Welcome Home, Buster

This is a short story about a young woman who decides to buy a vehicle before she knows how to drive.

Melba Jenkins wondered if the reason her eyes hurt in the bitter Wyoming cold was because all of the moisture in them had crystallized in the form of icicles.  If she did have the dripped-form of ice hanging from her eyes,  maybe she would start a new type of cosmetic trend.  As soon as she got to the bus stop, Mel would be able to wrap her winter scarf around her face until she heard the familiar compressed air sounds coming from the bus.  Then, she would need to remove the blindfold so she could see where she was stepping.  For now, she was walking in subzero temperatures and her eyes ached.

There were always plenty of seats on the public transportation vehicle Mel took to her job at Hog Mart.  Luckily, one of the stops was at her place of employment.  Melba  Jenkins was “Melba J." because there were actually two Melba’s at Hog Mart, and both were cashiers.  Melba J. was so grateful they did not call her, “Fat Melba,” because that would just hurt her to the core.  Melba J. actually did call the other Melba “Skinny Melba,”  or simply, “Skinny” who in turn referred to Melba Jenkins with a familiar, “Jay.”  Melba J. really liked when anyone called her Jay.  

Meeting Skinny was one of the best days of Jay’s life.  Until that day, her name had seemed only to be a boring Old World name.  Whenever somebody asked her name on the telephone, she would spell it, “M-e-l-b-a,” and add, “like the toast.”  Once Skinny dubbed her “Jay,"the name stuck like egg on a plate.

Gazing out the window, Jay saw red metallic hair topping a tall womanly form walking down the street.  When Jay saw the person’s hand wave up and down, she wondered if it was part of dance, but then decided there was an unseen cell phone, and someone talking with hand gestures.

At work, Jay tried to make the day seem less mundane by looking for murder weapons amongst all of the things she was scanning.  A banana?  Well, a poison could be injected into it.  A dish towel?  Strangulation was the correct answer, without a doubt.  When she came upon a nail punch set, she knew that would be perfect if she ever encountered a vampire.  

On the bus ride back to her studio apartment, Jay decided there was no way she could stand riding the bus any longer.  The next day, Monday, she was not scheduled to cashier.  Jay promised herself that by Tuesday she would drive herself to her job.  All she needed to do was find a car, pay for it, and get it insured.    Oh, and learn how to drive.

Getting an insurance quote on the internet was easy enough she just made up having obtained a driver’s license.  Now to find an instructional video that would demonstrate the fundamentals of driving.  Or if there was a simulated driving game, Jay imagined this would be very realistic.  However, she only saw links for games that involved a criminal element.  The only videos she could find in her search dealt with manual driving.  She did not realize this was for  vehicles with stick shift transmissions.  Actually, she thought these videos would contain driving manuals.  When she realized what was meant by the term “manual” she went back to the violent video games with cartoon violence.  Jay did not lack intelligence, she had just never learned to drive.

Jay drove the game she had downloaded into the morning.  She had progressed past getting tickled by the fact that the graphics included pedestrians who would run every which way.  As soon as the sun started to appear, Jay’s skin had that numb feeling that told her she was extremely tired. She slept in her work clothes on the unopened  hide-a-bed couch until about noon. 

Jay’s apartment was still very dark for it being the middle of the day even after she opened the maroon curtains.  On the window pane was a thermometer that read -14 Fahrenheit.  She knew she should just wait until a warmer day to try to go get a car and drive for the first time.  However, there was not any significant accumulations of ice or snow on the ground.   

When Jay invited Skinny to go car shopping, the text response was full of questions, “Shopping?  Car?  Who?  You?” but then after Jay’s answer was, “Yes!” there were no more messages from Skinny.  Maybe her cell had fallen in a sink, or somewhere worse.

At car dealership row, where a taxi driver was waiting, Jay actually qualified for a loan on a florescent green economy coupe with 11,000 miles on it.  However, when Jay could not produce a driver’s license, she was not able to even test drive the green beauty.  Next, Melba Jenkins took the bus out where there were many used car lots.

Quickly, Jay weeded out the first and second car lots, because there were no vehicles within her price range.  Then, across the street, there was a lot with a little wooden shed and a hand-painted sign.  Jay knew she would find her dream wheels there!

Nobody was coming out of the hut, and Jay noticed the surveillance camera.  She kept looking at a rugged looking 4x4 about a decade old. She was really bundled in many layers of clothing, but today her eyes were exposed so she could look at what she wanted to purchase.  A woman Jay had seen at Hog Mart finally came out of the hut.  “You picked a fine day to look at cars!”

“Oh, I know.  It’s just I don’t work today, and I really need to find some transportation.”

“Okay, well if you want to test drive anything, let me know so I can jump start the battery.  None of these vehicles are going to start in today’s extreme temps.”

“Well, I can’t drive--” began Jay slowly, “a stick shift.”

“No worries there, the only one on the lot is that old blue pickup.”

“Too bad.  It’s really cute.”

“Yeah, cute.  So, what do you want me to jump start?”

Jay pointed to the SUV at which she had been staring.  The price painted on the cracked windshield looked a little high, but she thought she could bargain based on the existence of the crack.

“You have an ID, right?”

“Yes, absolutely.”  This was true, because Jay did have an ID, not a driver’s license.

The cracked windshield was just the beginning of problems with the vehicle.  The steering wheel was loose, but the saleswoman assured her that could be inexpensively repaired.  The woman said she would drive the car around the block to an open lot, where Jay could test drive it.  

“I’ll just keep the car running, okay?”  Jay worried that the car would move, but then she realized it would not as long as it was in “park”.

Jay got the car off to a lurching start, and she began to circle the vacant lot.  Then, it stalled.  The woman seemed a little angry, “Oh, you probably just do not know how to drive a car with this kind of engine.  It’s older, and you have to treat it differently.”

“Oh, yeah.  That’s probably the problem.”  Jay started the engine, drove in three circles, and the car lot owner started asking her if she wanted to drive it home today.

Well, that is exactly what Jay wanted, except the thought of this exact fantasy also terrified her.  “Only if you could knock off about $500.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that, because my brother would kill me.”

“I was just thinking because I need to replace the windshield, and get the steering wheel tightened.”

“I guess because of those things, I could lower the price by $300.”

“Hmmm.”

“Well, let’s drive this back to the office, and we can discuss it in a heated building.”

You mean that shed I saw, thought Jay.

Inside “the office,” Jay started to explain that her name was not really Jay, but Melba Jenkins.

The dealer, Victoria responded quickly, “You can put the car in any name you want.  You can put it in your mother’s name for all I care.”

My mother is dead.

Anyway, the page Jay had printed off of the internet worked as proof of insurance, and then Jay realized she did not have any money with her.  She explained she needed to go to an ATM.  Victoria told her the location of the nearest ATM.  Jay walked to the convenience store.  There, she borrowed the entire amount she was paying for the vehicle from 4 credit cards.  Later, she would worry about what to do when the bills arrived.

Driving home in her ten year old American-made SUV, Jay drove about 5 miles below the speed limit.  At the first stop sign, she thought about how the windshield was broken, and the steering wheel, and quite possibly the gas gauge.  She then decided an appropriate name would be “Buster”.  She was able to find her way on dirt roads that did not have much traffic.  In her apartment’s parking lot, she pulled, “Buster” into a slot outside of her front door.  “Welcome home, Buster.”

Reviews

[KingHafe]

I agree with Marie, well written, however, the ending is lacking. The story is textbook Protagonist-Conflict-Resolution, but the resolution does not keep the reader's interest as well as the main part of the body. Once the resolution is worked out I believe this will be a very well written story all together.

[E.A. Rubin]

Thank you for your thoughts. I wrote an extension to this story entitled, Welcome Home, Buster (Alternate Ending). I hope you like that one better!

[Marie]

THis is well written and interesting, but you need more of a punch for the ending.