Broken Down and Out: a short story

More than ten years ago, I published a short story collection called Evolvement. I’m going to republish the stories from the collection here. The book is available at all ebook retailers and the paperback version is available at Amazon

“Broken Down and Out”

The only thing that lit my way home was the evening’s purple sky and occasional streetlights. The sky threw a hard sprinkle as if it were spitting on me. With my sweaty hands in my blue jean pockets, I trudged along the sidewalk.

I cut through the parking lot of an aged, worn convenience store gas station to quicken my journey. An old woman in a bright brown raincoat pumped gas into her silver Cadillac under dim lights. The toxic smell sat in the moist air around her car. Her large, white, curly hair was wrapped in plastic as if it were a rare artifact from a recent archeological dig, and I could not help but stare at it. She saw me looking at her and quickly turned away. Raindrops sat on her plastic head making it sparkle like a giant disco ball when she rotated.

“Why are you staring at me!?!” she screamed.

I didn’t answer and set my gaze on the ground. A blue car pulled in as I was passing the gas station exit; the driver honked at me. It was Phil, with the reddest head I ever saw. I had met him during my second year of college. We were roommates and best friends, living in a two-bedroom place with his dog. I moved out not long after Phil came home one day and realized his dog had snuck out the front door and run away. This was one smart dog. He had been messing with the doorknob for months, pawing at it, mouthing it, trying to turn it. Then, the unavoidable day came when the dog figured it out. Phil and I knew it would happen eventually, but Phil still took it pretty hard, forgetting to eat sometimes, forgetting to wake up sometimes, skipping classes. I grew tired of cleaning up after him, waking him up every morning, making sure he ate at night. I told him to get over it. He told me I didn’t understand and kicked me out. I called him an ass hole, but I didn’t mean it. I knew he was just upset, but I had to have a place to live.

Phil parked behind me at the gas station. “Hey, Stan,” he yelled as he rolled down the window. “What are you doing?”

It was nice to hear Phil’s voice – a southern voice with a long, slow drawl. Everything about Phil was slow: his speech, his walk, his mannerisms. He seemed to be handling the loss of his dog better, though. “I’m walking,” I answered, the rain water spraying from my lips.

“Why?”

“My car broke down.”  It was true. All of the romantic reasons one could be walking in the evening rain – returning from a lover’s house, getting in touch with nature, searching for the meaning of life – and my reason was a broken down vehicle. I knew the car would break down sooner or later. Awkward lights around my speedometer lit up at random moments, but I hoped luck would ride with me for a few more months, until I could afford a new car. Yet here I stood, talking to Phil through his halfway-lowered window in the rain without a jacket, a cell phone, or change to make a call.

“Dude, that blows,” Phil said. “I remember one time ol’ blue broke down.”  He shook his head at his steering wheel and pushed out a laugh. “It was about a year ago. No. More like a year and four months.”  He scrunched his upper lip towards his nose, trying to remember. He continued slowly, “Anyway, I was driving and I came to this light. A little while later, I turned left at a stop sign. Before I knew it, I was home.”  The southern drawl seemed to be getting longer with each new sentence – especially the ends of the sentences, which dragged and dragged. “The next morning, I tried to start my car and it started. But when I put it in reverse, ol’ blue shut off.”  He patted the outside of the car – a pat, then a pause, followed by another pat. “Luckily, my roommate was home and he gave me a lift,” he said, “so I didn’t have to walk.”  He squinted his eyes, reaching in his memory for more details. “It was also sunny that day. Seeing you makes me feel so lucky.”

Hearing lucky Phil’s story, I felt my damp t-shirt turning cold, unheated by my still body.

Phil peered at his dashboard clock and looked at me again, “I wish I could give you a ride, but I gotta get home and rest. I’m just so tired from all this driving around.”  He grabbed an invisible steering wheel and turned it left, then right, then he paused, followed by turning the invisible steering wheel left, then right again. “I’m gonna run in here and grab a soda,” he said, “then go home and spread out on the couch. I’m really sorry. I wish I could help.”  He slowly got out of his car and started for the store.

I walked away without a word in response. Phil, my supposed friend, stopped me in the rain, wasted my time for a little while, and was too tired to give me a ride to a place he was probably passing by anyway. At least I had now passed the gas station and I was a little closer to home.

The next few minutes were a blur of passing cars and trees. A blend of greens, reds, whites, blacks, blues, yellows, and browns. As each car passed, I wondered about this and that, things of the world, the typical thoughts of a down-and-out young man. It was obvious I was not walking for exercise or for fun. No one stopped to ask if I was okay, to offer a lift, to donate an umbrella. No one stopped.

I rounded a sharp bend in the road and saw a row of white trees lining the street, as if they were waiting for a king to pass beneath them. With their white petals gleaming in the darkness, they had the presence of guardian angels. When I got closer, they smelled like rotten fish. Their soaked angel petals stood proud in the fading sun and falling drops, but the stench created in them a presence like hell in disguise. Feeling sick, I passed beneath them in my quest for home. I felt more like an amateur fisherman than a king – wet, and surrounded by an unsettling aroma. My stomach churned and I vomited in the street as I reached the end of the tree tunnel.

When the sidewalk ended beyond the trees, I had to brave the street’s edge. My life was now at the mercy of passing vehicles. Luckily, I was almost home. A jogger snuck up behind me and bumped me into the wet grass as she ran past. I didn’t see her face, but she had the muscular body of a twenty-year-old and showed it off with a tight, black shirt and short shorts. She ran with determination and poise, and she was out of sight in a quick second.

I rose and decided to take a shortcut through the apartments directly behind mine. These were older apartments. Each building looked the same – brick painted yellow, orange roof, three windows. For a moment I was lost in the repetition of the buildings and I may have stayed in that state of senselessness forever had I not seen the hill in the distance.

The dirt hill, turned mud from the rain, was small from far away, but as I walked closer, it grew. Sometimes, it seemed to heave with each step I took, as if it were breathing. When I stood at its base, the tip was at least three feet above my head, steep as a wall. Jogger lady, in her awkward jogger path, ran past me again, barely avoiding bumping me once more. She graced the hill with no problem at first. About three steps up, she slowed down, and then she fell. Her face hit the mud mound and she slid backwards on her belly. She stood, covered in a thick layer of brown and black. Clumps of tightly packed dirt balls dotted her face. A small twig protruded from her cheek. She tried again. She failed again, and stood with a thicker layer of crud and another twig, this time from her ear.

I laughed a little. Served her right for bumping an innocent walker just a little while earlier. “Try going around,” I said, still chuckling. Going around the hill seemed like the obvious solution.

She didn’t listen, seeming to have some deep desire to conquer the mound. I couldn’t help but stare, standing at the base of the mud hill, watching jogger lady try and fail, try and fail, try and fail. She did not move much after her last lone attempt. Her now black mud-body just twitched spastically for a moment on the ground. When I saw her raise herself up and attempt the hill again, I followed her. I wanted to help.

I pushed from behind, each of my sweaty, wet palms on a butt cheek. She fell to her knees, but I held her from sliding. Then I fell and we slipped to the bottom. We rose, once more, determined.

She took ten paces backwards and set her hands on the ground like an Olympic racer. One of the apartment tenants opened a window and blasted “Eye of the Tiger” for all to hear. Or that could have been my imagination. Jogger lady bowed her head, then lifted it abruptly, sending her hair to her back. I nodded at her and slowly stooped to my hands and knees in front of the hill. She started abruptly, charging like a shot bullet. When she reached me, she stepped on my back, and jumped off my boost, giving her enough momentum to reach the top of the hill with no problem.

“Yes!  We did it!” I threw my fists in the damp sky and propelled directly from my knees to my feet. I looked for jogger lady as I reached my arm upwards for a helping hand. She was gone. I walked around the hill and saw my apartment complex just ahead.

A small boy played with a large pink bouncy ball, blocking my apartment building entrance. He bounced it until it flew high above his head. When it returned, he caught it. This boy didn’t seem to mind the rain. He looked as happy as a boy could look. I stopped in front of him while the ball was in the air. He was waiting for it to come down.

“Outta my way!” I yelled.

The boy looked at me, pointed to the sky, and tried to speak.

“What’s the world coming to?” I interrupted. “Don’t people do things for other people anymore? I just want to get in my apartment and out of this rain that you seem to love so much.”

The boy began to cry.

“Please get outta my way. I don’t care about you or your stupid ball.”

The ball came down, but the boy could not see past his crying eyes and the rain. It smacked him in the face and knocked him to the ground. He cried harder. Although what I told the boy was true – I didn’t care about him or his stupid ball – I knew I was responsible for his injury. I walked him to his home, carrying his ball under my arm.

My apartment was as disorganized and as quiet as always. Stillness sat against the walls as if it were, itself, listening to its own silence. Tired and upset, contemplating a lousy evening and a shitty future, I sat in my recliner without drying, without lights, without closing the shades. I stared at the black television screen and breathed slowly and heavily. A drip from my wet hair slid in front of my ear and rested against my cheekbone. The patting of rain against my window and the occasional growls of thunder sang me to sleep. I didn’t dream about tomorrow, or anything else.

More than ten years ago, I published a short story collection called Evolvement. I’m going to republish the stories from the collection here. The book is available at all ebook retailers and the paperback version is available at Amazon