The Jalopy, Part I (364 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 2 on 15 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Anthony Locascio (View user info) at 2007-07-09 02:24:26 EDT
I really wanted to write this story as one part, but it would have been over twelve pages, so I divvied it up into two. Once this is done, Soulless is coming back in a big way. Enjoy!
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"Honey? I'm home!"
Jack Hawkins slammed the door behind him, trying to keep the grin off of his face and affect a downcast, downtrodden demeanor. His wife, Helen, was in his face a moment, later, a whirlwind of neatly pressed clothing and carefully salon-pampered hair.
"Where have you been! I've been sick, worried to death! I call your office, you're not there. I call your pager, you don't answer. I called your work crews, they haven't seen you! You better have a real satisfying explanation or I give my word to heaven you'll be sleeping on the sofa for a year!"
Jack's inward smile widened. He could have been anywhere. Out drinking, gambling at the off-track betting booths, even climbing on top of his secretary. Helen was only worried for his safety. Rather than grin and grab her in a huge bearhug, he picked idly at the carpet with the toe of one shoe.
"I'm sorry, dear," he said meekly. She was such a petite thing, she had to know it was an act, but he did his best to hold the act together as long as he could. "I have bad news. We're going to lose a member of our family."
Helen Hawkins stopped dead, clapping a hand to her mouth. Her husband had never come home late in twenty three years of marriage without calling - surely only the most dire of circumstances had prevented him from doing so. "Oh God, Jack, is it your uncle? Oh God I wanted to say something about his drinking for so long, but I just, I didn't think it was any of my business and...and he's a grown man who can...."
Jack shook his head slowly and sadly. "No, not that. I'm afraid it's much worse. We're going to lose someone who is even closer to us. Someone that's been with us for so long. And do you want to know why?"
He looked down at Helen's upturned face. Her green eyes were brimming with tears. She was every bit the fire-haired beauty that had turned him down for a date twenty-four years ago, a woman worth the embarrassment of rejection and the renewed pursuit. As much as he loved this moment, he couldn't bear to make it last too long for her. He reached into his denim jacket and drew out a pair of silvery keys.
"Four point-six liter, thirty-two valve fuel injected V8 with 94 millimeter bore and 83 millimeter stroke. Eleven point eight compression ratio with dual overhead cams and variable valve timing, supercharged to four hundred and fifty horsepower at sixty-four hundred revolutions per minute. Three hundred sixty-five foot pounds of torque at forty-one hundred rpm. Four wheel anti-lock braking system, leather interior, Bose high definition ten-speaker stereo system. That's why."
Helen stared up at her husband for a long moment, bewildered. "What?" was all she could reply.
"Happy anniversary, baby. I couldn't let you think that I forgot. He pressed the keys into her hands. She looked at them in wonder.
"Today's not our anniversary," she squeaked. Jack cackled and struggled out of his jacket and work boots.
"Of course it isn't. If I actually gave it to you on our anniversary, it wouldn't have been a surprise."
"Jack....Jack what is this?" she said softly, looking down at the set of keys.
"Oh, sorry, I guess I should explain. They go to this." He handed her the sheaf of papers that he had been carrying in his other hand. The glossy cover said in gold-embossed letters "Thank you for your purchase!". The logo on the front though was one she recognized - the circle around the L, a logo she'd seen many times before today, usually with a haughty sniff and a remark about how some people put on airs instead of tending to their real financial responsibilities. She flipped it open to a picture of Jack leaning casually against a maroon Lexus. Despite the photograph, it was easy to see how everything on it was gleaming and new. Even the tires had reflected the camera's flash.
"Oh my God, Jack, did you buy this?" she said breathlessly. Jack laughed again.
"You are mostly correct, my darling. I did indeed buy it. For you. That's the Lexus LS460, my dear. Top of the line. I ordered every option they had available for it. I don't care if you use every one of them or if you signal with your hand out the window, but you got 'em all. It has a camera for when you're backing up, you should see it. This neat little camera....."
"Jack, we can't AFFORD this!" she shrieked.
"Wrong, baby," he said, his grin unshaken. "We can not only afford it, but I paid cash. It's all yours, lock, stock, and barrel. C'mere."
He sat her down on the sofa in the living room. Ordinarily nobody sat there - the living room was a showpiece, almost a museum of furniture rather than a lived-in part of the house. Helen Hawkins kept in a classical way that drew admiration from men and clucks of disapproval from the "modern" women that they had entertained over the years. More than once, Jack had overheard from members of his work crew that they wished their own wives could cook or clean the way Helen Hawkins did. She sat, and he knelt in front of her.
"We can afford it. Not only can we afford it, but we deserve it. I know everything about how you've worked around here. Twenty-three years, I've been with you. I've seen guys on the work crews take up with shiftless, no-count women. I've seen 'em break up, split up their families, leave their kids without mothers or fathers. I've seen guys eating more food out of a microwave than any man should. I've been to their homes and seen that they live like pigs, and they're married to pigs, and pigs ain't got the sense to clean up after themselves. I've seen guys get hooked up with a woman with a real good set of claws, claws no good for digging anything but gold out of a man. But you, you've been keeping this house like you built it yourself since the day we moved in. When I was dead, flat on my rear end broke, you loved me and you stretched every cent and you never complained, long as I came home to you. I ain't never gone out of this house without breakfast, thanks to you, and I ain't never come home to a cold meal.
She was crying now, the tears dripping onto their hands which were clasped together in their lap. "Th..there...was....the time that Aunt Edith was....ill...."
"Baby, that ain't the point. The point is, you been there for me, standing beside me since the day I was an apprentice electrician. You were there for me on payday, and you were there when I was flat busted. Well, we ain't busted no more, and you ain't married to a humble electrical contractor no more either. You're married to Jack Hawkins, Vice President of engineering for Powertel Electrical Design. They bought us out last week. I signed the papers last Friday. Our days of eating breakfast at Denny's after Sunday mass are over, baby."
She looked down at the keys in her hand, then at her husband's eyes. She recalled another day when they had been as full of love as they were now. He had been kneeling in front of her that day, too. "But...what about your job?"
"Baby! Executives don't have jobs, they hold positions. And my new position, as it were, pays me somewhere north of six figures. More than we've ever needed. It don't matter though. With what I got for the company, I could retire right now. Ain't gonna do that though. Someone has to show Jackie junior," he gestured towards his seven year-old son's room with his chin, "how important it is to earn an honest living."
"I'm not going to quit the law office," she said suddenly. Jack smiled inwardly again. That was Helen. She wouldn't be a kept woman if he hired a hundred servants.
"You can work the law office all you want. Full time, part time, whatever. Just so long as you get there in that that there automobile." He tapped the brochure for emphasis.
Helen dabbed at the corners of her eyes with her apron. "Well, where is this marvelous machine you purchased? I suppose I should get to know how to use it."
"Oh you will. They'll be delivering it here on Thursday. I ordered a set of eighteen inch alloy wheels and they weren't in stock. Thursday morning, it'll be here in the driveway."
"Jack Hawkins! How many times have I heard you over the years? 'Guys who buy those big rims are idiots - big rims mean big tires and big tires cost more?'"
He grinned. "That's right. Because most of those guys can't afford them anyway. But I can."
"But what was all this about losing a member of the family nonsense?"
"But we are losing a family member, aren't we?" He stood up and took her hand. She followed him into the garage. Parked in the clutter of tools and stored item was their white 1977 Mercury marquis. The clear coat had given up the ghost nearly ten years ago. The front right fender was coated only in primer - Jack had pulled it from a junkyard when Helen had hit a parking meter a while back. The roof was bubbling with corrosion and long jagged slashes of rust ran down the metal where it met the chrome frame of the window. Most of the chrome was really just chromed plastic, and it had peeled and flaked off the door handles, leaving yellowed plastic in its wake. The headliner had long ago peeled away, leaving a veneer of cracked and dried glue on the bare metal roof. On a bright day, pinpoints of sunlight would shine through where the rust was boring through. The cracked leather seats had long ago been replaced with faux sheepskin seat covers, but even they bulged in places where the springs unevenly pushed on it.
"If she isn't a member of the family, who is?" he cackled. Helen playfully slapped him on the arm. "Well think about it? She's been with me nearly as long as you have."
"Yes, but she never had to endure your remarks about the side of the back seat," his wife replied jokingly. Jack laughed and put his arms around her.
"She's been good to us, though. I seem to remember she made it through that snowstorm when Jackie was on his way, didn't she?"
"Perhaps she didn't want my water to break in her back seat."
"And she was a darn fine limo for us on our wedding, no? We didn't have two nickels to rub together, but the Marquis took us all the way to the honeymoon suite, if I remember correctly."
They were silent for a few moments, Helen feeling the low laughter in her husband's chest as he held her against him.
"Seems, almost wrong, doesn't it?" she said quietly.
"What does?"
"She's....been through us the entire time, hasn't she? Been with us on our wedding day, our child's birth, I don't know how many trips to the grocery, to see our family. Birthdays, holiday trips, football and baseball games. And now...now we're getting rid of her."
Jack laughed and squeezed her tighter. "She's done good work, but now she's done. We can finally afford the best things in life, and it's time for her to go."
"I know. If it were me, though, I'd be mad." She rested her head on his chest and sighed. "Any other girls around here you're thinking of trading in?"
Jack lifted her chin so that her eyes met his. "Not in this lifetime."
He took her back inside and clicked off the light, leaving the Marquis in the quiet and the dark.
Helen awoke to curses, the dog yapping, and the familiar sound of the Marquis' engine cranking. She rolled languidly out of bed and shuffled her way to the garage to be greeted by the sight of Jack furiously pumping the gas pedal and cranking the key, as though turning it harder might get the car to start. It was not in the least bit hard to see that he was pissed off.
"I said to start you miserable son of a...."
"Jack, what are you doing?" she asked, stifling a yawn. Dimples, their Pomeranian, was yapping at him consciously, and when Jack started yelling, she wasn't sure if it was pure anger or just to make himself heard over the high-pitched barks.
"Was this thing running yesterday?" he shouted. She nodded, not wanting to yell in reply. "Well it ain't working now....SHUT THAT LITTLE RAT UP, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!"
Dimples took two steps back, then resumed her frantic yapping. He turned the key and cranked the engine again, listening to the tell-tale slowing cranks of the engine that told him the battery was draining.
"I wanted to move it into the driveway for when they come and get it on Monday," he explained, trying to keep anger out of his voice while still being heard, "but the damn thing won't catch. I've used up all my starter fluid, too." He turned the key again, listening to the slowing cranks, then quit.
"Push it out, I'll help," Helen suggested. A bad morning for Jack would mean a bad afternoon and evening, and she was hoping to do some shopping with him that day - an executive would need suits and ties, not jeans and workboots.
"Fine, fine. Looks like I replaced this heap just in time." He got out of the car stubbornly, looking down at the hood with disdain. "Piece of junk,"
"Daddy?"
They both looked up to see Jackie junior rubbing his eyes and staring at them from the garage doorway. Dimples started yapping even louder when she saw the whole family together.
"Helen, will you please shut that animal up before I boot it two blocks over?"
Helen turned to her son. "Jackie, go back inside, I'll be in to make you breakfast in a moment. Dimples, GO." The Pomeranian, as usual, didn't so much as budge. She waited for Jack to edge around the front of the car so she could get into the driver's seat. She shifted to neutral and kept a ready foot over the brake as Jack pushed, but the car didn't budge. Dimples continued yapping.
"Push, Jack,"
"I AM PUSHING," he snapped "Check the parking brake, make sure it's released."
Yap! Yap! Yap!Yap!Yap!
"It's released and in neutral,"
Yap! Yap! Yap!Yap!Yap!.
She saw his face contort as he struggled to get the car moving in the tight quarters and poor leverage. "Come on you miserable old whore, MOVE!"
Yap!Yap!Yap!Yap!Yap!Yap!Yap!Yap!Yap!Yap!Yap!
"I said move, you rusty piece of SHIT!"
The car suddenly roared into life, throwing up a cloud of smoke as the tires screeched on the garage floor. Helen was thrown forward into her seat, smacking painfully onto the steering wheel. As she tried to push herself off, the wheel turned and the car whipsawed violently off the driveway and onto the lawn, throwing up dirt, grass, and flower petals as it ripped through the front garden. The front of the car swung around and smashed the mailbox, ripping it out of the ground and sending it spiraling into the street like an oversized, deadly arrow. There was the horrible grinding of gears as Helen threw all her weight into slamming the shifter directly into park, then it was silent. Even the engine had quit.
"HELEN! HELEN dammitareyouokay!"
Jack was at her side, the words spilling out of his mouth too close together to be understood as he ripped the door open. She tried to tell him she was fine, but the blow to her chest had driven all the air out of her lungs and she was gasping for breath for several seconds. It was a tense minute or so before everything was determined to be okay to Jack's satisfaction. That meant it was okay to yell.
"What the hell did you start the car for? You could have run straight through the wall?"
"I DIDN"T start the car, Jack, it was in neutral and the thing won't start in neutral anyway."
"Right, sure, that's right, the entire mechanical division at Ford must have done something wrong because you of course did everything right. That's what you get for letting a woman..."
"Daaaadeeeee!"
The frenzied wail that came up from the garage doorway and both of them instantly snapped their heads up to see Jackie standing in the driveway, pointing, and screaming. Jack stood up, ready to send the boy back inside, when he saw the trail of red streaking down the driveway and following the outer curve of the car's crazy course. His eyes followed it to the still twitching form on the concrete, and he suddenly realized the yapping had stopped.
Dimples had been quite literally crushed, the tire having hit her broadside. Some of her intestines were visible where her gut had ruptured, spilling blood and viscera onto the concrete. Her head and front paws twitched feebly - the animal was without dying, but hardly dead. Jack ran over and scooped the boy up in his arms, trying to soothe him as well as take him out of sight of the dog. When Helen came over to help, he handed the boy to her and proceeded to his living room closet where, among several other pistols, he had a .22 Beretta. When Helen saw him headed back to garage, she softly suggested if they should call a vet first. The look she received in return was answer enough.
Helen told Jackie the loud sound was fireworks.
User Reviews
Submitted by i_can_get_you_a_toe (user info) at 2007-07-09 16:56:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I skim read through most of it - but not bad.
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2007-07-09 15:39:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i didn't love this.
it was pretty well written, minus a few errors that i saw...but it just didn't ever really grab me all the way.
still, better than much of what has been put up around here lately. for that, and hopes that part two will pull it together for me, i won't break your streak. (which you'd only care about if you're a fucking loser anyway)
Submitted by DirtyHarry (user info) at 2007-07-09 15:10:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by lover101 (user info) at 2007-07-09 14:59:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
good writing, but reminds me of Christine.
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-07-09 13:46:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by zwerg (user info) at 2007-07-09 12:11:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2007-07-09 10:17:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Adam_Warlock (user info) at 2007-07-09 10:06:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by czwij (user info) at 2007-07-09 08:40:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i hate little dogs.
if he was in the garage, why didn't he just mercy kill with a hammer?
he didnt like the damn thing anyway
oh,and if this was a 2008 challenger instead of some boring lexus, id auto+2 the next installment.
umm, could i borrow that 77 marquis for my wife?
just for an hour...
Submitted by sexualchocolate1984 (user info) at 2007-07-09 05:07:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice, engaging read. looking forward to part 2.
Submitted by HateMudkips (user info) at 2007-07-09 04:34:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
solid work here.
Submitted by TheLightOfSpeed (user info) at 2007-07-09 02:58:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Happy, funny, sad, auto +2.
Submitted by PukingDog (user info) at 2007-07-09 02:54:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I read it all. Excellent. Best thing I have seen here in many moons. I won't make any criticisms - overall great writing.
Submitted by Zackstersmackster (user info) at 2007-07-09 02:44:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Pretty neat story. I hope part 2 doesn't have a tragic end like the death of one of the humans. I want Helen to get her car and be so grateful she services ol' Jack like there's no tomorrow!
Submitted by particle_man58 (user info) at 2007-07-09 02:42:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
.... Ok thats a lot to read, I'll get to it later.