It's been too long, I know. But I have something good for you to read. At least I hope it'll be good. A few of my friends have commented that they would like to read an entire story and, since I'm not going to post my entire book on here...I've decided to post a short story. The only problem: it's not written yet! This is going to be a work in progress, so feel free to give me feedback. Maybe I'll use the feedback and make changes.
I'm calling this story The Truck in Front.
So here we go with the first installment.
Niyah was lonely. Minutes had turned into hours and county lines into state lines. The horizontal clouds had just begun to bleed after a long, hot day while the two lane highway extended out in front of her like an arrow she drove upon. A crumbling bluff’s wide shadow warned the flatlands of the coming darkness.
She was almost disappointed her car got such good gas mileage. That would have been an excuse to pause at the derelict Gas’n More fifteen miles back. Instead, she’d put out of her mind the twisted craving for stale coffee and kept driving, alone with her thoughts.
Her thoughts were what had kept her awake today, hour after hour in the barrenness. Thoughts of Colorado’s Sangre de Christo Mountain Range and her cozy trailer at its foot. Thoughts of the sleepy town of Alamosa and its citizens going to and fro like honey drones. The wind-blown but friendly Church of the Spirit on the edge of town where she taught the “Tigers” about Jesus for an hour and a half every week. Where she had met Jeremiah last month, the angel who hadn’t quite mastered the “L” sound yet. And where she had lost him yesterday. Tears ran down her cheeks for the umpteenth time as she went over the details yet again, trying to think of what she could have done differently.
Church of the Spirit was one of the largest in town, and the board of elders had just approved moving to two services if the church grew over four hundred. She’d hoped they would because every week she was hard pressed to wrangle fifteen six and seven year olds through worship songs, Heroes of the Bible lessons, semi-nutritious snacks, and the neatest crafts she could invent.
Truly, though, the parents were more difficult than the children, especially at drop-off and pick-up time. At 9:25 there was a mad rush as parents dumped their kids off and scurried to find a seat in the sanctuary. They were supposed to fill out a sticker with their child’s name on it, stick it to the child’s shirt, and pocket the stub with a matching number. Then at 11:05 those same parents came back, anxious to hurry home to watch the Broncos game. The idea was for Niyah, the teacher, to match up their stubs with the ones on the kids’ shirts. More than half the time, however, the tags fell off, the kids slipped past her into the hall, a clueless older sibling came to get them, or the parent couldn’t find their stub. What was she going to do, not let them have their child? Make them take a DNA test? Only once before had it been a problem, when a father came to claim his daughter with the appropriate stub but his wife had already taken her. He stormed off and complained to Adam Keiler, the children’s pastor, but Adam appeased him by saying that Niyah was a responsible girl and would be more careful next time.
Jeremiah and his cute chocolate-haired mom visited their church for the first time on Labor Day weekend and must have liked it because the boy had been in her class for the next three weeks. He always wore pressed khaki slacks, shiny black cowboy boots, and a crisp collared shirt. He always listened carefully to instructions, always sang sweetly, and never interrupted. He brought his own snack in a baggie because he was allergic to wheat.
Yesterday he had been dropped off during the mad rush. She hadn’t even noticed him until craft time when he asked, “Can I have some more gwitter, pwease? King Sowoman’s crown isn’t shiny enough.”
Even before the service officially ended, picker uppers began to arrive because the game started at 11:15, barely enough time to make it home, change into sweats, and microwave some nacho cheese before kickoff. And they were short tempered! Try to explain about the gift certificate for a free kid’s meal at Pancake Hut if their child memorized the Bible verse by next week? Forget it. Get a headcount for who would be coming to family night at the community pool? Sorry. Challenge their right to pick up their child? Fat chance.
A smiling man with dark skin wearing a blue and orange jersey was the second to appear in the doorway. He looked around the room and called, “Jeremiah!”
Jeremiah looked up from his glittery page and smiled back, but didn’t move. Since Niyah didn’t recognize the man, she walked over and asked to see his stub.
“Que? No hablo Ingles…” he said, shaking his head but still smiling.
Niyah knew enough Spanish to understand that but not enough to say anything back. She could only show him one of the blank tags and point to the man’s chest with her eyebrows raised in question.
The man grinned wider and held up one finger. Just a minute. He fumbled in his pocket and produced a crumpled photograph of a toddler. He showed it to Niyah and pointed to Jeremiah who was just returning his glue and glitter to the supply bin.
Niyah studied the photo for a few seconds, decided it did look like the boy, and motioned him over. She asked, “Jeremiah, do you know him?”
Jeremiah nodded and said, “That’s Uncle Manny.”
Uncle Manny bent down and spoke rapidly in Spanish. Then he extended his hand and waited for Jeremiah to take it.
The boy said, “Si!” and placed his little brown hand in the big brown one. Then he was pulled away. Just before they went out the front door he called out, “Thanks Miss Niyah!”
In between seeing the other kids off, she went about sweeping the tile floor, helping kids into their coats, and stacking chairs. She had turned off the space heater and was just about to flick off the lights when a cute young woman with chocolate hair walked briskly to the doorway. She was breathing heavily as she said, “Sorry, Miss Niyah. I was praying with the pastor. I hope Jeremiah was good for you. Where…where is he?”
Niyah’s heart crashed to the floor and shattered like a vase.
Screeech! Niyah’s tires squealed as she stomped the brakes to avoid hitting a small mule deer which had just jumped into the gap between her car and the truck in front of her. Her car fishtailed for a second then straightened out and she blew out the breath she’d been holding.
She pressed down on her accelerator, caught back up to the truck, and re-set her cruise control. Its driver hadn’t even flinched after what just happened…had he even seen that deer?
She was rather glad of the midnight blue flatbed, even if it was going ten under the speed limit. It was keeping her company. She’d never had the guts to pass on these two-lane roads and tonight, she was alright with watching the back of this truck for a while longer.
There was nothing particularly special about the truck, but for some reason she was enthralled by it. It had paper tags and heavily tinted windows. The undercarriage and lower panels were caked with red dust. A green tarp covered whatever cargo the truck was carrying, and one corner was loose and flapping wildly in the wind. Large mud tires hummed loudly on the worn blacktop.
Niyah looked out her side window and took in the gathering darkness. Everything looked upside down. The heavens glowed a gray orange, so the dark buttes and mesas seemed like cut-outs from a grand glowing canvas. It made her imagine that the sky was substantial and everything else, including the road she traveled, was just an infinite void.
When the innocent are wounded for no good reason, everything is definitely upside down.
Poor Jeremiah. Blame Niyah. Blame your useless teacher who gave you over to the wolves.
Unlike so many others who were going to sit in front of their TV for three hours yesterday, Niyah had planned to study. The vet licensing exam was in two weeks and she had barely studied. But when Jeremiah disappeared, her own life didn’t matter any more.
She and Jeremiah’s mother, Monica, had stared at each other for an eternity, each hoping the other would say something to break the curse that had suddenly fallen on them. Niyah spoke first.
“I gave him…I mean, he went with a…Manny. Uncle Manny.” Monica seemed to relax some, so Niyah continued, “You know him?”
“I know him, but I don’t understand,” snapped Monica. She held up the tag with the number 396 on it and said, “He didn’t give you this, so why did you let him take Jeremiah?”
“Yes, I know. I shouldn’t have. But Jeremiah acted like he knew him. Is it OK?”
Monica yelled, “I hope so! Manny is worthless—I don’t know why he would pick up my son! Let me call him!”
She dug a cell phone out of her pocket, punched a few numbers, and let it ring.
Just then the children’s pastor poked his head in the room. He said, “Everything all right?”
Monica had begun shouting into her phone in Spanish, so Niyah stepped into the hall and said, “Adam, I think I screwed up again.” Then she filled him in on what had transpired.
Just as she finished, Monica stormed into the hallway and said, “Manny knows nothing! He is watching the game today. Why are you lying to me? Where is my son?”
Adam said, “I’m calling the police. And we need to see if this Manny can come down here.”
I'm calling this story The Truck in Front.
So here we go with the first installment.
Niyah was lonely. Minutes had turned into hours and county lines into state lines. The horizontal clouds had just begun to bleed after a long, hot day while the two lane highway extended out in front of her like an arrow she drove upon. A crumbling bluff’s wide shadow warned the flatlands of the coming darkness.
She was almost disappointed her car got such good gas mileage. That would have been an excuse to pause at the derelict Gas’n More fifteen miles back. Instead, she’d put out of her mind the twisted craving for stale coffee and kept driving, alone with her thoughts.
Her thoughts were what had kept her awake today, hour after hour in the barrenness. Thoughts of Colorado’s Sangre de Christo Mountain Range and her cozy trailer at its foot. Thoughts of the sleepy town of Alamosa and its citizens going to and fro like honey drones. The wind-blown but friendly Church of the Spirit on the edge of town where she taught the “Tigers” about Jesus for an hour and a half every week. Where she had met Jeremiah last month, the angel who hadn’t quite mastered the “L” sound yet. And where she had lost him yesterday. Tears ran down her cheeks for the umpteenth time as she went over the details yet again, trying to think of what she could have done differently.
Church of the Spirit was one of the largest in town, and the board of elders had just approved moving to two services if the church grew over four hundred. She’d hoped they would because every week she was hard pressed to wrangle fifteen six and seven year olds through worship songs, Heroes of the Bible lessons, semi-nutritious snacks, and the neatest crafts she could invent.
Truly, though, the parents were more difficult than the children, especially at drop-off and pick-up time. At 9:25 there was a mad rush as parents dumped their kids off and scurried to find a seat in the sanctuary. They were supposed to fill out a sticker with their child’s name on it, stick it to the child’s shirt, and pocket the stub with a matching number. Then at 11:05 those same parents came back, anxious to hurry home to watch the Broncos game. The idea was for Niyah, the teacher, to match up their stubs with the ones on the kids’ shirts. More than half the time, however, the tags fell off, the kids slipped past her into the hall, a clueless older sibling came to get them, or the parent couldn’t find their stub. What was she going to do, not let them have their child? Make them take a DNA test? Only once before had it been a problem, when a father came to claim his daughter with the appropriate stub but his wife had already taken her. He stormed off and complained to Adam Keiler, the children’s pastor, but Adam appeased him by saying that Niyah was a responsible girl and would be more careful next time.
Jeremiah and his cute chocolate-haired mom visited their church for the first time on Labor Day weekend and must have liked it because the boy had been in her class for the next three weeks. He always wore pressed khaki slacks, shiny black cowboy boots, and a crisp collared shirt. He always listened carefully to instructions, always sang sweetly, and never interrupted. He brought his own snack in a baggie because he was allergic to wheat.
Yesterday he had been dropped off during the mad rush. She hadn’t even noticed him until craft time when he asked, “Can I have some more gwitter, pwease? King Sowoman’s crown isn’t shiny enough.”
Even before the service officially ended, picker uppers began to arrive because the game started at 11:15, barely enough time to make it home, change into sweats, and microwave some nacho cheese before kickoff. And they were short tempered! Try to explain about the gift certificate for a free kid’s meal at Pancake Hut if their child memorized the Bible verse by next week? Forget it. Get a headcount for who would be coming to family night at the community pool? Sorry. Challenge their right to pick up their child? Fat chance.
A smiling man with dark skin wearing a blue and orange jersey was the second to appear in the doorway. He looked around the room and called, “Jeremiah!”
Jeremiah looked up from his glittery page and smiled back, but didn’t move. Since Niyah didn’t recognize the man, she walked over and asked to see his stub.
“Que? No hablo Ingles…” he said, shaking his head but still smiling.
Niyah knew enough Spanish to understand that but not enough to say anything back. She could only show him one of the blank tags and point to the man’s chest with her eyebrows raised in question.
The man grinned wider and held up one finger. Just a minute. He fumbled in his pocket and produced a crumpled photograph of a toddler. He showed it to Niyah and pointed to Jeremiah who was just returning his glue and glitter to the supply bin.
Niyah studied the photo for a few seconds, decided it did look like the boy, and motioned him over. She asked, “Jeremiah, do you know him?”
Jeremiah nodded and said, “That’s Uncle Manny.”
Uncle Manny bent down and spoke rapidly in Spanish. Then he extended his hand and waited for Jeremiah to take it.
The boy said, “Si!” and placed his little brown hand in the big brown one. Then he was pulled away. Just before they went out the front door he called out, “Thanks Miss Niyah!”
In between seeing the other kids off, she went about sweeping the tile floor, helping kids into their coats, and stacking chairs. She had turned off the space heater and was just about to flick off the lights when a cute young woman with chocolate hair walked briskly to the doorway. She was breathing heavily as she said, “Sorry, Miss Niyah. I was praying with the pastor. I hope Jeremiah was good for you. Where…where is he?”
Niyah’s heart crashed to the floor and shattered like a vase.
Screeech! Niyah’s tires squealed as she stomped the brakes to avoid hitting a small mule deer which had just jumped into the gap between her car and the truck in front of her. Her car fishtailed for a second then straightened out and she blew out the breath she’d been holding.
She pressed down on her accelerator, caught back up to the truck, and re-set her cruise control. Its driver hadn’t even flinched after what just happened…had he even seen that deer?
She was rather glad of the midnight blue flatbed, even if it was going ten under the speed limit. It was keeping her company. She’d never had the guts to pass on these two-lane roads and tonight, she was alright with watching the back of this truck for a while longer.
There was nothing particularly special about the truck, but for some reason she was enthralled by it. It had paper tags and heavily tinted windows. The undercarriage and lower panels were caked with red dust. A green tarp covered whatever cargo the truck was carrying, and one corner was loose and flapping wildly in the wind. Large mud tires hummed loudly on the worn blacktop.
Niyah looked out her side window and took in the gathering darkness. Everything looked upside down. The heavens glowed a gray orange, so the dark buttes and mesas seemed like cut-outs from a grand glowing canvas. It made her imagine that the sky was substantial and everything else, including the road she traveled, was just an infinite void.
When the innocent are wounded for no good reason, everything is definitely upside down.
Poor Jeremiah. Blame Niyah. Blame your useless teacher who gave you over to the wolves.
Unlike so many others who were going to sit in front of their TV for three hours yesterday, Niyah had planned to study. The vet licensing exam was in two weeks and she had barely studied. But when Jeremiah disappeared, her own life didn’t matter any more.
She and Jeremiah’s mother, Monica, had stared at each other for an eternity, each hoping the other would say something to break the curse that had suddenly fallen on them. Niyah spoke first.
“I gave him…I mean, he went with a…Manny. Uncle Manny.” Monica seemed to relax some, so Niyah continued, “You know him?”
“I know him, but I don’t understand,” snapped Monica. She held up the tag with the number 396 on it and said, “He didn’t give you this, so why did you let him take Jeremiah?”
“Yes, I know. I shouldn’t have. But Jeremiah acted like he knew him. Is it OK?”
Monica yelled, “I hope so! Manny is worthless—I don’t know why he would pick up my son! Let me call him!”
She dug a cell phone out of her pocket, punched a few numbers, and let it ring.
Just then the children’s pastor poked his head in the room. He said, “Everything all right?”
Monica had begun shouting into her phone in Spanish, so Niyah stepped into the hall and said, “Adam, I think I screwed up again.” Then she filled him in on what had transpired.
Just as she finished, Monica stormed into the hallway and said, “Manny knows nothing! He is watching the game today. Why are you lying to me? Where is my son?”
Adam said, “I’m calling the police. And we need to see if this Manny can come down here.”
Josh,
ReplyDeleteI love the details in this story: "allergic to wheat," "lower panels caked with red dust," and the "craving for stale coffee."
I also like the gas station and the juxtaposition of gas mileage vs. the need to refuel. There is something worth exploring in this vein of the story and how it connects with the loss of the child - check out Stienbeck's "The Chrysanthemums" at http://amb.cult.bg/american/4/steinbeck/chrysanthemums.htm and how he deals with the loss of a child - how it affects the interplay between characters.
What is the guilt that Niyah carries and how does this event bring that guilt to the surface? What is the "cargo" that is under the "green tarp" that Niyah is transporting?
Good start...
- Chad
Hey Josh,
ReplyDeleteAlot of good stuff here!! I love the opening, a great hook! I also love the details, it provides alot of "richness" to the story. I really love the metaphors you use as adjectives, ("The horizontal clouds had just begun to bleed after a long, hot day while the two lane highway extended out in front of her like an arrow she drove upon"), really rich stuff. I want to see how you tie in the "truck in front." Is it Manny? Too obvious, I think. I also want to see how you tie in some of the neat details you provide - why is the truck caked with red dust? What is under the tarp? Is there more to the wheat allergy? Does this all tie in somehow in a big climax to the story? It would be a lot to bring together, but would make an awesome "aha" moment (like in "The Six Sence" when he finally realizes he is dead and all those details from the story point to the final conclusion). Some of the details about how the kid's stuff worked seemed to move along slow the first time I read it, but I think that is because it was familiar. The second time I read it I tried to have a more unaccustomed approach as if I didn't understand the kid's check in process. It seemed the details were then appropriate. Great beginning, can't wait to see where you take it!
Cris