Stranded

Stranded

 

                I can’t believe this is happening to me. A broken carburetor pumping steam into the engine of my car wasn’t the worst part. My G.P.S. had last told me that I was somewhere in Arizona. That was right before it died.

   Three hours ago.

                Now I could be anywhere. I was stuck in a cliché situation. Broken down car in the middle of a craggy desert landscape at dusk, grey smoke puffing out from under the hood of my mustang GT, a dirt road that stretched on endlessly in either direction, and to top it all off, I swear there was a tumbleweed rolling across the desert.

                I leaned against the hot car and crossed my arms, looking off into the orange and violet sunset that felt warm on my face. Soon my car was nothing more than a silhouette against the stark landscape.

                I was no good with cars, and now I was regretting not asking my father to teach me. He had always been a busy man, but often made time to teach me the ways of the gentleman. He was there when I learned had my first real drink, when I learned how to drive, how to shave, hell, he was there when I learned how to piss straight.

                The only thing was he was sick. Died on my twenty second birthday from liver disease. I was never the same. I left on my own a bunch of times when I needed some time alone. My mom thought she was losing me too and she cried a lot. I wanted to tell her that it was okay, but for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to talk to her anymore.

                One day I left and never came back. It was sort of a spur of the moment. One day when I was just taking a drive over to the store, it sort of hit me that my life was going nowhere. I guess you could say I was scared.

                Maybe I was.

                So yeah, I left things like that. It was probably a selfish move on my part, but I didn’t really care, and to this day I have no regrets about it.

                However I did regret not getting that full check up that auto shop guy offered me. I hated being cheap, but it was in my nature.

And now I was paying the price.

                It took a few hours, but finally a pair of headlights could be seen coming down the now pitch black road towards my car.

                Nobody who has said that the desert is cold at night was lying. I was freezing my a*s off. I managed to find a blanket that I had in my car since before I even left home. It was a thick yellow, wool-like material that looked and smelled like it was from the seventies and had it draped over my body in the back seat.

                When I felt the headlights on my face I woke up out of a daze and watched it as it pulled over to the side of the road ten feet away, coming to a stop with the familiar sound of gravel crunching beneath a car tire.

                I pushed the blanket off me and arched my back in a stretch, cracking my back a few times and feeling slightly lightheaded.

                The ambient light that rose off both cars was enough for me to make out the dim outline of the man who stepped out of the tow truck.

                “You Ben?” he asked me.

                “Yeah, that’s me.” I told him

                He strode over to me and firmly shook my hand. His hands were hairy and sweaty, and as soon as he looked away, I brushed my fingers on my jeans.

                “Mustang G.T., sixty  . . .  eight?” he asked.

                “How’d you know?” I shrugged.

                “Ever see Goldfinger?”

                “Can’t say I have . . . is it a movie?”

                 “James Bond . . . that was his ride back in the day Y’know?”

                “No, I had no idea.” I said. This guy was making way too much conversation. I just wanted him to rig this thing up and get us going.

                 “Well, anyways, it’s a nice ride; I just didn’t know you could find these babies anywhere anymore.”

                “It was my father’s . . . he died.” I said, letting him know he was about to cross a line.

                “Oh, I’m sorry.”

                “Don’t worry about it.” I said, “So how do we do this?” I gestured towards the back end of the tow truck.

                 “Oh, don’t worry about that.” He said, “You can just get in, and I’ll hook this baby up.”

                Alright, sounded convenient enough. I shrugged and hopped into the passenger side of the tow truck, slamming the door as I stepped inside.

                For twenty minutes straight, the only sounds in the world were the tow truck man clanking away on the car. I started to doze off with my face pushed up against the window when the tow truck man opened up the driver side door and stepped in with a loud groan.

                 “Well, she’s all rigged up so we’ll be headed back to shop now.” he said, “You’d better buckle up son.”

I removed my face from the frigid window long enough to reach over my shoulder and swing the strap of nylon to the buckle at my hip, then I went back to my original position and was unusually shocked by the coldness of it.

                The man grabbed some papers and flicked the light on. It was dim, but it bothered me. Now that I had had a taste of the dark silence, the light seemed like an incredible nuisance. The shuffling of papers didn’t help either.

                “Here, just sign your name at the bottom here and we’ll be on our way.” He said cheerfully.

                  I gave the man a quick glare, took the pen and scratched my name: “Ben McKinerny” on the yellow paper. He nodded and put the papers in back into a folder then stuffed the folder into the crevice between the seat and the center console. With one last snort and spit out the window, he flicked the ignition, cranked a squeaky stick shift and sped off.

                 The truck lurched back and forth uneasily on the dirt road, but the man didn’t seem to mind. Had I been in my right state of mind, I would’ve been concerned with the wellbeing of my car, but I was too tired to worry or to care.

“I don’t mean to be out of line here, but if you wouldn’t mind telling what happened to your father, Y’know, just to strike a conversation?”

                 I didn’t want to answer. I wanted to feign sleep until it actually came, and then I could get to the shop and have this all taken care of and be on my merry way out of this s**t hole of a desert. Yet, this seemed like the type of guy who wouldn’t take the hint.

 “He had a kidney, sorry, no, liver disease. He died about four years ago.” I said finally.

                The man waited a while to answer, then he said slowly, “Is that so?”

                 I couldn’t see it in his silhouette, but the  tow truck man was beginning to smirk malevolently.

Reviews

[SR Urie]

Hello Domenic,
Nice write, man. Excellent setting and setup of your plot. No gripes about type-o's or spelling either. Nice car, love the old Mustangs. The young man is stuck with his father's memory, the maintenence of his father's car, and the bill for the tow job. Where the western hic with his veiled scheme and butt crack takes the guy from there makes a superb teaser; very tantalizing for me, the reader.
You've got the gift, sir. Remember that when you get an idea for a story WRITE IT DOWN for posterity. Keep it up! BZ