Smurf Taco
05-22-2007, 01:26 AM
I finished my final (a 5-10 page short story) for English, and wanted to share. WARNING: Some language throughout.
Silent Like the Desert
“I think my father is going senile.”
“Oh yeah? My aunt steals hangers from Nordstrom’s.” It wasn’t meant to be a competition, but she had a way with words. His chin found comfort in the palm of his hand. “No way,” he pretended to care.
“It’s weird, she doesn’t steal any clothes or anything, just the hangers. She’s been caught a couple of times. They never do anything though, I mean it’s just some woman taking hangers. She seriously has like over a hundred stolen hangers in her closet. Are you even listening?” The candle flame on the table had demanded his attention during her story.
“My dad, he’s asked me about this old movie four times in the past week-”
“Don’t be so dramatic, Dutch. Your father isn’t going senile. If he starts refusing to shower like my grandfather did? Then you should start to worry.” The flame beckoned his attention again. “I mean I loved him to death, but he seriously smelled like a wet dog.”
“My mom dismisses everything I mention. I think she’s afraid of losing him.”
“Will you quit it with your dad already? He’ll be fine, and you’re ruining the mood!”
“You know, it wouldn’t hurt to humor me just once,” he said, and tossed three twenty dollar bills onto Erin’s half eaten salad. It was hardly a scene, yet several questioning eyes followed him as he walked alone to the door.
With a pocket full of free peppermints, he drove home in pleasant silence.
She’d never let him live this down, but at least she had to find her own ride home.
Three peppermints and a rolled down window had cooled him off. A hot shower reheated him. The walk to his parents’ was just a few houses. Dutch opened the front door and gave his habitual, “Hello!” that usually went unanswered.
“Who’s there?” There was panic in his father’s voice. “Dutch? Is that you?”
Dutch followed the voice to the kitchen. His father met him in the hallway, out of breath. “Dad, what the ****? Are you alright?” His hands, his knees, the breast of his shirt, the top of his balding head, all smeared with blood.
“Dutch, I…” Dutch pushed his father out of the way. He was fine. But his mother-
Dutch was nine years old again. It was a sticky hot day in the middle of summer. As usual, his hot dog didn’t have enough ketchup. When his mother left the room, he crept his way to the refrigerator. The ketchup bottle slipped from his hands and exploded on the immaculate white tile. It was everywhere; it spattered his shoes and the bottom of his favorite black jeans. His mother was furious about the mess, but she couldn’t bring herself to scold tiny little Dutchie. After all, it was just ketchup.
This wasn’t ketchup. The grown up Dutchie stared down at the mother who used to clean up his messes. It looked like she had been thrown into a puddle of thick, deep blood. The pool around her body seemed to grow as if someone threw a rock into a pond. This rock was sharp, though, metal, painted red. It stood proud. Confident, even. And all he could think about was the ****ing ketchup on her perfect, white tile.
His father’s voice bent around the kitchen doorway. “I don’t know how it happened. Dear God Dutch, I don’t know what I did.”
Dutch’s stomach wrenched as he walked away from the corpse of his mother. His father was staring at his blood stained hands when Dutch pinned him against the wall. His father’s eyes were wide. Scared. His mouth hung stupidly open.
“Tell me what happened, Dad. Tell me exactly what happened.”
“I was just making a sandwich. I don’t- I thought your mother was gone. I thought someone broke in. I just- She scared me to death!”
To death. Odd choice of words.
“You stabbed Mom?!” Being blunt wasn’t a concern.
His father’s frightened silence was answer enough. Dutch let out all of the air in his lungs. He tried not to breathe in – and nearly succeeded. When he finally took a breath, his father spoke again. “Dutch- I’m going to jail. You get out of here and call the police. I don’t want you-”
“Shut up for a second. Let me think.” He had only told his father to shut up once before, and had told his teachers the bruises were from falling down the stairs. His father’s reaction was different this time. He gave a meek whimper and lowered his head again.
His mother dead and his crazy father stuck behind bars. He hated his father for a lot of things, but he couldn’t imagine him dying in a prison cell. Rotting. Slowly losing touch with the world around him, staring at concrete walls. Plus, his dad told him to call the cops. Have his own father arrested. For murder. He couldn’t.
Dutch hurried to the kitchen. His mother’s eyes followed him like a mounted deer head. Blank, piercing, haunting. He grabbed a box of garbage bags from under the sink. Tiptoeing out from the kitchen, he forced two bags into the still bloodied hands of his dumbfounded father.
“Go into the shower and change your clothes. Wash yourself off and put the clothes in these bags. Is the car in the garage?”
“Dutch, what are you-?” Those eyes. His father never looked so frail.
“Don’t argue with me. I’m going to take care of this.”
His wrinkled hands reluctantly clutched the garbage bags. He shuffled obediently down the hallway. Dutch would have given anything to still be at lunch.
The trashbag got caught on the rubber soles of her shoes. His hands were already dirtied with blood. He avoided her face. One trashbag encased her lower half. The top was next. It went over her quickly, but he stopped half way. His hand slid nervously up through the plastic bag, feeling for her eyes. When he was sure they were shut, he pulled the rest of the bag over her torso. The knife was the only thing visible between the two bags before he pulled it out and threw it into the sink. The key to the trunk rattled louder than ever while he opened it. He had his mother cradled in his arms when his father dropped a trashbag in the hallway. It sounded wet.
“Dutch, you-”
Dutch looked at his father only for a moment before opening the door into the garage. His mother’s head hit the doorframe on the way out. A silent apology passed from his eyes to the black plastic covering hers. Her body lay limp next to a tire iron and a tennis racket in the trunk. He pulled the tennis racket out. They might need the tire iron. His father’s shadow crawled into the trunk from the doorway. “Dutch, we can’t.”
“Go get me a clean shirt and the other trashbag I gave you. I’ll get the knife.” His father’s docile acceptance empowered Dutch. He was in charge. Helping his father clean up a mess for once. It shouldn’t have been this, but it was what it was.
Two more garbage bags and a shovel kept his mother company in the trunk. Dutch looked ridiculous in his father’s shirt. It was Hawaiian, and his skinny body barely took up half of it. He apologized once more to his mother, out loud this time, and closed the trunk. The door to the old Cadillac echoed in the garage when he shut it, and again after his father sat down in the passenger seat.
“You stay here and clean up the mess.”
“I’m coming with you, Dutch. I can’t let you do this by yourself.” Dutch wanted to argue, but decided they needed as little conflict as possible. The car started immediately, humming patiently. His father always treated his cars the way he should have treated his family. The light in the garage flickered off before they began moving. It was dark. Dutch was jealous of the houses with light glimmering through their windows. They were enjoying peaceful lives. Peaceful-er, at least.
For two hours, the desert was silent. Occasionally the two would squint as another lone car or truck passed them in the opposite direction. His father’s sighs of grief were the only conversation they shared. Another hour passed, and his father finally spoke.
“So did you see that action flick that came out a couple of years ago? The sequel is in theaters and it looks pretty flashy.”
Dutch stared at his father. Long, and hard.
“Watch the road Dutch, you’ll get us killed.”
“Mom’s dead in the trunk, Dad.”
Sanity hit him in the stomach, but the pain radiated from his eyes. “Dear God, I-I’m sorry Dutch.”
The ridged edge of the road shook the car, and Dutch finally shifted his gaze from his father. They didn’t speak again.
Light from the sun trickled over the mountaintops. The car pulled to the side of the road where it stopped in a cloud of dust and dirt. Still silence. Dutch checked the road ahead, the road behind in his mirror, and turned the wheel. A sandstorm raged from behind the wheels of the old Cadillac. He could see his father gripping the door of the car, squeezing it for stability. They sped through the desert faster and faster. The needle in the speedometer climbed higher, then descended on the other side.
His father’s other hand reached for the dash board, bracing himself against the violent shifting of the old Cadillac. Dutch couldn’t stop from looking over at his father. Still helpless. Frightened. Insane.
His eyes found a boulder in front of the car and he forgot all about his father. The wheel spun without consequence in his hands as the back wheel crashed against the rock in their way. Dutch and his father and his mother flipped through the air once, twice, three times. They hit the ground and rolled again. It finally stopped rolling on its roof, crushed.
Dutch wasn’t unconscious. Just dizzy. He squirmed out of his window as quickly as he could, cutting his arm and face on pieces of broken glass. The trunk was open. A small fire was crackling near the engine.
He rushed to the back of the car, looking for his mother’s corpse. He saw something, but it wasn’t her. It was his father’s arm hanging out of the front window, bloodied and broken. He ignored his search for the moment to check on his father. He could pull him out from the other side of the car, but he didn’t seem to be breathing.
A thud at the back of the car pulled him away from his father. A garbage bag full of wet clothes fell from the inside of the trunk. On his back, he slid under the trunk to see his mother’s stomach sticking out between her two bags. Everything was still there. He began to pull her from the trunk, but stopped. Gasoline. The scent was getting stronger.
He slid from underneath the car and sprinted. He wasn’t fifty feet from the car when he thought he heard a faint yell that stopped him in his tracks. Turning in place, he heard it again, a little louder this time.
“Dutch!” His father wasn’t dead. “Dutch!” Still louder. “Help!”
Dutch could help. His father was in a tight spot, but there was space to pull him through the driver’s side. But Dutch didn’t move. Through the dust and the fresh sunlight, he didn’t even blink.
All Dutch could think about was helping his father. How he should help his father. How many times his father should have helped him. How many times his father didn’t help him.
A ball of flame erupted above the old Cadillac, sending Dutch to his back. He opened his eyes to see black smoke beginning to billow from the wreck. From his father. From his mother.
He closed his eyes and fell asleep. It was early, he hadn’t slept all night.
Silent Like the Desert
“I think my father is going senile.”
“Oh yeah? My aunt steals hangers from Nordstrom’s.” It wasn’t meant to be a competition, but she had a way with words. His chin found comfort in the palm of his hand. “No way,” he pretended to care.
“It’s weird, she doesn’t steal any clothes or anything, just the hangers. She’s been caught a couple of times. They never do anything though, I mean it’s just some woman taking hangers. She seriously has like over a hundred stolen hangers in her closet. Are you even listening?” The candle flame on the table had demanded his attention during her story.
“My dad, he’s asked me about this old movie four times in the past week-”
“Don’t be so dramatic, Dutch. Your father isn’t going senile. If he starts refusing to shower like my grandfather did? Then you should start to worry.” The flame beckoned his attention again. “I mean I loved him to death, but he seriously smelled like a wet dog.”
“My mom dismisses everything I mention. I think she’s afraid of losing him.”
“Will you quit it with your dad already? He’ll be fine, and you’re ruining the mood!”
“You know, it wouldn’t hurt to humor me just once,” he said, and tossed three twenty dollar bills onto Erin’s half eaten salad. It was hardly a scene, yet several questioning eyes followed him as he walked alone to the door.
With a pocket full of free peppermints, he drove home in pleasant silence.
She’d never let him live this down, but at least she had to find her own ride home.
Three peppermints and a rolled down window had cooled him off. A hot shower reheated him. The walk to his parents’ was just a few houses. Dutch opened the front door and gave his habitual, “Hello!” that usually went unanswered.
“Who’s there?” There was panic in his father’s voice. “Dutch? Is that you?”
Dutch followed the voice to the kitchen. His father met him in the hallway, out of breath. “Dad, what the ****? Are you alright?” His hands, his knees, the breast of his shirt, the top of his balding head, all smeared with blood.
“Dutch, I…” Dutch pushed his father out of the way. He was fine. But his mother-
Dutch was nine years old again. It was a sticky hot day in the middle of summer. As usual, his hot dog didn’t have enough ketchup. When his mother left the room, he crept his way to the refrigerator. The ketchup bottle slipped from his hands and exploded on the immaculate white tile. It was everywhere; it spattered his shoes and the bottom of his favorite black jeans. His mother was furious about the mess, but she couldn’t bring herself to scold tiny little Dutchie. After all, it was just ketchup.
This wasn’t ketchup. The grown up Dutchie stared down at the mother who used to clean up his messes. It looked like she had been thrown into a puddle of thick, deep blood. The pool around her body seemed to grow as if someone threw a rock into a pond. This rock was sharp, though, metal, painted red. It stood proud. Confident, even. And all he could think about was the ****ing ketchup on her perfect, white tile.
His father’s voice bent around the kitchen doorway. “I don’t know how it happened. Dear God Dutch, I don’t know what I did.”
Dutch’s stomach wrenched as he walked away from the corpse of his mother. His father was staring at his blood stained hands when Dutch pinned him against the wall. His father’s eyes were wide. Scared. His mouth hung stupidly open.
“Tell me what happened, Dad. Tell me exactly what happened.”
“I was just making a sandwich. I don’t- I thought your mother was gone. I thought someone broke in. I just- She scared me to death!”
To death. Odd choice of words.
“You stabbed Mom?!” Being blunt wasn’t a concern.
His father’s frightened silence was answer enough. Dutch let out all of the air in his lungs. He tried not to breathe in – and nearly succeeded. When he finally took a breath, his father spoke again. “Dutch- I’m going to jail. You get out of here and call the police. I don’t want you-”
“Shut up for a second. Let me think.” He had only told his father to shut up once before, and had told his teachers the bruises were from falling down the stairs. His father’s reaction was different this time. He gave a meek whimper and lowered his head again.
His mother dead and his crazy father stuck behind bars. He hated his father for a lot of things, but he couldn’t imagine him dying in a prison cell. Rotting. Slowly losing touch with the world around him, staring at concrete walls. Plus, his dad told him to call the cops. Have his own father arrested. For murder. He couldn’t.
Dutch hurried to the kitchen. His mother’s eyes followed him like a mounted deer head. Blank, piercing, haunting. He grabbed a box of garbage bags from under the sink. Tiptoeing out from the kitchen, he forced two bags into the still bloodied hands of his dumbfounded father.
“Go into the shower and change your clothes. Wash yourself off and put the clothes in these bags. Is the car in the garage?”
“Dutch, what are you-?” Those eyes. His father never looked so frail.
“Don’t argue with me. I’m going to take care of this.”
His wrinkled hands reluctantly clutched the garbage bags. He shuffled obediently down the hallway. Dutch would have given anything to still be at lunch.
The trashbag got caught on the rubber soles of her shoes. His hands were already dirtied with blood. He avoided her face. One trashbag encased her lower half. The top was next. It went over her quickly, but he stopped half way. His hand slid nervously up through the plastic bag, feeling for her eyes. When he was sure they were shut, he pulled the rest of the bag over her torso. The knife was the only thing visible between the two bags before he pulled it out and threw it into the sink. The key to the trunk rattled louder than ever while he opened it. He had his mother cradled in his arms when his father dropped a trashbag in the hallway. It sounded wet.
“Dutch, you-”
Dutch looked at his father only for a moment before opening the door into the garage. His mother’s head hit the doorframe on the way out. A silent apology passed from his eyes to the black plastic covering hers. Her body lay limp next to a tire iron and a tennis racket in the trunk. He pulled the tennis racket out. They might need the tire iron. His father’s shadow crawled into the trunk from the doorway. “Dutch, we can’t.”
“Go get me a clean shirt and the other trashbag I gave you. I’ll get the knife.” His father’s docile acceptance empowered Dutch. He was in charge. Helping his father clean up a mess for once. It shouldn’t have been this, but it was what it was.
Two more garbage bags and a shovel kept his mother company in the trunk. Dutch looked ridiculous in his father’s shirt. It was Hawaiian, and his skinny body barely took up half of it. He apologized once more to his mother, out loud this time, and closed the trunk. The door to the old Cadillac echoed in the garage when he shut it, and again after his father sat down in the passenger seat.
“You stay here and clean up the mess.”
“I’m coming with you, Dutch. I can’t let you do this by yourself.” Dutch wanted to argue, but decided they needed as little conflict as possible. The car started immediately, humming patiently. His father always treated his cars the way he should have treated his family. The light in the garage flickered off before they began moving. It was dark. Dutch was jealous of the houses with light glimmering through their windows. They were enjoying peaceful lives. Peaceful-er, at least.
For two hours, the desert was silent. Occasionally the two would squint as another lone car or truck passed them in the opposite direction. His father’s sighs of grief were the only conversation they shared. Another hour passed, and his father finally spoke.
“So did you see that action flick that came out a couple of years ago? The sequel is in theaters and it looks pretty flashy.”
Dutch stared at his father. Long, and hard.
“Watch the road Dutch, you’ll get us killed.”
“Mom’s dead in the trunk, Dad.”
Sanity hit him in the stomach, but the pain radiated from his eyes. “Dear God, I-I’m sorry Dutch.”
The ridged edge of the road shook the car, and Dutch finally shifted his gaze from his father. They didn’t speak again.
Light from the sun trickled over the mountaintops. The car pulled to the side of the road where it stopped in a cloud of dust and dirt. Still silence. Dutch checked the road ahead, the road behind in his mirror, and turned the wheel. A sandstorm raged from behind the wheels of the old Cadillac. He could see his father gripping the door of the car, squeezing it for stability. They sped through the desert faster and faster. The needle in the speedometer climbed higher, then descended on the other side.
His father’s other hand reached for the dash board, bracing himself against the violent shifting of the old Cadillac. Dutch couldn’t stop from looking over at his father. Still helpless. Frightened. Insane.
His eyes found a boulder in front of the car and he forgot all about his father. The wheel spun without consequence in his hands as the back wheel crashed against the rock in their way. Dutch and his father and his mother flipped through the air once, twice, three times. They hit the ground and rolled again. It finally stopped rolling on its roof, crushed.
Dutch wasn’t unconscious. Just dizzy. He squirmed out of his window as quickly as he could, cutting his arm and face on pieces of broken glass. The trunk was open. A small fire was crackling near the engine.
He rushed to the back of the car, looking for his mother’s corpse. He saw something, but it wasn’t her. It was his father’s arm hanging out of the front window, bloodied and broken. He ignored his search for the moment to check on his father. He could pull him out from the other side of the car, but he didn’t seem to be breathing.
A thud at the back of the car pulled him away from his father. A garbage bag full of wet clothes fell from the inside of the trunk. On his back, he slid under the trunk to see his mother’s stomach sticking out between her two bags. Everything was still there. He began to pull her from the trunk, but stopped. Gasoline. The scent was getting stronger.
He slid from underneath the car and sprinted. He wasn’t fifty feet from the car when he thought he heard a faint yell that stopped him in his tracks. Turning in place, he heard it again, a little louder this time.
“Dutch!” His father wasn’t dead. “Dutch!” Still louder. “Help!”
Dutch could help. His father was in a tight spot, but there was space to pull him through the driver’s side. But Dutch didn’t move. Through the dust and the fresh sunlight, he didn’t even blink.
All Dutch could think about was helping his father. How he should help his father. How many times his father should have helped him. How many times his father didn’t help him.
A ball of flame erupted above the old Cadillac, sending Dutch to his back. He opened his eyes to see black smoke beginning to billow from the wreck. From his father. From his mother.
He closed his eyes and fell asleep. It was early, he hadn’t slept all night.