands on the ball and felt the smoothness and the coolness that billiard balls always seemed to have. She opened one eye a little bit and saw white and pink. She closed her eyes again tight. “Well, aren’t you going to look at it, Ems? It’s really special. I went with Mom and Dad to pick it out while you were over at Grandpa Keith and Aunt Penny’s house last month. Go on, see what you’ve got.”
Emily opened both eyes and in her hand was a smooth white cue ball with a unicorn on it. She rolled it in her hands and saw writing on the back. In pink letters the cue ball said “EMILY.” Emily sprung to her feet and hugged her brother. She pulled the cue ball in to her chest. Held it right against her heart, which was singing with joy. She turned around and looked at the clock, there was still a 6 on the first number, but she didn’t care. She ran down the hall, her little girl legs sprinting underneath her fishy nightgown. She threw the door to her parents bedroom open and jumped into the bed between them yelling “thank you!!!” Her mom and dad both turned toward her in the middle and opened their eyes sleepily. Her Daddy took her in his arms and held her up in the air, then kissed her on the cheek while she squealed. Mom took the cue ball and examined it with a grin on her face and Daddy said, “you’re welcome, baby girl. Happy birthday!”
Okay, so I didn’t quite make 3 pages and the story is kind of sappy. I had no idea what I was going to write about when I started, I just had an image of a little girl sitting on the floor playing with a 14 ball. To tell the truth though, I like the story. Maybe someday this will be my kids….who knows.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
7-8-09, first attempt at fiction
I went to a creative writing class last night and the instructor, author Carlene Rae Dater, told us that we ought to write 3 pages a day. I was supposed to do this when I woke up this morning, but I kept procrastinating. Now, I have things to do today…namely call the girls on my pool team and make sure they are going to show up tonight. However, I’ve talked myself into this. No phone calls until I have three pages written down. I got an idea this morning to write something about hearing a smile…so I’m going to give it a shot. I know pretty much the first sentence I will write, the rest I’m going to try as what Carlene called a “pantser.” As in, flying by the seat of my pants. I prefer to think of it as “winging it.” Here goes nothing.
Jen was meddling around under the hood of Mr. Myers old Buick when the phone started ringing. She had the machine set to kick in after 8 rings, but she had done work on this Buick a million times at least and she was tired of looking at it. If only Mr. Myers would take some time once a week to check the fluids and actually bring the old rust bucket in as soon as the brakes started squealing. If only, if only. If everybody in town took care of their cars the way they ought to then Jen would be doing a lot worse than she already was. On the second ring Jen stood up straight. She grabbed a grease rag she kept nearby and tried to wipe most of the oil off her hands on the already drenched rag. Then she picked up a cleaner towel with the very tips of her blackened fingers and attempted to wipe the sweat off her face without clogging her pores with motor oil. As the phone rang a third time she thought of how nice it would be to go to the back and pull some ice cubes out of her mini fridge that sat right next to her old mattress. How nice it would be to rub those ice cubes on her hot, sweaty skin and take away some of the July heat. The fourth ring did nothing to help this fantasy, but the fifth brought her back to reality. She may be taking a short break to pick up the phone, but she had to get this valve cover gasket changed out or old Bill Myers would be very put out when he came to pick up his car in 2 hours. That gave her plenty of time, but better to finish up the job now and save the ice for after her cold shower.
Jen shook her head to get her sweaty bangs out of her eyes and walked over to the phone feeling slightly like a wilting flower. She picked the receiver up just as the machine was about to kick in. “Hello, Buchanan Auto Repair, Jen speaking.” She heard nothing but silence on the other end. Maybe the caller had hung up, but what’s another hello or two? “Hello, anybody there?” More silence met her inquiry and Jen cradled the phone and, feeling just a little dejected, walked back over to the Buick. She had received a few calls in the past week from her cousin in Seattle. Troy didn’t call her very often but the last few times he had called he was sounding rather dejected himself. He was having problems with his current girl friend and just last week had received some very bad news regarding his mother. The first bad news was that she’d had a stroke and was in intensive care. Earlier this week he had received a call with more bad news of his Mother’s death. Although he wasn’t that close to his mom, who had divorced his father and moved to Tennessee when he was only 4 years old, Jen knew it was still hard news to take. At one point he had tried to get her back into his life, but her life always meant a lot more to her than her child did. Jen knew he was feeling like he should have tried harder. She knew he had unfulfilled goals of what his mother-son relationship may have one day been. But those goals were altogether unrealistic when they only belonged to him and never to his mom. Troy was supposed to fly out to Memphis for her funeral yesterday, so if it was him being silent on the other end of the phone he was probably calling from his hotel room. Jen found it hard to talk to him when he was this stressed. She loved him very much and they had grown up almost as close as if they were siblings, minus the rivalry. She remembered days clamboring around behind the bushes next to her Uncle’s house. They had set up little benches back there and called it a club house. Now if she were to try to squeeze back there she would never fit. Not that she was a big woman, not by any means, it’s just a simple fact that 6 year olds can fit where grown ups can’t. Now every time he called her it sounded like his heart was breaking a little more. The last time he had called she could hear him holding back tears, or maybe he was flat out crying. She would never ask him though, she just tried to be there for him on the other end of the phone. He talked a little about his mom, but mostly it was just small talk with that terrible sound in his voice the whole time. She tried to crack jokes and got a few chuckles out of him and quite a few times he told her how much he missed her, but still that sound. Jen was sure it was him on the other end of that silent phone call. It made her nervous that he wouldn’t talk and even more nervous since he had forgotten his phone charger at home so she couldn’t call him back. She lifted a hand to her mouth with the subconscious intention of biting her nails, then her conscious mind kicked in and reminded her that her hands were black with oil. Sure it wouldn’t kill her, but it would certainly taste terrible. She lowered her hand feeling like a fool and leaned over the 4 cylinder engine once more.
Two hours later Mr. Myers had come back for “Old Betsy” and was standing around making small talk about how things were going down at the plastic factory when Jen thought she heard the faint sound of her phone ringing again. She quickly excused herself with little regard to how rude she was being to a regular customer and spun around in her flip flops and clean cut offs to run inside the shop. She had already pulled the Buick out and closed up the front side of the shop for the day and as she walked through the door she was met by the silence of a shop without a ringing phone. She shook her head and wondered if maybe the heat and the worry was getting to her. It hadn’t been the phone ringing after all. Just as she was about to head back outside to continue her interrupted conversation she heard the distinct sound of her old beige telephone. She could feel her heart thrumming in her chest and she sprinted to the back of the work floor to grab the phone. She placed her clean hand right over the greasy finger prints she had left on the receiver and quickly lifted it to her ear. “Hello, Buchanan Auto Repair, Jen speaking.”
“Jen, it’s me.” Troy’s voice came over the line with a new tone to it. This one was even worse than the choking back tears tone. His voice sounded like all the feeling had drained out of it, just a ghost of the voice she was so used to hearing.
“Hey, Troy, are you in Memphis? How was your flight?”
“Oh, it was fine. Your everyday run-of-the-mill plane flight. I had a lay over in Denver and I tried to call from a pay phone, but I guess it wasn’t working. I just had to hear your voice right now,” the choking back tears tone was back again now, and it sounded better to her than the vacancy of emotion, “Jen, I just don’t know what to do with myself right now. Chrissy and I had a huge fight just as I was leaving Seattle. I haven’t called her since I left, I’m too mad. How can she be fighting with me right now when I’m flying across the country for my mother’s funeral. I’ve been emotional and was probably snapping at her, but how important is my morning moodiness at a time like this, really? I’m afraid she’s going to have her shit packed up by the time I get home and I just can’t take this right now. This is so not even worth it, Jen, I don’t know where people go when they die but I’m just about ready to find out. Maybe then I could make my mom see - “
“Woah, hold it right there, babe. Slow down, take a deep breath. Think about what you’re saying for a second. Before we talk about what you just said I want to know something…did you try to call me a few hours ago?”
Troy’s voice was full of tears now, she was sure he was out right crying and didn’t blame him. His heart must feel like it had shattered into a million pieces right now. “Yeah, yeah, I tried to call you. You picked up but I was hurting too much to talk. There was so much I wanted to say and I just couldn’t make the words come out.”
“Okay. That’s fine. I’ve just been worried sick about you since then and now that you’re talking and confirming my worries I’m probably even worse.” She was pacing the garage. She looked toward the row of windows across the garage doors and wondered if Mr. Myers was still waiting out there to talk to her more about plastic molds gone wrong. Oh well, he would leave eventually. Some things were just more important. Luckily if the Buick really broke down he wouldn’t be able to get it 7 miles to the nearest mechanic, it would be right back in it’s old familiar shop for sure. “Troy, I know you’re under a lot of stress right now, but you have to listen to me, okay?”
“Alright, I’m listening.” The tears had stopped and she could practically feel the emotion slipping out of his voice again. The numbness settling in. Maybe that was a sign of emotional shock.
“You’re in your hotel room?”
“Yes, sitting on the bed”
“Lay down on the bed. Put your feet up and lay back on the pillows. Breathe deeply for me, okay? You’re breathing really hard and that’s speeding your heart rate up so I need you to take deep slow breathes to slow it down so you can think clearly.”
“Okay, I’m laying down but this is ridiculous. I respect the fact that you care about me, but I don’t need to meditate or whatever this is-”
“Deep breathes, cuz, you said you would listen so just shut up for a minute, do what I say, and either you will feel better about things or you won’t. As for caring about you…I don’t even know what to say. I love you so much, Troy, you have no idea. You are my cousin, the son of my father’s brother. You have the same blood as I do running through your veins and that doesn’t mean I have to like you. That’s just what tied us together when our lives first began. Now I need you to know that no matter what is happening in your life right now, it doesn’t effect what me and you have. Your girlfriend can walk out the door before you get back, you are going through a very hard time with your mom passing away and all the hopes you had for your relationship going out the window with that. But when everything is said and done I still feel the same way about you that I did 5 years ago and 5 years before that and so on. I still feel like your mom is a bitch for not giving you a chance and for never giving a damn about her own kid. And I still feel that you are better off without her in your life. As for your girlfriend, if she leaves you then you are better off without her too. You will find a new girlfriend that will love you better than she ever has, whether you believe it right now or not. And as for your life, I don’t know what I would do without you. You are one of my best friends I could ever ask for. You are special and unique and irreplaceable. I want you to know that if you were gone there is no body in this whole world that could make me forget you or make me stop missing you. So, deal with the stress you have right now, do whatever you have to do to get through it without hurting yourself any more than you are already hurt. When you get back to Seattle all you can do is live your life the best you can and time will start to heal your heart, even if it doesn’t feel that way at first. And if you need me you know where to find me. Do you need me right now? I’ll catch a flight to Memphis if you need someone there by your side.”
“No thanks, Jen, I can do this on my own.” Jen could still hear the sadness in his voice, but he also sounded more confident now.
“Do you feel any better?”
“That was a lot to take in just now, but yeah I think I feel better. I need to take a nap.”
“Okay, you get some rest. When is the funeral?”
“It’s tomorrow, then I fly back to Seattle the next day.”
“If you feel like you can handle it call Chrissy later today or tomorrow. If it’s just going to make things worse for you then leave it alone for now though. She’ll either understand or she won’t. Sweet dreams, cousin, and hang in there. Call me any time if you need me, I’ll be here at home.” Jen hung the phone up and sat back in her rolling chair. She let out a sigh and closed her eyes, wishing she could hold him, wishing there were something she could do from so far away.
The next day Jen woke up early to the phone ringing. It was Troy again, not holding back tears this time but still sounding as stressed as ever. He was getting dressed in nice clothes for his mom’s service and he just made small talk with her while he was combing his hair and buttoning his coat. The conversation wasn’t great but it wasn’t terrible either and afterward Jen went out behind her garage to play around with the old ‘65 Ford Falcon convertible she was refurbishing. The thing looked like a pile of rust, but she had the transmission inside the shop being rebuilt in her spare time and she liked to come out here and sit on its ripped vinyl seats and imagine what it would look like when she finished. She wondered what people who didn’t have goals looked forward to. Did they have things they could look at and dream about? Did they fix things or make things or plan things? Or maybe they just did the same thing every day, going to work and coming home and paying the bills without a thought to what they might do with their spare time if they weren’t so busy being unproductive with it. These thoughts went in circles in her mind. She had always had something to work on since she was a kid. Sometimes she would accomplish the task she put her time into and sometimes she would discard it for something more interesting, but she often wondered what it would be like to not have something to focus her time on. She was trying to avoid thinking about Troy and the problems he was having. Maybe that conversation they had yesterday would really help him. He was usually a happy person and she knew it was just the extra stress that was putting him in such a negative state of mind. She didn’t hear from him at all for the rest of the day.
Jen rolled over on her mattress and looked at her alarm clock. It was 8 in the morning. She wondered if Troy would call before he left his hotel, but she had no idea what time his flight for Seattle was leaving. Just as she was rubbing the sleep out of her eyes the phone in the garage began to ring. “I’ll be right there,” she shouted groggily at the door to the garage. She got up as quickly as she could with freshly wakened motor skills and got to the phone just in time. “Hello, Buchanan Auto -”
“Hey, Jen, it’s me!”
“Oh, Troy! You sound….how did everything go yesterday?” Jen couldn’t help but wonder at this, it sounded as if Troy were grinning from ear to ear. She could hear a bounce in his step as if he were standing next to his hotel bed bobbing up and down on the balls of his feet like an excited kid about to go on his favorite roller coaster.
“I’m leaving for the airport right now. And I just wanted to call you before I left and tell you that I love you.”
“I love you too. Did you talk to Chrissy? Did everything go okay yesterday?” She didn’t want to ask him flat out why he was so happy. But the sound of his voice had put a grin on her face from and closing her eyes she could imagine that he had the same grin plastered to his own face.
“I haven’t called Chrissy. She said she would be there to pick me up and I’ll talk to her about things when I get there. Things went fine yesterday. I went to her service. One of her friends stood up and mentioned how she talked about her son sometimes and she would show my second grade picture around every now and then when the mood was right. Even though it’s been twenty years something about that satisfies me a little bit. I know she left and I know she never seemed to have time for me, but the fact that she acknowledged me in her own life kind of means something. I just, I don’t know what it is, Jen. I woke up this morning and I was smiling. All I did was wake up and I feel like I’m on top of the world and I have my whole life ahead of me, I can’t change anything that’s behind me. I know this is still going to hurt for a long time, but I feel like I can handle it. I feel like I can handle anything right now. I just…wanted you to know that I love you.”
“I can hear the smile in your voice, Troy. And I have to say I am relieved to hear it. Call me when you get home, okay? Maybe next time you can take a trip for fun and come see me in Illinois.”
“Sounds like a plan. I miss you a ton. I’ll call you later.”
Jen ventured back to her Falcon and sat back in the drivers seat with her hands on the corroded steering wheel. She closed her eyes and imagined there was a smooth plastic wheel beneath her hands and new upholstery pressed against the backs of her legs. She imagined the sound of a rebuilt 6 cylinder turning over with the push button ignition she was going to install and the feel of the wind whipping through her hair as she cruised down the interstate with the top down. She wondered where she was heading to. She wondered if she was running from something or to something or just running for the sheer joy of having the freedom to do so. When she opened her eyes she saw her reflection in the windshield. Her short brown hair was a mess and her green eyes were sparkling. Her grin was so big it was almost ridiculous but it felt right all the same.
Jen was meddling around under the hood of Mr. Myers old Buick when the phone started ringing. She had the machine set to kick in after 8 rings, but she had done work on this Buick a million times at least and she was tired of looking at it. If only Mr. Myers would take some time once a week to check the fluids and actually bring the old rust bucket in as soon as the brakes started squealing. If only, if only. If everybody in town took care of their cars the way they ought to then Jen would be doing a lot worse than she already was. On the second ring Jen stood up straight. She grabbed a grease rag she kept nearby and tried to wipe most of the oil off her hands on the already drenched rag. Then she picked up a cleaner towel with the very tips of her blackened fingers and attempted to wipe the sweat off her face without clogging her pores with motor oil. As the phone rang a third time she thought of how nice it would be to go to the back and pull some ice cubes out of her mini fridge that sat right next to her old mattress. How nice it would be to rub those ice cubes on her hot, sweaty skin and take away some of the July heat. The fourth ring did nothing to help this fantasy, but the fifth brought her back to reality. She may be taking a short break to pick up the phone, but she had to get this valve cover gasket changed out or old Bill Myers would be very put out when he came to pick up his car in 2 hours. That gave her plenty of time, but better to finish up the job now and save the ice for after her cold shower.
Jen shook her head to get her sweaty bangs out of her eyes and walked over to the phone feeling slightly like a wilting flower. She picked the receiver up just as the machine was about to kick in. “Hello, Buchanan Auto Repair, Jen speaking.” She heard nothing but silence on the other end. Maybe the caller had hung up, but what’s another hello or two? “Hello, anybody there?” More silence met her inquiry and Jen cradled the phone and, feeling just a little dejected, walked back over to the Buick. She had received a few calls in the past week from her cousin in Seattle. Troy didn’t call her very often but the last few times he had called he was sounding rather dejected himself. He was having problems with his current girl friend and just last week had received some very bad news regarding his mother. The first bad news was that she’d had a stroke and was in intensive care. Earlier this week he had received a call with more bad news of his Mother’s death. Although he wasn’t that close to his mom, who had divorced his father and moved to Tennessee when he was only 4 years old, Jen knew it was still hard news to take. At one point he had tried to get her back into his life, but her life always meant a lot more to her than her child did. Jen knew he was feeling like he should have tried harder. She knew he had unfulfilled goals of what his mother-son relationship may have one day been. But those goals were altogether unrealistic when they only belonged to him and never to his mom. Troy was supposed to fly out to Memphis for her funeral yesterday, so if it was him being silent on the other end of the phone he was probably calling from his hotel room. Jen found it hard to talk to him when he was this stressed. She loved him very much and they had grown up almost as close as if they were siblings, minus the rivalry. She remembered days clamboring around behind the bushes next to her Uncle’s house. They had set up little benches back there and called it a club house. Now if she were to try to squeeze back there she would never fit. Not that she was a big woman, not by any means, it’s just a simple fact that 6 year olds can fit where grown ups can’t. Now every time he called her it sounded like his heart was breaking a little more. The last time he had called she could hear him holding back tears, or maybe he was flat out crying. She would never ask him though, she just tried to be there for him on the other end of the phone. He talked a little about his mom, but mostly it was just small talk with that terrible sound in his voice the whole time. She tried to crack jokes and got a few chuckles out of him and quite a few times he told her how much he missed her, but still that sound. Jen was sure it was him on the other end of that silent phone call. It made her nervous that he wouldn’t talk and even more nervous since he had forgotten his phone charger at home so she couldn’t call him back. She lifted a hand to her mouth with the subconscious intention of biting her nails, then her conscious mind kicked in and reminded her that her hands were black with oil. Sure it wouldn’t kill her, but it would certainly taste terrible. She lowered her hand feeling like a fool and leaned over the 4 cylinder engine once more.
Two hours later Mr. Myers had come back for “Old Betsy” and was standing around making small talk about how things were going down at the plastic factory when Jen thought she heard the faint sound of her phone ringing again. She quickly excused herself with little regard to how rude she was being to a regular customer and spun around in her flip flops and clean cut offs to run inside the shop. She had already pulled the Buick out and closed up the front side of the shop for the day and as she walked through the door she was met by the silence of a shop without a ringing phone. She shook her head and wondered if maybe the heat and the worry was getting to her. It hadn’t been the phone ringing after all. Just as she was about to head back outside to continue her interrupted conversation she heard the distinct sound of her old beige telephone. She could feel her heart thrumming in her chest and she sprinted to the back of the work floor to grab the phone. She placed her clean hand right over the greasy finger prints she had left on the receiver and quickly lifted it to her ear. “Hello, Buchanan Auto Repair, Jen speaking.”
“Jen, it’s me.” Troy’s voice came over the line with a new tone to it. This one was even worse than the choking back tears tone. His voice sounded like all the feeling had drained out of it, just a ghost of the voice she was so used to hearing.
“Hey, Troy, are you in Memphis? How was your flight?”
“Oh, it was fine. Your everyday run-of-the-mill plane flight. I had a lay over in Denver and I tried to call from a pay phone, but I guess it wasn’t working. I just had to hear your voice right now,” the choking back tears tone was back again now, and it sounded better to her than the vacancy of emotion, “Jen, I just don’t know what to do with myself right now. Chrissy and I had a huge fight just as I was leaving Seattle. I haven’t called her since I left, I’m too mad. How can she be fighting with me right now when I’m flying across the country for my mother’s funeral. I’ve been emotional and was probably snapping at her, but how important is my morning moodiness at a time like this, really? I’m afraid she’s going to have her shit packed up by the time I get home and I just can’t take this right now. This is so not even worth it, Jen, I don’t know where people go when they die but I’m just about ready to find out. Maybe then I could make my mom see - “
“Woah, hold it right there, babe. Slow down, take a deep breath. Think about what you’re saying for a second. Before we talk about what you just said I want to know something…did you try to call me a few hours ago?”
Troy’s voice was full of tears now, she was sure he was out right crying and didn’t blame him. His heart must feel like it had shattered into a million pieces right now. “Yeah, yeah, I tried to call you. You picked up but I was hurting too much to talk. There was so much I wanted to say and I just couldn’t make the words come out.”
“Okay. That’s fine. I’ve just been worried sick about you since then and now that you’re talking and confirming my worries I’m probably even worse.” She was pacing the garage. She looked toward the row of windows across the garage doors and wondered if Mr. Myers was still waiting out there to talk to her more about plastic molds gone wrong. Oh well, he would leave eventually. Some things were just more important. Luckily if the Buick really broke down he wouldn’t be able to get it 7 miles to the nearest mechanic, it would be right back in it’s old familiar shop for sure. “Troy, I know you’re under a lot of stress right now, but you have to listen to me, okay?”
“Alright, I’m listening.” The tears had stopped and she could practically feel the emotion slipping out of his voice again. The numbness settling in. Maybe that was a sign of emotional shock.
“You’re in your hotel room?”
“Yes, sitting on the bed”
“Lay down on the bed. Put your feet up and lay back on the pillows. Breathe deeply for me, okay? You’re breathing really hard and that’s speeding your heart rate up so I need you to take deep slow breathes to slow it down so you can think clearly.”
“Okay, I’m laying down but this is ridiculous. I respect the fact that you care about me, but I don’t need to meditate or whatever this is-”
“Deep breathes, cuz, you said you would listen so just shut up for a minute, do what I say, and either you will feel better about things or you won’t. As for caring about you…I don’t even know what to say. I love you so much, Troy, you have no idea. You are my cousin, the son of my father’s brother. You have the same blood as I do running through your veins and that doesn’t mean I have to like you. That’s just what tied us together when our lives first began. Now I need you to know that no matter what is happening in your life right now, it doesn’t effect what me and you have. Your girlfriend can walk out the door before you get back, you are going through a very hard time with your mom passing away and all the hopes you had for your relationship going out the window with that. But when everything is said and done I still feel the same way about you that I did 5 years ago and 5 years before that and so on. I still feel like your mom is a bitch for not giving you a chance and for never giving a damn about her own kid. And I still feel that you are better off without her in your life. As for your girlfriend, if she leaves you then you are better off without her too. You will find a new girlfriend that will love you better than she ever has, whether you believe it right now or not. And as for your life, I don’t know what I would do without you. You are one of my best friends I could ever ask for. You are special and unique and irreplaceable. I want you to know that if you were gone there is no body in this whole world that could make me forget you or make me stop missing you. So, deal with the stress you have right now, do whatever you have to do to get through it without hurting yourself any more than you are already hurt. When you get back to Seattle all you can do is live your life the best you can and time will start to heal your heart, even if it doesn’t feel that way at first. And if you need me you know where to find me. Do you need me right now? I’ll catch a flight to Memphis if you need someone there by your side.”
“No thanks, Jen, I can do this on my own.” Jen could still hear the sadness in his voice, but he also sounded more confident now.
“Do you feel any better?”
“That was a lot to take in just now, but yeah I think I feel better. I need to take a nap.”
“Okay, you get some rest. When is the funeral?”
“It’s tomorrow, then I fly back to Seattle the next day.”
“If you feel like you can handle it call Chrissy later today or tomorrow. If it’s just going to make things worse for you then leave it alone for now though. She’ll either understand or she won’t. Sweet dreams, cousin, and hang in there. Call me any time if you need me, I’ll be here at home.” Jen hung the phone up and sat back in her rolling chair. She let out a sigh and closed her eyes, wishing she could hold him, wishing there were something she could do from so far away.
The next day Jen woke up early to the phone ringing. It was Troy again, not holding back tears this time but still sounding as stressed as ever. He was getting dressed in nice clothes for his mom’s service and he just made small talk with her while he was combing his hair and buttoning his coat. The conversation wasn’t great but it wasn’t terrible either and afterward Jen went out behind her garage to play around with the old ‘65 Ford Falcon convertible she was refurbishing. The thing looked like a pile of rust, but she had the transmission inside the shop being rebuilt in her spare time and she liked to come out here and sit on its ripped vinyl seats and imagine what it would look like when she finished. She wondered what people who didn’t have goals looked forward to. Did they have things they could look at and dream about? Did they fix things or make things or plan things? Or maybe they just did the same thing every day, going to work and coming home and paying the bills without a thought to what they might do with their spare time if they weren’t so busy being unproductive with it. These thoughts went in circles in her mind. She had always had something to work on since she was a kid. Sometimes she would accomplish the task she put her time into and sometimes she would discard it for something more interesting, but she often wondered what it would be like to not have something to focus her time on. She was trying to avoid thinking about Troy and the problems he was having. Maybe that conversation they had yesterday would really help him. He was usually a happy person and she knew it was just the extra stress that was putting him in such a negative state of mind. She didn’t hear from him at all for the rest of the day.
Jen rolled over on her mattress and looked at her alarm clock. It was 8 in the morning. She wondered if Troy would call before he left his hotel, but she had no idea what time his flight for Seattle was leaving. Just as she was rubbing the sleep out of her eyes the phone in the garage began to ring. “I’ll be right there,” she shouted groggily at the door to the garage. She got up as quickly as she could with freshly wakened motor skills and got to the phone just in time. “Hello, Buchanan Auto -”
“Hey, Jen, it’s me!”
“Oh, Troy! You sound….how did everything go yesterday?” Jen couldn’t help but wonder at this, it sounded as if Troy were grinning from ear to ear. She could hear a bounce in his step as if he were standing next to his hotel bed bobbing up and down on the balls of his feet like an excited kid about to go on his favorite roller coaster.
“I’m leaving for the airport right now. And I just wanted to call you before I left and tell you that I love you.”
“I love you too. Did you talk to Chrissy? Did everything go okay yesterday?” She didn’t want to ask him flat out why he was so happy. But the sound of his voice had put a grin on her face from and closing her eyes she could imagine that he had the same grin plastered to his own face.
“I haven’t called Chrissy. She said she would be there to pick me up and I’ll talk to her about things when I get there. Things went fine yesterday. I went to her service. One of her friends stood up and mentioned how she talked about her son sometimes and she would show my second grade picture around every now and then when the mood was right. Even though it’s been twenty years something about that satisfies me a little bit. I know she left and I know she never seemed to have time for me, but the fact that she acknowledged me in her own life kind of means something. I just, I don’t know what it is, Jen. I woke up this morning and I was smiling. All I did was wake up and I feel like I’m on top of the world and I have my whole life ahead of me, I can’t change anything that’s behind me. I know this is still going to hurt for a long time, but I feel like I can handle it. I feel like I can handle anything right now. I just…wanted you to know that I love you.”
“I can hear the smile in your voice, Troy. And I have to say I am relieved to hear it. Call me when you get home, okay? Maybe next time you can take a trip for fun and come see me in Illinois.”
“Sounds like a plan. I miss you a ton. I’ll call you later.”
Jen ventured back to her Falcon and sat back in the drivers seat with her hands on the corroded steering wheel. She closed her eyes and imagined there was a smooth plastic wheel beneath her hands and new upholstery pressed against the backs of her legs. She imagined the sound of a rebuilt 6 cylinder turning over with the push button ignition she was going to install and the feel of the wind whipping through her hair as she cruised down the interstate with the top down. She wondered where she was heading to. She wondered if she was running from something or to something or just running for the sheer joy of having the freedom to do so. When she opened her eyes she saw her reflection in the windshield. Her short brown hair was a mess and her green eyes were sparkling. Her grin was so big it was almost ridiculous but it felt right all the same.
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