Communication Breakdown

     As he put one foot in front of the other, Jackson cursed the biting cold and wind and rain that seemed to pass through his thin gray cotton jacket. His old joints cracked with every step, but he had stopped noticing the sound years ago. Piece o' junk. Drive just fine when I got nowhere to be. He cast a glance back at the rusted silver Taurus sitting in a heap under the flickering street light. The wind caught his tie and whipped it up against his face. Up ahead he saw the faint orange glow of a cigarette. A young man, no more than seventeen, stood on a rundown porch, pacing back and forth, as he texted.

     “Hey, there!” Jackson called out. “Is your daddy home, boy?”

     A quick shake of the head was the only acknowledgment Jackson got. The young man turned his back and took another hit off of his cigarette.

     Jackson stepped onto the porch, wiping the rain from his brow. Damn kids can't be bothered to listen when they elders talkin'. “Listen, boy, my car broke down a ways back and I got to get to work. Let me use your phone,” said Jackson, with the stern tone he used on the rowdy kids at the mall where he worked as a security guard.

     The young man turned and stared at Jackson. “I can't help you, so you're just gonna need to go somewhere else.” He flicked the remains of his cigarette at the ground and turned to go inside the house.

Jackson stood there, shaking. His breath was hot and ragged. His eyes narrowed and his hand shot out and grabbed the young man's shoulder. “Damn it, boy, don't you walk away when I'm talkin' to you!”

The boy was a foot shorter and about fifty pounds lighter than Jackson, but he turned and smacked the older man's hand away with ease. In the same movement he knocked Jackson back with his other hand.

     “I'm not your 'boy',” he said, “and I told you once to go. I ain't telling you again.” The two stood, eyes locked on each other in the last dying light of the evening. Seconds that felt like minutes passed, when a voice called out from behind Jackson.

     “Eli! What the hell you doin', boy?” At the first sound of the voice Eli took a step back and seemed to shrink, looking suddenly to Jackson a handful of years younger than he had originally guessed. As he started to turn to find the source of the voice behind him, a man, a massive man, shoved past him and, with a blur of a fist, knocked the boy back against the metal screen door.

     “Nothin', sir. I wasn't doin' nothin'.” The boy kept his eyes down toward the ground as he spoke. The mountain of a man turned and faced Jackson.

     “What's goin' on, here?” Jackson drew a breath and nearly gagged on the smell of whiskey and stale cigars. “He causin' trouble again?”

     “I just need to use your phone, if that's alright,” he said. “My car's broken down up the road and I got to call my boss and tell him I'm gonna be late.”

     “That right?”

     “Yessir. If I can use your phone I'll be on my way.”

     The man glanced back at Eli, still cowering against the door, then turned his watery red eyes back to Jackson. They gazed around and over Jackson, seeking a point to focus on.

     “Gimme your phone, boy, and get in the house.” Without a word Eli handed the man his phone and went inside. The man smiled. “What kind of work you do?”

     “Security guard over at Forest Point.”

     “That's the mall over on DuPont, ain't it?”

     “Yessir.”

     The man sat down on worn out lawn chair, still holding the phone. He fished a crumpled pack of Camels out of the pocket of his jeans and lit one. Absently, he offered one to Jackson.

     “No, thanks. I should be making my call and heading out.” The man's face disappeared behind a cloud of smoke. Jackson stood, quietly, as the faint orange glow of the cigarette brightened and dimmed three times before the man spoke.

     “Job's important to have. Lost mine 'bout seven, eight months back.” Another cloud of smoke punctuated the rambling speech. “Bet they don't pay too well out at that mall, do they? Better than nothin', though. Man's got to have a job.” The man's voice got lower and Jackson felt that he was talking more to himself than anyone else.

     “Look, I really do need to get going. I'm late already...”

     “That boy o' mine ain't good for nothin' but spendin' money I ain't got.” He paused to finish his cigarette, his eyes fixed on Jackson's. “Now, I ain't interested in takin' on some punk job down at the mall. I got some things goin' that'll be payin' off any day now. But, in the meantime, how about you and me work out a deal?”

Jackson was tired and cold. All he could think of was his boss staring at the clock wondering where the old man who was supposed to relieve him was at, and he could barely follow whatever it was the drunk in front of him was trying to say.

     “Hey, man, can I use the phone or not?”

Suddenly the man was on his feet, his face inches away, looking down at Jackson.

     “You get my boy a job out at your mall, and you can use MY phone.” He stabbed a beefy finger into Jackson's chest as he spoke. Jackson's heart raced and he felt his temper rising again. Swallowing it down, he turned and walked back down the steps. “Hey!”

     Heading back the way he came, Jackson heard the man calling behind him.

     “Don't you walk away when I'm talkin' to you!”

Up the Mountain

The trail vanished shortly after the first flakes began to fall.  They’d been three days up the mountain, separated by about twelve hours, though Cole had gotten close enough once to smell the remnants of Vic Jasper’s campfire.  His eyes near shut from the frigid wind, the left foot maybe dead in its fur-lined boot, and a small, hard, tight ball of hate in his belly drove him forward and upward.

“Why you gotta do this?” Somewhere mixed into the roar of the wind in his ears he could hear Betsy’s voice calling after him.  He wasn’t sure if he was remembering it or hearing it now as he climbed.  Ignoring it, as he had since this whole thing started, he stretched his good arm up, feeling around in the snow for a bit of rock to grasp hold of.  The climb was easier, now that he’d gotten rid of his pack.  A few hours back, just as the snow started falling, he’d stood at the end of the trail that once had passed between the jagged peaks.  In the night, Cole realized, while he had eaten a salty strip of pork and broke a tooth on his last biscuit, Jasper must have figured out some way to cause a rockslide.  No way through this time of year for any sane man, he thought.  You ain’t been sane since he did what he done.  Cole had nodded quietly in agreement with her, then.  He left everything there but his rifle, his gun, and his hate, and began climbing up and after him.

Cole kept seeing apparitions in the snow and only some instinct kept him from firing off shots, thinking they were Jasper, even when they looked like him.  Like the swirling, drifting snow, the visions rose up around him, and though he kept putting one foot in front of the other, and kept pulling himself up higher and higher, he no longer saw the frozen night sky above.  Instead, he saw the warm, orange haze of a fire just beyond the hill on the edge of his land.  Saw himself spurring his horse faster, then, racing toward something he hoped he wouldn’t see.  The rest is a dissonance of images.  Flames all around him and on him as he burst through the door of his home.  The sticky black trail of blood stained into the floor.  The broken, blistering body of Betsy lying naked on a bed of fire.  He’d grabbed her and carried her out into the snow, eyes stinging as his body shook from the grief and rage and cold.  Collapsing next to her, his own dead eyes staring into hers, he’d remembered the way Jasper had looked at her when he thought Cole wasn’t watching.  That was more than half why Cole had sent the ranch hand packing.  More than half why he was dead certain who’d done this.  He’d took one last look back as he rode off in pursuit, then headed up the mountain.

Twelve hours, now, since he’d left the pack and started climbing.  Up the mountain, but, he knew, not back down it. 

Amber

The flames burned brightly against the winter sky. One minute distant taillights flickered like fireflies up the road, the next they darted away, replaced by billowing smoke and an unmistakable amber glow. Veronica stared ahead, trying through tear-blurred vision to make out what had happened. As she neared the scene of the accident she saw nothing but empty highway ahead and behind her.

Keep driving…

The words were clear in her mind. As clear and loud and insistent as they had been when she ran from the house, with Mark standing in the doorway shouting after her. Not their first fight or even their worst, but she knew it would be their last. It was a relief, that realization. Tired for so long, of so many things, she felt herself come to life along with the cars engine as she turned the key.

There’s nothing you can do…

Above the crackling of the fire she heard sobbing. She wanted nothing more than to be wrong. She stared at the wrecked car down in the embankment, improbably laying wheels up, it’s front end smashed and burning. The thick black oily smoke choked her and she could barely keep her already raw eyes open as it rose around her. She heard the sobbing and slid down through the overgrown weeds, the gravel and rocks scraping and cutting her legs.

I can’t go on…

She wasn’t even thinking of the fight when she decided to do it. It was only the latest in a short life of disappointment and failure. If she thought back far enough she could remember smiling adults leaning down and telling her what a wonderful, bright, and talented little girl she was. That she had every opportunity in the world ahead of her, and somehow more importantly, that every man would fall in love with her instantly. So many expectations she hadn’t even come close to living up to, so why bother living?

It’s hopeless…

No one could have survived, Veronica thought, as she crawled toward the car. She’d circled around to the passenger side, away from the smoke and flame. The air was thick with the heat, hotter than anything she had felt before. She wanted to turn back, to call for help, but the sobs that she couldn’t be hearing grew louder, turned to screams. Reaching the door, she tried to grab the handle, to pull the door open, but the metal burned her fingers. She opened her mouth to say something reassuring to the woman trapped in the car. The words died on her lips as she saw her own face staring back, saw herself speeding down the highway, not seeing the curve in the road through her tear-filled eyes, feeling the flames grow hotter as she hung suspended in the wreck, her skin burning as the smoke filled her lungs.

Keep driving…

The words were clear in her mind. As clear and loud and insistent as they had been when she ran from the house, with Mark standing in the doorway shouting after her. Not their first fight or even their worst, but she knew it would be their last. It was a relief, that realization. Tired for so long, of so many things, she felt herself come to life along with the cars engine as she turned the key.

The Heart's Filthy Lesson (final draft)

I recall perfectly the moment Angela fell out of love with me. We lay in bed together, comfortably in each other’s arms. The smoke from the cigarette we shared obscured the lingering smell of sweat and sex, the ashtray resting on my knee, between us. We didn’t speak, but that wasn’t unusual. The happiness of silence, she called it. After awhile she smashed out the cigarette and put the ashtray on the nightstand beside the bed. She smiled up at me, tilted her head back, and kissed me goodnight. Somewhere in the middle of that brief kiss, she fell out of love with me. Most people wouldn’t have caught it, but when you’ve experienced it as much as I have, you become pretty adept at spotting it.

A week ago, less than a month after that kiss, she left me.

I can’t really blame Valerie for being fed up. Despite being my younger sister, she was, frankly, far better at casual affairs than I was, and had little patience for my heartsick whining. Some of her impatience must have rubbed off on me, because I found myself in a nightclub of her choosing on a Friday night, when I normally would have been at home making CDs full of songs that perfectly captured my current emotional state. What I wasn’t prepared for was her abandoning me after an hour to sneak off to a semi-secluded corner of the club to make out with a friend of hers who worked as a bartender in the club.

My head was pounding along with the music, and I hadn’t decided whether to take a cab home or get another drink. I was shoving my way through the crowd on my way to the door when I saw her. In the truest sense of the words, she was the girl of my dreams. Not some airbrushed cover girl with fake breasts and Barbarella hair. This was, instead, the girl I’d always pictured, always judged other girls by. Long, straight, strawberry-blond hair, clever grey-green eyes, and a smile like she was laughing at everything and everyone but me.

Minutes later, I was surprised to find myself exchanging life stories with her. I would have been less surprised to find myself floating six inches off the ground. Nightclubs are where better looking, better dressed people than I, go to meet other better looking, better dressed people. They are not where a reasonable looking book store manager and a farm girl-turned-artist meet and fall in love. I wasn’t surprised when she asked if we could go someplace quieter to talk. Until she suggested my place.

I had the fleeting fear that my sister had put her up to this. I found that I didn’t care.

Some combination of the proximity of the backseat of the cab and the inattentiveness of the driver must have triggered some chemical response. Our hands wandered. Her lips felt like silk against mine. The cab ride took far too long and seemed to end far too soon.

My apartment was much quieter than the club, but we did very little talking.

Somewhere in the midst of things she pauses. The moon reflects off her glistening skin and her red-gold hair is a shining halo. She asks me if I love her and, in that moment, I say yes.

I fell asleep with the taste of her on my lips. She smelled like apple blossoms. We drifted off to sleep in happy silence.

When I awoke, the previous night felt like a dream. The morning was grey and flat, and I lay in the bed without the energy to move. Days, hours, or minutes later, I found the strength to sit up. She was gone. I hadn’t dreamed her, I knew that. I could remember every moment of our evening together. I remembered every word we’d said to each other, the crinkling of her nose when she laughed, the stray strand of hair that appeared to be inexorably drawn to the corner of her mouth when she spoke, the way her hands and fingers danced about, punctuating her conversation. I remembered other things, as well. Things I hadn’t noticed at the time. The near-desperate hunger with which she hung on my words, the strain at the edge of a smile held too long. The sorrow and relief on her face when I told her I loved her. When I found the note, I understood.

I thank you for the gift of love you have given me. I love you, and I’m sorry.

With flat, grey eyes I looked at my reflection in the mirror. Some part of me knew there were things I should have been feeling. Sadness, shock, anger, disgust, and honestly, disbelief. I felt none of them. Sometime in the night, as quick and quiet as a thief, she took my heart.

The Heart's Filthy Lesson (first draft)

I’m standing at the bar when I catch a glimpse out of the corner of my eye of the girl of my dreams. Now, you have to understand, I’m not talking about some airbrushed cover girl with Barbarella hair and breast implants. I’m talking about the girl I always dreamed I’d meet in a place like this. Long, straight, strawberry-blond hair, clever green eyes, and a smile like she’s laughing at everyone but me.

After we’ve managed to get our mutual drinks, a conversation starts. I couldn’t tell you how, with the music pounding loud enough to shake the floor, and with me being incapable of making small talk with attractive, unknown women. But there we were, off in the corner of the club, chatting away like friends who rediscover each other after years apart. Her name is Kelly, she’s twenty-seven, born and raised up north. She’s a painter, and, surprisingly enough, a moderately successful one. I share similar, though far less interesting details with her, and she listens attentively and responds in all the right places. When she asks if she can come back to my place, I quickly say yes.

The cab ride to my apartment is, I swear, like something out of a late night movie. She’s all over me, and I respond in kind, and I don’t know if the driver is enjoying the show or on the verge of kicking us out, but when the cab stops we’re in front of my building.

Somewhere in the midst of things she pauses. The moonlight reflects off of her body. She asks me if I love her, and in that moment I answer that I do.

I wake up a few hours later, sore, sticky, and smiling. The last part goes away as soon as I sit up. Something feels wrong and I can’t figure out what it is. Everything feels grey and flat. I wonder if I’ve been drugged, but when I think back I remember the evening perfectly. Vividly. My memory of the night is sharp and clear and alive in a way that nothing else is. Stumbling out of the bed, I find the note.

I thank you for the gift of love you have given me. I love you.

My shirt sticks to me as I read the note again, and I peel it away from my chest. When I do so, I see the deep red blood. Dropping the note, I pull my shirt off over my head. A thick scar, as wide as my finger and twice as long, runs down the left side, just above my nipple. Half-dried blood covers my chest and stomach. Looking at the note again, I realize what she means. I can remember all of the ways I should respond. All of the feelings I should feel. The shock, the disgust, and, honestly, the disbelief. I remember all of those things, and feel none of them. I can’t. She took my heart.

Footsteps

Shauna Kirkpatrick parked her car beneath the streetlight and quickly stepped out. She covered the distance to her front steps in seconds, keys already in hand, and unlocked the door and stepped inside. From the safety of her hall, she turned and looked up and down the street. The sound of cars racing up and down the freeway could be heard from the few blocks distant. Other than that, the quiet neighborhood was, in fact, quiet. With a sheepish grin she closed the door. The click of the lock carried across the street to a space between two houses where it was heard and noted by Bryan Crane.

Ten minutes later he stepped out and walked down the block. A nice evening for a stroll, and no one could tell him otherwise. The still quiet neighborhood reminded him of the suburb he grew up in, filled with tiny one story brick homes, each with its own matching brick garage. He wondered why Shauna parked on the street. He made a note to ask her. Thoughts of her quickened his breath and heart. She was his type, of course. Tan skin and dark hair, with just a bit too much makeup and jewelry. She had a voice that was soft and low, with the hint of an accent. “Wait for the beep, and you know what to do!” He never waited for the beep.

Why hadn’t he noticed the footsteps? He wore soft-soled running shoes which didn’t make a sound, yet, there it was. The clik-clok clik-clok of footsteps matching his own. Still, it was a nice evening for a stroll. He laughed to himself at his momentary paranoia. For a moment he had even wished he’d had the knife with him but of course it wasn’t there. He had no need for it yet.

He shook off the urge to turn around or quicken his pace, and instead listened to the footsteps. They weren’t close, so he would have plenty of time to respond if they sped up. Only a couple of blocks and he’d reach his car. The seventeen minute walk might have seemed excessive, but he believed in being careful. Every night he parked in a different spot, in a different direction from her house, but always seventeen minutes away. So intently was he listening to the set of footsteps behind him, that he nearly missed the matching sets that joined them.

Somehow he kept walking. His body grew cold from the sheen of sweat that started beneath his arms and ran down his back. He walked faster, still not looking back. The sickly-sweet sour stench grew and he heard the cruel laughter of the high school girl who was every high school girl, as her boyfriends called him ‘Pits’ and shoved him into the locker room showers and held him beneath the ice cold water. It had been years since they laughed at him, since he let them laugh at him, but he heard it now. The footsteps grew louder and faster and closer and finally he turned. Beneath the row of streetlights they stood. Blood ran down their faces and chests where he’d cut them, and still they laughed. He ran now, his heart beating in his chests, faster and faster, a moment later, the footsteps followed. Faster and faster.

Home

Dinner was served promptly at 6pm every night. Allison knew it was old-fashioned, but it felt important. The stoneware her Aunt Kathy had given her and Bradley for a wedding present sat on the table, the matching serving dishes in the center. Tonight was baked chicken, mashed potatoes, fresh green beans, and small dishes of chocolate pudding. Nothing special, but pride filled her every time she fed her family. Catie would roll her eyes at that, having a mother in the 21st century who chose to stay at home, raise her children, and served a meal to them every night. Once, when she was 11, Catie came to her mother, childish indignation on her face.

“You’re setting the Right of Women’s Movement back a century, Mom!” This was during Catie’s phase of wanting to be a lawyer. The previous month she’d wanted to be a television news anchor, before deciding they were vapid supermodels. There was no halfway with Catie.

“Sweetheart, the Women’s Rights Movement was about choice and opportunity. Those women, including your Aunt Kathy, marched so that women could choose the path they took in life, rather than having it chosen for them, right?” Catie eyed her suspiciously, certain she was about to be tricked in some way, but unclear on how. “Well, this is the path I chose. You wouldn’t want to oppress me, would you?” She said the last with a bit of a laugh, lightly tapping her daughter’s nose. Catie stomped off through the house as loudly as possible, swearing with her tiny voice that she would no longer play a part in her mother’s “enslavement”. At 6pm she joined her mother and father and younger brother for supper.

Allison turned toward the sound of Brad’s car pulling into the driveway. Ten minutes until supper, just enough time for him to take off his tie and roll up his sleeves before the meal. As she poured the drinks, she heard Chris, her youngest, throw his backpack in the corner and race up the stairs. When he’d joined the basketball team she’d worried, like all the mothers, about whether he’d be hurt, how well he’d handle the disappointment of the inevitable losses, or if his grades would suffer. Though she never said anything, she had also worried that the supper ritual, for lack of a better word, would be interrupted. As if reading her mind, Brad had moved his schedule around at work, so that he could pick Chris up on his way home.

Glancing at the clock in the living room, she laid out the cloth napkins, and smiled at the sound of her family coming down the stairs. Chris sat down without a word. Bradley, right behind him, paused in the doorway and sighed nearly inaudibly. Allison smiled up at her husband, and he took his seat. Allison listened, almost happy, to her family sharing the events of their day with each other. She imagined how Catie would respond, the passionate proclamations she would make, which she would soften with a well-timed laugh. About this time, Catie would be stressing about which college to choose, how she did on her SATs (little worry there, the bright young girl had grown into a bright young woman), and all of the traditional things that women her age worried about.

She felt her husband’s arm around her shoulder, felt the warm, wet tears on his face as he held her, and only then realized she was crying. She saw him nod to Chris, who stood up and cleared Catie’s dishes off the table.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, “I’ll stop. I’ll stop.” She knew she wouldn’t. Every night, as she had done for the last twenty years, and for the last eleven months since Catie disappeared, she would make supper, setting a place for her daughter, for her family, and wait for them to come home.