A matter of character

I hope people come out in force next month to stand up against this embarrassment of an administration. It’s difficult to pick just a few of the problems, but I’ll try…

The President of the United States of America has long been recognized as “The Leader of the Free World.” A justified and worthy title. But if “leaders lead by example” as the maxim says, then it’s important to examine the direction in which we’re being led, especially here at the halfway point.

Under this administration our long-standing allies are being humiliated and disrespected while dictators and oppressors are being patted on the back. Families seeking refuge from violent and impoverished conditions on our southern border are being labeled as murderers and rapists, third world nations are referred to as “shithole countries,” nonviolent social justice activists exercising their constitutional right to peacefully protest are called “sons of bitches,” decent and professional news correspondents like Cecilia Vega are bullied on national television, porn stars are paid hush money, cabinet members are indicted, political opponents are mocked and insulted: “Barack Obama is not an American citizen… John McCain was not a war hero… Ted Cruz’s father was the zodiac killer…” The refusal to condemn the Saudis after a Washington Post journalist was hacked to pieces inside their embassy, the constant media demonizing and delegitimizing, the Twitter wars, the Charlottesville response, the fear-mongering, the coded racism, the outright misogyny, the thin-skinnedness, the hard-heartedness, the overall lack of decorum… All this and more has become the norm over the last two years.

This has nothing to do with policy. This is a matter of character. And the only members of the Republican establishment with the balls to speak out against this assault on diplomacy and civility are the ones who are not seeking another term in congress. I know the economy is roaring. But turning a blind eye to the bossman’s rude and disrespectful behavior for a few extra dollars is not just spineless, it’s un-American.

Kathleen Parker once wrote that “the question of character isn’t always what did you do, but rather what were you willing to tolerate?” If you’re sick of the intolerance and you’ve had enough of the schoolyard bullying and you reject the pettiness that has been the hallmark of the Trump administration from Day 1, then I invite you to the rebellion…Vote Democrat this November.

Number 5

Working on my fifth book. No title yet, but it’s the story of a hit woman, a musician recently released from prison, and a drug trafficker’s wife.

Prologue
Barefoot, with chubby scraped knees pumping away, Dixie barreled through the tall grass. A monarch butterfly flitted just beyond her reach. Musical laughter unspooled in her wake as thick mud squished between her toes.

Though barely a quarter-acre, the backyard was a sprawling wonderland to her three-year-old eyes; a dense and endless jungle of overgrown weeds, home to grasshoppers, ladybugs, and magic rocks that sparkled when she held them to the sun.

She paused to yank a dandelion from the ground. Without a wish, she blew it bald then continued after the butterfly, chasing it along the fence, little fingers jangling the chain-links as she ran. She followed it round the old yellow truck with its missing hood and corroded engine block that was adorned with beer cans and empty cigarette packs. Majestic wings hovered and flapped against the flattened tires that appeared to be melting into the mud. Then it went up through the windshield, skimming the greenish cubes of shattered glass that spilled across the sun-cracked dash like a cascade of diamonds.

Her outstretched hands opened and closed as she pursued it beneath the rusty chains of the broken swing set, beyond the slumping tin-roofed shed where the black racer snakes lived, and back toward the clapboard house where it fluttered upward on a breeze and disappeared over the roof.

She stood there waiting, hoping it would return but she was soon distracted by the familiar sound of her momma and Chuck wrastling on the couch. They were always wrastling, especially when they gave themselves shots like at the doctor’s office. Once she ran up and tried to push Chuck off, but her momma screamed at her to get the fuck out! That was the last time she tried to help. Maybe her momma liked Chuck but Dixie hated him. He smelled like ashes and socks and he tickled her until she couldn’t breathe.

A paint bucket lay discarded in the weeds. She dragged it over to the house, set it upside down, and climbed atop. Her wobbly legs trembled as she stood on mud-caked tip toes to peek through the open window.

Chuck sniffed the air. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Her momma’s voice drifted toward her, hoarse from a lingering cold.

“Someone’s on the front porch.”

“It’s probably just Dixie,” said her momma. “We’ve been up since Sunday, baby. You know how you get.”

He rose naked from the couch and crept to the front of the house. Scary tattoos of skulls and demons and snarling wolves ripped across his back.

“Here we go again,” her momma mumbled as she sat up and reached for the needle.

A small pile of medicine lay next to a spoon on Dixie’s favorite book, The Little Engine That Could. She hoped her momma wasn’t going to give herself another shot. All medicine made her want to do was wrastle or vacuum or pick at her face until the scabs bled.

Chuck came flying back down the hall. “It’s a raid,” he hissed.

Dixie ducked beneath the ledge, lost her balance, and fell in the grass. The water spigot dripped inches from her face. Popcorn-shaped clouds drifted across the summer sky.

“Chuck,” her momma pleaded, “don’t do this.”

The needle shot from the window over her head like an orange dart, followed by scattershot baggies of medicine and charred glass pipes.

“Get your ass up woman! Move! The front yard is crawling with Feds!”

Airborne paraphernalia continued to fly from the window as Dixie sat up and leaned against the house. She had no idea what a Fed was but she knew that if it scared Chuck, as tall and mean as he was, it had to be pretty scary. He wasn’t even afraid of the monsters that lived under her bed.

“Shit! Is that the muriatic acid from the last batch?”

“Where?”

“On the counter, you stupid bitch! I told you to get rid…” His frantic footsteps faded into the kitchen as a neighbor’s lawnmower sputtered and roared to life.

She strained to hear more but her attention was hooked by the return of the butterfly, hovering near the dripping faucet. Slowly she extended her finger. It seemed to sniff at it for a moment before fluttering off, skirting along the side of the house, brushing the peeling green paint with its wing.

She watched it vanish around the corner and was on the verge of renewing the chase when the men appeared. Three of them. Muscles and veins bulged from tight black shirts. Black boots flattened the grass. Black gloves aimed black guns as they silently approached, their faces grim and terrible.

She scrambled to her feet, burst through the weeds, and darted for the safety of the house.

“Hold your fire!” a voice commanded. “It’s just a kid.”

She was halfway up the steps when the door flew open and Chuck, naked, wild-eyed, pouring sweat, heaved a bucket of chemicals in her face.

It was as if she’d run head first into a swarm of hornets that were then shrink-wrapped to her skin and set on fire, melting it to the bone. She gulped for air and breathed hot nails instead. Her arms flailed as she stumbled backward. A cannonade of shouting voices volleyed over her head but the words didn’t register through the deafening crackle in her ears.

She tried to scream. Only gagged. Then the TV screen of her consciousness dimmed at the corners, rapidly diminishing from a shrinking circle to a single pixel which flickered, glowed, then mercifully zapped off.

Chapter 44: Muffled

Mason was sitting on the hood of his truck, waiting for the school bus, when the patrol car turned onto the cul de sac. He watched it approach with a sinking feeling, his mind and his gut battling for control of the narrative.

Mind: “It’s just a cop on his beat. Look, his lights aren’t even on. You have nothing to worry about. You haven’t done anything.”

Gut: “They’re coming for you, man. I knew this freedom experiment was too good to be true.”

Mind: “Relax. He’s just going to circle the block.”

Gut: “They’re looking right at you. Run!”

Mind: “You’re fine.”

Gut: “You’re dead.”

The squad car pulled into his driveway and stopped a few feet from his truck. The driver, a crew-cut uniformed cop, said something into the radio that was attached to his shoulder. The passenger — bald, mirrored sunglasses, and a seersucker suit — stared poker-faced through the windshield. Another patrol car sped down the cul de sac. Then a K-9 unit.

Suddenly the doors flew open and they were crouching behind them, guns drawn in deadly synchronicity, aimed straight at his face.

Slowly, Mason raised his hands.

“Brilliant idea,” cracked the uniformed cop. “You must’ve done this before.”

Across the street, he noticed Fran standing on her porch.

“Now I want you to slide off that truck, nice and easy. Turn around and place your hands on the hood.”

He obeyed.

The frisk was meticulous. “Anything on you I should know about? Guns, knives, needles, crack pipes, dope?”

He didn’t bother answering. His wallet was removed from his back pocket and tossed on the hood. The plainclothes detective wandered over and picked it up.

“Velcro. Classy.” He thumbed through the contents and found his ID. “Mason Foster, just the guy I was looking for.”

“Told you so,” said his gut as handcuffs were placed on his wrists.

“This your truck?” The plainclothesman walked to the driver side and peered through the window. “I see a beer on the floorboard. What else am I gonna find when I search it? A gun, perhaps?”

He kept his eyes straight ahead, locked on the river birch. “I’m a convicted felon. It’s against the law for me to possess a firearm.”

The detective circled the truck and came back to where he was standing. “Where were you last night at nine o’clock?”

He glanced at the pull-up bar. “Here.”

The detective smirked. “Of course you were. Can anyone vouch for you?”

He kissed her at sunset, almost four hours before nine. Tammy had company and her blinds were closed. No help there. His only hope was Fran. Maybe she was spying from her window.

“I don’t know.”

Sensing weakness, the detective moved in for the kill, his face inches from Mason’s. “Is there something you need to tell me?”

He nodded.

“Well don’t be shy. Go ahead.”

Mason hesitated. “I’m supposed to be babysitting this afternoon. A seven-year-old and an eleven-year-old. They should be getting off the school bus any minute.”

Gum smacked in his ear, close enough to smell. After a pause, the detective spoke in a gust of cinnamon. “Get him outta here.”

The uniformed cop clamped his arm in an iron grip and roughly directed him to the back of the squad car.

“What am I being arrested for?”

“Armed robbery.”

The door slammed. The outside world was muffled by plexiglass. And just like that, he was back in his natural habitat: confinement.

Neighbors gawked from windows and porches as he was chauffeured down the cul de sac. Humiliation crept between the shock and confusion.

The school bus was just pulling away when he reached the end of the block. Both kids stood watching from the sidewalk in their backpacks. Evan’s face was unreadable, probably still angry over the Tammy incident. Maddy’s mouth was wide open. Slowly, as if in a daze, she lifted her hand to wave goodbye.

It killed him not to respond. He wanted to. But his hands were locked behind his back. He watched through the rear window as they shrunk to specks, then disappeared altogether.

©2018 Sticks & Stones by Malcolm Ivey
All rights reserved.

Sticks & Stones: Chapters 42 & 43

Chapter 42: 9:00 PM
He read, he paced, he played solitaire. Prison 101. Same as it ever was.

The best night of his life and he had no one to share it with. I kissed her! He considered hopping back in the truck and driving over to the nursing home. Even though his mom wouldn’t recognize him, it would still feel good to tell her.

He glanced at the clock on the oven. Almost 9:00 p.m. Visiting hours were seven to seven. No way he was driving across town to give Dr. Jennings’ nose-ringed granddaughter the pleasure of barring him entrance.

He could see Brooke’s house from his hallway window. Her bedroom light was on. He wondered if she was thinking of him too. Maybe she was staring through her blinds like he was. He reached out and flicked the light switch twice, hoping that she would respond in kind. Nothing.

Dude, how old are you? Thirteen?

Too jacked to eat, too early to sleep, he did what he always did with pent up energy.

The wind howled as he stepped onto the porch. The radio said it was forty degrees but it felt closer to twenty. Tammy had company. A red BMW was parked in her driveway. He thought of Evan’s size-seven Skecher in his solar plexus and laughed to himself.

The river birch bark flapped in the wind. Dead leaves crackled beneath his boots. He blew in his cupped hands, warming them, before grabbing the bar.

He didn’t bother counting. This was more about exorcising demons than exercising the body. He yanked his chest to the crossbar, paused, then exhaled on the way down. Stars shone through the network of limbs overhead. His muscles warmed as his mind wandered.

The sequence replayed in technicolor detail. Her jogging down the driveway, slipping into the passenger seat, shivering from the cold, the errant strands of hair that came loose when she pulled his sweatshirt over her head. Was she sleeping in it now? Her profile bathed in shadow, the way her mouth constructed words to fill the silence. The way her eyes spoke a softer language, one that transcended words. The shockwaves of that first spontaneous kiss, the urgency and heat of the second, the truck door opening and her running away…

It had been thirty years since he’d kissed a girl. Three drab and barren decades. Tens of thousands of colorless, monotone days, one blending into the next like the relentless procession of towns along some forgotten Midwestern highway. Each identical, each unremarkable.

He remembered his last. Most convicts do. When no new memories are being manufactured, one tends to cling to faded photographs of the mind. Her name was Leeann Lambert. She sat behind him in world history. Tall and shy, with gleaming silver braces, he kissed her at the bowling alley. Three days later, he was in jail for armed robbery.

During his odyssey through the criminal justice system, he often wondered if he had forgotten how to be with a woman. He worried that he would be emotionally incapable of having a relationship. He knew he was developmentally delayed when it came to matters of the heart. While the rest of the world was dating and hooking up and breaking up and making up and learning and growing with each new romance, he was doing push-ups in a cage.

Those fears, while natural, proved to be illusory. And just after sunset, they evaporated into nothing, shattered by a kiss.

Maybe it was naiveté, maybe it was inexperience, maybe it was a consequence of extreme loneliness, but that evening, as he hung from the pull-up bar, with steam coming off his body and cold on his breath, he was thinking beyond the next stolen moment, beyond the next kiss, beyond even the desire to make love to her. He was thinking about having a family. Finally, a place where he belonged. He was thinking of forever.

Chapter 43: Breakfast of Champions
The ivory ringtone of Beethoven’s “Fur Elise” tickled the silence. The raven-haired stranger climbed over him and snatched his phone from the nightstand, giggling as she collapsed on the other side of the bed.

He stretched and yawned. “Let me see that.”

“No,” she pouted, rolling over, her curvy silhouette outlined by the white light emanating from the screen. An electronic aura.

“Come on…” He forgot her name. “It’s probably a client.”

“Who is Amos?” She pronounced it Ah-mos. Like some obscure conjugation of the Latin verb amor, to love. “Is she your novia?”

Her accent was South American. Somewhere below the Yucatan. Then he remembered. Claudia. The daughter of a Colombian nightclub owner who was serving forty years for second degree murder and badly in need of a post-conviction attorney. She wandered into his office after five in a leather mini, black lipstick, and a Louis Vuitton bag with a ten thousand dollar cash retainer.

“Amos is a man’s name. He’s my investigator.” He reached over and pried the phone from her hands, his head already pounding from a vicious hangover. “I need to take this.”

She pulled the sheet to her neck and pretended to sulk.

“What?” he growled into the phone as he swung his legs over the side of the bed.

“Morning, Boss. Sounds like you had a rough one.”

He walked to the bathroom and stood in front of the toilet. “Let’s dispense with the pleasantries, Amos. It’s too early.”

“Now that’s no way to talk to a feller that’s bringin’ good news.”

He broke wind as he urinated. “Out with it.”

“Well, ever since we had our little pow-wow, I’ve had my feelers out. It was tough sleddin’ there for a minute. Couldn’t find a shred of a hint of a rumor–”

“What on earth are you babbling about?” He opened his medicine cabinet, shook two Roxycontin 30s from a pill bottle into his palm, then headed for the kitchen.

“I’m talking about your special assignment. The feller I’m supposed to be digging up dirt on.”

He took an energy drink from the fridge and began crushing the Roxys on the glass dining room table. “Right, right. Proceed.”

“Well on Friday afternoon I spoke with a Detective Baxley, Robbery Division. An old friend of mine, Horace Powell, put me in touch with him. I worked narcotics with Horace back in the ’80s.”

Blane carved out two lines of the pharmaceutical grade opium on the dining room table. His blazer was hanging from the back of a chair. He dug in the pocket for his wallet and removed a $100 bill.

“I put a bug in his ear about a certain recently released bad guy that is back among the good citizens of Rosemont.”

Ben Franklin’s face disappeared as he rolled the money into a straw. “Well done, Amos. Just keep me posted, okay?”

“Hold your horses,” said the investigator, “I ain’t done yet. This morning he called me back. Says there was a robbery on the west side last night. The clerk thinks the suspect mighta drove off in a old black pickup but she ain’t sure. Didn’t see a license plate. But Baxley’s got no leads ‘sides our boy and he’d like to close the case if he can. He’s gonna show her a mugshot and see what she says.”

Blane chuckled. “He’s going to show her his mugshot? We call that coercion in a court of law.”

“Yeah? Well downtown we call it a day at the office.”

His naked reflection stared back from a mirror across the room. “This is not just egregiously immoral. It’s illegal.”

“So is armed robbery,” Amos shot back. “But if it offends your sense of justice that much, maybe you could represent him once he’s arrested.”

“Don’t be cute,” he sniffed. “What time will we know something?”

“Are you heading to the office now?”

Claudia strode into the living room, wrapped in his sheet. He paused, admiring her statuesque figure.

“Uh … I’m running a little late. I’ll be there in about an hour.”

“Alrighty. I should be able to tell you something by the time you come in.”

“Good work, Amos.” He set the phone on the table.

“What’s this?” she brushed against him, frowning at the crushed parallel piles of grayish-white powder.

He leaned over and snorted both lines, then stood and downed half the energy drink before smiling and patting her backside.

“Breakfast of champions.”

©2018 Sticks & Stones by Malcolm Ivey
All rights reserved.

Sticks & Stones: Chapters 40 & 41

Chapter 40: Spotting Commando
The nursing home shrank and faded in the rearview. He braked at Tamarack and fiddled with the heat again.

“It’s broken,” declared Maddy, the drawstring of her hoodie cinched tight around her face.

“Thank you, Diane Sawyer.”

Evan rubbed his hands together on the passenger side. “Why is your mom so mean?”

He gave the truck some gas. “She’s not mean.”

“She ignored us the whole time. She didn’t even open your Christmas present.”

He nodded. “She’s just sick. That’s why she has to be in there. And part of her sickness means that sometimes she gets sad. Or confused. Like that time she thought you were me, remember?”

Maddy giggled. “Oh yeah, that was funny.”

The miles ticked away in sub-arctic silence. When they finally reached the cul de sac, Evan spoke again. “Does it make you sad that your mom has to be in that place?”

He gave a half-hearted wave at Fran’s rustling curtains as they pulled into his driveway. “Sure. But you know what I do when I get sad?”

“What?”

He shut off the truck. “Pull-ups.”

Maddy groaned. “It’s too cold.”

He opened the door. “We’ll warm up with some jumping jacks.”

She climbed out behind him. “I wanna go home.”

He looked down the street and saw Brooke’s SUV in the driveway. Blane’s Lexus was parked at the curb. “Go for it. Just make sure you crank that guitar up really loud.”

“Okay.” She waved from the mailbox.

He kept an eye on her as she hurried down the sidewalk. Evan shivered next to him. He mussed his hair. “What about you Commando? Sure you don’t want to go hang out with Blane?”

He spat on the driveway.

Mason laughed. “Come on. Let’s go take it out on the pull-up bar.”

It took two sets to defrost. By the fourth, the cutting north wind was a non-issue. He jerked his chest to the bar then controlled his weight back down.

Evan leaned against the river birch awaiting his turn. “Why does my mom like Blane?”

“I don’t know,” he grunted. Five. “Because he’s educated.” Six. “Because he wears expensive suits.”  Seven. “Because he’s got a good job.” Eight.

“Why don’t you have a good job?”

He dropped into a crouch and smiled. “Have you been talking to Fran?”

The boy shook his head.

“I’ll probably start looking for one next week.”

“You could be a lawyer.”

Mason stood. “I was thinking of something more along the lines of construction work.”

Evan stared at him. “Do you love my mom?”

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know. That’s a strong word. I know I love you and Maddy. Now quit stalling and get up on the bar. I’m getting cold again.”

He managed four reps before he needed help. Mason spotted him on the way up and he lowered himself incrementally, nailing the negatives. “Good form, Evan.” When he was finished, he dropped into a crouch.

Mason rolled his neck in slow circles before grasping the bar again.

His neighbor Tammy’s window squeaked open. “Ooohh, yummy. There is nothing in this world I love more than looking out my window and seeing two handsome men build their muscles!”

Evan swallowed hard and looked at him. His eyes bulged behind his bifocals.

Mason hid his smile as he pumped out another ten, sweating despite the cold.

“So strong,” Tammy purred.

Evan almost knocked him down on his way to the bar, attacking it with renewed vigor. His first rep was textbook, the second passable, but by the third his arms were trembling and he struggled to get even his cowlick to the crossbar.

Mason stepped behind him to spot, grabbing his sides.

“No!” Evan insisted. “I’ve got it!”

“Just a little help, man.”

A tennis shoe shot back a mule-kick to his stomach. Tammy’s window closed. He staggered backwards a couple steps. “Have you lost your mind?”

Evan dropped from the bar and whirled on him. “I told you I could do it by myself!”

“What has gotten into you?”

His face was red with effort and wind and anger. “You made me look like an idiot.”

“I was just spotting you. That’s how you get stronger.”

“I don’t need your help. I don’t need you to teach me stuff. You’re not my father. You’re just a dumb jailbird!” He stormed down the driveway without a backward glance.

Mason stood there looking after him until he was safely home, then sighed and walked up the porch steps.

Chapter 41: Waking in the Moment
“I thought you didn’t drink,” said Dot as she rang up the quart of Budweiser.

He forced a smile. “Extenuating circumstances.”

She pushed his change across the counter with a maternal squint. “Stay out of trouble.”

“Yes ma’am.”

The door chimed as he exited. His truck was double-parked out front. It hacked up black exhaust as he cranked the engine.

The sun slipped over the horizon casting the cul de sac in eerie purple twilight. The quart rolled side to side in the passenger seat. He slowed as he approached her house, relieved that Blane’s Lexus was no longer at the curb.

He was surprised to see her emerge from the shadows, hugging herself in the cold. He hit the brakes. She opened the passenger door.

“Brrr.”

“What are you doing?”

Her teeth chattered. “Waiting for you.”

He pulled into her driveway and killed the lights. “Why?”

She reached behind her back and found the quart. “I thought you didn’t drink.”

“Only on special occasions.” He took the frosty bottle from her quivering hand and planted it between his legs.

“What’s the special occasion?”

“I think your son hates me.”

She glanced up at Evan’s bedroom window. “I’m pretty sure that’s a sentiment he reserves for Blane.”

The mere mention of her boyfriend changed the energy in the truck. “Well, you once told me your kids were intuitive.”

She fumbled with the dash. “This thing is a dinosaur. Please tell me you have heat.”

He took off his sweatshirt and passed it to her. She quickly pulled it over her head, balling her fists in the sleeves for extra warmth.

“So why do you think Evan hates you?”

“I embarrassed him in front of my neighbor.”

She rolled her eyes. “Tammy?”

He nodded. “I forgot he had a thing for her and I was spotting him on pull-ups and… He thinks I was trying to humiliate him.”

Her smile warmed the truck cab. “He’ll get over it.”

“He called me a jailbird.”

“We have a tradition of going for the jugular in our family. He gets it from his father.”

“A wise woman once told me that sticks and stones would break her bones but words would break her heart.”

She wrapped her arms around her knees. “Hmm, that wise woman wouldn’t happen to own an extremely loud pink guitar, would she?”

He smiled. “I think she might.”

“Last summer’s catch phrase. She pulled it on me every time I got onto her. Works like magic with a few crocodile tears sprinkled in.” She shook her head. “They’re growing up so fast.”

He studied her profile in the ensuing silence — sharp angles and soft planes, her slender neck, her stubborn chin, the soft curvature of her lips. To be alone with her was a rarity. And even on those precious few occasions, he could get caught up looking forward or thinking back. But once in a while, mid-conversation, he would awaken in the moment, with her just inches away, and it was in these times that the doors and windows of his heart would blow wide open. “Do you love my mom?” Evan had asked. The answer was suddenly as clear as his windshield.

“Well the bracelet is by far the most extravagant gift anyone has ever given me. I debated making you return it—”

“I wouldn’t.”

“—but I just can’t. It’s too beautiful.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

“I didn’t get a chance to thank you on Christmas and Blane has been over every day since…” Her words trailed off. “What did you say to him anyway?”

“I just told him the truth.”

“What is the truth?”

He held her gaze. “That I plan on taking his woman from him.”

She opened her mouth to speak. He caught her words with an impulsive kiss, stunning her into silence, then backing away before she could push him away. “He doesn’t deserve you, Brooke.”

Her eyes widened, blinked, then the golden starburst of her irises seemed to melt into deep pools of need that reflected his own. With the soft echo of her lips lingering on his, he leaned in for another taste, sliding his arms around her and losing himself in her warmth.

He brushed his fingertips along the silken nape of her neck where loose wisps of blond hair collected like baby’s breath. Her mouth was exotic citrus, glistening with moisture. Rose petals after a light rain.

The nagging sense of incompleteness that had shadowed him for most of his life, something he long assumed was permanent, began to disassemble like cloud fragments and drift toward the horizon of his heart as hope and wholeness moved in.

From dust devil to whirlwind to tornado, the ache swelled inside him. He pulled her even closer, kissing her deeply, swallowing her in his embrace. She whimpered and finally pushed him away.

Reluctantly, he leaned back in his seat, the abrupt disconnection mourned by every cell in his body. He felt the quart bottle on the floorboard, forgotten in the tempest. He would not be drinking this evening. Fully alive, there was no need to contaminate the magic with a cheap buzz. He reached for her again.

“I need to go.” She fumbled with the door and staggered out into the driveway, his sweatshirt hanging to her knees as she hurried to her front porch without looking back.

He savored the moment as it sifted into memory. The silence was scented with traces of her shampoo, the truck warm with breath and body heat. Long after the door closed, he continued to stare, willing it to reopen.

Minutes passed. Finally, he sighed, backed his truck out of her driveway, put it in gear, and headed down the cul de sac to his empty house.

©2018 Sticks & Stones by Malcolm Ivey
All rights reserved.