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Please Exit, Thank You
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Please Exit, Thank You |
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bsquirrel
since 2000-01-03
Posts 7855
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This is an old story of mine. I haven't written prose in years. This was for a school assigment, back at UNH. I hope it does more than just offend. I was trying to write about lost boys, I guess... Mike Please Exit, Thank You Usually when Carl picked me up, he had a smile on his face and music blasting on his radio. But when I got inside his lime green Camaro, clicked on my seatbelt, and sat back in my seat, Carl stayed facing the windshield. He pulled the car into traffic before I finally opened my mouth and spoke, feeling the silence. "What's up?" Carl didn't answer. I turned my head to look at him. He continued facing ahead, his eyes dark, his hair uncombed. He usually wore a baseball cap. I felt myself swallow. "Carl, is there a problem?" "No. Everything's fine." He coughed, wiped the back of his hand under his nose. "Are you sure? You seem down tonight." "I told you, I'm fine." "Well, what's up?" "Not much. Did I tell you that Emily and Jack broke up about a month ago?" "No. That's too bad." "Yeah, well, it happens." I nodded. Emily and Jack were friends Carl and I had back home. I was Emily's boyfriend for a while. I remember one night when, drunk, I put all my attention on a piece of toothpaste stuck to the sink, close to the drain. I ran water until the toothpaste loosened, a worm wiggling slowly. Then, still wiggling, the toothpaste dislodged and rested on top of the drain plug in its up position. I focused on the green lump shining dully under the bathroom light. Emily's toothpaste, I thought. Then I vomited into the sink. When I got back into the bedroom, Emily was lying there, dark and asleep. I turned on the light and watched her sleeping. Then I sat on the edge of the bed and watched until the sky lightened four hours later, listening to her breathe the whole time and trying to match my breathing with hers. I think that's the most intimate moment we had, and she didn't even know it. "How's Emily doing?" I said. He turned his head and looked at me for a moment. Maybe I'd seemed too emotional, had taken too long to speak. He finally spoke. "We're supposed to go to her party tonight to--" He suddenly whipped his head around. "Holy..." I turned in time to see a green van moving backward at us. As I was realizing it was us moving forward at the van, metal crunched and the van/Carl's Camaro/we rocked. The van skidded forward about three inches and honked once, long. "Oh god..." Carl said. I thought I could hear barely disguised tears in his voice. "Oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god!" The last "Oh god" he yelled, and he pounded the steering wheel hard enough to make it turn a little to the left. I flinched and tried not to laugh, cry, or do anything that my brain wanted to do to release tension. Carl sat back in his seat until the van's driver-side door opened. Carl nodded at nothing and got out. A car sped by to the left of us, on the road. The Camaro rocked slightly. I watched Carl walking slowly up to a man wearing a fleece-lined jacket opened to show a flannel shirt. He had a tight beard and was wearing thick glasses. I watched them talking, then I realized Carl was motioning to me. I breathed deeply, opened my side of the door, and walked over to where Carl and the man were. "Is everyone all right?" the man said. "Yeah," I said. Carl looked at the ground. The man nodded and turned to Carl. "Got your registration?" Carl pulled something out of his pocket and gave it to the man. The man wrote things down and handed Carl's registration back to him. Then the man gave Carl his. Carl asked to borrow the man's pencil. Carl wrote on the back of a bank receipt from his wallet. Afterwards, the man got back into his van, shut the door, signaled left and drove away. I noticed that one of his taillights was out, saw red and white glass chips surrounding the broken plastic cover on the road. Carl looked at the front of the Camaro. I watched him look. I didn't want to stand next to him. He looked taut, brooding, angry, his body seeming to bend toward the earth, fists down. I expected him to kneel. Instead he straightened himself, got back into the Camaro, and slammed the door. I looked at the crumpled bumper and broken headlight as I was walking to the car. I stopped and picked up the license plate. It was cold. I got in and put it on the floor between Carl and me. He looked ahead at the road, then slowly drove back into traffic. We were both quiet for awhile. Then Carl turned on the radio. It was in the middle of Mozart's Alla Turca. Somehow, no matter what piece, classical music always seemed to mock minor tragedy. He turned the station and stopped when he heard Metallica's Creeping Death. He sang along at the chorus. I wanted to join in, but didn't. After the song ended he said "Get the map out of the glove compartment. I don't know where we are." I nodded and opened the compartment. Instead of pulling out the map, I pulled out a gun. It was cold, but in a way completely different from the license plate. Carl nodded at me. "That's my dad's." "Why do you have it?" He shrugged. "It's cool to have around, don't you think?" I put it back in the compartment. "I can't find the map." "Hang on." He read a route sign at the side of the road. "Did that say Route 2? Where the hell are we?" "Toll ahead," I said. He looked ahead, down the road. "Damn. See if there's any quarters." I checked. "Nope." "Damn," he said again. "Do you have any change?" "I left my wallet at the dorm. Don't you have any money?" He sighed. "Looks like we're going to have to run it." I didn't say anything as the car sped up, toward the blinking lights and signs with toll rates. I found myself holding onto the sides of my seat, bringing my knees up to my chin, curling up as we sped past the toll booth and the toll siren went off behind us. Carl rolled up his window. He'd rolled it down, I guess, out of habit. "I think we're in Massachusetts," I said and released myself back to a sitting position. "I know that much. Emily's party's in Alton. Where the hell is that?" "I don't know. Do you think you're going to get caught for running the toll?" "Hell if I know. Maybe someone took down my plate." I looked at his front plate lying on the upholstered floor. "My dad told me there's cameras that take pictures of your plate when you go by." "Oh well," he said. "Are you sure there's no map?" "No. We're lost." I heard something start ringing from inside the glove compartment. "Get that, will you? It's probably Emily." I opened the glove compartment, felt the gun again, and then the phone. "Since when have you been able to afford a cellular?" "Don't ask." I put the phone to my ear and said hello. "Oh, hi, Brett. Is Carl there?" "Hi Emily," I said. I didn't feel anything for her except that she was still a friend. It wasn't much different than when we were more, except now sex was off-limits. "Yeah, Carl's here. Well, we just went through a toll booth and--oh, what route was that Carl?" "Route 2!" he shouted over the rumbling motor. His Camaro had trouble in the higher gears. The car usually shook and sounded too loud to talk or listen to music in. I listened to Emily as best I could, pressing the phone against my ear, then turned to Carl. "She says we have to go back through the toll and head up the road until exit--" "No!" Carl shouted. He pounded the wheel and the car screeched, swerved, then he had it under control again. I wiped my hands over my eyes and picked the phone off the floor. It was lying on the license plate. "What was that noise?" Emily said. "Oh, Carl's just driving. Anyway, is there another way to get to Alton? Well, see, we can't go back through the tolls. We're out of money. No, we can't get a receipt. Look, we--" Carl suddenly pulled the phone out of my hand. "Listen. We can't go that way. No tolls. Is there another way? No, listen. I said no tolls. Do you want us at your party or what? Why can't we take the tolls? We're out of money! Listen! No! Listen! Shut up!" He turned the phone off and threw it over his shoulder. It started ringing again. I went to reach for it. "Don't pick up the phone!" "Why not?" "Don't be stupid. Just leave it." I grabbed it anyway. Carl glared at me but stayed on the road. "Brett?" Emily said. "What the hell's wrong with Carl?" I thought she'd be crying, but she just sounded angry, even over static. "Look, we can't take the tolls. Is there any other way?" I said. "No, you guys. There is no other way." Now she sounded furious, like the day before we broke up, when I broke a window. She told me she didn't like angry people; she couldn't take this anymore. Then she roared away in her dad's pickup, screeching all the way up the street. Hypocritical. I tightened my grip on the phone and mistakenly pressed a button. A digit rang in off-note harmony, loudly. I let go of the button. "What the hell was that?" she said. "We're lost," I said. "We are so lost right now, Em. We can't take the toll. We ran it, okay? We ran the toll." "You what?" And then the phone was out of my hands and Carl was screaming into the receiver. He slowed the car down a little, opened the door, and threw the phone out. The car lights came on briefly and went out. Then we were screeching down the road again. "Damn her!" Carl shouted. It sounded to me like he was her newest boyfriend – by the way he was carrying on. He yelled for a while. Then he turned on the radio and moved the dial until a clear signal came in. He blasted it all the way through the remainder of Prince and the New Power Generation's 7, even though he hated pop. I saw a Burger King out the side window and Carl nodded his head, eyeing it. He pulled to the side of the road. It was starting to get dark; I wondered how well we'd be able to see with only one headlight. "Want a burger?" he said. "I'm starving." "I thought we didn't have any money." "Actually, I have three twenties." I stared at him, then let my arms hang. "And we ran the toll?" "Do you want a burger or not?" "Yeah," I said meekly. He turned the car around and headed into Burger King. "Drive through or eat in?" he said. "Drive through," I said quietly. I let my seat all the way back and looked at the beginnings of stars and some of the moon through the sunroof. "Drive through it is," Carl said and drove. The piece of moon moved only a little in the sunroof. The stars didn't move at all. "Why did we run the toll?" "Let's see, if we get two burgers and some fries--fifty dollars should be enough to buy a ring, right?" I looked at him. "Who for?" "You know Catherine, right?" Before I could answer or even get a picture in my mind of any Cathys I'd known, Carl pulled up to the speaker and rolled down the window. I straightened my seat again and tried to think of who he meant. Carl let the Camaro idle and waited, then honked the horn, once, and shouted "Hello? Hello?" The idle started sounding funny, then the car died. "What the...." Carl shouted. He slammed his fists, balled and tight, into the horn, starting a staccato repetition of angry noise around the car. Carl stopped and turned the key in the ignition. The speaker came on in a fuzz of noise. I listened to the starter grinding. "Please pull up to the window," the speaker said. "I didn't order yet," Carl shouted, his hand still at the key. After a moment, the speaker came on again. There were words in the static somewhere over the sound of the grinding starter, but I couldn't hear anything recognizable. "C'mon already!" Carl shouted. The drive-through window ahead folded open and a girl in fast-food uniform waved at us. She was saying something but I couldn't hear it over the starter. "Damn it." Carl pounded on the wheel. "Start! Just ... start!" He had tears in his eyes. "Maybe you should let the engine cool for a few minutes," I said dumbly, not knowing the first thing about maintaining cars. He wheeled around on me. "Why don't you shut up!" The car finally started and Carl slowly brought the Camaro up to the drive-through window. The brakes squeaked and we lurched forward in our seats. My seatbelt tightened against me before loosening again. Carl rested his arm on the frame of his open window, breathing hard. "Sorry about that, sir," the girl said. She wore a gray visor matching the color of her uniform. Blonde hair was coming out in frizzes from the band holding the visor to her head. "Speaker's on the fritz. What can I get you two tonight?" "Speaker's on the fritz?" Carl glared at her, his voice rising. "Why the hell was I able to hear someone speaking then?" She looked alarmed. "I'm sorry, sir. The speaker keeps cutting out before people can finish their orders. It's happened twice already. We don't want to take any more chances." "Why don't you have an Out of Order sign on the damn speaker, then?" "I'm sorry, sir. Can I help you?" She started closing her window as she was asking her formalities, I guess, out of habit. "Ease up Carl," I said. I didn't touch him. I felt tears in my eyes. "Carl, let's just get out of here, okay?" "Hey! Open up! I haven't ordered! Hey!" Carl ripped open the glove compartment and pulled out his dad's gun. "Oh god, no! No! Carl, don't!" Carl forced the barrel of the pistol through the crack left in the window. I closed my eyes, imagining his finger squeezing slowly down on the trigger, his mind oiled movement. I felt my heart jump as I heard the loudest noise in my life--tearing away my eardrums, making me wince and scream and faint and be awake all at once. It felt like with each gunshot the car rocked. That with each pop-bang the world tore open a little more. There was screaming from inside the restaurant. "Carl ..." I was crying now, eyes still closed, talking to nothing. "God no, Carl." I heard Carl slam on the gas, but the car lurched and stalled again. I could hear people in the restaurant, screaming, sobbing. "C'mon!" Carl screamed. "Start, start, start, start, start." I finally opened my eyes, cold. The car started again and he tore toward a sign that said Please Exit, Thank You. He nodded at the sign, looked both ways, then we sped down the road.. "Oh my god.... Carl ..." I said. My eyes were open, but I didn't see anything. I could hear the motor straining and Carl and me breathing. Carl looked like he was trying to see a sign ahead, then he suddenly swerved to the left and we were flying down a dirt hill. I could hear the car kicking up stones and dust until the car stalled again and out the window was rising dust, blotting out the moon, but not all the stars. Carl let go of the steering wheel and turned to me. Tears covered his face and kept coming out. "Carl," I said and watched as he closed his eyes, tears pouring from his lids. "No," Carl wailed. He dropped the gun to the floor--it hit with a clang against the license plate--and he seemed to lose his strength. His head fell against the steering wheel. The horn blared. It sounded like when I'd pressed the number button on the phone. I could only watch the dust moving. It was like brown clouds. [This message has been edited by bsquirrel (08-10-2002 02:31 PM).] |
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Poet deVine
Administrator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-05-26
Posts 22612Hurricane Alley |
Mike! You had me from the first word. The way your story unfolded was captivating. The dialogue - believable. I think you should pursue writing prose...you are DEFINITELY a talented writer. I would love to read more of your stories!  |
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bsquirrel
since 2000-01-03
Posts 7855 |
Thank you very much, Sharon.  |
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paper doll Member
since 2002-08-04
Posts 133Floating on Uncertainty |
Wow...you had me from start to finish. Phones were ringing in the background here and I just let them go. You've got such a way of holding onto the reader until the very end. I loved the final sentence -- It looked like brown clouds. How appropriate. Definitely a huge amount of talent in that head of yours. I'd love to see some more Prose from you. Wow, thank you for the read. *very* much enjoyed. ~M Imagination=nostalgia for the past, the absent; it is the liquid solution in which art develops the snapshots of reality. |
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Anvrill Senior Member
since 2002-06-21
Posts 710in the interzone now |
Ouch... There's so much of your past rage and desperation in this... I can't believe how long ago this was. Inspired by a first-day-of-grade-9 picture, re-written once, right? You were a better writer of prose than you gave yourself credit for, baby, but you just got carried off on yr bitterness sometimes. And you were definitely better than I was then. Augh, I still remember the original AFiaLoS.... How times change.I know your attention span doesn't allow for longer stories, but why not try to tackle a five-pager or somethin'? You can borrow my characters, if y' want. Pretty please? With a cherry on top? ("I'll protect you from the evil cherry-hating lady!") I love you. impress me, or be discarded |
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Janet Marie Member Laureate
since 2000-01-22
Posts 18554 |
I remembered this one from way back when you shared some of your prose with me... I am so glad youre posting them!! The way you wrote this it plays out in front of the reader...like watching a movie...as I read I wasnt even conscience that I was scrolling...as the others have said...you drew us in from the begining. And being the insatiable moth that I am  I would love to see new prose from you to see how your perspective and talent has grown just as your amazing poetry has. When you take on words...be it poetry or prose..you become the words. |
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GOlDsparklESS Member
since 2001-12-13
Posts 428central nj |
wow. |
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bsquirrel
since 2000-01-03
Posts 7855 |
Thanks everyone. Who knows -- maybe I'll pick up the pen and write a longform work again someday. I'm glad you enjoyed these bones in the meantime.Mike |
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