This is a story written for my Fiction Writing class. It's a
pastiche piece, meaning an imitation. I read several stories by T.C. Boyle, and this is my best
imitation of his work. It is untitled as of yet, but by the end you should all be emotional. Very emotional.
She stared down into the glass. The Jack and Coke concoction in the bottom looked like the molasses she found in her grandmother’s cabinet years before, without the mold growing on the inside. She tried not drinking anymore of the cocktail, but needed to feel the cool mix slide down her warm throat again, just one more time. After the last drop was making its way down her esophagus, she slammed the glass onto the dark wooden bar. She threw down a handful of dollar bills, grabbed her purse, and turned to the door.
As she unlocked her forest green Chevy Impala, she saw the empty car seat in the back. There were cracker crumbs all over the interior and tiny fingerprints on all the windows. She wanted to skip that part of her day, because would it really matter if she picked him up? She never really took care of him anyways. Every night, she let the TV baby-sit him while she fell comatose into bed, to shake off the day.
She jumped onto the highway and headed toward the daycare’s exit. It was the right thing to do. She knew she probably never should’ve had a kid in the first place, but it was too late to change that now. As she barreled down the highway, she wondered how fast her shitbox car could go. It was a good day to try it out- the only other traffic on the road was the short bus in front of her. The rest of the three lane highway was as barren as the Sahara. Her foot pressed down harder and harder on the gas pedal, and she watched the speedometer rise. She rolled down the windows and her hair danced like grass in a wind storm. Her car fled right by the exit she needed. As she realized she missed it, her foot slammed on the brake. The car started to spin out of control, crossing over the three open lanes. Her stomach tangled into knots as the back of her car flung around to where the front should be.
Everything stopped suddenly. Her head was resting on the steering wheel, her hands still gripping it tightly. Smoke was billowing through the vents, creating a thick, dark haze around her. The wind that was blowing in through the open windows was drying the rivers of blood she felt flowing down her face. She leaned all her weight into the driver’s side door, but it wouldn’t budge. She slid over to the passenger side and swung the door open. When her feet hit the hard concrete, she was like a sailor reaching land for the first time in months. Her legs collapsed under her, and she caught herself with her hands. Her head hung low. Her arms trembled under her, and she fell to the ground.
She was in a hospital room, as white and bland as snow. The air reeked of disinfectant. Every muscle, joint, and bone in her body ached. She heard machines making continuous beeping noises like a broken record. Every breath she took in brought tears to her eyes. She pushed the button next to the bed. Minutes later, a short, round nurse scooted in.
“Wassah mattah, honey?” The nurse fidgeted with buttons on the beeping machine, making no changes.
“Can you… make… it stop… hurting?” The words painfully escaped her lips.
“Yes, ma’am, I can,” the nurse shuffled out of the room. She was alone, again. She stared at the ceiling, thinking about what could have been different. Could have, would have, should have… none of that mattered now. The common sense she needed then was all coming to her now.
The nurse scurried back into the room. She held a syringe full of a clear liquid and shot the contents into a plastic tube, running to the patient’s arm.
“Gon’ be better in a few, honey. Enna-thing else you need?” She said no, thank you, and the nurse left. She went back to staring at the ceiling. The ‘could have, would have, should have’ thoughts came back to haunt her. The first one to cross her mind was ‘I should have had an abortion.’ Her son- was he ok? Who picked him up? She didn’t have friends or family in the area. She liked it there for that reason. The medication started to settle in, and her thoughts went from manic to euphoric in a matter of seconds.
He cried for her in the middle of the night. She didn’t move. His screaming got louder and louder, and she never moved an inch. She didn’t want to do this anymore. She was tired of ignoring him, but she didn’t want to deal with him. He was becoming a bigger burden the older he got. His third birthday was just weeks away. He was only going to be three, if she didn’t tell him it was his birthday, he would never know. The screams died down, and she fell back to sleep.
She unbuckled her seat belt and pulled a flask of whiskey out of her purse. The shiny silver metal reflected in the sunlight. As she glanced in the rearview mirror, she could see him, singing to himself and looking around the car. He pulled on his fingers and kicked his feet. He was content there. She took a swig of the whiskey and put the flask back in her bag. She didn’t need that one drink, she was drunk already. As she opened the car door, she had second thoughts. But she only paused for a moment. She opened the back passenger side door and reached in to unbuckle his seatbelt. He reached for her. When she pulled him out of the car, his little arms wrapped around her neck, gripping for dear life. He didn’t know for sure what was going on, but she could tell he sensed something. She put him into the stroller and walked into the mall.
In the food court, the aromas of so many different cuisines mixed in the air. He pointed to McDonalds. She walked to the counter, ordered a Chicken McNugget Happy Meal, and found an empty table for two. She cut his rubbery chicken chunks smaller and squirted some ketchup on his plate. He smiled at her as he ate. She did all she could to fight back the tears. She wasn’t afraid of what would happen to him, she was afraid of what would happen to her. She pulled her baseball hat down over her face, and got up to walk toward the napkin dispenser. Then the straws. Slowly, she walked further and further away from him. As she turned her back and walked out of the food court, she could hear him start yelling for her. She never turned around.
