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Best Seat in the House
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Best Seat in the House |
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Christopher
Moderator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-08-02
Posts 8296Purgatorial Incarceration 
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Best Seat in the House ©2006 C.G. Ward Tuesday, October 30, 2007 Livermore, California – U.S.A. Jason Milner checked his rear view mirror, twisted the steering wheel a quarter-turn, checked again. Jerking hard, he almost over-corrected, the small bite of familiar traffic-panic hitching his breath for a moment as he noticed the late-model ‘Benz in the blind spot to the right of his old, less than ‘posh’ Chevrolet. Despite everything, he still half expected to see the driver waving a curse-laden, ring-studded, well-manicured hand in his direction, lifting a finger in the time honored freeway gesture that readily translates to, “you just scared the crap out of me!” But the man hadn’t noticed the not-too-close call, the Jabra hanging off his left ear intermittently sparkling neon blue while his animated face moved in time with the theatrical gestures of his hands. That they touched the steering wheel here and there seemed more accidental than an intentional effort to guide the small sports car through the sluggish traffic. A small, rueful smile did a quick lift-and-disappear on Jason’s face as he realized the irony. “To Hell with it,” he muttered under his breath. Yanking on the wheel while ignoring the screeching tires of the blind-spot settler – that Mercedes-loving, status-flouting, phone-jabbering, executive-type – he dodged the truck nimbly in front of the now cursing Baby Boomer, slipped past the last lane and skidded to a halt on the shoulder of I-580. To his left, traffic continued to creep along, most people ignorant of all save the expansive spread of asphalt paving eking its way toward a horizon that melted several miles ahead and into the rolling, preserve-protected hills of the Altamont. Benz-boy shouted something incoherent at Jason, his electronic window only halfway down as he moved forward a few more feet through the traffic winding its way past the white oleander that painted a backdrop for Jason’s new parking lot. The distracted young man ignored him – any commuter who couldn’t accept a little profanity in their lives just didn’t need to be on the road. Jason dug around in his briefcase and found the cellular phone he always kept inside one of the zippered pockets. As Jason hit the power button, he wondered why he hadn’t used his work phone, the one that was already powered up and ready to transmit his voice across the world or right next door. He didn’t know why he chose to use his personal, $39.99 blue-light special of a phone, he just felt the need. He felt a lot of things right now. He had a brief moment of concern, wondering if he would even be able to make a call. The bars showing signal strength seemed stuck on nothing, then slowly started to fill in. At least he wasn’t in the hills already – reception there sucked as much as if one had slid back in time ten years and had a cell coverage area consisting of anywhere from five to ten feet from the nearest land line. After a moment that lasted, well, a moment, the bars indicated full reception. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? Slowly, he dialed the number, remembering to insert the area code first (why he had to insert the area code had always baffled him, since the phone itself was based out of the area code he was calling). The phone rang once, twice… would she be there? God, be there, he thought. “Hello?” Her voice sounded harried, though he doubted she was suffering under anything heavier than a two-year-old child turned Antichrist in the past few months. “Hey babe,” Jason breathed, then repeated himself, unsure if she’d been able to hear him the first time. “Hey,” she replied slowly. Then, “What’s wrong?” He forced a slight laugh before replying. It had always been his way to deal with stress with as much humor as possible. That he wasn’t always funny did little to prevent him from at least making the effort. “Nothing,” he said, his voice slightly stronger now. “Just wanted to call and tell you I love you.” “Really?” she said archly, though a tint of humor laid in back of her voice as well. “And what did I do to deserve such an honor?” A pause. “Or,” she continued. “What did you do?” Jason laughed for real this time, shaking his head as the rear bumper of the Mercedes lifted up in an exaggerated stop not twenty feet from the front of Jason’s Chevy; the man hadn’t gotten very far, but apparently wanted to. His frantic gestures as he spoke to the air through his wireless headset gave Jason the impression that the man wasn’t far from jumping out of his car and walking through the stopped cars. Too funny, Jason thought as his glance shifted across the freeway to the west-bound lanes. Cars over there were all stopped now, many of those people actually climbing out of their cars. A couple of motorists had rolled off the road to the shoulder and were trying to go around the other cars, albeit in the opposite direction. Perhaps not that funny. Those in the eastbound lanes had noticed the backup on the other side, of course, but since it “was what it was” when it came to commuter traffic, they largely ignored the consternation of those on the other side, grateful for the small strides they were making toward their destinations. “Jason?” Jinny was asking through the phone. “I’m here,” he said, smiling once more as his son screeched in joy in the background. Jason wondered what had sparked the boy’s glee, but forced the thought away when it threatened to moisten the corners of his eyes. Best to focus right now, he told himself as the fingers of his right hand clenched the steering wheel until they turned white. “So,” she asked, obviously clattering around in the kitchen – perhaps starting dinner, perhaps doing dishes. “Are you on your way home?” “Yeah,” Jason replied. “Traffic’s bad today, eh?” she said, a small note of empathy tinting her tone. Before he could reply, “Jonathan Albert! You leave that dog alone before he gets tired of having his ears pulled down around his belly and bites you!” Johnny screamed in the background, affronted that his mother would dare prevent him from doing, well, anything he felt like doing. She rarely stopped him, even those times Jason thought she should, but nevertheless prevented him from doing anything that would hurt him or one of the animals – Jason had idly wondered sometimes whether she loved the animals as much as the kid, or maybe, sometimes, a little more. “Mister!” she raised her voice warningly. Johnny replied with a shriek piercing enough to make any pre-adolescent girl green with envy. “Hey babe,” Jason said, hoping to be heard through the chaos. “Let me talk to him.” “Really? Okay. Hey, you sure you’re alright?” “Yeah, just tired. Let me talk to…” “Johnny! Do you want to talk to daddy?” “Day-ee?” Jason thought he could hear a stampede of little feet as they crossed the living room over to the phone in the kitchen. It kept the slight smile on his face and the moisture at the corner of his eyes moist. “I love you, Jason,” Jinni said softly. “Ditto that,” he replied out of habit. Then, because he needed to do more, “I really do love you, Jinni. I do.” “Hmm,” she sighed. Then Jason heard the phone clicked over to speaker, something Jinni did whenever handing it over to Johnny – it was less likely for him to accidentally hang up that way. “Day-ee?” the little boy’s voice issued from the speaker in Jason’s ear. His heart almost broke. “Yeah, baby, it’s daddy.” “Day-ee hone?” “No baby, daddy’s not coming home yet,” Jason choked back a violent sob that threatened to take over his stomach, burbling the contents into his tightening throat. He sighed, deep and mournful. “Daddy won’t be home for a while.” “Day-ee hone? Day-ee hone? Dog-dog, day-ee, D-D, dog-dog?” “Yes, baby, we’ll see if we can play your dog DVD when I get… when…” His boy laughed in delight, yelling from an increasing distance, “Dog-dog! D-D! Dog-Dog!” He then apparently dropped the phone; other, more important matters afoot than talking to his absent father on the phone now that his nightly viewing pleasure had been assured. At the least, there was the new puppy to find and torture, the older dog to ride like a pony, cats to rouse out of their holes and toys to strew all over the house. Somewhere in there, he was also bound to remember to bug mommy for some food - preferably candy or ice cream, despite her continual reluctance to parcel out such treats without an impending tantrum. Jason heard the receiver being picked up, then his wife’s voice, echoing through the hollow sound of the speaker phone, half talking to him and half to their boy. “Hey honey, know what you want for dinner?” A breath. “Johnny, get away from the cat, she doesn’t want to play with your sword!” “Whatever you feel like,” he replied into a brief moment of silence; perhaps both of them had had to take a breath at the same time. “Fine,” she said. “Well, Johnny’s getting ready to scale the entertainment center – Jonathan Albert! Get down from - and I think the dogs need to go outside, so I’ll let you go. See ya when you get home!” “Yeah,” he sighed, the clog in his throat turning his voice slightly hoarse. ”See ya. I love you Jinni.” “You too,” she threw back, her thoughts already three-quarters of the way through the transition from husband to kid. The phone clicked and went silent. Just as well, he thought. Not much else to say at this point. Jason climbed out of the truck, not even bothering to remove the keys. He did, however, grab the pack of cigarettes laying on the dash and his soda from the cup holder. Lighting a smoke and then sticking the lighter back in his pocket, he lifted his foot to the wheel well and climbed into the bed of his truck. Turning to face the setting sun in the west, he levered himself up onto the cab, his feet dangling down to rest on the ledge, idly knocking his heels against the rear window. Thud. Thud. Thud. Some of the commuters in the east bound lanes glanced at him in curiosity, lookee-loos, his father had called them. Others had also stopped and were facing, like he and most of those in the west bound lanes, toward the ocean, toward the horizon, toward the end of the universe. This time of winter, the darkness came early, so the sun was already almost past the mountains, leaving the night sky a dismal grey up top and a scarlet slash of brilliant life at the bottom. “If you’re going to have an end of the world,” he said to no one in particular, “might as well have a front seat to go with it.” Sucking more smoke from his cigarette and wiping the corner of his eye with the back of a hand, he smiled as he watched the dark shape creeping through the atmosphere seeming to head directly for his truck. His thoughts traveled for a moment to the large LCD screens on the walls of The Lab, but forced the thought away; by the time anyone had seen the comet coming, it was most definitively too late. That the only ones who likely knew about it would certainly die in the impending collision was an irony most at The Station had noticed… at least those, like Jason, who became resigned in the face of certain death. “What the heck you doing up there, boy,” an old man who paused to lean against the side of Jason’s truck asked through gasps of breath wrenched from his throat. “Don’ you see what’s coming?” “Yeah,” Jason replied, the smile still on his face as he pictured the faces of his wife and son in happier times, times when the future was a much surer thing. “I see it.” The old man was standing straighter, glances over his shoulder coming between each breath. “Then why aren’t you running?” he asked as he started east once more. Jason thought a moment and then as the old man was moving out of earshot he shouted with a laugh, “’cause I wouldn’t want to give up the best seat in the house!” Jason had known, of course - though he was dead over an hour later and could no longer appreciate the irony – that the spot where he had sat was as close to a front or “best” seat as one could get if they had no choice but to watch a plummeting rock the size of a football field wipe out most of the West Coast. And people used to worry about earthquakes. |
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| © Copyright 2006 C.G. Ward - All Rights Reserved | |||
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Christopher
Moderator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-08-02
Posts 8296Purgatorial Incarceration |
Anybody?  |
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Poet deVine
Administrator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-05-26
Posts 22612Hurricane Alley |
Ok..a couple of things.. 1. I think this is one of the times when the reader actually sees some of YOU in your work. The loving father - the devilish two year old. That rings so true in your writing! 2. You write so well that this played like a movie in my mind as I read it. I could SEE the traffic jam, the Chevy truck..even the white knuckles on the steering wheel. 3. Aw...I also got teary-eyed when I realized the significance of the traffic jam. For a little while I wondered if Jason was leaving his wife but then the interchange with his son made that scenerio impossible to think about...there was such obvious love in the simple words. So where's the novel? Huh? How's writing going these day? Oh..one more thing (ok maybe two). I think you write clearly with just enough descriptive phrases to make me (the reader) visualize what you're writing. I just wish he'd been able to get home before..well..you know. But that's life. Meteors happen.  |
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Christopher
Moderator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-08-02
Posts 8296Purgatorial Incarceration |
Sharon, your reply in itself is enough of a reason to have posted this little piece. You are ever stalwart in your support, my friend and I appreciate it greatly. This does have a firm basis in my life. Not wholly, of course, not even mostly, but some of the more salient bits of atmosphere came from personal experiences (like day-ee, which is what Aiden calls me )Thank you as always lovely lady. |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
I've read this a few times, trying to find something I didn't like about it--just to yank yer um, chain.  But I failed to find anything--even your punctuation is sterling, I do believe. (I haven't read it backwards yet though--that's my last step in proofread technique.) Sharon also pointed out what I liked second-best about it--I think when we put a part of ourselves into our stuff, we manage translate authenticity. You took a nice writing exercize (I thought this one sounded familiar--at first I thought perhaps this is one you had re-worked--then I realized that I'd had a similar assignment (end of the world scenario) a long time ago. Your character's grim acceptance of his fate rang true for me. (I got stuck in Crowley for Hurricane Rita, and that was pretty much how I viewed the situation too. Except I had tequila.  )Well done, C. and OH. You prolly wanna know what I liked best, huh? It was the slow and steady pace of the entire piece--which contrasted nicely with "urgencies"--the traffic, the impatience of a two-year old, the wife's hurried distraction, the panic of others--all of this, as your protagonist maintains a steady calm lent a quality of the surreal, which, as I pointed out, I could relate to my own experiences of states of emergency. People are never more in the "now" than when they think that "this might be 'it'." THAT was very effective for me. Much enjoyed.  Time for the novel, yes? I think you are more than ready lovie. |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
OH. There was one place I stumbled: "Yanking on the wheel while ignoring the screeching tires of the blind-spot settler – that Mercedes-loving, status-flouting, phone-jabbering, executive-type – he dodged the truck nimbly in front of the now cursing Baby Boomer, slipped past the last lane and skidded to a halt on the shoulder of I-580. To his left, traffic continued to creep along, most people ignorant of all save the expansive spread of asphalt paving eking its way toward a horizon that melted several miles ahead and into the rolling, preserve-protected hills of the Altamont." The hypenated description distracted me a bit, although I think the paragraph should be there, as it indicated some normalcy, slipping into habitual grumbling about traffic, which rather indicated to me that your character's behavior might be quite different any other day. For that reason, it's a keeper, but I think punctuating it differently might help. It was a little bit awkward for me there. But now I'm merely quibbling. Ta for now.  |
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Dusk Treader
Moderator
Senior Member
since 1999-06-18
Posts 1187St. Paul, MN |
It has been a long, long time... I enjoyed how my expectations and guesses in this story were smashed and rewritten in several different parts. I most assuredly did not think that Jason would be finding himself facing the end of the world. I was actually more expecting how you were going to fight this within the guidelines. I was also impressed by how you managed to describe the scene of panicked flight and yet make it seem exactly as if it was a mundane traffic jam. Looking back you can see the signs, but my first time through I was ignorant. I just thought Jason was a little weird  It was enjoyable to see a little slice of your life in this also. It's very easy to detect. I'm with serenity on this quote. It really messed me up and broke the flow. What was well paced suddenly ground to a halt. quote: You might have a few too many descriptors for the Mercedes man: Mercedes-loving, status-flouting, phone-jabbering, executive type and he's a Baby Boomer? The emphasis makes him look self-important and people can immediately detect the stereotype but to me Baby Boomer just seems like a little much. More specifically I found quote: He dodged the truck. Check. Then there is that nimbly that just appears out of order. Wouldn't you want your adverb before the verb it describes? he dodged the truck nimbly, maneuvering in front of the now cursing baby boomer or he nimbly dodged the truck that was formerly in front of the now cursing baby boomer. Those seem to flow better to me, but your mileage may vary. Dang. It's good to actually be reading your work again. You better not get any job with a meteological group. "I have harnessed the shadows that stride from world to world to sow death and madness..." - H.P. Lovecraft |
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kaila Junior Member
since 2006-12-24
Posts 37PA |
I just found this site the other evening and looked forward to reading the poetry. After all, I am not a fan of long descriptive passages that move endlessly forward, taking up my time, and using the writer's inflated sense of self (and authorship) in needless word after needless word. However, I have been touched by the prose--such as yours--that is well-paced, and clear, and clever. I kept thinking I knew where you were going--certainly I am smart enough to figure out endings--but you continued to surprise me as your carefully led me to the unexpected last section. You moved carefully, slowly, but you wasted few words as you built up the feelings, the subtle tension, and the "truth" of the situation. Thank you for an enjoyable evening read. kaila |
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Pilgrimage Member Elite
since 2001-12-04
Posts 3945Texas, USA |
I'm just poking around while nothing is going on here, and I came on this gem. Excellent. I reminds me a bit of the short story I read a few years back about the astronomers who saw a killer solar flare coming, and the hero calls his wife on the east coast to say goodbye, knowing there's no way to prevent the burn-off, but knowing she'd get it first. You've got just enough description, and just enough action (with the traffic and the interaction with the other driver) to keep it going. Well done. Nan (Pilgrim variety) |
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Beatrice Boyle Member
since 2006-12-06
Posts 438 |
Michael...this was excellent...the pace was perfect, drawing me in little by little. You painted a perfect picture on this canvas, your brush slashing against the canvas here and tenderly stroking it at other times. This portrait will remain in my mind for quite awhile. Picasso would be proud!  Bea |
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LeeJ Member Patricius
since 2003-06-19
Posts 13296 |
I simply loved the ride through this along with each and every curve ball that quit frankly runined my assumptions...and kept me glued to the read...enjoyed to, the personal experience, over the phone with the family, and most of all, his bravery and courage, not to tell his wife about the oncoming comet...finding myself wishing, wish there could have been more...but in very few words, you managed to tell all that needed to be told... Very much enjoyed this |
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the_girl_next_door Senior Member
since 2006-02-26
Posts 591USA |
Wow. I Don't know what else to say. This made me tear up and laugh and smile and worry, just all sorts of emotions rolled up into one. Beautiful write. I hope to read more. I really enjoyed this, more than you would know. Heather Desire nothing except desirelessness. Hope for nothing except to rise above all hopes. |
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